Moving on from the past, present & future worldview that I wrote last week, these are my thoughts on biblical worship:

What is worship?

To worship is to come before God in humility and reverence [1], recognising His ultimate authority and power. In this place of submission, our worship is also expressed in service [2]; our lives laid down as sacrifices to Him. We are to live lives full of love, goodness, wisdom and creativity – all to the end of learning to rule and reign with the living Christ [3]. In choosing to make human beings in His image [4], God crafted us to reflect His nature, back to Himself and to the world He created – given the capacity to love Him because He first loved us [5]. God, in His mercy, has provided a promise of restoration woven into our past, present and future. In Jesus’ death and resurrection, God’s intention for us to be eternally reconciled with Him was made complete. As we respond by laying our lives before Him in worship, He makes us more truly human [6].

What does music and creativity have to do with it?

As we seek to reflect God’s image, we must return to worship to keep this reflection fresh and authentic. As image-bearers of God, we emulate He who is the source of all creativity. Music stirs our hearts. It aids us as we approach Him with high praise, fervent petition, celebration, bold witness, sane wisdom, calls to warfare, intimate abandonment, breaking and healing hearts, prophetic drive, secure hope. God’s people form and are formed from this kind of praise and prayer [7]. Our identity is found, nurtured and celebrated within the place of community [8] and we reflect back to God the new creation He is doing in and through us. As we express our God-given creativity in our worship, it allows us to celebrate Him as He restores us.

How does worship further the Kingdom Story in the world

Worship draws us into God’s presence, His Spirit moves among us and His power is released in us [9]. Through Jesus we are being restored, to become fully alive, glorifying the God whose image we bear. ‘Heaven’ is not just a future reality, but a present one [10] and we proclaim that story through our worship. We declare the truth of the kingdom of God; His rule and reign; the means by which He is renewing and re-creating His people and the world in which we live. We sing the stories which tell of the future that Jesus’ resurrection made possible and of how that future is already being expressed now. Our worship sustains and nourishes our fellowship with one another as we begin to experience glimpses of the communion we were made to have with God in all its fullness and goodness [11]. When we sing ‘Thy kingdom come’…” we are not just calling out for the age to come where God brings to perfection what He began in Jesus. We are also asking ‘…that God’s will be done here, and now, today’[12].

How should all of the above affect how we lead worship as worship leaders?

As worship leaders we need to strive for a vibrant and intimate relationship with God. As we authentically model this submission to Him, we facilitate people giving their lives to God, and God infusing His life into the hearts of His people [13]. We provide a space for Him to move as He so wishes. We express the truth that Jesus rescues us from our terrible situations, heals past hurts, comforts us in our pain and sorrow, transforms and re-creates us, that He is the fulfilment of our hope. We sing of Jesus the liberator, who rescues, who makes as new, better than before. Jesus said He came to ‘proclaim good news to the poor…freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free’ [14]. We must make those words of promise come alive as a living, breathing expression of hope to others –through our worship and through the worship of those who stand alongside us.

[1] Proskuneo – (greek) to bow/prostrate oneself in reverence/humility
[2] Latreuo – (greek) service/sacrifice
[3] Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology: The Nature of Human Beings
[4] Gen 1:26
[5] 1 John 4:19
[6] NT Wright, Simply Christian
[7] Don Williams, Worship Fit For A King, Inside Worship, vol.44
[8] Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology: The Nature of Human Beings
[9] Don Williams, Worship Fit For A King, Inside Worship, vol.44
[10] NT Wright, Simply Christian
[11] Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology: The Nature of Worship (Audio)
[12] GE Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom
[13] Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology: A Theological Synthesis
[14] Luke 4:18

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

Another first for me: my first web video clip:

Pdf of words & chords:I Lay It All Down

This is my response to the Essentials Blue course. We’ve touched on some incredibly deep theology over the past few weeks. The aspects of God’s personality that we’ve looked at – God as creator, God as King, God as Trinity & God as Saviour – have really expanded my vision for who I personally worship and for how I want to express that in my own worship times as well as when I lead others. It has also been a real encouragement to me to explore the creative side of expressing that worship too.

