Thursday, March 31, 2005
A couple of years ago I skimmed through an article on musical worship that resonated with me strongly. It suggested that the current practice of musical worship in Churches is not even close to being Biblically necessary. Now I must admit that I normally enjoy singing in Church, sometimes it helps me to worship God, often it helps to generate good atmosphere within a congregation and it normally stops people from just sitting there doing nothing while stuff happens on stage.
But on the other hand I often sing without worshipping, get frustrated by a performance culture in the music, find the words meaningless if meant as a real prayer to God, consider the dodgy theology in many songs, fear the pursuit of music is simply promoting emotionalism and get disappointed with the wars that wage amongst Christians over what music to play. Too old, too young, too fast, too slow, not God-focussed enough, not corporate enough, too loud, too soft, too repetitive – I’ve heard all the complaints. Fortunately I’m blessed with the God-given ability to not really care what the music is like – it’s all the same to me.
For me the best part about singing in Church is that it drums words into your head that I find myself singing during the week, often at strategic times. Alone it can become a great time of prayer and faith for me as I sing an old hymn or occasionally something newer.
I think I would like to have corporate singing that is used regularly when Christ’s body gathers together. How regularly exactly I’m not fussed on. Weekly seems to say that it is essential and stops us from exploring other ways to connect with God. Fortnightly, Monthly, Quarterly? I could be happy with any of these. Surely if we made singing less frequent we would be forced to exercise our God-given creativity and develop new (or ancient) methods of communing with God and each other.
Anyway, I finally found a copy of that article from a few years ago. The author was kind enough to email me a link to it, so I thought I should pass it on. It is quite interesting, but I feel it is lacking a bit due to ignoring Col 3:16 (Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God) and any discussion on possible singing in heaven. Nevertheless, the basic argument seems sound to me. Have a read on http://www.neurotribe.net/blog/2002/03/at-age-of-17-i-took-discipleship.html
Another article I found with a similar bent is http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=601
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But on the other hand I often sing without worshipping, get frustrated by a performance culture in the music, find the words meaningless if meant as a real prayer to God, consider the dodgy theology in many songs, fear the pursuit of music is simply promoting emotionalism and get disappointed with the wars that wage amongst Christians over what music to play. Too old, too young, too fast, too slow, not God-focussed enough, not corporate enough, too loud, too soft, too repetitive – I’ve heard all the complaints. Fortunately I’m blessed with the God-given ability to not really care what the music is like – it’s all the same to me.
For me the best part about singing in Church is that it drums words into your head that I find myself singing during the week, often at strategic times. Alone it can become a great time of prayer and faith for me as I sing an old hymn or occasionally something newer.
I think I would like to have corporate singing that is used regularly when Christ’s body gathers together. How regularly exactly I’m not fussed on. Weekly seems to say that it is essential and stops us from exploring other ways to connect with God. Fortnightly, Monthly, Quarterly? I could be happy with any of these. Surely if we made singing less frequent we would be forced to exercise our God-given creativity and develop new (or ancient) methods of communing with God and each other.
Anyway, I finally found a copy of that article from a few years ago. The author was kind enough to email me a link to it, so I thought I should pass it on. It is quite interesting, but I feel it is lacking a bit due to ignoring Col 3:16 (Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God) and any discussion on possible singing in heaven. Nevertheless, the basic argument seems sound to me. Have a read on http://www.neurotribe.net/blog/2002/03/at-age-of-17-i-took-discipleship.html
Another article I found with a similar bent is http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=601
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Some of my thoughts escaped from my brain and into some emails with a good friend, so I thought I might as well blog them for a record. I’ll skip the emails leading up to the start:
My main email…
A growing belief that Churches as we have them now are God’s plan B for the Church – or maybe God’s plan Z, but human’s plan A. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Church growth almost stopped in the 200s AD when it became legal for Churches to use buildings, and went into paralysis when it became compulsory for them to meet in public buildings in the 300s. If Churches couldn’t afford to buy buildings and pay for pastors, then they would have to meet in more relational groups of 10-60, would need to practice the priesthood of all believers as they couldn’t rely on a professional priesthood (ie you and me) and could focus more on reaching out to the world around them and less on maintaining buildings, services, governance and a thousand other details that we need to do but don’t help us to do our core business.
