Shows / Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Formation to Transformation is a daily worship devotional podcast for worship leaders, worship pastors, musicians, vocalists, audio engineers, lighting directors, ProPresenter operators, camera ops, and the whole worship team. Hosted by Ryan Loche. New episodes every weekday, plus a Sunday liturgy called Before the Doors Open that speaks a short blessing over whoever is about to walk into the building. Recent and current seasons include verse by verse walks through Philippians 4, John 15…
Episodes
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
A Weaned Child | Psalm 131:2b
A weaned child is a child who's done nursing. That's what the word means, and that's as far as the psalm takes it. David doesn't tell us how old the child is…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Stilled and Quieted | Psalm 131:2a
Verse 2 starts with one word, surely. David is reporting the state of his soul, and he's reporting it to the Lord. Verse 1 opened with the Lord's name, and…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Things Too Wonderful | Psalm 131:1b
It would be easy to turn this verse into permission to stop thinking hard, or to hand back responsibilities that were given to us. That isn't what David is…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
My Heart and Eyes | Psalm 131:1a
This psalm is three verses long, and we're going to spend the whole week in it, one line at a time. Today I want to start where the psalm starts, with the…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 | Good Work and Word | Before the Doors Open
There are people coming through the doors who have had a hard time getting here. Some of you serving this morning have had a hard time getting here too. This…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
2 Corinthians 12:10 | For Christ's Sake
Paul puts injuries and necessities beside weaknesses, and then adds persecutions and distresses. The words for Christ's sake identify the service Paul is…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
2 Corinthians 12:9b | That His Power May Rest on Me
Paul has spent part of this letter describing what people find unimpressive about him. Now he tells the Corinthians about a painful weakness and the grace…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
2 Corinthians 12:9a | Sufficient for You
I would love for that sentence to come after Paul tells us the thorn is gone. Christ answers Paul's request with grace: My grace is sufficient for you, for my…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
2 Corinthians 12:8 | Three Times
Sometimes the hardest part of asking again is remembering how sure you were the last time you asked. Paul begged the Lord three times that the thorn might…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
2 Corinthians 12:7 | A Thorn in the Flesh
He could tell a story that makes him look extraordinary. He tells us there is something tormenting him. In 2 Corinthians 12:7, Paul describes a thorn in the…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
1 Peter 4:10-11 | Managers of Grace | Before the Doors Open
Each of you has received a gift. Use it to serve one another as good managers of the grace of God. Peter writes that right after telling the churches to love…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Numbers 11:26-29 | Whose Sake
Eldad and Medad were registered elders, but they never walked out to the Tent. The Spirit rested on them anyway, and they prophesied in the camp. A young man…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Numbers 11:16-17; 24-25 | Seventy at the Tent
The Lord answers Moses. Gather seventy elders you already know, bring them to the Tent, and I will take of the Spirit on you and put it on them, so you do not…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Numbers 11:14-15 | Alone
Moses tells the Lord he cannot bear this people alone, and then he asks the Lord to kill him. This episode reads those two verses at the speed they deserve…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Numbers 11:12-13 | The Nurse
Moses gets sarcastic with the Lord. Did I conceive all this people? Did I carry them out of Egypt, that you tell me to hold them like a nurse holds a baby?…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Numbers 11:10-11 | Every Door
Numbers 11 opens with fire at Taberah and a camp craving the food of Egypt while forgetting the slavery. By verse 10 every family is weeping at its own tent…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
My Presence Will Go With You | Before the Doors Open
There is a walk you do every week that nobody sees. From the car to the door, keys in one hand, something to carry in the other, and whatever you woke up with…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 3:19 | For the Music Director
Habakkuk ends his book with a line that sounds like David's. He makes my feet like deer's feet, the picture near the end of the song David sang when the Lord…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 3:17-18 | Though the Fig Tree Doesn't Flourish
At the start of this season I told you I was not going to read you the end of this book, and that nobody puts the six lines before it on anything. This is the…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 3:15-16 | I Tremble in My Place
Habakkuk gives you a list of body parts. His body, his lips, his bones, his legs. The man who stood on a wall in chapter two and demanded an answer is now…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 3:13-14 | For the Salvation of Your People
Halfway through verse fourteen, Habakkuk says me. He has been describing a vision for ten verses, with God as the subject of almost every sentence, and then…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 3:11-12 | The Sun and Moon Stood Still
The sun has never once waited for anybody. A harvest that needed one more day, a funeral that ran long, a prayer that was almost finished. It goes down when it…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Underneath Are the Everlasting Arms | Before the Doors Open
Somebody carried you once and you do not remember it. Asleep in the back of a car, or on a couch at somebody's house well past midnight, and you woke up the…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 3:9-10 | The Deep Lifted Up Its Hands
The bow was covered. That is the first thing in this verse and it goes by fast. You uncovered your bow, which means that up until this sentence it was in…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 3:7-8 | Was the Lord Displeased with the Rivers?
