Monthly Archives: March 2005

My worship’s better than your worship

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Hi, new contributor signing in. Look at my profile if you want to find out who the hell I am! Thought I’d dive straight in to the shallow end and comment on the worship thread. I also struggle with much of what’s described as ‘worship’ in church, for some of the same reasons Richard mentioned (narrow understanding of worship, few of the songs express my understanding of God/Jesus/Good News/Kingdom etc).
I attended an ‘alternative worship’ event last week, run by a bunch of people who have been doing this stuff in Cardiff for years and are really creative and interesting. The evening was engaging, reflective and made a lot of sense to me where I’m currently at, and involved no singing at all. However, the feel was very much each person, in their own space, with their own thoughts. Surely if there is any strength in singing a bunch of songs together in a group it’s that, for once, we are at least (literally) singing from the same song sheet. How do we retain and promote this sense of ‘corporateness’ and lose some of the trash that’s become attached? Historically singing songs together has been an important way in which people experience community and share their common stories and experiences. Is there still a place for music/communal singing in the church community? What is it?

More Best Worship Books Ever

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To add to Richard’s excellent post on Worship:

Book Review: True Worship, by Vaughan Roberts
(this book review by Mark Porthouse and first published in Benchmark Magazine)

The path of faith takes each one of us on a journey from (attempted) self reliance into a relationship of trust in our perfect father. During that path we seek to put away our own ideas and give ourselves wholly to God and his (infinitely better) wisdom and knowledge.

‘True Worship’ tackles one area in which much of man’s ‘wisdom’, tradition and habit have taken root in modern Christianity – worship. Vaughan quotes a friend of his, who says ‘To say, “I’m going to church to worship”, is about as silly as saying, “I’m off to bed to breathe for a while”.’ Balance surprising statements like that with his chapter ‘The Purpose of Christian Meetings’ and you have a truly rounded book. Throughout the book Vaughan Roberts confronts us with a series of questions and answers which we cannot fail to take note of.

If you are thinking ‘this book isn’t for me, we have great praise and worship at our church’ then you are definitely the person that Vaughan wrote this book for. If your church has ‘worship leaders’ then I would suggest that you need to get this book in front of your church leaders ASAP (but try and sneak a read of it first!).

I recommend this book (ever so) highly to anyone who, as an individual or a church leader, is looking to move forward in their walk with Christ (I hope that might be everyone who reads this!). The book covers the topic of worship very broadly, not just focussing on the obvious issues . Speaking personally, the key part of the book was the message about what should happen when we (the Church) meet. To implement what Vaughan is suggesting in your own life or in the life of your church won’t be easy as we have accumulated quite a number of odd traditions over the last two thousand years, but once read you will find it hard to live with anything less than ‘True Worship’.

You can get hold of the book here:
http://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/Christian-Life/Vaughan-Roberts/

and no doubt loads of other places!

More best worship songs ever

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I have just seen an advert during Coronation Street for the triple CD Album “More best worship songs ever”. I JUST DON’T GET IT. And I don’t get it from so many angles. I don’t get many worship songs, in fact I turned to my son in a church service today and asked him if he knew what the chorus was on about. “Nope” he replied with a shrug. He may only be 9 but my response as a 34 yr old was “me neither“. I don’t get them at the best of time, let alone advertising a CD of them. I recognise that many people value and find a help from chorus’ but I don’t get the context, rarely understand the point of singing those words in the context they are being used in. I don’t get how they are “worship” songs or a time of worship. I don’t get coming into the presence of God. I don’t get the lack of resonance with current music culture. I don’t get the all too often acoustic guitar thing, that feels like I should don a cowboy hat. I guess my sister who is a country and western freak might line dance to some, but she wouldn’t get them either. I don’t get the consumerism of many songs. I don’t get the lack of community, I don’t get the individualism or the triumphalism. I JUST DON’T GET IT.

Stop asking young people to believe in God

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I have added another parable in the Youth work tacks.

