Record Live Podcast

 Hi there everyone. I'm Jared. And I'm Sunita. We are your hosts of Record Live, a podcast where we talk about church faith and living well. We believe as followers of Jesus faith is more than just a set of beliefs. It's a way of life, something we'd put into practice. Let's go live.

 Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Record Live. Today I have with me Dane from the Worship Project. Dane, welcome to the show and thank you for coming on.

Hi Zanita. Yeah, pleasure to be here and thanks for having me.

Um, I'd love, just before we jump into today's conversation, if you could start by telling us about yourself, who you are, what you do, all of that.

Yeah. Well, look, my name's Dane Haberman, and I'm currently serving as the lead pastor at Springwood Seventh Day Adventist Church here in South Queensland. I have a wife and two kids, and, look, I've been in ministry for a number of years, but actually my first sort of career pathway was I worked for over 10 years as a civil engineer.

And so my pathway in the ministry is a little bit, uh, unusual in that respect. I've sort of, yeah, gone from being over here in the engineering world and then transitioned over in here to ministry. But look I'm enjoying the journey, enjoying the experiences and the, the people that I've been meeting, and it's, it's a really good season now to begin, uh, doing ministry here at Springwood.

Yeah, being an engineer in a pastor certainly would. Look pretty different on a day-to-day basis, I imagine. Now I understand you are working with the Worship project and we've had Sylvia who kind of runs that show on here before, and she's told us a little bit about that.

But for anyone who, doesn't wanna go fishing through the archives to figure out what that's all about, can you just give us a rundown? What is worship project and what's your role in that?

Yeah, so the worship project is this big package that provides resources and information contents across, you know, websites and social media platforms and all these sorts of things, uh, worship related. But my humble sort of slice of involvement has been working on a podcast with a number of my colleagues.

And, um, yeah, we recorded a, a whole season towards the start of this year and that's going to be produced and distributed fairly soon. So, yeah. I suppose maybe this is just a little bit of a half of a shout out for the Worship Project podcast that will be dropping.

Hopefully at some stage in August. So that, that's been my involvement. Has been part of, part of a team of panel, that have been having conversations about worship.

Awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about what kinds of conversations you've been having? I'm guessing they're about worship, but give us a little bit of an insight. Give people an idea as to what they can expect from this one.

As a pastor, but even just as a person, as an individual, there's this, kind of temptation, there's this tendency for worship, to become sort of one of the many things on our to-do list that we try to achieve on any particular day. And so there are days when we get up nice and early, and we might open our Bibles and we tick off worship on our to-do list and we feel like we're having a great day. But then there's other days where, you know, we sleep in a bit , we rush out the door and all of a sudden before we know it, it's nine o'clock, 10 o'clock at night, and we've gone, oh my goodness. I haven't really had an opportunity to pause and to reflect and to give any attention or devotion towards God and say, oh, we, we miss ticking the worship box on our to-do list.

And we probably don't really teach this or we don't say this, but sometimes what can happen is there can be maybe a little bit of, of guilt, there can be some frustration that's kind of attached to that, that we think that somehow because we, because we've forgotten to worship that we're, you know, \ second class Christians or something like that.

And so I suppose what we're trying to do, the conversation we're trying to have on the worship project podcast is really to say, look, hey, firstly of all, let's all be real and honest and authentic with the struggles and the barriers that we have to worship. But let's actually think a little bit more broadly about what worship.

Is and, and is worship merely this 15 minute devotional exercise that I do once a day or is worship merely this one hour worship gathering that I go to on a Saturday morning? Like, what if worship was more expansive, holistic, and what implications might that then have on some of the frustrations that we experience.

So I suppose that's why I would encourage people to, to be resourced through this podcast is if you, if you are a bit like me and have battled with some of these things and, and are wanting to maybe have a little bit of a fresh perspective and a broader perspective on worship, then some of the conversations we have on that platform, I really hope will be useful and helpful.

Yeah, I really loved, following the Worship project's Instagram page and seeing all the different ways in which people worship. Uh, for anyone who doesn't know, the worship project has an Instagram page where they get whoever, basically to, make a video about how they like to connect with God and how they like to worship.