I would love to have been able to write a song expressing all the richness and depth of study I’ve been through straight away, but I think it will take me a while to let it all settle in me and to be able to draw something that measures up to that from my creative well!

What I have done is to write a simple song that is my heart’s response to a theme that has woven itself into my psyche over the last couple of weeks. It is the theme of God as Saviour; the God who acts; the God who rescues. It rekindled in me the remembrance of meeting God for the first time, realising that He could and would change me, that He offered me a new hope – and then how I responded to Him; just laying everything down in surrender and submission, embracing the truth that He is the source for all I need.

I’m not used to writing and revealing a song so quickly! I normally write and re-write for a few months, then tentatively trial it in housegroup, back for another re-write, and if it works in housegroup and a few larger meetings, I then give it a go with everyone on a Sunday morning. As I only wrote this yesterday, it is a very fresh & untested version!

So please allow for the fact that it probably needs a few re-writes and actual experience of playing it with others before it becomes a polished worship song…

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

This week I was thinking about how Jesus engaged with contemporary culture, where the most current questions of the human spirit were both heard and listened to, and then met with the even more beautiful questions of faith.

It reminded me of a passage by Tom Wright based on the Beatitudes, at the beginning of Matthew 5. In this, he responds to each of Jesus’ statements by questioning how we can make them a reality. (I have paraphrased slightly).

For the poor in spirit; what can the church do, not just say? For those who mourn; how can we be God’s agents in bringing that comfort? For the meek; how can the church stand up for their rights? For those who hunger and thirst for God’s justice; how do we stand alongside them until they receive it? For the merciful; can we model mercy by visiting the prisoner and welcoming the prodigal? For the pure in heart; how do we ourselves become refined by His purity? For the peacemakers; will we stand in the middle to resolve conflict? For those who are persecuted for Jesus’ sake; do we support them and further their message by insisting the true revolution begins at the foot of the cross?

For me these are beautiful questions, if rather uncomfortable ones. They are not questions that are easily resolved but their beauty lies in the fact that, in asking them, we find ourselves drawn to action – not just words. Questions such as these prepare the heart and mind. We begin to view the world around us differently and look for the times where we can act and make a difference; how we can worship God through our actions.

The beauty of the questions is not that they are unanswerable, but that in seeking to answer them we are drawn to asking more questions of God and of ourselves. When we are inspired by Him into action, we reveal His glory. We join with Him in bringing rightness to the world He created.

Tom Wright, For All God’s Worth (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company) 1997

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

Here is a brief reflection on some of the theological ideas related to God’s nature, His purpose in the world, and the role of human beings that I’ve been studying over the last few weeks on the Essentials Blue course:

God is the original and complete source of creation, justice, community and salvation. In choosing to make human beings in His image, [1] God crafted us to reflect His nature, back to Himself and to the world He created. All creation responds to God in worship but, as His image bearers, He has instilled in us innate beauty and value [2] and the understanding of why He is worthy to be praised. [3] Beyond merely recognising His superiority, we have the opportunity to invest in our song a deeper melody that resonates with the intimacy of relationship He offers us. With this comes the responsibility to live lives full of love, goodness, wisdom and creativity – all to the end of learning to rule and reign with the living Christ. [4]

The breach in relationship in the Garden of Eden resulted in us becoming broken, fractured images of our creator. In our human imperfection we always fall short of our holy intentions. God, in His mercy, provides a restoration promise that is woven into our past, present and future. He has been pursuing us throughout the biblical story: ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ [5] That love has been a constant through all the times of separation and reconciliation with God throughout our history. In Jesus’ death and resurrection, God’s intention for us to be eternally reconciled with Him was made complete. This pivotal point in our eternal narrative is where God’s intention in creation was finally fulfilled, that His kingdom would come and His will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. [6]

At this point, the present and future move of God to right all that is wrong in this world began. [7] Instead of the presence of God residing in the temple, Jesus’ resurrection was the point where Heaven and Earth came together once and for all. [8] The kingdom of God; His rule and reign; is the means by which He is renewing and re-creating His people and the world in which we live. We play an active part in this because His Spirit dwells within us; [9] therefore Heaven and Earth meet in us. We are the agents in bringing His future Kingdom into the present.

