CeCe Winans Shares The Importance of Being Part of a Church

0:00 You're listening to the Charisma News Podcast. I'm Shelby Bowen. Division in the Church is running rampant. Listen to this interview with Cece Winans about why it's crucial for you to be involved in the local church. Read more stories on Spirit-Led Living when you subscribe to Charisma Magazine. Go to mycharismashop.com and enter in the promo code CPN to receive 10% off the price of the subscription. First, what's going on with the double award? How you're feeling? I mean, that's amazing. It's a huge achievement. Can you tell us about that? That's amazing. The double awards, I am still in shock over the double awards.

0:45 I went this year just to support and have a good time. Last year I had won about three double awards, I think. When they told me I was nominated this year in those categories, I was like, oh, that's awesome. But then prepare a speech. Sometimes you never know if you're going to win, but you like to be prepared just in case. This time it was like, there's no way I'm winning. I'm just going to have a good time. When they called my name off, I was, which I think everybody could see, I was totally like, what? After the first one for Song of the Year, then Artist of the Year, I really knew that wasn't going to happen. That happened too. People are saying, oh, did you plan to sing to God Be the Glory? I was like, absolutely not. I said nothing else came to my mind. I hadn't prepared anything. When I got up there, I was just in shock. The only thing flooded my mind was to God Be the Glory. That's the only thing I can get out. I'm honored, I'm floored, I'm humbled, I'm excited. Yeah, it just means a lot to be acknowledged by your peers and to win an award like that. To me, every blessing comes a responsibility.

2:14 Mm-hmm. I always go back and say, okay, Lord, you've allowed me to gain this. Why? What is this for? How do you want to use this for your glory? Because that's why we're all here. We use every gift and talent for Him. The double awards were amazing. All the awards that I've ever gotten up until this time, it's pretty mind boggling when I look back and see all that has happened in that arena in my career time. But again, every time He does it, it's like He gives me new ground so that I can walk on that and represent who He is. Such a beautiful perspective and really just a humble heart of wanting to be given all of these beautiful things. You're like, but God be the glory. I think that's such an amazing heart posture to have. You have a book coming out. Yeah. So that is super exciting. Can you tell us the name of the book and what it's about?

3:17 The name of my book is Believe For It, Passing on Faith to the Next Generation. All I can say is I believe this book and where I am in life has everything to do with my past, my present, and my future. We talked about it earlier. God has blessed me with a lot of great accomplishments and everything that He's ever allowed me to have and everything that He's allowed to be poured into me, I think is for such a time as this. I was telling somebody earlier that this book is so important to me and this message is so important to me because I feel the responsibility to pour into the next generation as much as I possibly can to make sure they are ready to take the baton and run well with it. That's what this book is all about. It's about sharing my story of why I feel like I'm a strong believer, a strong woman of God, and also to motivate others, my age and older, really every age, because no matter how old you are, somebody's looking at you. You have some type of influence. It's important to understand the part that we play

4:49 in making sure the faith of Jesus Christ never dwindles out. That is an awesome responsibility. That's what the book is about. We were talking a little bit before the recording just about the church attendance in America is declining. This is really so important that people are spreading the message of carrying on that baton and spreading the faith that we have in our lives. It's everything. Jesus came and died on the cross for us. It's a message that transcends time. People need this, especially in the time we're living in with the depression and anxiety.

5:35 Maybe you could just speak a little bit to why this is so important in our current culture now. You're just encouraging people to step into that. Yeah. Well, like you said, it's so important. It's always been important, but in our current culture, I think it is a must. We have a lot of things at stake right now. We as believers, it's our time to stand up and believe. It's our time to be, this is not the time to blend in. This is not the time to back up. This is not the time to cool off, but it's really time more than ever to have that zeal to be busy about doing the Lord's work. First, starting at home. I share in the book where church is not optional. As believers, that's not optional. I know we went through the time of the pandemic and we had the, oh my God, to me that was the worst few weeks that we were out. We took going to the house of the Lord, as we took up a granny. God is serious about his house, about his temple, about us coming together as believers. The Bible says, forsake not the assembly of yourselves, but gather the more as we see the day approaching. Jesus is soon to come. This is not the time for us to be at home or to make our kids feel like, well, Sunday is not really that important. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

