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