The kids were sick this past Sunday and it was my turn to go to church, so I took the opportunity to go to the Anglican church. I needed some liturgy in my life.
Anyway, as I was in the service I was struck by how ruled by feelings I can be. The main part of the service, the Eucharist, was wonderful as always. But the rest of the service was less inspiring. First, the organ at the church they are using until their place is built has stopped working, so it was piano only (and they indicated that’s how it would be in the new building since they won’t have an organ right away). Then, I didn’t know any of the hymns and they weren’t particularly good (Anglican hymnody pales in comparison to that of the Methodists to me). And finally the main rector wasn’t there this week so there was a guest speaker. He was ok, but frankly, I’ve become quite used to hearing excellent teachers on Sunday mornings.
So I was sitting in the service, sorting through my feelings. I worry sometimes that I over-romanticize things, then get tired of it or bored when the reality doesn’t live up to the ideal in my head. Here I was in exactly the kind of church I’ve been dying to go to and everything was seemingly conspiring against me to make it less than inspiring.
It troubles me that I’m like this. And I’ll admit, it’s not just a concern for me with Anglicanism, but with any thoughts of becoming Catholic. I don’t want to feel this way. This is a big deal to drag my wife and family into a tradition that is foreign to them and totally different from either of our immediate family. It can’t be done on simply matters of taste and preference, which can then be so easily affected by the lack of an organ or second-rate hymnody. It’s got to be about something deeper. And I also understand that worship ultimately isn't about me, it's about God. I do benefit and receive many blessings from worshiping God, but the main reason for being there on Sunday mornings isn't for me to get something, it's for me to give something.
And on an intellectual level, I know that if I become convinced that certain beliefs are true and are important, and I know that the church I'm attending doesn't believe that way but another option in town does, then I should start attending the church that teaches correctly. This becomes an even bigger deal if I become convinced of the claims the Catholic Church makes because it's not just a matter of this doctrine or that one, but it's a matter of believing that it is the Church that Christ and the Apostles founded and that it has been given the authority to interpret Scripture and determine correct doctrine and practice. If I'm convinced something of that magnitude is true, how much do my feelings on how inspiring the Sunday service is really matter? "Not much" is my educated guess. But it depresses me to think that I'd be locked into a style of worship that really isn't open to debate the way it is in Protestant circles and because of my ephemeral feelings, I may grow bored with.
Maybe you think I'm worrying about nothing, but this is the way my mind works. I've jumped on trendy things in the past and have a natural bent toward things that are different from what most of my family or friends are into. Then about the time they begin to come around on it, I've moved on to the next thing. To some degree I wonder if my dalliance with Calvinism was that way. I was so convinced it was the right view of Scripture and salvation. Now, not so much. Would it be like this for this liturgy or Catholicism issue? Because that's a whole lot of pain, stress and upheaval for something that could change in 5-10 years.
Showing posts with label struggle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label struggle. Show all posts
21 January 2009
17 August 2008
Stuggling to Worship
I was attending the Methodist church this past Sunday and chose to go to the “traditional” service because I like the new pastor that teaches there and at least I get to hear some old hymns. All started out well with one of my favorites, “Praise To The Lord, The Almighty.”
But then we got to a point in the service where the music director typically makes a medley of hymns together that we sing. Today he decided to focus on heaven as the theme since the pastor's message was on the Scripture text, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” The song line up was a trinity of perhaps my least liked popular evangelical hymns:
"I'll Fly Away"
"When the Roll is Called Up Yonder"
"When We All Get To Heaven"
I struggle so much when songs like this are sung. And I don't think I'm alone. As I scanned the congregation, I noticed a fairly consistent pattern. The older folks (those 60 and above, which included the music director) seemed to love it. They had smiles on the their faces and sang with some gusto, nodding or lightly bouncing to the music. Anyone under 50, and especially those 40 and under seemed at best subdued and at worst bored. The melodies and time signature just have that bouncy, happy-clappy hoedown feeling to them that sounds dated in all the wrong ways. In fact, the whole middle of the service, from a musical perspective, just not doing it for me. In addition to the above medley, the choir did the Southern Gospel classic, “Midnight Cry” (a popular song about the rapture coming any moment) which just made it worse.
