Re-Storying (Essentials*Red)

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

What is the role of a worship leader? It seems like my answer to that question has varied over the years, depending on what season you found me in. This quote from Dan Wilt in “Essentials In Worship History” struck me as I read it:

“Worship leaders today must stand up again and again before the people, and routinely retell the same messages – forgiveness is possible, grace is irresistible, resurrection of the faithful is inevitable and new creation is just around the bend.”

One of our roles is to be story-tellers. Given our forgetful nature as humans and broken image bearers, we approach and re-approach the story of God in all of its dimensions and call people to look afresh on it. Often this will seem redundant, but wasn’t it Luther who said he re-tells the gospel week in week out because the people would forget and live as if it weren’t true? Therefore, we must acknowledge our role of re-storying those who come every week (or for the first time). We want to remind them who God is, who they are in Him, and why they’re still here. We repeat it, but perhaps in a slightly different light each time in order to allow others to come to a greater understanding of the attributes and acts of God.

Won’t it get old? Don’t people want the “new thing”? If God’s attributes are infinite, just as his mercies are new every morning, then we should have no problems finding new songs to sing or old songs with newly found fire. We have been, are being, and will be greatly saved, so greatly shall we praise him. Let that praise be spoken with our words, songs, and prayers. We will find that the stories re-told fuel our songs as well as our lives over and over.

The Art of Knowing We're Not Alone (Essentials*Red)

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

This week we looked at the languages of art and music, and how they can be useful in connecting us to each other as well as to God. I’ve found that at times it’s nearly impossible to verbalize how one feels, but a melody might help capture a particular emotion, or maybe a color best describes one’s mood. Maybe you find yourself nearly weeping in a movie because for some reason you identify with a character in the story,or see yourself in a character’s eyes in a painting. Why is that?

Often I find that art steps in when words can’t. Indeed it does bypass much of our critical thinking, and allows us to feel something. In that moment, I’ve come to realize why I value connecting with that piece of art: it reminds me I’m not alone. Others have felt what I feel, although not exactly, for no one has lived in my shoes under the exact same circumstances. When I find something that allows me to say, “That’s exactly what I was trying to say, but didn’t know how,” it allows me to feel understood, less crazy. Others fight with the same battles too, so don’t give up.

This is, in a way, a call for artists to continue to bleed and weep and laugh till you cry onto the canvases we create. Express the deepest emotions and longings and the saddest hues of darkness and brightest shades of joy you can. Tell of the “mundane”, the ordinary, and even the boring. For when those who walk down that same road as you do (either now or 20 years from now) and see or hear or experience your work, they will know they are known.

The Interconnectedness of Baptism and Eucharist (Essentials*Red)

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

In our reading for the week, this was a quote that stood out to me from James White’s book “A Brief History of Christian Worship”:

“Baptism is initiation into God’s new Kingdom of which the Church is a colony on earth. The Eucharist is a lifelong renewal of baptism’s initial foretaste of God’s kingdom.”

Although both are clear Sacraments we participate in (or have participated in), I had never thought about their connection with one another. I love the imagery provided in Baptism of this renouncing one lifestyle (facing the West, symbolic of evil, sin, and satan’s kingdom), and then turning towards the East (symbolic of the dawn, new beginnings, new creation), acknowledging Jesus as Lord, being immersed into our death and now emerging as ones who live for him.

On the same note, as we come to the “table” for Eucharist (be it a couple people holding the elements out for us as we wait in line, an actual table, or a tray we pass around), we acknowledge that this is the only table our souls are fed by. In that sense, we renounce other sources of satisfaction, claiming only the bread and the wine as our sustenance.

I love the idea that the Eucharist is a “renewal of vows” to God. It is a regular turning toward Him. Perhaps we compare Baptism to a wedding, while Eucharist represents the both people now in that marriage regularly “choosing” each other, over and over and over. Pursuit is never a passive thing, always active. Obviously in Baptism and Eucharist, we are reminded that we were first pursued and loved before we could pursue and love! Still, that pursuit of us and that love we feel demands a response. Eucharist is one of the main ways we re-acknowledge our status as “beloved” but also it reminds us to extend that uncontainable love to the loveless.