A Lifestyle of
Worship
by Daphne Gan
18 September 2006
Hello all =) I’m Daphne
and I just wanna share with you guys how I came to be called to the
worship ministry. I remember when there wasn’t LYnC yet, and I was
still in CITYteens, another youth service. At that time, the
congregation was much much smaller than what LYnC is today. And even
with such a small congregation, all of the teens stood unmoving and
so still during worship. When we were asked to clap our hands, all
of us would just clap because we were asked to and not because we
really wanted to. During then, I didn’t really understand what true
worship was all about, because I just assumed that worship was
simply opening your mouth and singing songs that had nice words and
music. One day when I saw that they needed someone to handle the OHP
(haha yes it was that long ago) I decided to just help out, not
because I felt God was calling me to but just cause I wanted to. And
from being the OHP girl, God has really blessed me abundantly with
so much more =)
Back then, things were simple, and so one day when one of the
worship leaders asked me to co-sing, I was extremely hesitant cause
well, come on, who wouldn’t be scared of singing in front of so many
people?! Well, I was definitely afraid! But after a long time of
persuading, I finally decided to join the CITYteens worship ministry
as a co-singer. Funnily enough, again, I didn’t join because I felt
I was called to, but more of because I was like “Okay I’ll try it
out”. Some time after I started serving in the worship ministry, one
day my church leader asked me if I was willing to lead worship
during confirmation. Without hesitation, I yelled a loud “NO!! SIAO
AH” right into her ear. But somehow God calmed me down and gave me
ample help in the form of my church leaders and all my friends, and
a few years back, I led my very first worship at confirmation.
I guess most of you would expect me to feel “fulfilled” and
“complete” after I experienced leading worship. But in actual fact,
all I felt was fear and foolishness and kept wondering if I sang off
key, if the people were singing, if I looked stupid up there, if I
sounded bad and all these kind of negative thoughts. However, God
really helped me through this period of fear and I came out of all
this stronger in Him =) After leading worship at that time, God
started to give me more windows of opportunity to start serving Him,
and after a while, I decided to audition for the CITYteens worship
team as a co-singer. Praise God, I made it through the auditions,
and from there, one of the church leaders, Andrea, started to train
me and the other on HOW to lead worship (Heart Of Worship). From
there I progressed from a co-singer to being a co-worship leader.
The journey was difficult and along the way there were super many
obstacles to face, including those of being self-conscious and being
afraid that what I was doing wasn’t right. But in the end God taught
me that when we worship, we worship for God alone and not for man,
so ultimately its okay even if we don’t sound really good, but
instead, what matters is that we sound good to God alone.
From all the times I led worship (including leading at CITYkids
doing kids worship) I’ve learned that worship is not only a session,
but also a lifestyle. Worship isn’t meant to be heard by man, to
glorify the singer or to glorify the musicians, but instead, to use
what little God has given to you to bless Him and bless others in
return =) God certainly poured His anointing on me when I attended
iSOW, and there I’ve certainly learned how to have a new perspective
on worship and how what worship is supposed to be, a complete
lifestyle. The big shock came to me one day during a leaders meeting
when they asked who wanted to be in charge of the Worship Ministry
and I found myself saying that I’ll do it. I guess that at that
point of time, God knew that I would be able to learn from the
experience… once again God didn’t fail me as he provided many people
to help the whole ministry along the way as one family together in
His awesome love. Even though I’m not serving as much in the worship
ministry any longer, I still pray that God will continue to bless
the LYnC worship ministry so much and bind them all together in His
love. On a parting note, even if you don’t feel that God’s calling
you to the worship ministry and perhaps you just have a love for
singing or playing musical instruments, why not come join the
worship team? Cause you never know what abundant blessing God may
shower you down with, like He did with me =))
Daphne
