Here Piper warns against the tendency (especially of "Reformed types") to idolize the loving of God rather than loving God himself. It's a crucial distinction to make, and one that I have not lived by with much dedication till now. A very valuable warning -- one that hits me with particular force in this season of life.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Summer-Sojourning, and Doing Church American-Style
I sat down in a huge, modern sanctuary this Sabbath morn to find a hymnal in the pew. I was ecstatic. Though there were two large video screens and a drum-set, a few guitars, and some other accoutrements of postmodern American evangelicalism littering the stage of College Avenue Baptist Church, the hymnals were a good sign, I thought to myself.
There was music being played as congregants shuffled in to the massive space, and it was hymnic enough. Ah, but then, a full ten minutes after the supposed 10 a.m. starting time, a loud, booming voice suddenly filled the sanctuary. I squinted to see who it was. The piano player, it turns out. He introduced himself, still sitting at his instrument, as the pastor for worship and creative expression--or something like that.
Uh-oh. They do creative expression, I thought. That scared me a little. I'd found this church through the online directory of Converge Worldwide--the former Baptist General Conference. (Think Piper's Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis.) I figured it was a good way to find a church while I'm summer-sojourning here.
Eying the rather unfriendly family sitting next to me, none of the members of which ever even seemed to consider looking to their left to greet me, I sank into my long stretch of pew space while announcements and other brightly colored slides were projected onto the suspended screens. (For some reason, hardly anyone ever sits near me when I go to a church alone. It must be the fangs.)
The music began right away. Standard modern fare--Hillsong, Chris Tomlin, and the like--and not one invitation to crack open the old hymnals. Odder still was the fact that no one was singing aloud. Over five or six long worship songs I hardly heard a peep from anyone around me. Most stood there looking like zombies, young and old (something I call the Californian condition). There was no Psalm 5:7 or 29:2 kind of worship happening. I consequently felt as though I was singing through a megaphone and tried to quiet myself down.
I started to realize in that moment that in my six months abroad I'd become thoroughly accustomed to the British church experience. Britons are not typically shy in singing, even if their voices tend not to be the most polished or smooth I've heard. They sing with gusto, with full dedication to and comprehension of the words. And, more than this, they sing hymns! Some Tomlin and Redman and Townend are peppered in, but, at least at St. Ebbe's in Oxford, the standard songs were those good, old, solid, meaningful, soul-deep, Psalm-based hymns the church has been singing for centuries.
Back to America, and the music seems so shallow in comparison. God is love, God is mighty to save, Jesus, Jesus--and more apparently empty praise heaped up. I don't mean to sound needlessly judgmental. My point, which I realize I've not yet really made, is that it's far from a meaningless, irrelevant critique. If man is indeed made for worship, then just how man worships is in fact of paramount importance!
This morning the worship seemed less than worshipful. The lead pastor made a good effort in trying to get congregants involved and participating, running through aisles to meet visitors, who were asked to put their hands up. (No, I didn't; I was much too embarrassed.) Yet, despite these earnest efforts, the throngs of worshippers had little to say, little to sing, little to write down during the sermon.
The greatest irony, speaking of the sermon, was that the pastor preached through the passage in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount where he outlines how not to pray and then how to pray. I'm not sure anyone was listening. I looked around to find most people whispering to one another, or sitting still with eyes glazed over as if watching late-night TV. No one seemed to really be desiring God. It was incredibly bizarre. (And no, there's really no happy ending, or some great twist at the end of my story.)
All I can say, as I reflect back on the experience, is that we ought to learn, as culturally American Christians, from our brethren in culturally less hospitable places (like England or, I imagine, any number of distant sites). Where Christianity is less embedded in the fabric of daily life is where Christians are forced to consciously choose faith and choose Christ and choose to be bravely countercultural. As for us, in the well churched (over-churched?) regions of this strange land, where we are so free from stigma and persecution, we need to remember to one another what it means to give over one's life, wholly and without reserve, to the One who in his sovereignty and grace has chosen to redeem sinful, irredeemable us. If we sang more hymns perhaps we might recall and see more clearly the jagged lines and messy sacrifices involved in faith and begin to notice the folly and unreality of a clean, sanitary, smoothed out, strangely passionless, reverenceless, aweless, Gospel-less evangelical way.
