expressions of worship....
Here are my thoughts for today….imagine that you were pasturing a church, and a person wanted to read a poem that he or she wrote dealing with his or her struggles with God in a worship service. Now, you read the poem and it was really good, well thought out, but it contains profanity and will offend the congregation even though it deals with human struggles in a raw and honest way. The person is a believer who just came back to the church after years of absence and this person is very unstable both emotionally and spiritually. This means that if you decline or ask to clean up the poem this person would be personally offended. Now would you let the person openly read the poem or would you tell this person to clean up the poem before he or she reads it to the congregation in a worship service?
Now in a worship service, expression of worship in all the forms (eg music, dance, drama etc) should not be discouraged rather encouraged, but do you think that having a poetry reading with colorful language is going too worldly and not God-centered?
posted by Willyz @ 12:02 AM
1 Comments:
Hi Will,
You have introduced good questions and leave it open for people to comment on - I like that. These are good questions and the church has always had some struggles with just how honest and real they should be. I think we mostly err on the side of being too clean in our outward display and too accomodating with certain internal attitudes and habits such as criticism of leadership, greed, and so on. Regarding your comments about Christian music, I once had a conversation with a guy who was determined that only Christian art should be allowed in the church. I asked him, "If I hold up two pieces by artists you don't know, can you tell me by looking at them which is Christian and which isn't?" Other than having a 50-50 chance, no. Personally, I look for things that draw me to contemplate what life is about in that kind of contemplation, I am drawn to consider God. Sometimes that happens with 'Christian' material and sometimes it doesn't. What do you think?
Milton
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