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