Wednesday, November 21, 2007

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.