Last night in our Gathering we began (or Re-visited) discussing Worship. Its unfortunate that the beauty of this biblical word-has been perverted by the Western (American primarily) church. Worship has been reduced to synthetic experience of self-adulation in many cases. We sing songs like "Its all about you Jesus......'I'll bring you more than a song'...cuz its all about you"- and yet we are bring to Jesus not just any song, but an overused song that attempts to highten our emotions so we feel good about the song we bring Jesus (or at least the god that we've nicknamed Jesus). You may ask how I know this...b/c I am among the guiltiest in doing such. And I'm in a hell of frustration.
N.T. Wright in Simply Christian gives this telling illustration: A good king makes water available to everyone. The state pumps in clean, drinkable, refreshing water into the homes of the citizens. And out of concern for health, dental hygene- some helpful chemicals are put into the water stream. Its good. Over years, this is all the citizens know. Then one day, some of the citizens are on a mountain, and a spring of water shoots up. Its so cool, refreshing, clear, unpluuted by chemicals (whether good or bad). Its so wild! So natural! Like this is how God intended for us to drink water. Its quite the experience.
What has been called "WORSHIP" for so long in the Western Modern Church, is like the plumbing system of chemically enhanced water. It was created as a good thing. But, somehow Worship was reduced to something it wasn't created to be. No more than could those of the Reformation "nail" church, doctrine, praxology, for all time-can the church of today "nail" worship (meaning the public gathering where creative and missional expressions of Praise are overflowing....eg Psalm 45, 96, 1 Peter 2:9, Mark 16:15 just a few to mull over!). Maybe the PP (or CE- Creative Expressions---Justin came up w/ this last night!) should be wild (not chaotic...1 Cor 14), untamed.
In the end, what we threw out last night was simply this: Worship is all of life in the Kingdom Community. So whatever we call- PP, CE, YM- it should flow from and back to Community. And if we immediately spring to talk about private, personal ways of worship, or personal preferences, then it appears we may have already missed the point, and the ship (as in fellow-ship...dorky I know!). Perhaps it would be wise of us to "take on this mind which was/is in Jesus the Christ/King, have the same love (wow-one love, one passion) and being in full accord and of one mind....Let each of us look not only (or primarily) to our own interests, but also to the interests of others. Yes! Have THIS mind among yourselves, which is yours in JESUS THE KING!...."
We have certainly not dialogued this out enough, but perhaps the immediate course is to UNITE w/ the SAME LOVE! Namely, for Jesus, His Kingdom, and our Local Community. Perhaps finding joy in each other and by blessing each other.
I love that some immediately start thinking of ideas to benefit the community. Last night, ADD Justin was spewing one idea after another to me. I love that. I know he won't be the one to bring these ideas about. But, what an encouragement. One idea was to have those of us who aren't the ones to play instruments and lead in singing- to pick some of the songs, some times. GREAT IDEA. That's Communal Thinking.
What other ideas do we have? How do we learn to Creatively Express our Story through music, testimony, visual art, drama, dance, poetry, and Hugging!
What will it take for us to start writing some of our own music/lyrics? (This is meant to dialogue, not give a one word/sentence answer e.g. "Commitment" etc).
Imagine w/ me, if you will: What if we let go of our egos for the sake of The Community, The River? What if we didn't make fun of honest attempts to creatively express our story. And what if we all committed ourselves to throw ourselves completely into not only our Creative Expression of our story in the Gathering,but in all of life-together.
I think we'd be emerging into the type of Community we dream of being.......An Afflux of Authentic life!
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sc
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5 comments:
I am commenting b/c I've been told some of my blogs are too long:). There is a ton more I'd like to say on this subject, but I would also like to hear a ton on this subject, from our community.
First,I want to say that my frustration, which seems to be manifest, is not w/ anyone in particular. Nor, is it in the community-as in towards people/individuals. My frustration is simply that we have a dream, its our dream, it is becoming my dream- to live As An Afflux of Authentic Life.
There are so many obstacles to acheiving this dream, namely us- mostly me. I confess this honestly and sincerely.
The Frustration is that we are such a creative, unique community, yet that uniqueness and creativity doesn't come out in our gatherings. However, do not mistake that I don't find great joy in not only being a part of it, but in sharing, pointing others to This Community where Jesus resides. I DO!
I want to attempt to clarify something I said last night (for the two or three who may read this, perhaps you can share w/ the others). When I explained that if someone gets up and sings a song in a particular style- that's good, b/c that person is US! And therefore that style is The River's style. As much as that is liberty for folks to be themselves, it was not a liberty to serve self- but rather the community. Perhaps the best way to hear that statement was to understand there is safety for us to be ourselves together. And yet to seek the Communal Good w/o fear of being made fun of or rejected. But, we should always put the community first!
Does that make sense!
