In Christ Alone

In the upcoming 30 Days of Praise material, there is a discussion of the 8 ways to Biblically praise God in corporate worship. I thought it might be fun to see how many of the 8 showed up at the Easter service (especially during "In Christ Alone"). I was in the back and basically could see all 500 people at 10:45; here is what I observed. If some of the folks on the stage saw more, they should share. They had quite a view up there. Here we go:
1. Kneeling (Matthew 2:11) I don't think that Tammy was acting when she "clasped His feet and worshipped."
2. Dancing (1 Chronicles 15:28-29) Yon had nothing on about 20 people in the crowd. If they would have had more room Carrie Ann Inaba would have had to give them a '10.'
3. Raising Hands (Psalm 63:4, 1 Timothy 2:8) I even saw some first time Baptists (in the art of Holy Hands) with them held high for all the right reasons.
4. Shouting (Psalm 5:11) Appropriately, there were shouts of praise during "Up from the grave he rose again." Ben's blog said he is still shouting.
5. Singing (Psalm 100:2) Maybe our best Sunday ever for a lot of people to just let it rip and sing praises to His Holy Name!
6. Testifying (Psalm 107:2) No formal verbal testimonies, but if you could have seen the testifying in facial expressions and tears flowing off of cheeks that we saw from the stage, there were testimonies a plenty.
7. Playing an Instrument (Psalm 150) Seth has had down the praise of a perfect God with the lyre for a long time.
8. Clapping (Psalm 47:1) Most people were even on the beat. A few other caucasians should not try this or the dancing and choose from the other six (HA!).

Sunday was the best praise of God for all of the right reasons that I have seen locally. The best I have ever seen was during "Jesus Paid It All" at Catalyst last October in Atlanta, but we are just learning. Let's practice some more this week!