I watched the video of the America Street Service on YouTube Sunday evening before the Saints did all they could to kill me (my blood pressure was as high as the top of the Superdome Monday afternoon when taken at the back doctor's office; they asked why, and I said 16-14, didn't you watch?).
Music, check.
Sermon dialing in on how to read and interpret Scripture, check.
Sermon done well, check.
PowerPoint done interestingly, if not well also, directing us to Facebook questions they had posed the week before. I thought that was a real nice effect, and the points made by people like Sam Hubbard (who is everywhere, everywhere) a great way to take us the listener even deeper into the questions about how we read, study, interpret, analyze this book of "history versus the literal word of God," as brought to us by the staff at First UMC Baton Rouge and this dazzling new service.
I've, obviously to daily readers or perhaps even the occasional one, been pondering this traditional versus contemporary issue again for various (and many) reasons.
In studying David's (the King one) psalm of thanksgiving from 1 Chronicles this morning -- "O give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples. Sing to him, sing praises to him, tell of all his wonderful works. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek The Lord rejoice," I find that the issue is there.
David, who danced with the best of them, crying out, "When they were few in numbers, of little account,and strangers in the land, wandering from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people, he allowed no one to oppress them; he rebuked kings on their account."
Deep worship. Longing, feeling, emotional, "contemporary" worship. "Sing to the Lord," David says, over and over and over. David didn't mind dancing, remember. Hands in the air. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
That's what we're to do. What isn't found there (or anywhere it seems, which is I think hugely important) is a how to do this. What I mean is, there is how to to sing (what style), how to make known. What I mean is while the Bible is a book of instruction, there is no how to sing (loud, soft, fast, slow, hands raised, hands to the side). There is no how to baptise. No how to participate in the Lord's Supper. You name it, there's a method given at time, many, many times there is not. Why? I believe it's because we're to be led by the Holy Spirit into what and how and where our hearts are led by the Lord. The creativity, the inspiration, the how-to is the Lord's business. We are to connect with him and be led by him.
What are we to make of this, if anything at all?
John Wesley, who was known for having an opinion or two or three (thousand or so), defined worship as the "appropriate honoring of what God had accomplished through Jesus Christ, God's Son."
Wesley -- in most things -- was different in his views about worship from many of his contemporaries.
Worship, he said, "should be both inward and outward." He thought of worship as "an inward service of the heart as well as an outward use of the means of grace."
Let's put it this way. His brother, Charles, was writing worship tunes left and right while John was pondering the service of the heart. I believe there is an inward connection. Charles was writing "contemporary" worship tunes, grabbing and molding and applying John's theology into and onto bar room diddies and such.
"And are we yet alive,
and see each other's face?
Glory and thanks to Jesus give
for his almighty grace!"
And he wrote ...
"Come, sinners, to the gospel feast;
let every soul be Jesus' guest.
Ye need not one be left behind,
for God hath bid all humankind."
And he wrote ...
"O for a thousand tongues to sing
my great Redeemer's praise,
the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of his grace!"
To me, Charles Wesley was the Chris Tomlin of his day, and John was the Louis Giglio, as it were.
Look, John took worship to areas and arenas it had not gone before, stretching into newness, clawing to find ways not to change the Gospel but to change the way the Gospel was presented. He recognized written and structured means of worship, without a doubt, but he saw the beauty and usefulness of a person extemporaneously praying to a Father who sees and hears the same beauty when one reaches deeply within and simply slits a spiritual vein and let the love flow.
Wesley saw worship as a duty toward God, offered in obedience. Though that formality sounds cold and stiff to me, both he and I also see it as a total gift from God, a gift of grace poured out from God to us, to the church.
Heck, in Wesley's time, some worship was open to the public, probably done in fields and such. The Methodists were called the Shouting Methodists for a reason. But there was also private worship, quiet worship, deeply thoughtful worship available
I guess the whole point of this blog is that worship is personal. It is what we give to God, though that thought has been warped somehow into it being what we get from God. Worship was never supposed to be that.
Charles nails it when he wrote, "Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee. "
He found John's theology in the next line..."Israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art; ear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart."
That's contemporary worship.
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