And it's, yeah, it's been really. Inspiring, I think to just see how different people go about that. And I guess that's, something that we are looking at today is not just about sure we know that we, worship God when we go to church on a weekend and we pray and we sing songs. Um, but worship is so much more than that.

Like you were saying, it's more of a holistic thing. Um, I know that you've made a video yourself about how I worship, what does worship look like in your life?

So, so for me personally, look, I suppose, on the one hand, I've sort of consistently over the years had a bit of a rhythm that works for me in terms of.

You know, opening my Bible and, and reading and praying and you know, music and then, and then that's, that's talking about me individually, but then, more corporately being involved in small groups and church services. So there has been a baseline sort of.

In terms of the specifics around what it's looked like, it's taken on different forms depending on whatever season of life that I've been in. And on the podcast, we've sort of spoken about how, you know, for some people at some stages in their lives, rather than sitting down and physically, reading through a Bible, it might be, uh, listening to like, there's so many different platforms and ways in which we can engage, right?

It might be listening, to, to, to an audio version of the Bible, or it might be listening. There's so many great podcasts that are out there that journey through, through scripture and various sorts of topics. So for me, I suppose what I'm trying to say is that although I have this baseline routine.

Depending on what's happening the season of my life, depending on how I feel, uh, God is, is leading me. It's sort of, yeah, it's sort of taken on all different forms, which has been, which has been great. So

yeah, I suppose that takes the pressure off a bit. Like it doesn't have to look the same in every season.

It can look different depending on where you are. As you've come to, I guess, discuss worship. On the podcast and learn more about it in your job as a pastor, have you learned what worship is and isn't like? Have your ideas sort of changed about that over time? Like what, what is worship and what have we kind of got wrong about worship?

Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good question. I think I'll just share what I've learned. May, maybe we'll start there and we'll kind of see where we, where we land. I'll share a passage of scripture. And it's actually a paraphrase, so it's from the, from the message Bible. But I'd like the, the paraphrase, the essence of this passage, I think really gives us some insight into worship.

So Romans chapter 12, uh. I want you to do this is the apostle Paul. Here's what I want you to do. God helping you take your everyday, ordinary life. You're sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life and place it before God as an offering. Okay. That's, how Paul opens up Romans chapter 12 in this kind of paraphrase version.

And why I like it is because it's, it's talking about, it seems to be talking about sort of everything that we do in a sense, can be and indeed. Is an act of worship, towards God. Okay. Even the really, really ordinary, mundane things like eating could be considered an act of worship before God.

Before God, because there's this quote that Rick Warren says that I think, uh, would agree with what we've just read In scripture, Rick Warren said, work becomes worship when you dedicate perform it with an awareness of his presence. Now, why I think that's really, really helpful, Zita is that, is that it means that it, it, it gives this sense of profound purpose to our lives.

So whether we're going to work as a carpenter, as a builder, as a lawyer, as a doctor, as an educator, as a whatever, right? I think where this is leading us to is that the very vocation, the very job that we do, if done, with an awareness of God's presence, if done, in the sense of surrender towards God can be an act of worship, right?

So it means that like worship isn't just mere. Reading the Bible or listening to musical, going to church, as important as those things are. But what if worship was this vocation, this lifestyle that we are called to embrace. And I think why this is important is because in scripture, when I'm thinking in Romans chapter one now, where Paul.

Sort of reflects upon the status of the human condition, probably specifically the Gentiles, right? Paul's criticism is that he says, reflecting on the Gentiles in Romans 1 22, claiming to be wise, they became fools and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal human beings or birds, or for footed animals or reptiles.

Okay? So this idea that humans, one, two exchange worship to God. Through worshiping after idols. And then as a result in verse 24, God gives up to the lust of their lut, of impurity pure. In verse 25. They exchange the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator.

So here's what I'm trying to say. That my claim, I suppose, is that everyone worshiped something. I think that's an anthropological fact. Okay. You might worship your sports team, for example. You might worship your career, you might worship your spouse. You might worship your child. You, we are all geared, God's created us and put us together in such a way that we all worship something.

Okay? So. In fact, you're a worshiper. But the real question, and what the biblical story is trying to take us on is, is what's the best thing for us to worship? And, sadly, the Bible warns about how when we worship after idols. When we worship after the creation, sin has a way of using these idols to lead us down a pathway of destruction and chaos and ultimately death.

