Darlene Zschech: A Beautiful Slap In The Face

"Please, can you not say lifestyle?" He said, "Because it sounds like you have options."

Sometimes wisdom from above is delivered from the most unlikely messengers. In this fantastic Worship Sound Bite, @darlenezschechofficial talks about an encounter with a Rwandan teenager where he was asking her to change the way she describes “worship.”

He said to me, Ms. Darlene, why do you say lifestyle of worship? I’m like, Well, I guess it’s how I live my life. And he said, Please, can you not say lifestyle? He said, Because it sounds like you have options. He says, Can you just say it’s your life? And I’m like, okay, sure. It was a beautiful slap from a teenager to me, teaching me again about how we all put everything through our own filter of our own experience. – – Darlene Zschech

Darlene has been a consistent voice of wisdom and passion within our faith community and this is yet another great observation. We post a lot about how people define worship and the reason for that is because the world is constantly trying to convince us to worship something other than God. Therefore, it’s important to consistently refocus on a Biblical definition of worship, or what we give our worth to. It’s way more than a lifestyle. It’s our life.

Our Latest Worship Devotional Podcast

Transcript

I just think it’s the worth of Christ. We’ve got to just keep it really simple. It is what it always has been. It’s- it’s revealing Christ. It’s- it’s bringing our affection and adoration in the whole of our life. The pinnacle of it is what? It’s- it’s Jesus. So to worship Christ, worth ship. It’s always been the same. It’s an interesting phrase,

lifestyle of worship, which is, you know, again, Romans 12. I sat with a young boy in the middle of Rwanda. We do a lot of work in Rwanda. He represented just hundreds and hundreds of orphans, right? Teenage orphans. They’d really been brought up by worship music at night. That’s the only thing that would bring them comfort post-genocide, right? He said to me, Ms. Darlene, why do you say lifestyle of worship?

I’m like, Well, I guess it’s how I live my life. And he said, Please, can you not say lifestyle? He said, Because it sounds like you have options. He says, Can you just say it’s your life? And I’m like, okay, sure. It was a beautiful slap from a teenager to me, teaching me again about how we all put everything through our own filter of our own experience.

So, I guess for my own family, it’s like when our children were growing up and now with our grandchildren, it’s about our- our conversations. How are we living our, “yes,” before God. You know, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to learn that my “œyes,” before God requires margin in my day. When I was younger, I didn’t have much.

I was on my schedule. So when the Holy Spirit says, Stop, move, go left, go right. I didn’t really have time. And I think that’s been a massive learning curve for me and my family. My children are much better at it than I ever was. It’s taken me a long time to get good at that. As someone who loves to worship via music.

And we’ve always had an instrument or piano or whatever right in the middle of our house so that it’s easy access. It’s… you walk past and you… it’s just part of life. The language of worship is not reserved for a rehearsal and a moment in church, but it’s part of your everyday language. And I just think living, living lives that are always emptying your hands of the things that this world holds dear.

And I think that’s one of the beautiful things when the Word says, you know, I lift up my hands as the evening sacrifice. I think one of the beautiful things about that pose is, you know, open your hands, things have to fall out, that maybe you’ve held like this, too. And again, that life of worship just- just keeps your hands open and your

“yes,” fluid in your life and, you know, loving Jesus. I mean, if it’s central, it’s going to impact every part of your life, not just these moments where we sing our songs, even though that is powerful and important.

What's Your Reaction?

Helpful

Darlene Zschech

Australian Darlene Zschech is acclaimed all over the world as a composer, worship leader, pastor, author and speaker, and became most well known for her involvement in the worship team at Hillsong Church, Sydney, Australia over many years. Although she has achieved numerous gold albums and her songs are sung in many nations of the world, Darlene’s success simply stands as a testimony to her life’s passion for serving God and people with all her heart. Alongside her husband Mark, they are the Senior Pastors of Hope Unlimited Church (HopeUC) on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia, which has now grown into India and the USA. As a composer, Darlene is perhaps most famous for the chorus “Shout to the Lord”, a song that is sung by millions of churchgoers every week and has been covered by many other artists. In addition to “Shout to the Lord”, Darlene has written many songs through solo projects: “Kiss of Heaven”, “Change Your World”, “You Are Love”, “In Jesus Name” and “Revealing Jesus”, a live worship album recorded with the Grammy Award winning Israel Houghton. Through the Compassionart project in 2008, Darlene was honoured to have the privilege of writing with some of the most generous-hearted worship writers and leaders of our day.