Always reforming, indeed.
There was music being played as congregants shuffled in to the massive space, and it was hymnic enough. Ah, but then, a full ten minutes after the supposed 10 a.m. starting time, a loud, booming voice suddenly filled the sanctuary. I squinted to see who it was. The piano player, it turns out. He introduced himself, still sitting at his instrument, as the pastor for worship and creative expression--or something like that.
Uh-oh. They do creative expression, I thought. That scared me a little. I'd found this church through the online directory of Converge Worldwide--the former Baptist General Conference. (Think Piper's Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis.) I figured it was a good way to find a church while I'm summer-sojourning here.
Eying the rather unfriendly family sitting next to me, none of the members of which ever even seemed to consider looking to their left to greet me, I sank into my long stretch of pew space while announcements and other brightly colored slides were projected onto the suspended screens. (For some reason, hardly anyone ever sits near me when I go to a church alone. It must be the fangs.)
The music began right away. Standard modern fare--Hillsong, Chris Tomlin, and the like--and not one invitation to crack open the old hymnals. Odder still was the fact that no one was singing aloud. Over five or six long worship songs I hardly heard a peep from anyone around me. Most stood there looking like zombies, young and old (something I call the Californian condition). There was no Psalm 5:7 or 29:2 kind of worship happening. I consequently felt as though I was singing through a megaphone and tried to quiet myself down.
I started to realize in that moment that in my six months abroad I'd become thoroughly accustomed to the British church experience. Britons are not typically shy in singing, even if their voices tend not to be the most polished or smooth I've heard. They sing with gusto, with full dedication to and comprehension of the words. And, more than this, they sing hymns! Some Tomlin and Redman and Townend are peppered in, but, at least at St. Ebbe's in Oxford, the standard songs were those good, old, solid, meaningful, soul-deep, Psalm-based hymns the church has been singing for centuries.
Back to America, and the music seems so shallow in comparison. God is love, God is mighty to save, Jesus, Jesus--and more apparently empty praise heaped up. I don't mean to sound needlessly judgmental. My point, which I realize I've not yet really made, is that it's far from a meaningless, irrelevant critique. If man is indeed made for worship, then just how man worships is in fact of paramount importance!
This morning the worship seemed less than worshipful. The lead pastor made a good effort in trying to get congregants involved and participating, running through aisles to meet visitors, who were asked to put their hands up. (No, I didn't; I was much too embarrassed.) Yet, despite these earnest efforts, the throngs of worshippers had little to say, little to sing, little to write down during the sermon.
The greatest irony, speaking of the sermon, was that the pastor preached through the passage in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount where he outlines how not to pray and then how to pray. I'm not sure anyone was listening. I looked around to find most people whispering to one another, or sitting still with eyes glazed over as if watching late-night TV. No one seemed to really be desiring God. It was incredibly bizarre. (And no, there's really no happy ending, or some great twist at the end of my story.)
All I can say, as I reflect back on the experience, is that we ought to learn, as culturally American Christians, from our brethren in culturally less hospitable places (like England or, I imagine, any number of distant sites). Where Christianity is less embedded in the fabric of daily life is where Christians are forced to consciously choose faith and choose Christ and choose to be bravely countercultural. As for us, in the well churched (over-churched?) regions of this strange land, where we are so free from stigma and persecution, we need to remember to one another what it means to give over one's life, wholly and without reserve, to the One who in his sovereignty and grace has chosen to redeem sinful, irredeemable us. If we sang more hymns perhaps we might recall and see more clearly the jagged lines and messy sacrifices involved in faith and begin to notice the folly and unreality of a clean, sanitary, smoothed out, strangely passionless, reverenceless, aweless, Gospel-less evangelical way.
Always reforming, indeed.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Joy, and Hymns
I'm in a college Christian a cappella group, but it took being away from a regular rehearsal schedule and immersion in music throughout the week to realize just how deep and undeniable is the impulse and desire within me--and, I'd say, within all of us--to sing the praises of the Lord.
