Worship

You can tell someone who has absolutely no social life because he goes out to a coffeehouse on a Saturday night. Alone. To study.

Hello. That's me.

In an attempt to catch up in my studies I'm taking spare moments here and there to do some reading. At the moment I'm studying a unit on the practice and theology of worship. So I decided to listen to some worship tracks on my mp3 player on the way to the cafe. Flicking through the choices I stopped on a song by Matt Redman called Lord, let your glory fall. I like this song so, as I hadn't listened to it for a while, I repeated it (three times I think). The song expresses a desire to see God reveal himself in glorious ways just like he did in ancient Biblical times.

Yeah. I like that. That would be amazing.

The particular focus of my studies on Saturday was looking at incorporating music in to liturgical worship. It's interesting because my faith background is very musical, but in no way liturgical - in the traditional sense of liturgy anyway. The books I was reading emphasised that the liturgy was the main act of worship and music should only be used to complement these words, not used as a stand alone form of worship. Hmm...I'm not sure about that.

However, I have found myself in recent years moving away from musical expressions of worship and being more interested in delving into the ancient traditions of the historical Church. But then I start to get confused and question myself as to who I am as a person of faith. Actually I've been doing a fair bit of that in recent years as I explore what I understand of theology, Christian mission and worship.

I suppose worship is something that, because of its eternal qualities, gives you a sense of connection to something/someone bigger. A kind of anchor, I guess, while you ask questions.

The ancients repeated a helpful phrase, a liturgy, a kind of anchor, which can be found in some of the Psalms of the Hebrew scriptures and which Matt Redman uses as a refrain in the song above. Addressing God then/now they/we sing:

You are good,
And Your love endures forever.