Human history will resolve itself in fulfillment of our hope for shalom wholeness. Through Jesus we are being restored, to become fully alive, [10] glorifying the God whose image we bear. All things will be made right again. The unlimited intimacy of Eden (which we glimpse but fleetingly in the present) will be restored. We will know a new, amplified, glorious expression of our shared community as human beings; the communion we were made to have with God in all its fullness and goodness. [11] And until that day, we worship, and pray, and work, and proclaim, and celebrate. [12]

[1] Genesis 1:26
[2] Jean Vanier (Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology, The Nature of the Human Being (New Brunswick, Canada: Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St Stephens University) 2008)
[3] NT Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (San Fransisco: HarperCollins Publishers) 2006
[4] Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology: The Nature of Human Beings…
[5] 1 John 4:19
[6] Tom Wright, For All God’s Worth (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company) 1997
[7] Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology: The Nature of Human Beings…
[8] NT Wright, Simply Christian…
[9] John 14:17
[10] Irenaeus of Lyon
[11] Dan Wilt, Essential Worship Theology: The Nature of Worship (Audio)
[12] Tom Wright, For All God’s Worth…

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

I read a passage by Dan Wilt this week, on the Nature of the Human Being. In it he described the early Celtic Christians’ approach to community: they welcomed people into their family by offering them the chance of Belonging, Behaving, and Believing – in that order, which is the important bit.

They received newcomers gladly into their community and understood that ‘years of friendship with (them) and the presence of the Holy Spirit opened the way for real change’ in how they behaved. The end result of this process would hopefully be that they came to believe in the God whose holy Spirit was woven into their relationships and actions.

I love this beautiful example of a right approach to community and sharing faith with others. There is a sharp contrast between this and the more often seen approach in modern churches, which is: at the point of profession of belief we give someone a list of rules for how they should behave, before allowing them to eventually belong, if they keep to the rules.

Personally, the Celtic Christian approach resonates a lot more strongly with me. Although you may not get the quick wins and rack up the number of ‘members’ initially; the long-term fruit is many people whose lives are deeply filled with the Holy Spirit, in word and deed.

I was thinking about how this might affect our approach to leading worship.

If we are assuming that the people we are leading are all at different stages of following Jesus (from guests who knows nothing of Him, to those who would profess a deep faith and relationship with Him), this means we need to reassess how we do it.

We need to model the grace and acceptance of Jesus in the way we lead. Practically, things such as explaining what we’re going to do, why we’re doing it, what might happen (in terms of spontaneous singing, speaking in tongues, etc), giving people the freedom to stand, sit, kneel, dance, without being self-conscious – all reduce the possibility of there being a clique who know all the actions, while the others watch mystified.

In terms of the songs we sing, there is something to ponder here too. Should we also reflect this process of belonging to believing in our worship times?

I think there is definitely a place for songs that affirm our sense of community, while acknowledging that God is the reason we are gathered together. Also for songs that talk about the desire to do what is right, and call on the Holy Spirit to change our hearts and minds, in the context of supporting one another as a family.

I am also led to consider NT Wright’s teaching in the context of our songs that declare truth and profess our faith. He states that ‘worship makes you more truly human’; we grow nearer to being ‘fully alive’ as someone made in the image of God. This is a process, not just a one-click transformation. As the Celts viewed behaviour and belief to be things that grew organically, in community, maybe we need to also reflect that continuing ‘new creation’ at work in our lives – in our songs.

Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology, The Nature of the Human Being (New Brunswick, Canada: Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St Stephens University) 2008

Tom Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (San Fransisco: HarperCollins Publishers) 2006

In part of her response to the question of what does it mean to be a human being, Cindy Rethmeier wrote: “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melodies in our hearts to God (Ephesians 5:19) connects us to him and to each other and makes us more fully alive”.

The idea that we grow towards Him and towards one another as we worship together really resonates with me. It reaffirms the responsibility we have to worship as a body; holding the tension between those who find it easy to worship and could sing forever; and those who find it really hard.

I am still working at the challenge of trying to engage with as many of the congregation as possible. I desperately want us to be a ‘body’; and to come together in unity. The more His Spirit weaves us together, the more we can express His ‘new creation’ to those in our community who don’t yet know Him.