From the perspectives of the 5 purposes for our lives –fellowship would be real, as we would actually be able to know everyone in our Church, instead of subsisting on superficial relationships with many. Why call a group of people your family if you can’t actually know them? Worship might be more real, as the focus is taken off performance and just music and small groups creatively seek what will help them, worship God best. (Larger groups can go in this direction too, but there is no pressure to do so as the large group worship experience is satisfying to enough people that there isn’t enough momentum to change). Discipleship – the smaller group allows the Biblical pictures of the Church to be practiced, where everyone brings a word from the Lord as they are led, anyone shares a scripture or a psalm – instead of a hyper-organised over-busy “Pastor” doing it each week. Perhaps we could have greater balance as we practiced mutual teaching, rather than being dependant on the heresies of one person. Ministry could be more focused on those outside, as there is less need to have every second attender involved with a ministry inside the Church just to maintain the existing structures. As it is there is a tension between serving inside the Church and outside, and most serving opportunities that are advertised in Churches are inside jobs, not ways of spreading God’s love through action into the world. Mission – with more free time, more opportunities to actually build relationships with the unchurched and less energy sapped in propping up our institutional churches – you’d have to think mission would be stronger if a focus was kept on it. It all seems to work more naturally in a smaller, building-less group!
My friend responded throughout the text above in capitals, and I answered him in lower case after….
WOW - I AM GOING TO HAVE A LOOK THRU ALL MY OLD EMAILS FROM YOU! SOME OF YOUR THINKING HAS CHANGED AND MOST OF IT I LIKE TO BE HONEST - prob since a Neil Cole seminar 18 months ago at sunstate - http://www.cmaresources.com/features/archive.asp
DON'T BE BLINDED BY A NUMBER OF CHURCHES FOR INSTANCE MOST OF THE THINGS WE ARE TRYING TO GET PEOPLE INVOLVED IN ARE INVOLVED WITHOUTREACH IN A DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIP ROLE - EG CRAFT GROUP WE HAVE STARTED AN EVENING ON - THE COMMUNITY LIKES CRAFTS NEVER FINDS THE TIME BUT WE HAVE FOUND ABOUT 20 WOMEN IN THE LOCAL AREA WHO WANT TO DO IT SO WE NEED PEOPLE TO DEVELOP RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM AND UNFORTUNATELY FOR DUTY OF CARE WE HAVE TO HAVE A DESIGNATED LEADER FROM THE CHURCH. OUR COMPUTER CLASSES WE HAVE THE RATIO OF ONE TO THREE SO ONE CHURCH PERSON TO THREE STUDENTS THIS IS TO DEVELOP RELATIONSHIPS AND TO HELP PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY. ETC ETC– they are all great outreaches and I really don’t mean any criticism of them. We do many similar things here and I support them well. I just wonder if we closed our craft groups and sporting teams and instead joined the same things out in the community – surely we would meet many more Christians, build more relationships and they would be more comfortable as they haven’t had to come onto our turf – I wouldn’t die for that point, but don’t think we preserve Church the way it is just for the groups like this we have in it
I AGREE WITH THIS BUT WE HAVE TO ABIDE BY THE LAWS OF THE LAND AND REALISTICALLY THE BIGGER ONE IS PUBLIC LIABILITY NOW DAYS - I dunno. There is no law against Churches meeting in houses (or community halls), and sometimes it is worth taking a risk. It seems to work for house Church movements across the world?
BUT IF YOU FOLLOW THE NATURAL PROGRESSION THE GROUP WOULD GROW AND THEREFORE NEED TO MULTIPLY TO OTHER GROUPS OR RELOCATE INTO AN APPROPRIATELY SIZED BUILDING - I hope so! Church multiplication in practice. The best metaphor I have heard on this is that it is hard to reproduce an elephant – lots of pain, heaps of time and a massive gestation period. Rabits are easy though –short pregnancies and heaps of offspring. Our traditional Churches are like elephants with huge money and time and resources need to reproducer, while a house Church can reproduce faster with no money
AGAIN THAT REALLY DEPENDS ON THE MINSTRY STYLE AND THE PEOPLE AND THE CHURCH YOU CAN STILL HAVE A LARGE CHURCH AND THE TEAM LEADER STILL KNOWS EVERYONE. - I care more about everyone in the family knowing each other than the team leader knowing everyone, otherwise you fall in the trap of the TL accepting responsibility for the spiritual health of each person, when it should be a corporate mutual responsibility that can never be outsourced
PREACH IT - BUT REMEMBER WORSHIP IS MORE THAN MUSIC AND WAY MORE THAN ONE CORPORATE MEETING IT IS A WHOLE LIFE EXPERIENCE. – precisely – and it is traditional Churches with their “corporate worship” that perpetuate the myth!
