Languages of Worship - How Do You Speak to God?

If I were to collect my thoughts and add the thoughts of others into a compilation I think it would maybe flow something like this:

Ch 1 - Introduction - When Babel Babbled - a look at language and the infiniteness of different spoken languages, and a God who can speak them all fluently

Ch 2 - Worship as A Language - worship is all about communicating from our hearts to the heart of a living God - how do we 'speak' to our Creator? What language do we use?

Ch 3 - 8 - One voice, different language - each chapter would address a different suggested Worship language and look at their biblical origins - Raucous Praise, Quiet Contemplation, Reflective Adoration, Physical Offering, etc etc

Ch 9 - Corporate Cacophony or Symphonic Melody? - how do we come together in our congregations and bring a symphony of praise in all these different languages and glorify the One who our worship is for? How do we speak many worship languages at one time during corporate worship and how should worship leaders prepare the greatest phonics class of the week in a Sunday morning service?

Ch 10 - Final Thoughts - whatever they may be


Who knows, some day this may even become a reality and not just some late afternoon ramblings.

We will see

Jason

Worship Languages - Part Deux

I haven't totally abandoned the idea that I began in my last post, but pressures of work and time commitments have limited my blogging time. I have had a few interesting chats with some folks on this idea of worship languages and even did a quick recce around t'internet to see if someone much wiser than me had already developed their thoughts into cohesive prose. I was unsuccessful in my search but did find that other people have at least had the same thoughts.

So I reckon I should continue to mull the concept over some more and see what brews.

A week or so ago I went out and bought a 2004 DVD of Delirious and Hillsongs live in Sydney. I sat down to watch it and enjoy some truly awesome worship when my three year old daughter sat up in her chair and asked, "Why is that man singing one of my songs?" True enough, the 2nd or 3rd song in the set was 'Free' by Marty Sampson which my daughter referred to as one of her songs because it is on one of the Hillsongs Kids worship albums.

I love the Hillsongs Kids stuff, it is tremendous, but I had mentally noted all of the songs that they do as being 'kids' songs - and therefore not really that useful in adult worship services. Yet here were 20,000 people all dancing and singing to this 'kids' song. How can this be? Maybe the kids worship music is another language - or the songs that we sing in our Sunday Schools and youth/children's ministries are just done in a language that our kids can connect with. My three year old had already claimed 'Free' for all tots everywhere - she spoke that language, she understood that language, she was a little upset however that the 'adult' version did not have the same actions as the 'kids' version.

This was a new language, a language where praise and worship from the mouths of little children was accompanied by the abandoned freedom of expression through movement. Could a child's worship language be not just wrapped up in the words that they say but also in the actions that they do to bring the words to life?

How bizarre a thought - yet even in adult worship settings we are seeing more and more physical expression through the creative arts and dance. I am not talking about the charismatic hop either, that hop on your right foot twice then hop on your left foot twice excuse for dancing that so many rhythm less white guys try to pass off as dancing. I wonder if we can learn from the kids a bit of their language and begin to allow our bodies to worship God. Now I know what you are thinking, the last thing you really want to see is a 300lb grown man in a tu-tu giving it a bit of Swan Lake to "All for Jesus'. A visual like that could seriously damage a church, but maybe, just maybe it is time that we involved our whole bodies in our worship and do some of the things that we say in our songs. Maybe it is time to bow down when we sing lines like "we bow down", or to raise our hands when we say we will do it in our songs. Maybe if we did the little things that involved action then we would be more prone to 'dance upon injustice' when we sing lines like that.

Just a few more thoughts. I am sure more will come.

God bless

Jason

Worship Languages

I started thinking today about the way we worship in a corporate setting like church. In pretty much every church on the planet there is a wide and diverse section of the population yet in each church for a short amount of time each week these diverse groups come together and worship Jesus. Gary Chapman wrote a book looking at what he described as Five Languages of Love. In that book he identifies 5 ways in which spouse relate to one another and how each person will have a tendency to respond in one way more than the others. For instance, if your language is Gift Giving and your spouse speaks in the language of Physical Touch then your spouse may prefer to hold your hand than get a ring to wear on their hand.

As I have thought about this today I have been mulling over in my mind the idea that maybe we have different worship languages. I am not talking about spoken languages, earthly or heavenly, but about relationship worship languages. I dont have a complete list yet, but what if there are people who speak a worship language of Quiet Contemplation, and others who speak, Raucous Praise, and others who speak the language of Scripture Recitation, and still others who speak Silent Reflection?