Fully Human – What Does It Mean To Be A Human Being? Begin to define what it means to be human. In a sense, we’re exploring who it is that we lead into worship.

What does it mean to be a creative being?

Jewish tradition speaks of a God that is continuously creating the world, continuously speaking the words ‘Let there be light’, as if God were to turn His attention away from the universe for a moment, it would all disappear. [1] God is not distant from the world. ‘Not even a blade of grass moves without God as its mover.’ [2] This is reflected in our drive to create new things, to restore the old. We imitate our maker as we seek to create that which reflects our personality. The creative process in our worship allows us to celebrate Him as He restores us. Worship makes us truly human, [3] like an old painting being restored; shadows, stains and accumulated grime cleaned away to reveal the vibrant colours and hidden treasures beneath.

What does it mean to be a relational being?

A sculpture reveals the artist’s personality in its design and creation. The raw material it has been created from also gives it definition. So the expression of community found in the Trinitarian God is reflected in our desire for connection, but we are also defined by our earthiness; the dust we were created from links us to one another and to His creation. Our identity is found, nurtured and celebrated within the place of community, [4] but that community needs to retain its connectedness to the world surrounding it. The knowledge that God, through His Spirit, will remake all creation [5] gives us motivation to care for wildlife our environment and the life within it; recognising this as a Godly attribute.

What does it mean to be a just being?

God gave man the right to ‘fill the Earth and subdue it’. [6] That aspect of our nature has been reflected throughout history, although in varying ways. Our broken nature has resulted in many ruling and conquering in their own name, declaring they are the ultimate authority. When we truly reflect His nature we recognise His authority as stewards of this good world that He created. [7] We seek to recognise the king of kings and this gives definition to our natural tendency to lead; we walk under the weight of His influence. We have within us a yearning for justice [8] and, as we draw nearer to Him, it leads us from a desire for dominance to a desire to see the world put to rights.

What does it mean to be a spiritual being?

No matter how much we suppress it; there is within us an inherent spirituality, a natural longing for something more than just our concrete, physical world. As a salmon is impulsively drawn to return to its place of birth, we have within us an instinctive pull to the source of our spirituality. Man seeks mysticism in many ways, knowing he is incomplete without it. Once we choose to receive Him into our lives, God places His Spirit in us. [9] He offers us, through the Spirit, the gift of being at last what we know in our bones we were meant to be: creatures that live in both dimensions of His created order. [10] The quest for spirituality is a search for that coming together of heaven and earth; reconciliation with the God whose image we bear.

[1] Torah for Dummies, Arthur Kurweil, 2007
[2] Rabbi Baal Shem Tov, (Torah for Dummies, Arthur Kurweil, 2007)
[3] NT Wright, Simply Christian
[4] Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology: The Nature of Human Beings
[5] NT Wright, Simply Christian
[6] Genesis 1:28
[7] Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology: The Nature of Human Beings
[8] NT Wright, Simply Christian
[9] 1 Corinthians 6:19
[10] NT Wright, Simply Christian

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

I have been thinking a lot this week about how I approach leading worship in my local church. There are so many different, wonderful ideas about theology and practical issues that I feel our congregation need to address. I’m struggling with the balance between responding to how we want to express our worship from our current situation and perception of who He is; and yet also recognising that our theology needs to grow and our understanding can be challenged through the songs we sing.

It can sometimes be easy to begin to ask God, “how do I get them to ‘do the stuff’? Will it work if I sing it ‘just right’? What’s the best melody to get the point across? How do I plan the perfect setlist, that will suddenly have everyone shout out ‘yes, I see it now!’ Can You show me, Lord, what me & my guitar need to do to transform our church?”

Tom Wright responds to this kind of thinking by saying that so many of our questions to God are rather like someone asking ‘Is yellow square or round?’ We don’t always get a clear answer, because our questions don’t always make sense.

Are we asking the right questions? Should we even be asking questions? Sometimes we find answers to the real questions when we stop talking and when we listen to Him.

Rather than pushing people to do the things that we believe God wants them to do, rather than telling them what they should believe, maybe we should guide them gently into His presence and allow Him to graciously lead us.