And so the biblical narrative is about trying, is God trying to? Redirect our worship and our praises back towards him as our creator, right? So that by the power of his Holy Spirit, we can be reinstated as true humans, or we can be reinstated as true worshipers, which are people who are free. To freely worship God in all aspects of our lives.

And it's precisely at this point where we can find identity, meaning, purpose, freedom. And so when we think about worship from that perspective, I think it opens up, it becomes so much more than just something we do on our to-do list. And it becomes part of who we are as people, right? And, and it gets it.

When I start sharing these type of ideas to people, because it is really about rediscovering, our purpose as human beings created in the image we got.

 There's so much good stuff that I wanna jump on there. I think, going back to the quote that you shared, you said something about.

Um, doing these things with an awareness of his presence. So like you mentioned, and like it says in, I think it's one Corinthians, so whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it for the glory of God. It's kind of that same idea about whatever you do, do it the glory of God. And that kind of ties into the verse we're talking about in Romans.

So I think that's, but I think that's the point. It's like, oh, we can be eating and going about our lives and doing all these mundane things and not be worshiping, but we can also, if we're doing it with an awareness of his presence, like that verse talks about that is a form of worship.

And I think, I think you're right. Like it's, that can be a real, I. Overwhelming thought for some people if they're living with this mentality of having to do everything perfectly or having to do everything right, then that can be really daunting. But it can also be a real freeing thing, like you said.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, we can come to church every week. But our hearts and minds can be far from God. So are we really worshiping? And we're not, of course, we're just going through the motions.

Right? And even in the mornings and the evenings when we open our Bibles, we can be opening our Bibles, but we can be far from worshiping God. So, you know, I think worship starts all of a sudden becoming less about, you know, the, the do's and the don't. And it starts becoming this inward.

Posture, this hard attitude that we have in wanting to surrender whatever we do, towards God. And do that whatever that thing is. Do it by bringing him glory. Do it by, you know, speaking well of him by stewarding his, his presence and the gifts that he's given us. And then, yeah, all of a sudden I think that becomes a far more holistic and sustainable.

Attitude to have when it comes to worship.

Hmm. Yeah. I'd be interested to know, obviously, you mentioned work as worship. For people who this concept is sort of new to what might living a life of worship look like, let's just use the example of work what might worship at work look like for someone. How can they go about their daily task of gonna work in a way that is like honoring to God versus that is not worshipful.

 yeah, there's a lot to say there actually. I suppose there's a tendency in our modernist kind of society to wanna. I wanna separate the secular with the sacred, okay? Mm-hmm. So in other words, what we do, during these hours on a Saturday morning, that's sacred.

But what I do on a Wednesday afternoon when I'm at work, well, that's, that's secular and God's not involved in that and God's not interested in that. I think , that's a pretty. Phenomena, um, uh, it, you know, comes with us being a secular society and so on and so forth, but that was not the mind frame.

That people had in the first century when the church when the gospel was being spreading, when the church was in its formative years, there wasn't this distinction that when you're alive in the Greco Roman world, religion, politics, family, it was all sort of one in the same package.

And that's only say context in which. Which the Bible is written. So the Bible, biblical authors are, are thinking about this environment when they're giving us instruction. And so when it comes to our work, I think it's step one in my mind would be, let's not, for one second, pretend that our work is secular in the sense that it's not, it's not something God's not a part of.

It's something that God's not invested in. Because when we actually look. Uh, of God's mandate for humankind. God created us as his image bearers in order to go forth into the world and to have dominion, to rule to God and to keep, in order to steward his presence and for Adam.

That looks like being a really good gardener, all right. Like that, that literally was about, hey, um, you and your wife together as the image of God. Uh, you know, look after this, gardening in such a way that manifests my glory, right? But of course, as you know, as the, the generation's moved on, that, that vocation expresses itself in all these different ways.

So in a sense, all of our jobs are all just about us going forth into God's good creation in order to be a blessing to his creation, in order to demonstrate God's God's love and wisdom and order to creation. And you can do that. If you, whatever your job is, that's inherently what you're doing, right?

