We had an amazing worship/prayer meeting last night where we let loose and gave God the meeting rather than going on and on about what we wanted from God. This got me thinking. When we pray we tend not to use the old "prayer book" type of praying, where essentially we read our prayers from a written text. It now seems crazy that we would ever have done this, although back in my methodist roots, I did pray the odd written prayer. Now, we just tell God what is in our hearts and respond to what He is speaking into us. It's more like a conversation with God.
Why then when we worship do we sing songs written by someone a world away? Don't get me wrong, sometimes a particular song expresses exactly how I feel at a given moment, but usually I sing along with everyone else, struggling to change how I feel to line up with what I'm singing.
I must admit this is sometimes a good thing because I'm feeling C*#p and really know that I need to get my attitude straight. But sometimes, and last night was a case in point, it's far better to express our hearts directly alowing God to put a new song in our hearts to sing something that has never been sung before. JD once said; "there are Millions of songs still waiting to be written." We just need to start throwing away the 'songbooks' (or even overheads) of old and writting down the intimate moments, the "now" moments and enjoy the intimacy of love that worship was intended to be.
Have a great day.
Rich.
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5 comments:
The danger of using this approach all of the time is that you also throw out the Bible and a strong theology. If you let your feelings control your worship all of the time (even most of the time) you are on shaky ground. I think that we should use things like the prayer book again because they remind us of who God really is and not who we have made him to be.
I'm not advocating an all the time policy. If we are maintaing a consistent theology. good preaching and study then I think our expression to God will be in line with a Biblical understanding. in the modern age with abundant communication and availability of information we should be better versed in biblical christianity. Prayer books, Hymns and repetitive verse were used as a means of teaching to a vastly illiterate society. and are a good teaching tool the same way reading shakespere or song of songs might make me a better lover, but my wife wants to hear my heart not something I read in a book.
I think songs sung as a means of education are a great idea but i don't think it constitutes worship.
I believe that many in our congregations are functionally illiterate. They don't read and study outside of the Sunday service and that written forms of litergy and prayer can help to focus on who God really is. I know that when I read the old creeds it reminds me of attributes of God that we don't concentrate on in our worship these days. I agree with you to a point but totally disagree that there is no place for creeds and prayer books.
guess it's a sad indictment on the church that with all the information available and a literate society, we still don't have a clue. Appreaciate your thoughts though, it's had me thinking for a few days.
The funny thing is even those denominations who don't believe in creeds form their own. for Example the Church of Chirst who claims "we have no creed but Christ"... hmm hang on is that not a creed? We all do it, other cry out their creed in organic and not organisational and I am sure the list could go on.
What happens though is we start to argue right and wrong with a callender, if it is old it is wrong, if it is new it must be good.
The other point is that we have lost the call of Paul to make our whole life worship and reduced it to what is done via song in church! Our lives should be as Paul puts it in Rom 12:1 (The message being the best version (IMHO)
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.
There that is my addition to the conversation.
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