THIS COULD HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THE NOTION THAT PEOPLE COULD BRING HERESY WITH NO POSSIBILITY OF REPRISAL - possible, but if everyone has the responsibility to hold each other accountable, there is a much higher chance of having multiuple people object if the Scriptures are seen as a top value, than if you say something wrong in a sermon for you to be challenged. Do you really think that you have never preached heresy in a sermon? Has all your theology been right when you’ve preached? Have you been challenged?
THE TENSION OF SERVING IN AND OUTWARD HAS BEEN THE SAME TENSION SINCE THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHURCH AND CHRIST ESTABLISHED THE CHURCH - for sure, I just suspect that with less structures to maintain there is less inward things to worry about – the inward can be simply building relationships with everyone in your Church and helping them when they are in need
REALLY? REMEMBER YOU ARE GOING TO BE HAVING MORE PEOPLE SHARING A WORD - if this comes from the natural overflow of what God is saying to people as they read the Scriptures daily anyhow it may not take any work at all
THE PASTOR WON'T BE EMPLOYED SO WILL NEED TO FIND OTHER WORK TO SUPPORT HIS/HER FAMILY ETC ETC - for sure – and might actually build more friendships in the outside world, be able to identify better with his flock
MORE AND MORE DISGRUNTLED WITH THE CHURCH! (YOUR CHURCH) - nah – I still love my Church and would die for it, but that doesn’t mean passively agreeing with all practices therein
REMEMBER GOD LOVES THE CHURCH - I think God loves the world so much that he would love for it to be the way the early Church practiced it, a way that would best nurture His children and a way that would facilitate mission to the world
ONE DAY YOU WILL BE WITH MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN HEAVEN. – for sure – almost anyone that has influenced me positively in my life, whether in person or by books or sermons – has come from institutional Churches, so huge good can come out of it. But Martin Luther came out of the catholic Church, Alexander Campbell from the Presbyterians and I’m sure a new reformation would not need to be saying that all of the old is bad
(0) comments
My main email…
A growing belief that Churches as we have them now are God’s plan B for the Church – or maybe God’s plan Z, but human’s plan A. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Church growth almost stopped in the 200s AD when it became legal for Churches to use buildings, and went into paralysis when it became compulsory for them to meet in public buildings in the 300s. If Churches couldn’t afford to buy buildings and pay for pastors, then they would have to meet in more relational groups of 10-60, would need to practice the priesthood of all believers as they couldn’t rely on a professional priesthood (ie you and me) and could focus more on reaching out to the world around them and less on maintaining buildings, services, governance and a thousand other details that we need to do but don’t help us to do our core business.
From the perspectives of the 5 purposes for our lives –fellowship would be real, as we would actually be able to know everyone in our Church, instead of subsisting on superficial relationships with many. Why call a group of people your family if you can’t actually know them? Worship might be more real, as the focus is taken off performance and just music and small groups creatively seek what will help them, worship God best. (Larger groups can go in this direction too, but there is no pressure to do so as the large group worship experience is satisfying to enough people that there isn’t enough momentum to change). Discipleship – the smaller group allows the Biblical pictures of the Church to be practiced, where everyone brings a word from the Lord as they are led, anyone shares a scripture or a psalm – instead of a hyper-organised over-busy “Pastor” doing it each week. Perhaps we could have greater balance as we practiced mutual teaching, rather than being dependant on the heresies of one person. Ministry could be more focused on those outside, as there is less need to have every second attender involved with a ministry inside the Church just to maintain the existing structures. As it is there is a tension between serving inside the Church and outside, and most serving opportunities that are advertised in Churches are inside jobs, not ways of spreading God’s love through action into the world. Mission – with more free time, more opportunities to actually build relationships with the unchurched and less energy sapped in propping up our institutional churches – you’d have to think mission would be stronger if a focus was kept on it. It all seems to work more naturally in a smaller, building-less group!
My friend responded throughout the text above in capitals, and I answered him in lower case after….
