clayton faulkner

The song “Amazing Grace” from Sunday 8/8/10 – featuring Clayton Faulkner (acoustic guitar/vocals) and Floyd Morris (electric guitar).

I recently read Reggie Kidd’s With One Voice. So much good stuff in it about Christ as our singing Savior – our Chief Liturgist. As we sing our songs of corporate praise and adoration here on the earth, we’re merely echoing and pointing to the greater song that Christ is already singing to the Father as He leads all the saints in song.

The challenging stuff is about the different voices of Christ and His body (Bach, Bubba, and the Blues Brothers). Congregations develop their own nuances and styles of corporate worship appropriate to the people they’re made up of and the surrounding culture. That’s the part of Christology we call “incarnational.”

“But we say something profound about the gospel itself when we stay a family and refuse to allow ourselves to become insular, a closed-in group. By God’s grace, we can nurture the good we’ve inherited from our family tree, further its contribution to the larger body of Christ, and at the same time appreciate – and perhaps learn from – folks who sing Christ’s song differently.” (p. 156-157)

Keeping a congregation opened-out to the variation of Christ’s song is tough. It’s too easy to just go to the top 25 songs from CCLI and create a set list every week. It’s too easy to just stick with what the denomination prints. It’s too easy to just keep doing what the Pastor or Worship Leader likes and prefers.

I think in most cases, a pleasing variety of Christ’s songs are present in any given congregation. Just from the people that are already there, the music of their hearts and backgrounds. The tough work is mining it. It means building relationships and learning about people. “What does it sound like for your heart to be engaged by God in worship?” That should be a frequent question from servant-leaders.

And then comes the skill of creating a collage representative of what God has already knit together in the congregation. And on top of that, the task of patiently explaining and teaching everyone that “It’s OK if you didn’t like, or get, or enjoy the musical offering/palette today. Rest assured that it was beneficial to someone else in this Body. And rest assured that it’s not about you.”

Eucharist is recognition. It is the full realization that the one who takes, blesses, breaks, and gives is the One who, from the beginning of time, has desired to enter into communion with us. Communion is what God wants and what we want.

Henri J. M. Nouwen, With Burning Hearts, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY. p. 88-89.

From Bob Roberts…

Finally we had the communion service patterned after a group of Hindu priest who became Christians.  Now that they are believers they came up with their own method of it.  They break the coconut representing how Christ was broken on the cross – as the milk pours out they speak of him being our sacrifice that was poured out, and then the inside part is white – showing what he did on the cross makes us clean.  So Jossy Chacko led us, and instead of grape juice and wafers, it was coconut milk and shredded coconut.  It was powerful.  It was communion with the global church.

This may or may not be a valuable revelation for anyone, but it struck me one day in Ethiopia as I was playing with Masamo…

The Fourfold worship pattern is a lot like a Mr. Potato Head.

The Fourfold model is the oldest, most Biblical pattern we have for how God meets people in worship. We see it played out Sunday to Sunday like this:  Gathering -> Word -> Meal -> Sending. You can go all the way back to Moses and see the pattern emerge in how God met him in the burning bush in Exodus 3-4: Moses was gathered to Horeb, God spoke to Moses from the bush, Moses responds in obedience to God’s mission, Moses is sent back to Egypt.

So the structure of the Fourfold model is like the body of a Mr. Potato Head. When you begin to play with it, all you have is a brown body with lots of little holes in it. That body is the skeletal structure of Fourfold worship (Gathering – Word – Meal – Sending). It’s what you start with.

The different elements of worship (prayer, song, Scripture reading, offering, sermon, benediction, etc.) are like the different parts you plug into the body: the eyes, ears, nose, feet, hat, arms, etc. You can get pretty creative with a Mr. Potato Head when you start plugging the body parts into different places. No matter how unusual it looks, it’s still a Mr. Potato Head. The order of the body parts doesn’t change the fact that it is still a Mr. Potato Head.

The same goes for Fourfold worship. The elements of worship can be moved around and placed in creative patterns, but the skeletal structure of four folds always remains the same.

Scenes from “The Way of the Cross” -- Good Friday service at Covenant Lutheran Church on April 2, 2010. This was a modified version of the stations of the cross that included Scripture readings, prayers, reflections, hymns, and choir. Each station was presented in tableau.

An interesting take on “The Stations of the Cross” by Paul from St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. These would make a great reflection piece on Good Friday.

Len Sweet tweeted:

@lensweet Some churches now offer hosts that are round, triangular, square, wholemeal, white, gluten free, low fibre, etc. Eucharist in the Youniverse

Should this observation really be surprising? Think about it – if we’re going to offer a variety of “styles” of worship within a single congregation (styles = different music), then why not a variety of hosts as well? Or even a variety of methods of distribution (intinction, common cup, little plastic cups, etc.). Its a natural progression for church in the consumer-driven culture. “You can have it YOUR way in the YOU-niverse.” Like Burger King.

Let’s not forget the important fact that the Eucharist is a symbolic action. In the end, it really doesn’t matter what type of bread is being used. The bread is a symbol that is alive with meaning. It is the symbolic nature of the bread that makes it significant, not the physical nature. When we hold the bread and taste it we are invited to enter into the mystery of Christ’s body, broken for us. We also are invited to deepen our understanding and experience of fellowship with Christ through the meal. In other words, the point is not how the bread tastes or feels. The point is what we engage in through the symbols: the Bread of Life.

Regardless of the shape or taste of the host, Jesus will always be with us when we gather at the table for the meal in remembrance of Him.

From Bob Kauflin…

By nature, “cool” describes something that the world esteems as hip, desirable, elitist, and perhaps elusive. Biblical worship is very un-hip, hated by the world’s value system, and a gracious gift from God to those he has redeemed. It involves magnifying the glory of Christ and minimizing our own glory. It means acknowledging our sinfulness before a holy God, expressing gratefulness for the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ for our sins, and responding in humble obedience to his commands. All very uncool activities.

This is good. Jesus put it this way – “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24) True discipleship is not “cool.” It’s a probable cause of hardship, pain, suffering, and sacrifice. Biblical worship lifts up these qualities as reality for those being sent into the world as disciples.

Biblical worship is the worship of the Tabernacle and Temple. Something costly was sacrificed. Something had to die. Something was offered up in it’s entirety – consumed for God’s glory. Biblical worship calls us to live our lives in this same way (Romans 12:1-2).