My frustration is that it appears to many of us that have been involved in the ongoing dialogue is that we are trying to solve the frustration with accessories. To use a cheesey yet effective illustration, it would be like picking out a handkerchief and then saying- lets find a suit and tie to match it. (I know this is way out of our world, but it should make sense nonetheless). Picking a style of music, or ambience, or mood- and building the Creative expression of our story around that. It may work a time or two-even be a huge success (whatever that means), but that can't be what fuel our communal CE/PP week in and week out. It has to be Community. And community is only a Community if it is Founded on, based on Something- for us it is to Be An Afflux Of Authentic Life! So our CE/PP has to flow from and back to that. That's the Suit- the style of music, the mood/ambience, that's the shoes, tie, handkerchief so to speak.
this seems to be our struggle. Justin Said something in a conversation later to me, that I think is helpful for us all. As he thought out the story of Abraham and Isaac, and that Abraham was offering in an act of CE worship in the only way he knew how-perhaps that is our dilemma likewise. Perhaps we are attempting to Creatively Express The Story of God and His People (i.e. The River and Beyond!) in the only way we know how. Perhaps we need to unlearn then, REnew our thinking (like Paul says in Romans 12:1-2) that we may figure out what to hold onto from our modern heritage, and what to chuck, and what we should move towards in our Emerging, Somewhat-Post-Modern World view, and what we should avoid.
Comment by
sc
First of all, I’m really bummed out I missed this discussion about worship because it’s something I’m so passionate about. Secondly, I’m guessing just from reading the blogs and Sam’s comment on his own blog that you guys were discussing Corporate worship with singing, etc. and not talking about worship as a lifestyle? And third, I don’t know what “PP” or “YM” stand for but here’s my opinion anyways:
In regards to what you said about emotion-A few years ago, I went to a church that I believe was trying to create emotion in their worship services. I would get really emotional (which was not like me) sometimes and other times I would think that God wasn’t there because I wasn’t “feeling” anything. Looking back, I realize that was very selfish and dangerous- to try to “get something” out of worship. I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when I went to an evangelical church service in Nicaragua and saw the same kind of thing. I wrote about it on my blog if you care to read…www.laurenlarose.net. Anyways, I believe that God is a God of emotion and He cries over us and laughs over us. I believe that He uses music to grab us into His presence and stir our hearts. But I don’t think that emotion is a necessary indication that one is worshipping or in His presence.
I like what you said about personal preferences and missing the point. However, I think that in order to be fully involved in worship time at church, it takes practice in your personal prayer time. I think that a huge part of our one-on-one time with God should be worship and blessing His name, whether singing, painting, surfing, or just telling Him how awesome He is. But it’s soooo important to not JUST worship with the group, but in the intimacy of your alone time with Him. To set time aside for this every day. I’m not saying that I do this every day, but if I could be a little less lazy, and a little more in love with my Creator, maybe I would want to do it all the time.
I think worship is fun. Is this wrong? Should I feel guilty about having fun playing my guitar and singing when it’s supposed to be worship? Or is this how God created it? Because I find it hard sometimes to consciously think about every word I sing, especially when songs are so repetitive, and still be sincere about what I’m telling God. My mind gets distracted. Maybe it’s not about each and every word but about singing in unison-in community- to our God. Because music is a universal language, it’s liked by most people, can be done in unison, and can be done by most people (even people who are deaf) maybe this is why we choose this type of worship most of the time.
Personally, I don’t like the idea of someone getting up and leading worship in front of the church, because to me, it takes away from the focus on God and kinda feels like a performance. Sometimes I think about how the Catholics did it a long time ago, with the choir in the back and the images of Jesus up front. I wish it was like that sometimes. This is all my opinion, though which doesn’t really matter, I know.
I'm sorry I missed the discussion last Sunday but I have been paying attention. . .however I have no idea what PP is -- I'm assuming CE is "Creative Expression"?
I'm hoping this is a discussion that's going to be continued/explored more at the Riv or through this (& other ) blogs. I think the only way masses of people are ever going to be able to come into a church and feel like they've come home is if the Church, and individual churches, strive more not to cling to a defined, limited culture (with set, pre-ok'd ways of doing things that are the same week-to-week, year-to-year), but to be expansive and inclusive in terms of creative expression, and in terms of what is thought of as part of the church's culture -- because it should be the sum, plus some, of everything all those people love and brought with them into their community. --This isn't an overnight goal, but I definitely love knowing I'm at a church that's looking in that direction.
Oh, and Lauren: I love your thoughts. Reading your thoughts here is like being in a rose garden. Seriously.
--Sorry if I rambled at all here but I just woke up and haven't had coffee yet. (I've been a bit nocturnal lately.)
Thank you everyone for your blogs and comments. Very interesting. Sam, I love the illustration you gave about the city water and mountain spring, very cool.
Melissa H
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