If you're an architect or, or a engineer or a builder, which is the line of work I've come from, I used to try and help think of my work as, you know, this is me, bringing about. Creativity and beauty and infrastructure to God's good world in a way that's sustainable. And so why I, I don't mean mean to waffle here, Anita, but what I'm trying to say to you is that in terms of how we can worship in our everyday work life, what I'm saying is that first just recognize that actually the work you're doing is mission.

Sure you might not be explicitly, you know, um, hey, Jesus, you know, died and rose on the third day and resurrected and is coming in soon. You might not be explicitly saying that, but actually the work that you're doing is part of God's design and intention for humanity to bring order and blessing to the world.

And so by doing that right and recognizing that call and doing it faithfully. Is what I'm arguing is worship. Okay. So I don't know if that's been helpful in answering your question, but that's how I would, that's where I would start in trying to answer.

Yeah. So what you're saying is it's not about, singing worship songs while you're working or anything like that.

It's more about the posture you come to work with and I guess showing, showing people around you who God is through your behavior and your character. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and actually doing your work well, right? Like, like yeah. Be a, you know, be a friendly face and encourage people and whatever, but actually do your job, to honor God.

And I think that's what we're saying is an act of worship.

Mm. Yeah. I love that. Awesome. I wanna be like, I guess mindful of the idea that the Bible does ask us to continue to do things as worship. So for example, it tells us not to forget, to gather together and to read our bibles and to pray.

And I'd say that what most people struggle with is finding time to make that a priority. And also there's so many things fighting for our attention. And so sometimes when I hear this conversation, like I fully agree with it, that. We should make our lives worshipful, like everything we should do in worship.

But sometimes when I hear it, it's almost it sounds like, oh, Don't worry if you don't have time to read your Bible and all of that, because your whole life can be a wor, like a form of worship. So how do we continue to prioritize those things of still making time.

To read the Bible and still making time to pray and still making time to gather in, I guess, the culture that we're in, that it's, it's hard and it's not as exciting. Do you know what I mean?

 Yeah, I do. So I think I. I would say that ecclesiology, which is, how we understand the, the intent and the purpose of the church goes hand in hand with our own personal discipleship.

The two are related. Okay. So it's a bit of an oxymoron to say that, I'm a Christian. I'm like, I'm an individualistic Christian That doesn't, isn't connected to any type of fellowship. I think that's a little bit of an oxymoron because part of what God is doing. Is God is wanting to, gather together a people through which he is able to, dwell and express his character, express his wisdom, express his goodness.

And, you know, and in, in this part of salvation history, we recognize that as the church. Okay. And when we talk about church biblically, what we're talking about is people coming together in their diversity, in their uniquenesses. But coming together in order to serve one another as this kind of.

Countercultural society that points the world towards the reality of the future, new heavens and new Earth. Mm-hmm. So, whilst the earth exists within its divisions and its trivial boundaries, and its, you know, Jew and gentile slavery, male, female, et cetera, et cetera, et supposed.

That celebrates uniqueness, but within the context of community and coming together, why am I telling you this? Because really, right. What I'm wanting to do when I come together and gather with my brothers and sisters in Christ is I'm wanting to use the gifts God has given me in order to serve them.

Right? And so I'm wanting to, I'm wanting to come along to my small group. And I'm wanting to say to them, Hey guys, look what I've been reading this week. I've been reading X, Y, Z, and I've been really encouraged by this, and I really think that would help you with some of the things that you've been battling.

And I really think this answers some of your questions. And so, so what I'm trying to say, Anita, is that. Is that our individual, discipleship that we do during the week or whatever, I think that that's an opportunity for us to equip ourselves to come and to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ to serve the church family.

And then when we come and we, when we're in community with our church family, I think that empowers us to go away and to live out our individualistic spirituality during the week so that we can then come back and comm and so this is what I'm saying, this reciprocal. Nature between the two that we need to hold together.

Well, if we're going to solve this dilemma around, individual worship or holistic worship. Uh, it's the two work together as we serve one another in truth and love within the context of the church. And this is God's wisdom in how he's operating now is because he knows individually.

That we function within an environment of other believers. And so I think, I think that's, that's a good place to start this conversation around, you know, solving this dilemma. I has that been helpful?

