'I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.'
when I began going to church as a teenager, it was in an atmosphere where the word 'worship' carried many tensions. some identified this with songs and music, and in that they very much meant particular types of songs and music, others thought music important, but again it should be a particular type of music, and then there was the third group who pushed for the understanding that worship was way beyond the kind of songs we sing.
I was with the third group, and in my early twenties I got a lot of nourishment going to a BCP (Book of Common Prayer) communion service on a thursday morning, which was half an hour long and had no music. I was fed up of the infighting about which music was really the best way to worship.
I was recently challenged to think of this again by a comment that someone made in response to a statement that it is our lives, the whole of them, that are our worship to God. The answer was 'yes, they can be'.
they can be.
I think that there are a lot of people like me, who lived in a time when the type of music you listened to and worshipped with, determined the type of Christian you were labelled as - spirit-filled or not spirit-filled. This can lead to a baby out with the bath-water response. thankfully I love music (you can't stop me singing, just ask my very frustrated daughter - 'stop singing mum') and I found a way through the minefield of music-labelling that used to go on - still goes on?
but the other side of this is that there are a lot of people, including me, who will be the first to think or say, when it comes to worship, that it is our whole lives that are our sacrifice of worship to the Lord - but it isn't a done deal.
are our whole lives worship to the Lord?
they can be.
I was with the third group, and in my early twenties I got a lot of nourishment going to a BCP (Book of Common Prayer) communion service on a thursday morning, which was half an hour long and had no music. I was fed up of the infighting about which music was really the best way to worship.
I was recently challenged to think of this again by a comment that someone made in response to a statement that it is our lives, the whole of them, that are our worship to God. The answer was 'yes, they can be'.
they can be.
I think that there are a lot of people like me, who lived in a time when the type of music you listened to and worshipped with, determined the type of Christian you were labelled as - spirit-filled or not spirit-filled. This can lead to a baby out with the bath-water response. thankfully I love music (you can't stop me singing, just ask my very frustrated daughter - 'stop singing mum') and I found a way through the minefield of music-labelling that used to go on - still goes on?
but the other side of this is that there are a lot of people, including me, who will be the first to think or say, when it comes to worship, that it is our whole lives that are our sacrifice of worship to the Lord - but it isn't a done deal.
are our whole lives worship to the Lord?
they can be.
1 comment:
They should be.
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