My mind is still all over the place around the issue of belief. (see the snowed in by God post) As I grapple with the concept and context, the more I think calling young people to “believe in God” is unhelpful. As said before the believe notion means that God may or may not exist. Thinking about the context of when belief is used biblically often the root can be traced back to couple of Greek words (verbs) around agree, make friends or yield. This further connects with the Jewish tradition of making space for God which could well have been the context of the time.

Some may say I am arguing about semantics but if we are asking young people to believe in a modern context are we doing them and us a disservice and setting ourselves up for problems in the long term. If belief implies only the possible existence of God then aren’t we leaving too much space or opening the way for the individualistic gospel and the non wholehearted believer. By changing the language would we change the nature of what we are calling young people towards.

It reminds me of a time we had two young people interested in God. When we explained the elements of the gospel they understood each part, but when we put it altogether and called it becoming a Christian we lost them. They got the concrete parts, God made the world, man screwed up, Jesus was Gods son, and He died in our place. But together that abstract concept of becoming a Christian lost them. In the ended we pointed them to a maze and said once they got to the centre tell God they wanted to follow him a 100%. Through their journey with us they had already realized God was real, but asking them to believe and become a Christian made no sense to them.

Any thoughts about ways to replace notions of believing in God or comments gratefully received as my brain hurts, but I think it is an important issue for us.
The%20Prodigal%20surfer.doc

But I’m Trying to Help!

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It’s Fair Trade Fortnight and in amongst it I’ve noticed how many of us think that it is OK to exploit one person as long as we are doing it to help another person.
A vague example: Church A is doing good for poor people M by supplying them with useful thing T. In order to do as much good for poor people M as possible, Church A is buying useful thing T as cheaply as possible. However, this means that Church A is participating in the unfair exploitation of poor people Y.
Hmmm. This is actually incredibly entrenched in our lifestyles and is not just true of the establishment called church, but is also true of the people called church.
I can’t give a pet solution to this, as the only thing we can do is to be 100% sure that we are doing God’s will. Hopefully an awareness of this issue will help us hear…

In Memory

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I heard over the weekend of David Sheppard’s death. It is with sadness that I reflect on a man, a bishop and lord who helped me be me. A champion of the poor, FYT and the city, his words matched his life, unafraid to speak out. A man of his day who in many ways was ahead of his time, but whose life and words will continue to influence many for decades to come. If you don’t know about him read some of the blogs and tributes but better still read his books.

Is church the rich young ruler?

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I have been doing quite a bit of follow up work on Off the Beaten Track, and as ever when I start doing talks and workshops my thinking develops. I am thankful for community as it helps me think and grow. However I have had a thought that just won’t go away and the more I chat about it the more angles I see.

When I was reading the parable of the rich young ruler the other day I was struck by how Jesus’ word in verse 29 and 30 resonated with John 10v10 “life in all it’s fullness.”
This was my start point for the question Is church the rich young ruler? I could argue the similarities throughout the passage. One issue for me is that like the rich young ruler the church has sought to keep the commands all it’s life, but still we know something is missing, and if we are not demonstrating life in all it’s fullness by keeping these, what is it that is hindering us? What do we need to take off?
Will we get through the eye of the needle as we are?
Do we need to the challenge to go away disappointed for a while so we can recognise where we have gone wrong?
Does our wealth and new initiatives that come and go hide our disappointment to well?
The Rich Ruler
18A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
19“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good–except God alone. 20You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”
21“All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
22When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
23When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. 24Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
26Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”
27Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.”
28Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”
29“I tell you the truth,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.”

In and out of Context – Denmark

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I had a great time in Denmark, the cultural differences were a challenge and I enjoyed the dialogue. It was strange to be speaking in a context where I knew little about the culture but am always on about the need to contexualise the message and methods. If you were at the SALT session and are after resources, most of the stuff is on the right and if you hover the mouse over a dialogue will expalin what is what. If you want to continue the conversation about new forms of church, or have any other issues you want to raise, feel free to post a question in the comments space below.