Grace and Truth

“Grace with out truth is sentimentality, truth without grace is brutality.”

- Rick Irish

Reforming vs. Reacting (Part 2: Musical Worship)

The conversation about worship at Fresh Dirt’s blog is a good one, so check it out if you haven’t yet. The basis of the dialog is that worship has become about only the music. Music which is designed to be an instantly gratifying, emotionally high, technically advanced experience used for those purposes and not for actually presenting an offering of worship to God. Several examples could be used back up this premise:

1) Many people will choose or reject a church based primarily on the musical worship.

2) Many people judge a worship service’s quality by the music.

3) Much of contemporary worship music seems to have an emphasis on “me” and “I” rather than “we” or “us”.

4) The ecstatic nature of many worship times leads to a correlation between the feeling of ecstasy in worship and perceived intimacy with God, which draws people to use worship times like a drug to calm their fears and doubts about God’s nearness. (If I get inspired I’ll address this observation specifically in a later post)

These examples are both from my own observations and from the observations of others. So the question becomes what do we do about it? Do we take the music away and return to only the psalms? Perhaps, but I think that would fall under the category of reactionary, and I’ve seen the psalms used in a way that appeared to be less than worship.

When I was in Scotland last year I attended worship one Sunday at a Reformed church on the Royal Mile. I wish I could say wonderful things about the beauty of the liturgy and what not – but that place was utterly devoid of emotion. For musical worship they used the Sing Psalms (a collection of the psalms put to a few set melodies). No instruments. No microphone. No choir. No feeling. Just a guy with good pitch to start things off. It was ridiculous – the psalms are probably some of the most raw, emotionally charged passages in the Bible and singing, reading or meditating on them in any other way is taking away from what they are. It felt similar to this Muppet’s sketch.

Beyond that, the Psalms were written before Jesus and undoubtedly Jesus changed things. I understand that God is the same, much of our experience seems to be the same, and the Psalms do point to Christ. But if the words of our worship don’t change in response to the work of the cross and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit – if it doesn’t revel in the mystery of Christ in us I’m pretty sure it’s missing out on something big. As Christians today we should be experiencing our faith and our life in God in a way that David and the psalmists could only have dreamed of. I often wonder at how we (I’m included in this statement) still feel like we’re striving for David’s level of intimacy when we have the revelation of Christ and he didn’t.

So what might it look like to reform musical worship? Is it a U2 concert – using the psalms presented in a way that is full of passion and energy? Or is it simply deconstructing how we do and have done musical worship, taking out whatever is found to be without theological foundations or even counter biblical ($70,000 sound systems come to mind, but that’s just me) and reclaiming and reapproaching that which is found good. Partly a separating of wheat from chaff and partly a strengthening of the foundations so that creativity can thrive.

I fully agree with the premise that musical worship needs to move from the “I” to the “We”, mostly because the atoning work of Christ on the cross wasn’t for me alone. It was only for me in as much as I am part of the body. Christ died for the church, for his bride, so that the world might know that Christ was sent by God and that the church is loved by God just as Christ was (John 17:23). Our personal atonement is meant to move us into loving, missional community with others. Yes we do need to make a personal commitment, but that is the first step that enables us to make a commitment to community.

I’m going to cut things off there for now. There will probably be more to come later.

Encounters

I met Joe Hemphill today at the Revue in Fresno. These are the encounters that I live for and I am blessed to have met another local poet.

Reforming vs. Reacting (Part 1: the Eucharist)

Sometimes I wonder how much of our theology, liturgy, and Christian practice in the protestant church finds part (if not all) of its basis not in God, but in reacting against something. I know, I know, it is our mode of operation as PROTESTants, but I wonder if we might come to a place where we can stop fighting against so many “evils” and start creatively speaking life into the things that need changing. For example: What if we re-examined the Eucharist (as my friend Dave is much in favor of) and started having communion every Sunday, or every time we meet as a body? A historical reason many churches offer communion only once a month is because to do it more frequently would be too Catholic – reactionary. What if we allowed our sacraments to be reformed by the scripture? What if communion came as part of a meal eaten within the context of an intentional sacred space? What if – gasp! – we risked examining that the idea of transubstantiation should not be sidelined as vile paganism, but may perhaps be much closer to some spiritual reality of what is meant to happen within us at communion?

Coming soon – Reforming vs. Reacting (Part 2: Musical Worship)

Note:

I like asking questions a) because I am painfully aware that I don’t have all the answers b) because I like to make other people think and c) because I love hearing those thoughts.  I use “what if…” questions to spur on my own imagination for the Kingdom of God and because they make room for me to explore the numerous possible outcomes.  

Talk about provocation!

There is an interesting conversation on musical worship happening on my friend’s blog:

Christian Porn

Stasis (follow up to Christian porn)

Intimacy and Grace

If you are a Christ follower, have you found there to be a correlation between intimacy with God and your experience/understanding of grace? Is it direct proportion or exponential? If exponential which concept would you put on which axis? What about in interpersonal relationships? Do you extend more grace to people with whom you have experienced a deeper relationship?  Now that you’ve asked yourself that last question, are you comfortable with your response?  Should you be?

Time Traveling

I just figured out how to adjust the time stamp to be accurate for my location. All my other posts were from 8 hours in the future which means this post will be time stamped as about 7 hours earlier than my last post (Intimacy and Grace). Take that 4th dimension!

The Smell of Sin (and the Fresh Air of Grace)

Apparently I’m going to be doing book reviews on this site as well.  Who would have thought?  Anyway, I recently finished The Smell of Sin (and the Fresh Air of Grace) by Don Everts.  It’s a short book that explores sin – specifically what Jesus said about it.  Everts uses the word smell because sin has too often been relegated to a “laminated list of fun things we cannot do,” and aroma, he feels, is a more accurate description of the feel of sin to Jesus.

I can’t say you should put this on your must read list, but it definitely has some good, important things to say.  If you have any doubts as to the seriousness of sin just flip through the chapters and read the scriptures that start each one. Through the shocking imagery Jesus used and Everts’ own poetry, a very serious and convicting understanding of sin is presented.  The author asks you to soberly consider if you honestly think it would be better to hack off your arm or leg than to sin or cause others to sin.  Rather than justifying Jesus’ words with statements like, “Now this was just a metaphor” Everts leaves the words to haunt you.  He makes no attempt to belittle them, because although they are metaphorical that means they are meant to draw you to an understanding that sin is even more serious than that.

There is always hope

I’m not going to lie to you, this article made me cry.

Courage and hope amid Kenya’s carnage

Hooray for discount books

In Henri Nouwen’s book In the Name of Jesus he states that it is the call of Christian leaders to be “intentionally irrelevant”. I find that view refreshing for many reasons and use it (jokingly) as a justification for waiting until books make it to the discount bin before I purchase them. All that said, I just finished a Generous Orthodoxy by Brian D. McLaren. McLaren would be considered one of the louder voices in the emergent movement. In the book he relates his thoughts, celebrations, and critiques of much of Christianity. For me reading it was somewhat like having a very animated theocentric conversation in a coffee shop. One where I would at times pump my fist and wave my hands wildly in agreement, excitedly flip through scripture and relate stories in disagreement, or simply stop to think about what was said. And I believe that’s how the author intended it. He unabashedly acknowledges his own continued growth and ability to be wrong. As an aspiring writer I find this book a great display of vulnerability that must be approached with grace by Christian readers. If it is not the reader will find themselves at risk of casting judgment on a brother who has much to say to them through the words he pens and the thoughts he provokes.