Yeah, it clears things off a bit. Am thinking about a period where I, was struggling through a lot of things and I was finding it really difficult to essentially worship. I was finding it difficult to, talk to God, to listen to worship music and all these things. Do you have any advice for people who are like in a season where they're struggling, where maybe they've got a lot of doubts or maybe they're not really sure about who God is, how can they worship through those seasons?

You know, the thing I love about scripture is that scripture is full of those people. And, or more maybe I should say, scripture's full of people who are going through those seasons, right? When we go through the book of the Psalms, for example. The Psalmists are constantly, God, why have you forsaken me?

You know, this is Psalm, what is it? This is Psalm 24. God, why have you forsaken me? Like my enemies are all around me. They are winning. God, this doesn't make sense. How long this, A question that's constantly asked throughout the Psalms and the prophets is, how long, oh, Lord, is it gonna be until you act to, you know, to free me from your enemies?

Well, we, we've got a whole book called The Book, book of Job, which is literally a story about a guy. Who doesn't, can't make sense of the situation that he's going through, right? So, what that says to me is that God, and this is in God's like inspired word, right? So God is is giving us permission precisely in our seasons of doubt and uncertainty, to be authentic and to be transparent with him.

Around where we're at, to not put on a facade and pretend everything's fine, but just be honest with God. And God can, God's big enough to handle our doubts, to handle when we want to criticize him, when we want to be crossed with him. God can handle that. And I think God invites us, into those spaces because when we come to God with our authenticity.

Thank God's. Like finally I'm able to actually work with this. You know, this is, this is someone who I'm certainly not condemning. This is someone who I now can come alongside and start to reveal myself to and all these sort sorts of things. So I think we need to be kind to ourselves.

I think we need to be gracious to ourselves and take the example that scripture itself provides us on what on what people do in exactly those seasons of life. So maybe that's a, that's a good place to start.

Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot of characters in the Bible that have endured those seasons.

I think especially of, the story of, pretty sure it's Elijah, not Eisha, where he's in the wilderness and he is grappling with what we would probably call depression today, like hopelessness, I suppose. But, God he just wakes him up for food and he just tells him to eat and he tells him to get like rest.

Like those simple things that we're talking about before, like eating and going about your lives and doing the simple things can still be like a form of worship. Looking after yourselves can be a form of, of worship as well.

Um. We've quickly run out of time then, but we do like to end things on a practical note.

I know that answer was sort of practical in itself, but I'm just wondering if there's anything else you would leave with people before we end. What steps can people take to live a life of worship that maybe we haven't touched on already?

Look, I just say to people just do something like, just, just start somewhere and do something and you know what that might be, you know, buying a brand new study Bible and sitting down with highlighters and candles and whatever. And if that's your jam, great. But if you do that for like a week and you're like, ah, this isn't me, then.

Try something else. Try listening to a podcast, try, gathering with a couple of people. And if that doesn't work, then you know, there's just so many different resources and things out there for you to try and so just get started and just start somewhere. And I'm confident that by submitting, that to, to God and asking for his guiding that you'll find something that sticks and that by finding something that sticks, that'll be the start of this snowball that'll build. And before you know it, this, this lifestyle of worship will be cultivated.

And, and it's not to say that there won't be, you know, seasons where you're sort of in a wilderness or things, but you know, generally speaking, I think it'll snowball into this habit. And and away you go.

In the words of Nike, just do it. Hey, just, just look for things. Yeah, ask people. I think it's also helpful and I, this is why I mentioned I like the worship project 'cause it's been inspiring to see the different things that people do.

So if anyone is stuck for ideas on eating inspiration, you can go to. The Worship project on Instagram. They also have a website, that's just the worship project.org au. And Dane, I understand that your podcast is coming out soon. Where will people be able to find that when it does come out?

Yeah. Look, it'll be on. All sorts of different platforms. , The website that you've just mentioned, the Instagram channel that you've mentioned that I think probably Facebook, YouTube, like I think it'll be one of those ones where once it's out.

If you search for it, it'll be really hard to not find. Okay.

Awesome. Great. Alright, Dan, well thank you for coming on today. It's been great to talk about worship. I've loved hearing your thoughts and look forward to the podcast where you can learn more about what worship is and what it looks like in our lives.

So thank you again for coming on.

 Perfect. Thanks for having me.