Rather than standing at the front telling people all the things they should be doing, should we sing of the Hope that He brings and allow space for them to catch hold of His vision.

How can I make this happen through how I lead worship?It’s about being authentic, so that the actions I do back up the words I sing.

Leading worship is so much more than playing the guitar and singing songs for half an hour on a Sunday. It’s about the other 10, 050 minutes of the week. How do I live? Am I walking alongside my friends and peers, both inside and outside the church, living a life that reflects what I believe? Do my actions demonstrate worship? Does the integrity of how I live reinforce the words I sing in that other 30 minutes of my week?

Tom Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (San Fransisco: HarperCollins Publishers) 2006

Again I found another essay response by Rob Byrne inspiring, this time to the questions on the Nature of God.

He used this great image of our church providing ‘anchor points to our culture’. It reminded me of where NT Wright wrote about what the church can be:

“…a place of welcome and laughter, of healing and hope, of friends and family and justice and new life. It’s where the homeless drop in for a bowl of soup, and the elderly for someone to chat to. It’s where one group is working to help drug addicts, and another to campaign for global justice. It’s where you’ll find people learning to pray, coming to faith, struggling with temptation, finding new purpose and a new power to carry it out. It’s where people bring their own small faith and discover that when they get together with others to worship the true God, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.”

Rob then described how Jesus the Saviour “…comes out into the wild storm to find you, to take you by the hands and to lead you back into the warmth where you will find connection” – it brought me to tears. It’s such a beautiful way to express the hope He provides.

Part A: How has your understanding of the theological phrase, the “Kingdom of God” been challenged/shaped by this section of Simply Christian?
Part B: What particular theological idea (within one of the four theological ideas on the Nature of God presented in Dan’s material) do you believe has the most importance for the next 10-20 years of worship leadership? Why?

Part A: Throughout this passage, NT Wright uses the phrase “the place where heaven and earth meet.” I realised that I have viewed this relationship between “God’s space and our space” in a similar way to a Venn diagram; where it’s only in the overlap of the two circles that God meets us, leaving me with the subconscious assumption that there are areas where God cannot reach us, and vice versa.

For NT Wright, the two spaces exist alongside each other: “they overlap and interlock in a number of different ways” – it is not that we have to travel to a certain place to meet Him, or that He has to travel to a special part of Heaven where the walls are a bit thinner to reach through to us. It is that God has the capacity to reach from the Heavenly dimension to us at any time, in any place.

It frees me to recognise the truth that His Kingdom is not something we just seek on a Sunday during 30 minutes of singing, but that it’s a present reality wherever I am; at the bus stop, in the sandwich shop, at the school gates etc. I am challenged to live my life in the reality that “in Jesus…heaven and earth have come together once and for all”.

2 Cor 5:17 tells me that I am a new creation. This underlines Wright’s assertion that “Heaven is not just a future reality, but a present one” – God’s kingdom is present, transforming me and working through me.

Part B: I think the aspect of the nature of God that stands out for me is ‘God as Saviour’. Rather than focusing on the idea of being saved ‘from’ sin, Dan Wilt writes that we should ask “to what have we been saved?” This looks to the Hope that we have in Jesus – a hope that is resolved in ‘Shalom’ wholeness.

If our worship reflects that Jesus rescues us from our terrible situations, heals past hurts, comforts us in our pain and sorrow, transforms and re-creates us, we proclaim that He is the fulfilment of our hope. It also encourages and empowers those in the Church to go out and share a clear message that is relevant to the secular culture, without all the overtones of guilt and condemnation that are associated with a distant God. This is the message of Jesus the liberator, who rescues, who makes as new, better than before.

I see the other aspects of His nature resonating through this: the Creator reflected in the new creation / the re-creation of those He rescues; the Triune God bringing the lost and the lonely into community with Him and His people; the revelation of His Kingship as He reveals His authority through His redemptive power.

When Jesus says He comes to “proclaim good news to the poor…freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4), it stirs me to make those words of promise come alive as a living, breathing expression of hope to others.

NT Wright, Simply Christian (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers) 2006
Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology (New Brunswick, Canada: Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephens University) 2008