Aside from my weekly dose of hymns at church here in Oxford, I've discovered a great group called Page CXVI. The first thing that got me interested in them was the story behind their name. Page 116 in C. S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew contains the scene in which Aslan creates Narnia out of nothing with a song. Here's the pertinent excerpt:
One of the songs they've recorded is "Joy"--it's not exactly a hymn, but who cares. It's chilling and, at first, a bit confusing. It's a song very obviously about rejoicing, and here it's laden, laced with grief and pain. I didn't quite know what to make of it until I read this (brilliant) explanation.
Aside from my weekly dose of hymns at church here in Oxford, I've discovered a great group called Page CXVI. The first thing that got me interested in them was the story behind their name. Page 116 in C. S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew contains the scene in which Aslan creates Narnia out of nothing with a song. Here's the pertinent excerpt:
In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction is was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.So, to my mind, the group already had the Narnia reference going for them. Yet then I began to listen to their two albums, called simply "Hymns I" and "Hymns II." Their stated goal, one they fulfill with great success, in my opinion, is the restoration to prominence of those good, sturdy hymns of old. They accomplish this by setting hymns to a modern beat. At first I wasn't sure I liked that modernity, but it's grown on me, and now, when I hear one of the hymns they've recorded sung in church, I default to singing it a la Page CXVI--which says something about the catchiness and attractiveness of their arrangements!
One of the songs they've recorded is "Joy"--it's not exactly a hymn, but who cares. It's chilling and, at first, a bit confusing. It's a song very obviously about rejoicing, and here it's laden, laced with grief and pain. I didn't quite know what to make of it until I read this (brilliant) explanation.
When I first wrote, or I should say re-wrote, “Joy” I had no idea the wave it would make. I have received countless emails, questions, and comments on this one song, several with the similar theme of “she sure does not sound joyful to me!” I’ve even had people tell me that they did not finish the song but skipped it because it sounded too depressing and confused them in contrast to the rest of the Hymns record. If perchance you are someone that has not finished the song yet please listen through the end. It would be like starting a story and never finishing it.
The first time I played Joy was the night my father passed away. He had a short and painful battle with cancer. My dad was not perfect but he did the best he could with what he had. A year before he died he was diagnosed with dementia. The day he told me he had cancer he said it was a blessing. To him, cancer was a better way to end his story than a mind with no memory of his family or his life. So as I sat at the piano, the only place that felt safe that night to me, the weight of loss hit my chest. I remembered my eyes were blurred with tears and I literally began to play the now familiar progression of Joy. I kept cycling through the progression and then, as if it had already been written, I began to sing a different melody to a song I sang in VBS as a child, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart…” The truth is that I was terribly and profoundly sad. The reality of grief had not even entirely hit me yet. But at the same moment I had a deep sense of peace. He was no longer in pain. He was no longer sick. He was free from all his ailments and restored. Although I still miss him, I know that God has weaved redemption through death into my father’s story. That brings me great joy. It was not until grief became a part of my story that I realized that joy is not simply an expression, but an attitude and acknowledgment of the deep peace of knowing a Savior.
I believe it is important as a community that wants to comfort the weary we allow space for those who are grieving, suffering, and experiencing loss to say, “Hey! I am hurting! I am in pain!” It is okay to give them space to figure out what joy means in that time.
I now know that you can experience grief and joy simultaneously…and if not, that joy can and will come if you allow it to. I had Joy written without the ending that is on the record for a while. And after I had some time to grieve I remembered the hymn “I t is Well With My Soul.” The author of that hymn lost multiple members of his immediate family when he wrote those deeply wise words. It seemed appropriate to end “Joy” with this hymn in acknowledgement that God brings us peace. He even brings us joy when it seems and feels impossible.
Here's the song.
I heartily commend the rest of Page CXVI's music to you. They'll have you dwelling on the wise, comforting, challenging words of some of the greatest hymns ever penned. (If you want to preview some more of their songs first, you can listen to a few here.)
Also, if you're still in a musical mood, see the new music page I've created (under the "A Joyful Noise" tab at the top of the page).
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