WOW - I AM GOING TO HAVE A LOOK THRU ALL MY OLD EMAILS FROM YOU! SOME OF YOUR THINKING HAS CHANGED AND MOST OF IT I LIKE TO BE HONEST - prob since a Neil Cole seminar 18 months ago at sunstate - http://www.cmaresources.com/features/archive.asp
DON'T BE BLINDED BY A NUMBER OF CHURCHES FOR INSTANCE MOST OF THE THINGS WE ARE TRYING TO GET PEOPLE INVOLVED IN ARE INVOLVED WITHOUTREACH IN A DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIP ROLE - EG CRAFT GROUP WE HAVE STARTED AN EVENING ON - THE COMMUNITY LIKES CRAFTS NEVER FINDS THE TIME BUT WE HAVE FOUND ABOUT 20 WOMEN IN THE LOCAL AREA WHO WANT TO DO IT SO WE NEED PEOPLE TO DEVELOP RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM AND UNFORTUNATELY FOR DUTY OF CARE WE HAVE TO HAVE A DESIGNATED LEADER FROM THE CHURCH. OUR COMPUTER CLASSES WE HAVE THE RATIO OF ONE TO THREE SO ONE CHURCH PERSON TO THREE STUDENTS THIS IS TO DEVELOP RELATIONSHIPS AND TO HELP PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY. ETC ETC– they are all great outreaches and I really don’t mean any criticism of them. We do many similar things here and I support them well. I just wonder if we closed our craft groups and sporting teams and instead joined the same things out in the community – surely we would meet many more Christians, build more relationships and they would be more comfortable as they haven’t had to come onto our turf – I wouldn’t die for that point, but don’t think we preserve Church the way it is just for the groups like this we have in it
I AGREE WITH THIS BUT WE HAVE TO ABIDE BY THE LAWS OF THE LAND AND REALISTICALLY THE BIGGER ONE IS PUBLIC LIABILITY NOW DAYS - I dunno. There is no law against Churches meeting in houses (or community halls), and sometimes it is worth taking a risk. It seems to work for house Church movements across the world?
BUT IF YOU FOLLOW THE NATURAL PROGRESSION THE GROUP WOULD GROW AND THEREFORE NEED TO MULTIPLY TO OTHER GROUPS OR RELOCATE INTO AN APPROPRIATELY SIZED BUILDING - I hope so! Church multiplication in practice. The best metaphor I have heard on this is that it is hard to reproduce an elephant – lots of pain, heaps of time and a massive gestation period. Rabits are easy though –short pregnancies and heaps of offspring. Our traditional Churches are like elephants with huge money and time and resources need to reproducer, while a house Church can reproduce faster with no money
AGAIN THAT REALLY DEPENDS ON THE MINSTRY STYLE AND THE PEOPLE AND THE CHURCH YOU CAN STILL HAVE A LARGE CHURCH AND THE TEAM LEADER STILL KNOWS EVERYONE. - I care more about everyone in the family knowing each other than the team leader knowing everyone, otherwise you fall in the trap of the TL accepting responsibility for the spiritual health of each person, when it should be a corporate mutual responsibility that can never be outsourced
PREACH IT - BUT REMEMBER WORSHIP IS MORE THAN MUSIC AND WAY MORE THAN ONE CORPORATE MEETING IT IS A WHOLE LIFE EXPERIENCE. – precisely – and it is traditional Churches with their “corporate worship” that perpetuate the myth!
THIS COULD HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THE NOTION THAT PEOPLE COULD BRING HERESY WITH NO POSSIBILITY OF REPRISAL - possible, but if everyone has the responsibility to hold each other accountable, there is a much higher chance of having multiuple people object if the Scriptures are seen as a top value, than if you say something wrong in a sermon for you to be challenged. Do you really think that you have never preached heresy in a sermon? Has all your theology been right when you’ve preached? Have you been challenged?
THE TENSION OF SERVING IN AND OUTWARD HAS BEEN THE SAME TENSION SINCE THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHURCH AND CHRIST ESTABLISHED THE CHURCH - for sure, I just suspect that with less structures to maintain there is less inward things to worry about – the inward can be simply building relationships with everyone in your Church and helping them when they are in need
REALLY? REMEMBER YOU ARE GOING TO BE HAVING MORE PEOPLE SHARING A WORD - if this comes from the natural overflow of what God is saying to people as they read the Scriptures daily anyhow it may not take any work at all
THE PASTOR WON'T BE EMPLOYED SO WILL NEED TO FIND OTHER WORK TO SUPPORT HIS/HER FAMILY ETC ETC - for sure – and might actually build more friendships in the outside world, be able to identify better with his flock
MORE AND MORE DISGRUNTLED WITH THE CHURCH! (YOUR CHURCH) - nah – I still love my Church and would die for it, but that doesn’t mean passively agreeing with all practices therein
REMEMBER GOD LOVES THE CHURCH - I think God loves the world so much that he would love for it to be the way the early Church practiced it, a way that would best nurture His children and a way that would facilitate mission to the world
ONE DAY YOU WILL BE WITH MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN HEAVEN. – for sure – almost anyone that has influenced me positively in my life, whether in person or by books or sermons – has come from institutional Churches, so huge good can come out of it. But Martin Luther came out of the catholic Church, Alexander Campbell from the Presbyterians and I’m sure a new reformation would not need to be saying that all of the old is bad
