I ran across two blogs this morning, right after each other, talking about the music we tend to use in contemporary worship services. One from Brian McLaren (via Deep Calls to Deep) and the other from SM Hutchins (via Christian Computing and GetReligion).
There is a lot of food for thought in both those. They tell how worship has become mostly about "me" instead of God, how it's been "eroticized" and made almost sexually intimate instead of being a connection to God's unfathomable greatness and grace.
It's going to take a lot more mulling over, but I can see where the authors are coming from on this. We tend to have the same sentiments and expressions repeated over and over, from various songwriters, that give us an experience or emotion, but may not be actual God-worship. Sensual and sensational but not deeply connecting to God.
As a worship musician, I've recently struggled to connect to God during the "worship" (music) time at church. The time I connected best was in a few minutes of absolute silence and opening to God. A complete change from the musical noise we do usually. Tears poured down my face as I felt Him fill me up. The last time I felt God come near was while playing an instrumental piece with an acoustic guitar - me just providing a background to a gifted musician who made his guitar sing. No words. Just space for God's words to come near.
Without really knowing it, the way we've been worshipping, what we've been saying and doing, is a contributing factor to me stepping out to see what God can do in me outside the church. At the last few worship committees a lot of what has been said has bothered me deeply. I don't dare say what I feel though. I can't upset that apple cart - because what's presented seems to be what the people want, and what the worship team is willing to cater to.
But is is really about what the people want? Why are we trying to please the critics or placate the ruffled? Where is the whole aim of our worship gathering in this - where is God? We have endless discussions about hymns and Hillsong, Vineyard and soundsystems, lights and irreverance. I truly think we're missing the point completely!
Even though I love playing with the worship band/s, and am going to miss my bout of piano-bashing, I want with all my heart to know and learn true worship, unencumbered by tradition, by a larger group, by trying to please the crowd, by worrying what people think. I want that connection, to feel God so close, to be free to express in my own way my own worship.
I read a story recently that says this so eloquently. A story of a songbird who worshipped God every morning with the most beautiful voice, in her own unique way. A songbird who ended up in a music ministry through other animals telling her she had been blessed/created/gifted for this, travelling the world weighed down by her books, CD's and ministry materials but losing her voice and forgetting how to worship God. A songbird who found an incredible flower growing in obscurity in a canyon, and learned from it that it's only ministry was to God, not to others - and who dropped all her ministry paraphanalia right there to relearn her adoration of her Creator.
A songbird who I can relate to.
This is only one part of the journey I'm on. But to me it's a very essential part. Perhaps one I've never truly discovered, and one I can't wait to find out more about.
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