The melodies caress the room-- filling the air with tone and voice. With one voice, the worshippers cry out for healing, praising the Highest of Highs. From movement to movement, the piece floats, each note breaking a brick off the wall surrounding every individual. The ceilings echo with joy and song, the floor pounds with each cheerful leap of a dancer. Artwork and artists line the walls, easels, colors, and sketchbooks are scattered throughout the room. Writers, their piles of dictionaries, notebooks, rough drafts, and utensils covering their spaces, compile poem after story after song for the Lord of Lords. Actors play parts of wounded, rescued, saved, and broken, worshipping through their own imaginative world.
Every worshipper tells a different story with his tools-- each adding a layer until the depth is incomprehensible. Like a puzzle, each piece is uniquely different but, woven together in just the right way, the fullness of Worship beams through. Activation in arts, in prayer, in healing, in peace, all occur simultaneously. Love and respect for each other, partnership and community-- but also individuality, choice, the freedom to believe-- are all present.
This is how I see perfect worship. It's messy, with personality from every person spilling out, uncontained onto the floor and mixing with everyone else's. But it's worship-- everyone equidistant from the Throne, all equally valid and active, all passionate, all skillful. King David created this world in his tabernacle, using the primitive tools at his disposal. We are so much more than those that have come before us-- so why are we in the dark ages?
A similar setlist can be found on every church podium. How many times have you seen a dancer like David in the church? How many times have you seen full-on, heavens-open worship? Where is your New Sound?
We call for the restoration of David's tabernacle, but we have gotten only thus far. It's time to push harder, go longer, reach farther, and swim deeper. Are you ready?
Every worshipper tells a different story with his tools-- each adding a layer until the depth is incomprehensible. Like a puzzle, each piece is uniquely different but, woven together in just the right way, the fullness of Worship beams through. Activation in arts, in prayer, in healing, in peace, all occur simultaneously. Love and respect for each other, partnership and community-- but also individuality, choice, the freedom to believe-- are all present.
This is how I see perfect worship. It's messy, with personality from every person spilling out, uncontained onto the floor and mixing with everyone else's. But it's worship-- everyone equidistant from the Throne, all equally valid and active, all passionate, all skillful. King David created this world in his tabernacle, using the primitive tools at his disposal. We are so much more than those that have come before us-- so why are we in the dark ages?
A similar setlist can be found on every church podium. How many times have you seen a dancer like David in the church? How many times have you seen full-on, heavens-open worship? Where is your New Sound?
We call for the restoration of David's tabernacle, but we have gotten only thus far. It's time to push harder, go longer, reach farther, and swim deeper. Are you ready?
No comments :
Post a Comment