But beyond the music itself, I struggle with the lyrics and subject matter. I struggle for a couple of opposing reasons. For example, a couple of verses from “I'll Fly Away”:
Oh how glad and happy when we meet
I'll fly away
No more cold iron shackles on my feet
I'll fly away
Just a few more weary days and then
I'll fly away
To a land where joys will never end
I'll fly away
Is it unreasonable to feel that a mindset like “just a few more weary days and then...” and “no more cold iron shackles on my feet” when referring to this life is a tad pessimistic? And I guess for me, when I'm in church on Sunday morning, I want to worship God. It's great to hear messages that encourage or convict me and help me grow, but my real purpose for being there is me offering myself, my worship to God. In a sense it's great to look forward to eternity with Him, but it doesn't feel like a worship song to me. Compare the lyrics of that medley to the opening hymn we did today:
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
The King of creation
O my soul, praise Him , for He is thy health and salvation
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near
Praise Him in glad adoration
Praise to the Lord,
Who o'er all things so wondrously reigneth
Shelters thee under His wings , yea, so gently sustaineth
Hast thou not seen how thy desires e'er have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
Praise to the Lord,
Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee
Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him
All that hath life and breath,
Come now with praises before Him
Let the 'amen' sound from His people again
Gladly for'ere we adore Him
To me, that's a song of worship...talking about God, what He's done, His attributes and majesty. “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder” just doesn't compare to that. And that doesn't even touch the explicit Left Behind style rapture theology of it and “Midnight Cry.” I just found myself straining to connect with the songs at all. Perhaps some of it is the age thing mentioned above. The closer you get to the end of life on earth, the more aches and pains and troubles you've accumulated or seen, the more you long to just get out of here. But when you're young and have a lot of life ahead of you, you look forward to living it. You want to see your kids grow up, get married and have kids of their own. You want to do exciting and meaningful things for God down here. You're not just waiting for the rapture or to “fly away.” It's great to look forward to heaven one day, but sometimes people seem like they are “so heavenly minded, they're no earthly good.”
Now, for that opposing reason. Setting aside the feeling that none of the hymns in that medley above really seem “worshipful” to me and taking them just as songs with a message...is there something wrong that I don't feel more moved by them? At all? Shouldn't I view myself as a “stranger and alien” here? I mean, I do want to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus. I do look forward to a time where I'm not fighting this constant internal war with myself over sin and I get at least some answers for all the evil and pain and misery that does exist down here (though being an American mitigates how much of that touches me directly). As I was singing these songs and trying to connect, trying to understand what the older folks were getting out of them, I felt guilty that it simply wasn't happening. No matter how hard I tried to resist the “I hate these songs” urge within me and absorb the message, it didn't work. They seemed escapist, defeatist, trite and unmeaningful. Yet I felt like as a good Christian, I shouldn't feel that way.
Anyone else feel this way at church sometimes? Struggling mightily to squeeze whatever you can out of the service or the music or the preaching, largely failing, and all the while feeling guilty that you're not “more spiritual and can see God moving in it? What do you do about it? As I continue to struggle with the desire to be in a more traditional, liturgical worship environment, but having to consider all of the needs of my family and settling for something different for the time being, this is the hardest thing I deal with. And I don't want to feel this way every Sunday. I just want to worship God and connect with Him.
But then we got to a point in the service where the music director typically makes a medley of hymns together that we sing. Today he decided to focus on heaven as the theme since the pastor's message was on the Scripture text, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” The song line up was a trinity of perhaps my least liked popular evangelical hymns:
"I'll Fly Away"
"When the Roll is Called Up Yonder"
"When We All Get To Heaven"
I struggle so much when songs like this are sung. And I don't think I'm alone. As I scanned the congregation, I noticed a fairly consistent pattern. The older folks (those 60 and above, which included the music director) seemed to love it. They had smiles on the their faces and sang with some gusto, nodding or lightly bouncing to the music. Anyone under 50, and especially those 40 and under seemed at best subdued and at worst bored. The melodies and time signature just have that bouncy, happy-clappy hoedown feeling to them that sounds dated in all the wrong ways. In fact, the whole middle of the service, from a musical perspective, just not doing it for me. In addition to the above medley, the choir did the Southern Gospel classic, “Midnight Cry” (a popular song about the rapture coming any moment) which just made it worse.
