worship

it’s time to engage!

7/10/2006 · 2 comments

in living the life

In response to Alan Creech’s thoughts on Merton (see yesterday’s post), Aimee Milburn wrote an extended comment that she also posted on her own blog. In “Life, Love, and Canon Law,” Aimee offers a thoughtful explanation of the value of liturgy. She writes,

The problem is not the liturgy itself, that we must throw it out and start over. The problem is we don’t know what the liturgy is. The liturgy is, first of all and primarily, interior. It is a deep focusing on Christ… When we stand, we stand in His presence. Kneeling, we kneel before Him on His high throne in heaven, adoring Him. Singing and praying, we sing and pray to Him with all our hearts… The better we know the liturgy, the more it frees us to deepen our interior concentration.

It’s not much of a leap to apply this to other styles and forms of worship. Whatever we do in church is, hopefully, primarily interior and not just going through the motions. It frustrates me greatly when evangelical preachers dismiss liturgy as meaningless ritual (or even bondage) and then teach about the value of Scriptural confessions and prayers. I’m a big fan of praying/confessing Scripture (see, for instance "a prayer for clothing yourself"), and I’ve discovered that the more I pray particular verses, the more I come to understand them–and the more the Word works in me.

For instance, several years ago I started praying the prayers from Paul’s epistles for my wife, Teddie. At the time, I didn’t really know how to pray for her in way that didn’t seem selfish (you know, “God, please change her” while secretly thinking, “to make my life easier”), so I decided that praying the words of the Bible was a wise course. Two things happened as I did this day after day: my heart was changed toward Teddie, because I couldn’t repeatedly ask God’s blessing for her and remain irritated; and, I gained much greater insight into the things that Paul prayed for the early churches. And that changed me, because I better understood my blessings in Christ.

If I understand Aimee correctly, thoughtless participation in the liturgy is what makes it meaningless, not the liturgy itself. The same is true of Scripture prayers, daily confessions, and singing the latest praise and worship song. Each can draw me closer to God, or each can be just words from my mouth.

There’s a scene in The Incredibles where Bob (Mr. Incredible) and his family are eating dinner. The kids are fighting and Helen is trying to break them up. Bob is physically present but mentally elsewhere; finally, Helen shouts, “Bob! It’s time to engage!” I think sometimes the Holy Spirit would speak that to us.

The value of liturgy, prayer, confession, or praise and worship hinges on my heart and my active, thoughtful engagement in the moment. I know people who left Catholicism because they found it empty; I know Catholics for whom the liturgy is deeply fulfilling. Likewise, I’ve been at church where I was actively participating, but I wasn’t engaged at a deeper level, and there have been times when I didn’t participate but was actively engaged. I’ve also realized that I need to be very careful in making assumptions about where others are spiritually based on their activity in a church service. At the charismatic church I used to attend, if you weren’t standing with hands raised high for the entire hour of praise and worship, people thought there was something wrong with you. Thankfully, at Highlands, the pastors openly acknowledge that different people worship in different ways, and the only instruction given is to enter in with all one’s heart. That, I think, is true engagement.

Tagged as: confession, engagement, liturgy, worship

2 comments

it’s good to feel bad

6/24/2006 · 0 comments

in meditations

We can’t worship God without recognizing our woundedness. We have a worship revolution going on in the U.S., but we’re not worshiping. There is no woundedness in it. True worship celebrates God’s worth, and without experiencing woundedness, you don’t know his worth. You don’t have that experience of God’s presence over God’s provision. You experience his worth in the wilderness, not in the picnic grounds. “Amazing Grace” says, “I once was lost, but now am found.” Without that acknowledgment of loss, what do you have to worship him for, unless you’re just worshiping feeling good?–Michael Card

I’m not sure I agree with everything Card says here, but he certainly gives food for thought. I have long believed that we need to have a sense of our own inadequacy to fully appreciate God’s greatness. Emerson says that a mark of wisdom is the ability to distinguish or separate according to quality–in other words, you have to have a low to have a high, adequate or okay to have good and excellent. Likewise, a sense of my own sinfulness allows me to distinguish–and marvel at–God’s holiness. My inconsistency helps me to appreciate God’s faithfulness. Or to put Emerson’s idea another way, it’s foolishness to think that my goodness is on par with God’s.

There’s a reason we don’t want to recognize our woundedness and sin and inconsistency. It hurts. It points a finger. It reminds me that I’m less than perfect. It makes me–oh, horror!–feel bad about myself. And as a culture, we don’t like to feel bad about ourselves.

Undoubtedly some will disagree, but I think feeling bad about yourself is a prerequisite for true repentance. Only after I was confronted with my incredible sinfulness and my utter inability to make lasting change did I come to a full appreciation of God’s love, mercy, and grace. I was caught in an addictive cycle of sin that I couldn’t stop, no matter how much I wanted to. I was miserable, and I realized that I was not nearly so wonderful as I had always thought. At the moment I knew God loved me in the midst of my mess, I fully experienced His grace for the first time. To use Card’s words, I recognized my woundedness.

Here’s where some people get confused: they believe that Christianity requires a perpetual state of feeling bad, and that, perhaps, is why many churches have shied away from preaching that confronts sin or even hints at anything negative. But both are extremes: feeling inadequate all the time belies God’s promise that we are new creations, and failure to confront makes light of the gospel. We have to find a middle ground. And that seems to be a real challenge for most of us.

What helped me most in finding this middle ground (which I have to work to stay in) was understanding the difference between condemnation and conviction. Condemnation says, “You sinned! You’re worthless! Turn or burn!” Conviction says, “You sinned. You know you can be better than that. Let me help you.” Condemnation is a tool of Satan; it’s one of his ways to kill, steal, and destroy, and it separates me from God because it keeps the focus on my problem. Conviction is the voice of the Holy Spirit gently calling me back to what I know is right. Condemnation targets me; conviction targets my sin. Condemnation preys on fear of punishment; conviction reminds me of the Father’s love.

When I learned to recognize the voice of condemnation as the voice of the enemy, I was able to hear the voice of the Spirit more clearly and to respond appropriately–with repentance. Paul tells us in Romans that there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ, but he also says to the Corinthians:

the pain [of being confronted with sin] caused you to have remorse and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have… For God can use sorrow in our lives to help us turn away from sin and seek salvation. We will never regret that kind of sorrow. But sorrow without repentance is the kind that results in death.

It’s good to feel bad about yourself in the right context; it brings perspective that allows for repentance and worship.

Tagged as: condemnation, conviction, Michael-Card, repentance, sin, worship

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“Men and Angels Say”

April 15, 2006

cover of Men & Angels SayAbout a week ago I downloaded Ashley Cleveland’s Men and Angels Say, a collection of hymns. Cleveland is not a well-known name in Christian music; nevertheless, she’s incredibly talented, winning the Grammy for Best Rock Gospel Album in both 1996 and 1999. More to the point for this blog, she’s one of my favorite artists, and this CD has been about the only thing I’ve listened to over the past week…

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rethinking worship

September 2, 2005

I recently searched a stock image site using the keyword “worship.” I got what I expected: white men photographed from behind, their hands upraised. The only thing that changed was the background: a sunset, a church, a white void.

It pains me that a gesture I find personally significant–raising my hands to my Father–has become a cliché.…

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