My thoughts havent progressed too far with this idea, however I think over the next few weeks I will continue to pray and seek God and see what insights He can bring. I have spent time today wondering if we do speak different worship languages then how can we bring a diverse group together in one place to worship our God. Is there a way to speak as many different languages at the same time or using the same style of worship or do we need to speak different languages for short periods of time each worship session?

I'll continue to pursue this over the next few weeks and see what develops.

Walking Up Escalators and Other Human Phenomena

I regularly ride the Metro to work. It is a fascinating place to spend time. I must confess that my early morning commute is usually one filled with sleep and, I am sure, occasional snoring. Having said that, there is an interesting thing that happens each morning once we depart the train. There is a short escalator ride up from the platform to the ground above. But this is an escalator ride with rules - laws that must be obeyed lest you suffer the glares and tuts of other metro riders who obviously passionately follow the rules. The rules are simple - if you want to stand on the escalator then you are confined to stand on the right. The left side must remain open for all those people who want to walk up the escalator. Now I don't know the person who invented the escalator but I am pretty certain that the idea of moving stairs was so people would not have to actually move their legs and climb the stairs. Maybe it is just me, but have our lives become so time pressed that we cannot stand on a stair tread that will raise us to our destination in a matter of moments? Do we feel the need to rush ahead and climb an already moving stair case? What is the hurry?

No doubt my observations are just a minor amusement to many, but how many of us have been asked by the Lord to just stand, "Having done all else, to stand..." on our stair tread as He propels us along. how many of us are focused on taking the next step on our own and climbing the escalator to get there faster?

There is something to be said for learning how to rest and wait on the Lord. To walk in His steps and follow His timing.

I wish I could learn that.

The truth is though, I want to learn it quickly and don't want to wait to learn it.

Therein lies the problem.

Jason

The Church's Inside Voice

My dad and I went to the Navy vs Wake Forest football game on Saturday afternoon courtesy of a friend of my dad's. We sat in the Captain's BBQ at a table with two couples whom we didn't know and struck up a conversation. Initially the conversation was about rugby, as one of the guys had a rugby emblem on his shirt. It wasn't too long before our accent was noticed and the conversation switched to us and why we were here and how beautiful Ireland is, yada, yada, yada. However, only a little while into that discussion and a question came that threw me a little bit.

One of the ladies asked me if there was a rise in Islam in the United Kingdom and Ireland. She followed that up with a question basically asking what my thoughts were on how to combat that rise. This was interesting for me because the latest research that I heard suggested that Islam was the fastest growing religion in the UK and that mainly it was the presence of absolute right and wrong within Islam that was attracting people. I brought this idea out and she was intrigued. I decided that I had pushed the boat out far enough now that it was either jump right in or fall in the water. I jumped.

"You need to go back to Abraham," I said, and then I retold the story of Abram, Ishmael and Isaac and talked about the son of the promise. Within about 30 seconds I was retelling my previous Sunday School lessons and explaining the animosity between Islam and Christianity to 4 strangers. I added in my thoughts that the church needed to stand up and present the absolute truths contained in the bible. One couple were all over it, the other were a little less excited but listened along.

At one point one of the gentlemen asked me if I had ever thought of becoming a priest. I laughed. Those few moments discussing the truth with a couple of strangers were the best few moments of conversation I have had in a long time. It was obvious that they understood and even knew the truth of the gospel, but still to have the chance to discuss these things was fantastic.

You know, it occurred to me that at this time for the church to speak the truth will, in some instances here in the US, be deemed a hate crime and punishable by jail-time. Should we therefore hold back the truth or only speak it in times when we know we are safe? I don't think so. As I spoke with these dear people I realised that this is the time when the church should rise up and bring the truth. This is a time when the church should be determining the absolute boundaries of life - based upon God's will and His Word.

I realised that this is definitely a time for the inside voice to come out.

Release Your Inner Monologue

So we have progressed from Xanga, to Myspace, to Facebook and finally we have settled on Blogspot. What an interesting phenomenon this whole blogging thing really is. For decades the hidden inner voice within each of us was confined to our own minds, or occasionally was released into the pages of a well guarded diary or journal. But this is a new day, this is a time when our inner monologue is released, and not simply released to our friends or closest family members, nah, we put it out for all the world to see.

I guess in some ways there is a freedom that comes from releasing frustrations to an anonymous readership, or a non-existent readership. Well, maybe I'll let my inner voice come out a little more regularly through the pages of this blog. One thing you need to know though, there are a jumbled collection of random thoughts wandering the hallways of my mind at any given moment - so I cannot promise what will come out will be logical, understandable or knowledgeable. Just my inner monologue spilling over.

God bless

Jason