Check this out. This form of worship expression strikes my chords.
It’s like the meeting place of Scripture reading, public prayer, artistic expression, finely-tuned language, rap, and more.
This first video introduces a woman named Amena Brown and some of her story.
This second video gives you a sampling of what I’m talking about. I hope it blesses you, as it did me.
Here’s one more if this is doing good things for you.
Søren Kierkegaard tells this story…
Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden.
This king was like no other king. Every statesman trembled before his power. No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had the strength to crush all opponents. And yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden. How could he declare his love for her?
In an odd sort of way, his kingliness tied his hands. If he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist–no one dared resist him. But would she love him?
She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? Would she be happy at his side? How could he know? If he rode to her forest cottage in his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her.
He did not want a cringing subject.
He wanted a lover.
A story like that makes me wonder a couple things.
Those times when I’m pretty sure that God should do things another way… could it be that my failure to understand His ways is rooted in my failure to grasp Him as one seeking a lover. Above everything else that He is, He is a one seeking a lover. I mean, the whole story builds upon that supposition.
“Suppose there was a king who loved…”
I’d do well to sit and soak in that phrase for a while. A little self-interrogation might follow: “DO YOU suppose such a thing, Jason? Because you’ve got no shot at syncing yourself with any part of God if you’re off on that first beat.”
I also wonder what it would take to express, with my life, to the world that first and vital supposition–that there is a king who loves. Every time I am made aware of people whose experiences with churches or “religious folks” have spoken messages of judgment or exclusion most loudly, I feel that guilt by association. And to any reader with such experiences, I do offer my apologies for my entire faith family. I have such experiences too, but at least I’m being wounded by my kin.
At this moment, I just find myself wanting to live with a flavour that makes the obvious first line of my story, “Suppose there was a king who loved…”.
Because a opening line like that would HAVE to lead to a great story.
Sometimes (maybe most of the time), I need simple reminders of simple things.
My friend Tim recently linked to THIS blog. Below is a portion that was good for me to read…
On the first day of kindergarten my five year-old son insisted I take him to his class and then stay with him for a while. The other day, half way through grade one, my son left me standing on the sidewalk as he jetted off to meet his friends in the playground.
It used to be that at bedtime I’d read him every word from every story he picked. Lately I’ve been reading some, but he’s started reading to me.
And when he was younger he would absolutely freak out if water splashed in his face in the shower. Last night he washed his own hair and stood face-up in the shower’s full stream.
My son is growing up.
Once upon a time I thought that conversion consisted of a short prayer asking Jesus into my heart thus granting me entry into heaven when I die. Now, however, I think that conversion is a lifelong process of transformation, a journey with Jesus as his Holy Spirit shapes and breaks me into the man God designed me to be. Sure, the process began by saying yes to the way of Jesus for my life, but that was only the beginning.
It used to be that I thought going to church on Sunday meant I was free to indulge my selfish desires the rest of the week. But I’ve been learning that going to church was never the point in the first place; being the church is, and being the church moves me—at glacial speed—toward what’s best for others instead of myself.
I’m growing up. Slowly.
What about you?
“I’m growing up. Slowly.”
There’s a lot of classic words that have been written by people through history. Most of them are words I could never have written.
“I’m growing up. Slowly.”
I could have written those ones.
For the rest of this post, head HERE.
The name of that pretty frost that coats trees in the winter?
No dictionaries allowed. Don’t even think about looking it up!
My wife and I are having a discussion on how people commonly spell (and say) this word. It’s time for THE PEOPLE to chime in, so leave your comment with your spelling of choice.
PS: The first ten responses will be used in a highly scientific bit of research.
I never said all thirty of these would be originals, so let me stitch a few pieces together that my brother-in-law has tossed out there.
Here was recent post of his…
A few months ago I cancelled my bloglines subscriptions to many emerging / postmodern / missional / do-church-different blogs.
Yes, there is a time to criticize, reflect upon and review how things are being done, but it’s just not helpful to sit deeply in that posture for long – you end up stiff, cranky and critical. Better to get up and get busy doing things the the best way that you know how. I needed to be doing.
Just like in many areas of my life, I realized I was educated way beyond my obedience. For now, I’ve read enough about new paradigms, structures and church plants. I know the arguments for mega-church, house-church, wholistic-organic-church and frankly I’m not really convinced that one is any better than another. Sticking the word missional on something doesn’t make it missional. Finding your particular church structure in history doesn’t make you right.
The groups of Followers that I want to learn from don’t write blogs or books about “how it should be done.” They are too caught up in doing it and it’s too messy to fit into a new “paradigm.” I am realizing that there comes a time when a drop of inspiration is much more valuable than a waterfall of education.
Now, I can appreciate a few of those feelings, as I’ve often wondered how anyone (specifically myself) is to make much sense (I mean, actually reach useful points of conclusion) of all the things that are bound to come up over coffee with some of my “wanting to make church better” friends.
So I particularly enjoyed this Eugene Peterson quote, though I have no idea where it’s from (Here points to here, which points back to here, where I couldn’t find it!)…
“What other church is there besides institutional? There’s nobody who doesn’t have problems with the church, because there’s sin in the church. But there’s no other place to be a Christian except the church. There’s sin in the local bank. There’s sin in the grocery stores. I really don’t understand this naïve criticism of the institution. I really don’t get it. Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There’s no life in the bark. It’s dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows. If you take the bark off, it’s prone to disease, dehydration, death. So, yes, the church is dead but it protects something alive. And when you try to have a church without bark, it doesn’t last long. It disappears, gets sick, and it’s prone to all kinds of disease, heresy, and narcissism.”
So to those who spend thought on such things, there are a couple more logs to throw on your fire.