7:07 We have to stand up because if not, we'll lose the next generation. I remember being on the show better together and basically I remember one of the women on the show saying how her parents told her that if we make it optional in our generation, then the next generation will demon unnecessary. Oh, wow. That's really good. And that's danger. That's dangerous right now. And so I'm praying that we understand what's at stake because we're all here because the disciples understood the importance of spreading the good news. They understood they were willing to lose their lives and most of them did lose their lives in horrific ways for the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we have to understand that it's our turn now. Yeah. You know, and the culture, people are hungry, they're hurting, they're broken and the harvest is ripe. And if they don't get a chance to see Jesus in action, then they won't be able to come to know who he is. And so this falls on our shoulders, all of us as believers, every generation to stand up and be people of faith so that faith can be continued on to the next generation. Amen. It's so powerful. And this will be my last question because I know you have to get going, but you carry such a fear of the Lord and reverence for God and

8:37 carrying on his word. What would your message be to the young worship leader or person who worship leader or person who is maybe tempted to kind of like try to adhere to culture and blend in and try to just be popular and, you know, kind of blend in with the world, but also worship, you know, you carry the fear of the Lord. What would your message be to them? My message would be to fear the Lord. Yeah. You know, fear the Lord. The Bible says the fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom. It opens up your eyes to fear the Lord is to understand who he is and whose he is and to understand that he requires all of our heart, not part of our heart.

9:26 I always tell people I'm a worshiper. I'm a believer who happens to sing. And I think sometimes those who are coming after us, those who know they have a gift, they begin to look at that position and that gift more than the creator of the gift. The creator is always most important. Like, for instance, it was a season in my life when God spoke to my husband and I to start a church where I wasn't singing. You know, I wasn't going out on the road. I wasn't doing that because he had me for me in another area of life. And so I'm open that if he says tomorrow, Cece, don't sing, but I want you to go and minister this way. I don't belong to myself. And so you have to understand that God not only desires all of your heart, but he requires all of your heart.

10:16 And the Bible says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else will be added. I am definitely walking to everything else being added, because if you be consistent in keeping your eyes on Jesus and allowing his character to be developed in you, then whatever stage that you find yourself on, that means God can trust you to understand that it's for him, it's through him, and God will bless his people because of that. Amen. It's very powerful and just something that's super important for people to hear, really at all ages and all walks of life. So I appreciate your time today. It went by so fast.

11:01 I'm like, this is so powerful. I'm like, praise God. But really, I mean, I would just love to hear your final thoughts on what you feel like the Holy Spirit is saying to you in what's happening in the world today and just a message that's important for the body of Christ. You know, I've been asked to speak. I have to speak on Sunday and actually I'm preparing for a lesson now and I'm just, ooh, putting lessons together has never been easy for me because it's like, it feels like there's so much I want to say and it's like, no, you want people to walk away with something. But I do believe this message is so important and it's about having a zeal for the house. So many times, us as believers, we feel like, you know, we want God to use us and we focus on everything else besides him. And we can see all through scriptures that when we focus on him, then it allows him to move and do the impossible. I think we've come to the, we've tried to win the world our own way. And the Bible says, not by power nor by might, but it's by my spirit, saith the Lord. So you can have, I think we run after strategies opposed to being led by the spirit. The spirit knows all things. So we need a zeal for God and for his house again, because the Bible says that unity demands a blessing. When we come together as the body of Christ and begin to pray and begin to be faithful again to our church attendance, not just

12:36 for the sake of checking it off, but actually going to the house of God to do what the house of God has been prepared for us to do. And that is to pray. It's supposed to be a house of prayers. It's supposed to be a house where miracles happen, where we learn how to be disciples of Jesus Christ so that when we walk out into the world, we'll be light, you know, because people are dying, literally dying, and they need to see the light that's in each one of us. We do. Amen. Amen. What a powerful message. Thank you so much, Cici, for your time. I just honor you and everything that you're doing for the Lord. Thank you for listening to Charisma News. To read more articles and stories like this one, visit charismanews.com. Receive stories on Spirit-Led Living when you subscribe to Charisma Magazine at mycharismashop.com. Type in promo code CPN to receive a 10% discount off your subscription.