Blame Kevin Bond. I do not know the guy personally. He probably has never heard of me in his whole life. I know of him through work he’s done with a number of gospel artists as a musician and a producer. More recently, though, I know of him through his Twitter feed @ItsKevinBond.
If I’ve not said it before, I’m saying it now, I LOVE Twitter. I don’t tweet meself that regularly, but I enjoy reading the tweets from the wide variety of people I follow. Kevin Bond has to be one of the best users of Twitter I have come across. Usually he’s tweeting about some God or Church related business. This evening he was on a theme of negative Church Phrases. Reading them made me laugh at how hilariously true they are as well as how sad it is that such phrases are so common.
What also emerged from reading them is something that inspired this blog entry. It is intriguing and very disappointing how the gathering of brothers and sisters can turn into a spectator sport that follows certain rules and misses the point of why we gather. It is a spectator sport when the expectation is for actual participants to be few and the majority are – you guessed it – spectating. It is a spectator sport when the reaction of the crowd is prescribed based on assumptions.
For example at the time where songs are sung these songs have been chosen, practised, rehearsed, arranged, organised to the tee by some of the church cheerleaders. Little room for flexibility and genuine communal decision-making or spontaneity because it’s all about the order. What is required of the spectators are the passion and enthusiasm to sing the songs with relevant feeling. Failure to do so earns a rebuke from the cheerleaders. What this misses out is the reality of communal life. When we come together as brothers and sisters, we come with different issues and varying intensity of burden. Some come out of obligation, just to go through the routine when the heart is worn and weary. Rather than stopping to minister to those in need, rather than focussing on building each other up, the routine says we do the songs, we build the hype, we get told how god is good, we hear preaching and we carry our burdens back home with us.
I don’t knock people’s commitment to excellence in the songs part. Preaching has a part to play. What matters most, however, is a sensitivity to the move of the Spirit to meet the needs of the brothers and sisters and empower them to know they have an active part to play on the gathering. They are not consumers, viewers and observers. They each have something contribute and there is liberty to seek help and healing from the Family of God.
I’m certain that God who inhabits the praises of His people is looking for heartfelt praise, not manufactured praise. Just as He is looking for heartfelt worship, not out of routine or ritual. That comes from a lifestyle that understands praise and worship as more than shouts, hollers and songs lustily sung. Thus the worship in life feeds into gatherings if brithers and sisters eager and keen for god to be experienced among them and through them. This moves far away from church as performance and towards church as life. Real life. Full life. God’s life.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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