Worship. What is it? Some say it is entertaining others. Some say it is bringing people into God’s presence with music. Some may even call it a time to show off. But for Bob Bevan,the man I met with, worship is only one thing; using his musical talents to talk to and glorify the Creator.
For those of you (and probably all of you) who don’t know him, Mr. Bob is the music leader and youth pastor of Living Word church of God. As soon as dad left, Bob and I hit things right off. We knew each other, but he hadn’t seen me in years, so we had a lot to catch up on. After all the [prominent] stories were exhausted, we began our day. First, we went to the sanctuary, and Mr. Bob showed me his guitar. We both play, and so he let me have a crack at strumming a few chords on his instrument. The fact that he plays righty and I play lefty did not deter me in the least. I had to turn the guitar upside-down and think backwards, but who cares?
Bob owns a Les Paul Epiphone, and it sounds great. We kind of goofed around for a bit, trying different sounds with his amp. It is a Fender Super Champ XD, and one of the best you can buy. We went all the way through the list of sounds, from delayed echo to Stryper-style stuff. When we were tired of doing that, Bob took me to the prayer room in the church and commenced to tell me about how to worship.
Bob said that first of all, worship doesn’t start on the stage. It starts when you are in your own private corner, talking with God. I mean, if you can’t converse with God and worship him alone, then you certainly can’t do it in front of three hundred people. Also, he told me that the way he conducts worship is to just make it him and God with other people looking in. I don’t know about you, but that made a lot of sense to me. After that, we had a little praise-and-worship session right there in the room ourselves; just me, Bob, and his acoustic.
Bob said that he had always loved music, even when he was a kid, and that the power of connecting with God through music just meant the world to him, because he could open up in ways he never thought possible. Maybe that concept seems kind of weird. Maybe it sounds odd. But Bob doesn’t care. He just keeps on singing, strumming, and pouring out his heart to the One who knows him best.
