This week I have been made aware again of just how many distractions we can put in the way of our time and space that we make for God. Yet, if I can stay still in the whirlwind of picking up kids, going to the gym, kids’ swimming lessons, and, yes, mindless TV programmes and consciously choose to make time and leave space, God meets with me and I with Him.
In a wider context, when planning a set list,or my contribution to part of a church service, I am aware of the importance of making a space for God to interact with the congregation and myself. When we do this, I dearly love the fact that God cannot stay distant from us and as we, like little children take faltering steps towards our heavenly Father, He often can’t wait for us to get to Him and rushes in to join us, sweeping us off our feet with the joy of the moment.
‘Through worship the World learns its own story. And how will others hear unless we do God’s story in worship calling people to remember God’s story?…Forgetting brings death, but remembering brings life.’ [1]
I want to be able to remember my ‘God-moments’ and the stories that come from them, but also to help others create their own when leading them towards Him in worship.
[1] Robert E Webber, ‘Ancient Future Worship – proclaiming and acting God’s narrative (Grand rapids, Baker Books 2008)
My aim for this song was to communicate the simple truths of God as saviour as discussed in the early Essentials Blue media from Dan, getting in the importance of the sacrifice that God made, what it actually did ie covering our sin and washing away shame and then to tie in with being a salvific story-teller by saying that I will sing of His mercy and tell of His love forever. I also wanted to put in a verse about Jesus being the saviour of the whole world, leaving the door open for non-Christians who may hear the song so that they will realise that it’s not just an exclusive club just for Christians but that the offer is open to them as well. I view this as a simple bare bones version that may be fleshed out at a later date but time was short. I would appreciate your comments, thank you.
Our task this week was to write a creed or a worldview for Christianity, drawing from what we’ve learned and read over the last 4 weeks. This is what I came up with.
We believe that God is the Creator of all things, King of all heaven and earth, Father to His children, that we are co-creators and stewards of all that we have been given on the Earth. Our role is to gather the praises of Creation and offer them back to God and to give voice to our own offering of praise.
We believe that God made us in His Image to reflect His nature on the earth and that God longs for relationship with us and all mankind. Although we have fallen away from God He sent His Son Jesus Christ, part of the Trinity that is the One God, as a rescue plan for all creation to put to rights the sin in the world – by Him who had no sin, Jesus, becoming sin for our sake and our salvation. Mercy we do not deserve and cannot earn.
The Kingdom of God was ushered in by the coming of Jesus and also lives in us as we are called to be a place where heaven and earth meet and be a part of the Kingdom, active in the love, justive and stewardship of the earth and all within it.
It is our role to tell the story of what Jesus has done and that we are heading towards a time when earth and heaven will be one – where spirituality, justice, relationship and beauty will be restored to us fully in their true form and not our human understanding of them- a time when God’s new world will be thrown open for us.
This week something that somebody said to me about my son, Matthew, really challenged me. He goes to nursery school where I work and at the end of the day his key worker said to me: “My goodness he is so like you, all his little mannerisms and the way he says things.”
This made me wonder – do we as Christians who say God is our heavenly father act like or sound like God to the World? Do we reflect God’s Image?
The Hebrew word for image in this instance is the word ‘tselem’. “It is used to speak of children and their similarity in personhood to a parent” [1] and I guess that my long term goal in this lifetime is that I would show my father God to others at all times, which is challenging at best and at times seems downright impossible, especially when others seem set to test your ability to do it.
I’ll finish with a quote from Dan Wilt: “If God is the king of the universe then we who have His Breath are of royal and Governmental origin. We too have the capacity to lead and order great systems and to reflect love , goodness and wisdom into that which we lead.” [2] Hopefully this will encourage you at the times when you are tested too.
[1] and [2] Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology – ‘The nature of the human being’
“The Christian understanding of God was never meant to be a math equation confining our understanding of God, but rather a way of God expressing that He is beyond the confines of our wildest perceptions” [1]
Working through this particular aspect of Essentials Blue this week has indeed made me try to understand this concept and its importance in modern worship leading. The idea that God is three personalities in one, and yet we don’t worship three Gods but one is difficult to get my head round, but I guess it was never meant to be easy!
By being a Trinity, God must relate and interrelate within the three persons, and we, by being indwelt with the Holy Spirit are invited into that relationship, described by Bert Waggoner in the article “Leading Trinitarian Worship” as ‘perichoresis’ (the divine dance). We as worship leaders have a role to play in leading or inviting others to join the dance with Father, Son and Holy Spirit so it’s important for us to have a Trinitarian model in mind when leading congregations. Also, the whole idea of the divine dance reminds us that we are not the worship leaders – “God is the worship leader. The Son is the one that leads us into the worship of the Father. He is the mediator of all worship but within the divine dance any one of the persons (Father, Son or Holy Spirit) might lead us in glorifying the others.”
Within the Trinity the three persons abide in one another and yet remain uniquely who they are individually. I guess my heart’s desire is to try and understand this more, both for myself and the people that I lead in worship. This is an intriguing task and one that I guess will take a life time to achieve!
[1] N T Wright, For all God’s Worth
[2] T F Torrance, Worship, Community and the Tri une God of Grace
“Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful”
From 1 Corinthians 2 in The Message
This passage of scripture makes me so happy, particularly the opening section “Each person is given something to do that shows who God is”. I remember co-leading a worship set with a good friend of mine and part-way through feeling an intense sensation of joy that literally felt like it was going to burst out of me. I turned to my friend mid set and said “Isn’t it great that we get to do this and yet we are serving God?”. We were showing the congregation who God is by leading them towards him in Worship and adoration.
Our unique language of creativity was being taken beyond our own expression to God and was being used by others as a vehicle for them to move towards Him, and yet by the same token the set up team or the PA guys were also showing who God is by performing their role.
In the days of the early Corinthian church when this Scripture was written I can imagine the response of the religious leaders of the day being one of slightly less excitement than mine in that religious experts or scholars would have seen themselves as the people who would be the ones who were given things by God to dispense to their congregations. This Scripture blows that wide open by saying that every person is given something that shows who God is.
Isn’t it exciting that God worked that way then and is still doing it today!