But beyond the music itself, I struggle with the lyrics and subject matter. I struggle for a couple of opposing reasons. For example, a couple of verses from “I'll Fly Away”:
Oh how glad and happy when we meet
I'll fly away
No more cold iron shackles on my feet
I'll fly away
Just a few more weary days and then
I'll fly away
To a land where joys will never end
I'll fly away
Is it unreasonable to feel that a mindset like “just a few more weary days and then...” and “no more cold iron shackles on my feet” when referring to this life is a tad pessimistic? And I guess for me, when I'm in church on Sunday morning, I want to worship God. It's great to hear messages that encourage or convict me and help me grow, but my real purpose for being there is me offering myself, my worship to God. In a sense it's great to look forward to eternity with Him, but it doesn't feel like a worship song to me. Compare the lyrics of that medley to the opening hymn we did today:
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
The King of creation
O my soul, praise Him , for He is thy health and salvation
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near
Praise Him in glad adoration
Praise to the Lord,
Who o'er all things so wondrously reigneth
Shelters thee under His wings , yea, so gently sustaineth
Hast thou not seen how thy desires e'er have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
Praise to the Lord,
Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee
Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him
All that hath life and breath,
Come now with praises before Him
Let the 'amen' sound from His people again
Gladly for'ere we adore Him
To me, that's a song of worship...talking about God, what He's done, His attributes and majesty. “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder” just doesn't compare to that. And that doesn't even touch the explicit Left Behind style rapture theology of it and “Midnight Cry.” I just found myself straining to connect with the songs at all. Perhaps some of it is the age thing mentioned above. The closer you get to the end of life on earth, the more aches and pains and troubles you've accumulated or seen, the more you long to just get out of here. But when you're young and have a lot of life ahead of you, you look forward to living it. You want to see your kids grow up, get married and have kids of their own. You want to do exciting and meaningful things for God down here. You're not just waiting for the rapture or to “fly away.” It's great to look forward to heaven one day, but sometimes people seem like they are “so heavenly minded, they're no earthly good.”
Now, for that opposing reason. Setting aside the feeling that none of the hymns in that medley above really seem “worshipful” to me and taking them just as songs with a message...is there something wrong that I don't feel more moved by them? At all? Shouldn't I view myself as a “stranger and alien” here? I mean, I do want to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus. I do look forward to a time where I'm not fighting this constant internal war with myself over sin and I get at least some answers for all the evil and pain and misery that does exist down here (though being an American mitigates how much of that touches me directly). As I was singing these songs and trying to connect, trying to understand what the older folks were getting out of them, I felt guilty that it simply wasn't happening. No matter how hard I tried to resist the “I hate these songs” urge within me and absorb the message, it didn't work. They seemed escapist, defeatist, trite and unmeaningful. Yet I felt like as a good Christian, I shouldn't feel that way.
Anyone else feel this way at church sometimes? Struggling mightily to squeeze whatever you can out of the service or the music or the preaching, largely failing, and all the while feeling guilty that you're not “more spiritual and can see God moving in it? What do you do about it? As I continue to struggle with the desire to be in a more traditional, liturgical worship environment, but having to consider all of the needs of my family and settling for something different for the time being, this is the hardest thing I deal with. And I don't want to feel this way every Sunday. I just want to worship God and connect with Him.
08 March 2008
At an impasse
Well, the dreaded moment has come. I was hoping to avoid it but it's here.
We're at an impasse on the church question.
I've been visiting some different churches hoping to find something close to the Anglican one I enjoyed so much, but with a stronger children's program and other elements my wife would like. But in this area, there doesn't appear to be such animal. So we're stuck between two choices: the Methodist church my wife prefers and the Anglican one I prefer.
It's so frustrating because we've never been in this situation before. We've always been on the same page. But here we are and someone's feelings and wants will have to give way to the other's. One of us will have to die to self and make the best of it while the other one will try not to feel guilty for "making" their spouse be the one to sacrifice.
It sucks.
