Below are some awesome songs that many would expect to be anything, but Christian.
If none are of your interest, at least listen to the Underoath one the whole way through :)
God manifests gold dust during worship.
Wednesday 8 May 2013
That's not Christian...
When I was in Grade 9, I decided to get confirmed at my local church, Nahoon Methodist Church. I'm one of those that was brought up in a Christian home and sort of wandered around aimlessly in this kind of lifestyle. I decided to be confirmed, because my sister had been, two years earlier and it simply seemed like the right thing to do. I cannot say that confirmation was the sole breaking point for me when I realised that I was looking at Christianity as a religion and not as a relationship with God. Because I have had many situations concerning suffering and pain that has showed me God's love. However, confirmation was definitely a part of that and one of the greatest influences that guided me in my confirmation journey, was my youth leader. He was such a typical teenager, even though he was ten years older than me. He was the last of everyone that I expected to be a leader in the church, but it was because of his unconventionality that showed me how cool of a guy, God is. Darrel, my youth leader, showed me that Christianity is not full of rules and demands and that expressing one's love for God through the act of worship can be done in any way that you like. He showed my fellow confirmees and me that God likes it when we put ourselves into our worship and so, if you fall asleep while singing hymns where every secondeth wordeth endseth with the letters "eth" then God is all for you spicing it up a bit :) I've continued to see God in a new light throughout my life. Some odd things can happen when it comes to God: He can manifest gems or gold dust can start falling from the ceiling or appear on people as they are praying/worshiping. A friend of mine asked the His People pastor why God causes these things to happen and the short answer is, cause He can. My dad always tells me that God has a sense of humour and He likes to have fun with us too. The pastor picked up a coin, pressed it against the wall and then prayed. The coin stuck to the wall. When I saw this for myself, I was like "WHY?" Sticking coins on to walls is not going to help anything...but the reality is you can never put God in a box and He doesn't want to box us either. So, if we want to tell God that He is awesome by sticking a coin on to a wall or screaming out his name in our heavy metal band, then He thinks that is just awesome!
Below are some awesome songs that many would expect to be anything, but Christian.
If none are of your interest, at least listen to the Underoath one the whole way through :)
Below are some awesome songs that many would expect to be anything, but Christian.
If none are of your interest, at least listen to the Underoath one the whole way through :)
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Hellooooo..
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that worship should be a LOT more individual-orientated and therefore more unconcerned with image and so on. I think this stems from having a personal God who does not need an institution to be worshipped, so there is no precedent to conform to. That's a good thing.
But this becomes an issue when we look at some people who claim to be worshipping God but are just getting carried away by emotions, or sometimes by an evil spirit. Where do we draw the line? This is something i've been wondering about. Paul writes that worship should be orderly and edify not only the individual, but also the church (1 Corinthians ch. 14, especially v.26-33). And a non-believer should not be put off by seeing Christians worshipping God. What do you think? I really don't know where to draw the line between personal worship and going too far.
Thanks! Sorry for taking up so much space!
Hey Matt :) Thanks for your message and first off, I agree with you. I've always wondered the same thing, you know seeing people on their all fours acting out animals during worship etc. And I guess I got a bit caught up with this when first introduced to this "extreme" worship. Especially since I did not do those things and thought myself to be an inadequate Christian. So, I do not think that any form of worship should be pushed on to another or placed higher than any other. What I am discussing in my post here is that people should worship God in the way that they want to, whether that means painting or dancing or laughing. And we never have to worship God in any particular way, there is a certain time for everything. One verse that I like is Ecclesiastes 3:4 "A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance". God may move you to worship more "orderly" in a certain occasion to not scare off new believers. But other times you may be so moved by God that you just want to be a fool for Christ. An example of this is when David strips down to worship God in 2 Samuel 6, to celebrate the return of the ark of covenant to Jerusalem. I think that David is just so excited and humbled here that this his is way of expressing joy. His wife was super upset with David and did not understand his reasons for acting like a fool, but God was pleased with David because his reason for worshiping God in that way was pure and ONLY based on God, nothing else. So, I think the line is drawn when the focus is not on God. If the main focus becomes the gold dust, falling down or the coin then this is when God is taken out of the worship and that can be dangerous. It is for this reason that I believe I have not received the gift of tongues. I want this gift soooo bad, but I know that God has not given it to me because I want it to feel superior or simply cool and not because I want to worship God in a different, personal way. Thanks so much for your comment!
ReplyDeleteAlso to just make sure you know: David was not naked - "He was dancing for the Lord with all his might, but he wore only a linen cloth" 2 Samuel 6: 14.
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