Thinking. Feeling. Doing.

Thanks, dear readers, for engaging with me, as I think through these issues here in my blog. I'm sure I'll get back to normal soon and return to posting pictures of soggy summer gardens and my son's facial gymnastics!{g}

Jamie and I are leading some teaching at church on (musical) Worship at the moment, so it's good to get some feedback as we prepare the sessions.

My readers are from a variety of denominations and have wildly differing experiences of sung worship and so it's been good to ponder what I have myself experienced in different churches, what traditions have developed and why that is.

Some churches concentrate on hushed reverence, submission and awe, to the neglect, I think, of joy and gratitude. Others have totally gone overboard on the joy and gratitude thing and rarely have space for a penitent or awestruck response. We've visited all kinds of churches and most seem congregate at either end of the spectrum.

But if we have a living relationship with Jesus, why would we only express one aspect of that relationship in church? Some church services I've come out of (week after week) so downhearted because the preaching concentrated solely on my sin (not the fact that I'd been forgiven) and the singing was so painfully slow and mournful. A non-Christian walking in off the street, or more likely, dragged there by a well-meaning friend or neighbour, might be forgiven for thinking that ALL CHRISTIANS are sad, depressed creatures. Or that they'd wandered, by mistake, into a funeral service. (Think about it - flowers, organ playing interminable slowly, people looking droopy and vaguely sad.) 'Oh yeah! I'll have some of that! NOT!'

Others, including one we tried for a few months last year, are so unremittingly happy, singing every song in the 'key of perpetual joyfulness' that you could easily believe that no Christian ever had a problem. There was never any sense of sin needing repentance, just that we were all 'walking in victory'. We were severely admonished by the church leader if we weren't dancing as much as the children, who, we were told, were our role models. You could attend that church for years and never even hear what you need to do to be saved.

Why is it so hard for churches to allow for a full range of human emotions? Okay, I said the word. Emotions. There, I said it again. Now, I know at least half my readership are already clicking on the comment button, mentally framing their response: 'Emotions? We are not to be guided by our emotions, Dorothy. Only our intellect.' Yes, yes, I know. We were for 7-8 years in a VERY conservative, evangelical church, so we know all the arguments. LOL!

And yet. And yet, God *did* make us emotional beings, just as much as he made us intellectual and physical beings. We think, yes. We feel. And, we do. We are all three. And as such, we bear the imprint of the Maker. (We know that God has emotions. We read of his love and his anger in the Bible, frequently. )

Jamie and I have a dream of being in a church which values three things equally:

Thinking, meaning a high standard of teaching, of expository Bible teaching and knowledge, extending to all age-groups
Feeling, meaning appropriate freedom to respond in worship in a natural, unembarrassed way, the overflow of a forgiven heart
Doing, meaning a bold engagement in service, social justice programmes and mission

Why is that so hard? Why are so many churches at one extreme point of this triangle or another? No, I'm not looking for a perfect church. LOL! The church we have joined as members now is by no means perfect. But, we do want to help this church to become more fully human, more integrated, more whole, in our own small way, through the portion of the service for which we have responsibility: the music.

Does anything I've written here resonate with anyone else?