So many things to weigh. Would our children, as they get older, enjoy a smaller more formal and traditional church and all that it encompasses in terms of how they make friends who share our values and how they relate to and experience God? Or would they feel that it's stuffy and wish it had more activities for them like a larger church would? Could I figure out a way to carve out a bastion of reverence and quiet and connection to Christian history in contemporary evangelicalism or will I be longingly be pressing my nose up against the proverbial window at what I really desire? Would the rather high socioeconomic status (which we are decidedly NOT) of the Anglican congregation be a hindrance to relating to others and getting to know them or would it be better in the more mixed economic demographic of the Methodist church? Or is having a service that's oriented around the Eucharist as opposed to the sermon important enough to outweigh all the other factors?
There just aren't any easy answers. Someone will be happy, someone will be disappointed.
When did choosing a church get so frickin' hard?
We're at an impasse on the church question.
I've been visiting some different churches hoping to find something close to the Anglican one I enjoyed so much, but with a stronger children's program and other elements my wife would like. But in this area, there doesn't appear to be such animal. So we're stuck between two choices: the Methodist church my wife prefers and the Anglican one I prefer.
It's so frustrating because we've never been in this situation before. We've always been on the same page. But here we are and someone's feelings and wants will have to give way to the other's. One of us will have to die to self and make the best of it while the other one will try not to feel guilty for "making" their spouse be the one to sacrifice.
It sucks.
So many things to weigh. Would our children, as they get older, enjoy a smaller more formal and traditional church and all that it encompasses in terms of how they make friends who share our values and how they relate to and experience God? Or would they feel that it's stuffy and wish it had more activities for them like a larger church would? Could I figure out a way to carve out a bastion of reverence and quiet and connection to Christian history in contemporary evangelicalism or will I be longingly be pressing my nose up against the proverbial window at what I really desire? Would the rather high socioeconomic status (which we are decidedly NOT) of the Anglican congregation be a hindrance to relating to others and getting to know them or would it be better in the more mixed economic demographic of the Methodist church? Or is having a service that's oriented around the Eucharist as opposed to the sermon important enough to outweigh all the other factors?
There just aren't any easy answers. Someone will be happy, someone will be disappointed.
When did choosing a church get so frickin' hard?
19 December 2007
I just want to know
I'm frustrated.
And the more I read and pray the more frustrated and desperate I become.
I envy my friend who converted to Catholicism. I really do. He's settled on this and happy. I'm neither. The matter isn't settled for me. Not in my head, not in my heart. I'm unhappy with my own personal spiritual life and frustrated with the confusion. I can't seem to reconcile all the conflicting data. Meanwhile I just want to be closer to God but don't seem to feel that happening. And the old evangelical standbys of "just read your Bible and pray" or "have a daily quiet time" aren't cutting it. It's just not that simple. At least not for me.
We like the Anglican church we're attending, but we're torn. Still trying to sort out what's best for the kids and wishing we could combine parts of the Methodist church we were attending (specifically that children's program) with the liturgy and reverence here. I wish I knew more of the hymns. And it would be nice to feel more settled on the question of paedobaptism.
This is hard. I think I believed I was done wrestling with the big theological issues after I got past my "cage-phase" Calvinist years. I couldn't have been more wrong. And while at times it's stimulating and exciting, right now it's tiring and frustrating and confusing.
And I think this is the best I'm going to be able to do to put the myriad thoughts swirling around in my head into words. Please pray for me and my family.
And the more I read and pray the more frustrated and desperate I become.
I envy my friend who converted to Catholicism. I really do. He's settled on this and happy. I'm neither. The matter isn't settled for me. Not in my head, not in my heart. I'm unhappy with my own personal spiritual life and frustrated with the confusion. I can't seem to reconcile all the conflicting data. Meanwhile I just want to be closer to God but don't seem to feel that happening. And the old evangelical standbys of "just read your Bible and pray" or "have a daily quiet time" aren't cutting it. It's just not that simple. At least not for me.
We like the Anglican church we're attending, but we're torn. Still trying to sort out what's best for the kids and wishing we could combine parts of the Methodist church we were attending (specifically that children's program) with the liturgy and reverence here. I wish I knew more of the hymns. And it would be nice to feel more settled on the question of paedobaptism.
This is hard. I think I believed I was done wrestling with the big theological issues after I got past my "cage-phase" Calvinist years. I couldn't have been more wrong. And while at times it's stimulating and exciting, right now it's tiring and frustrating and confusing.
And I think this is the best I'm going to be able to do to put the myriad thoughts swirling around in my head into words. Please pray for me and my family.
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