Right in the middle of describing the most overwhelming thing he has ever been shown, Habakkuk stops and asks a question. Mountains are coming apart, nations…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 3:5-6 | His Ways Are Eternal
He stood. He looked. Those are the two verbs doing the damage in this one. He holds still, he looks at something, and the ground gives out. Plague and…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 3:3-4 | Where His Power Is Hidden
Teman and Mount Paran are both south. Edom, Sinai country, the dry ground where the law got handed down. When Habakkuk wants to say God moved, he gives you a…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 3:1-2 | In the Middle of the Years
Chapter three opens with a heading. Before you get one word of the prayer, you get a line telling you what kind of thing it is, a prayer of Habakkuk set to…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Wait in Silence for God Alone | Before the Doors Open
You're early enough that the building still sounds like itself. HVAC. A door. Somebody's keys. Not a service yet. Just a place waiting to become one. My soul…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:20 | Let All the Earth Be Silent
Before the first downbeat there's a second where nobody has started anything yet. The room isn't empty. It's just not performing. But Yahweh is in his holy…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:18-19 | Awake, You Mute Stone
I've refreshed a number like it was prayer. I've walked into a thin room and felt personally accused by the empty chairs, as if attendance were the temple…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:17 | The Violence Done to Lebanon
There's a tree line I drive past on the way into town that used to be thicker. They cleared it for a development that still isn't finished. The stump field is…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:15-16 | You Will Also Drink
Just one more. They can handle it. I don't mean a glass. I mean the way we talk people into carrying what we won't put down. Somebody pours. Somebody gets…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:14 | As the Waters Cover the Sea
I used to hear a verse like this and immediately translate it into a strategy. How do we get more people under the sound. How do we fill the room. How do we…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
This I Recall to My Mind | Before the Doors Open
You're up, and you don't feel much of anything about it yet. Not discouraged exactly. Just even. Most people know Lamentations 3:23. Not many know what comes…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:12-13 | The Peoples Labor for Fire
I used to debate my old pastor about our biggest weekend of the year. He'd say let's do it bigger and better, and I'd say okay, but why? What's the purpose? I…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:11 | The Stone Will Cry Out of the Wall
There's a photo I use sometimes from a program I did years back, and there's a Guitar Hero screen on the back wall. We played Guitar Hero, the whole room. I…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:9-10 | You Have Sinned Against Your Soul
I got a sweet delay pedal about ten years ago and it was a big old deal for us. I downloaded every timeline preset off the church site and I was going to dial…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:8 | Because You Plundered
Sunday mornings at 6:30 I used to text the worship leader, sorry man, I'm out. It didn't bother me even a little. I was one of three guitarists, nobody had…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:6-7 | The Song the Plundered Sing
I served for free. A lot. Years of it, and I got a job out of it, so it worked. But now that I'm the leader it's really hard to recommend that's how you go…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
He Will Rejoice Over You With Singing | Before the Doors Open
Somebody's going to sing over you this morning, and it won't be the congregation. Don't let your hands be weak. Zephaniah 3:16-17 is said to people with…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:5 | He Can't Be Satisfied
There are shirts in my closet from a version of church I don't do anymore. Habakkuk 2:5 is the last thing God says about the Chaldean before the woes begin…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:4 | The Righteous Will Live by His Faith
Hundreds of people in a room, all of them singing, and I walked out sure I'd seen God move. Habakkuk 2:4 is quoted three times in the New Testament and it…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:3 | Though It Takes Time
If you've ever been told the conversation about your role is coming, and then watched it move, you know what this verse costs. Habakkuk 2:3 says two things in…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:2 | Make It Plain
"Yeah, it's Overflow. It's where you go when the room is full." It took us a long time to say it that way. God speaks in Habakkuk 2:2, and before the prophet…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 2:1 | I Will Stand at My Watch
About a month ago a drum mic started ringing in the middle of a song, and the room sang through it. Habakkuk 2:1 is the hinge of the book. After a chapter of…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Make You Complete | Before the Doors Open
You've got a list of things that aren't finished, and the doors open anyway. Hebrews 13:20-21 asks the God of peace, the one who brought the great shepherd…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 1:16-17 | He Sacrifices to His Net
The thing that finally worked is the most dangerous thing you own. Watch what the fisherman is worshiping in Habakkuk 1:16. Not a god who handed him the…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 1:14-15 | No Ruler Over Them
You've had a week where you weren't a person to anybody. You were a slot that got filled. The worst four words in Habakkuk 1:14 are not about the hook. They're…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 1:13 | Why Do You Tolerate It
You know the thing you stopped praying about. You didn't stop caring. You got tired of hearing yourself ask. Habakkuk 1:13 is the sharpest question in the…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 1:12 | Aren't You From Everlasting
Think about the last time you had to steady yourself before you said something true. You knew what you were about to say, and you knew it would land worse out…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 1:10-11 | They Laugh at Every Stronghold
You've been on the receiving end of a decision nobody would own. There was nobody to be angry at. Just a call that came down, and when you traced it back you…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Dig Where You're Standing | Before the Doors Open
A short Sunday morning sending for worship leaders, musicians, vocalists, audio engineers, lighting directors, ProPresenter operators and camera. Nobody in…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 1:8-9 | Swifter Than Leopards
Not everything that wears you out is heavy. Some of it is light and just coming at you faster than you can process it. Look at how God describes the thing he…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 1:6-7 | The Answer Was Worse Than the Silence
Habakkuk complained that his own country was violent and lawless. God's answer is that he is raising up a nation that is worse at both. Their judgment and…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 1:5 | A Work You Would Not Believe
God finally answers, and the first word out of him is not an explanation. It is look. Watch. Wonder marvelously, which in Hebrew is tamah doubled, the same…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 1:3-4 | The Law Is Paralyzed
Nobody denied it. That is the part that gets you. Nobody argued. It just sat there, everyone agreed it was a problem, and then the week started over. Habakkuk…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 1:1-2 | The Burden He Saw
You know the thing at your church that is wrong and is not yours to fix. Not a scandal. Just a thing everybody learned to work around, and you have run out of…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
More Than Watchmen for the Morning
You drove here in the dark. Maybe not full dark, that gray that is not quite anything yet. The parking lot lights were still on, and there were two other cars…
- Formation to Transformation | A Worship Devotional
Habakkuk 1:2 | It Starts With a Complaint and Ends With Sheet Music
You know the chair. The one in your house where you used to pray about one specific thing. You still sit in it. You just do not bring that up anymore. Habakkuk…