More on Church Music

Whoa, I hit a nerve on this one, didn’t I? Why is this such a devisive issue? If you haven’t read the comments on this question, please do as they are wonderful and all across the board.

Although the music at this church that I visited was awful and was an assault on my ears, I plan to return to that church next Sunday to hear the senior pastor speak. Since I agree that music can’t be the over-riding, deciding factor, I need to go back there a time or two to hear the Word preached. 

Or maybe I’ll skip around and come back to it. I don’t know. I’ll pray about it in the meantime, and keep my ears and eyes and heart open to whatever the Lord might lead me to. 

What about church music?

A couple of years ago, I met Christ and went to church for the first time since I was a kid.

I grew up in a conservative Christian church, where the music was sung by a choir, where my Dad could make you cry with his achingly beautiful solo rendition of “O Holy Night,” and where the accompaniment was an organ, period.

So when I finally went back to church, (not my parents’ church but a church on the opposite side of the country), I was shocked. Drums? In church? And guitars, both acoustic and electric bass, horns, and no choir, just a few singers leading the whole congregation. We sang songs I had never heard of, and I had been expecting Amazing Grace and Nothing But the Blood of Jesus, songs like that. I thought I had stepped into a devil’s workshop.

Then the pastor began his sermon. I didn’t feel an immediate connection, but soon, I found myself calming down inside, closing my eyes and really letting what he was saying sink into my heart and soul. The Holy Spirit spoke through him, to me, in a powerful way that day.

That Sunday, and many Sundays after that, I cried sometime during the service. Actually, not just cried, bawled. Do you remember when you first accepted Christ and realized what incredible grace and mercy it was that you were saved?

I grew to love the worship music. It helped me to focus on God and praising Him, I lifted up my voice and my heart in worship and I believe that God loves this when His children praise Him. It was prayerful, reverent.

“I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.”  Amen!
(Psalm 13:6.)

So now that I have to find a new church, the music has become an issue for me. Like the church I visited yesterday; the music was so bad, I wonder if I could ever grow to love it. The music director was off-key the entire time, no matter which song we sang, the instruments were played at about a high-school level of proficiency; it was almost painful to be in that sanctuary with that music.

Contemporary or traditional, choir or band, I don’t really care about any of that. I care about whether the music speaks to my heart in a way that causes me to do so much more than just sing along. I want to lift my voice to the Lord, to send my heart-messages of gratitude and praise and worship to Him in a focused and reverent spirit.

But it feels almost sacriligious to say that this is important to me. Church isn’t supposed to be about me, what’s fulfilling to me.

I can’t make a decision for or against a church because of it’s music, can I? Should I?  

More on the Church Search

Want to hear something funny?

My previous church held a missions class, and I eagerly signed up. It was taught by an assistant pastor, and was 8 weeks long. But early on in the class, I learned more about my church’s position on women in the church. This was something I didn’t know, even after months of attending there.

A woman’s place, her job according to this pastor, is to run the household and raise “his” children. Huh? She is not to teach any adult classes, but she can teach the children. (Which really confuses me: if she shouldn’t teach the adults, why in the world would you want her teaching the children?)

Anyway, women can’t teach the Word, run prayer groups, even lead a group in, say, an opening prayer. Even if there are women present who know the Word, live exemplary Christian lives, women who are eminently more qualified to teach than the men present, still, women aren’t allowed. Women are only allowed on the mission field as a help-mate for her pastor husband (think of Calcutta without Sister Theresa) and to take care of the children and to have the children.

Now, I don’t need a female pastor or anything. I’ve never attended a feminist rally, never burned a bra in my life, ok? But when I’m searching for answers, don’t blow me off just because I’m a woman!

The senior pastor was the only one who would discuss any of my questions with me. All the other pastors routinely listened to my question, then told me to call so-and-so sometime during the week and make an appointment; so-and-so was the woman in charge of women’s counseling. And this was routine stuff here, questions about witnessing and prayer, etc, all done out in the middle of the church after a service, no chance of appearing inappropriate, I don’t think.

When my pastor left and one of the assistant pastors moved into the senior position (yep, the same one who taught the missions class), I knew it was time to go.

This morning, I visited a little church close to me. The music was pretty bad, seriously. The service was delivered by an assistant pastor, and it was neither smooth nor polished nor even terribly inspiring. I did, however, get something from it.

The senior pastor and assistant pastors were welcoming, but best of all they didn’t mind engaging in discussions about their church, their beliefs, and our community needs.

I wasn’t treated like the plague or a second-class citizen by any of them. That included the assistant pastor who preached the Word this morning, Stephanie Wheeler.

Just for fun. . .

Thought I’d share this, just for fun this morning. My Dad forwarded it to me yesterday, and I think it’s precious. Norman Rockwell would have painted this if he’d had this picture.

Have a blessed Sunday,

Catherine

Church Shopping

How do you find the right church? I mean, imagine yourself living in an unfamiliar city, you don’t know very many people, much less Christians. . . where do you go?

After I accepted Christ as my Savior, and after I bought a Bible, the next thing was to find a church. That was a while ago, and I’m still looking.

I do attend a church close to me on a regular basis, but it’s just not sitting right with me. The emphasis is so much on getting new people in the doors. Now I know this is important, but the service, since it seems to be more geared toward getting and keeping members, comes off as a sort of “religion lite.” I always go with anticipation, hungry for the Word to be edified, to be preached with passion, and I usually come away disappointed, still hungry, frustrated.

There’s never an altar call. That just seems weird to me. Is it? There’s no talk of hell, ever. The sermons are geared toward living a good Christian life, but there’s no mention of our responsibility, our mission, to the rest of the world.

I hate to visit churches, it feels like trying on shoes. But I went to one church that was so foreign to me that it freaked me out. They used flags and there was lots of shouting and lots of people falling over. Maybe this was the real thing! But I didn’t feel led to go back.

Another church was all about the money and abundance. Three prayers and scripture readings about how God wants us to have abundance in this life, and three collections. Three! ”Because the more you give to God, the more you’ll get back from Him.”

I have visited quite a few churches now. I know very little about denominations, and I have no interest in a church where politics among the elders and pastors is more in focus than Christ. I just want the Word preached with passion by someone filled with the Holy Spirit. I want a place where I can be both a contributor and a partaker of a Christian family. Yes, I want to be where God can use me, but hey, I’m a newbie at this and I need other Christians who can and will help me grow spiritually. Is that too much to ask?  

Hopelessness

One of my favorite verses in the Word reads better (for me) from the NKJV than the NIV translation, and it is Jeremiah 29:11-13:

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Were you ever hopeless? Perhaps before Christ was in your heart? Do you remember what it felt like?

I do because it wasn’t very long ago for me. That feeling is still a fresh memory, when I believed that life totally sucked and it was never going to get any better. That’s hopelessness.

Hopelessness is a hallmark of suicidality. When a person gives up hope, they are close to giving up on life. “Where there is no hope, the people perish.” When I think back on those times in my life when I felt hopeless, if I connect with those feelings, I know that I was in the dark depths of despair, looking up from the bottom of the well. I had tried everything, lost everything, had nothing left and especially had no hope.

I realize now that God was at work in my life, and the next step, to get on my knees and look to Him for salvation, was planned all along. Thank God and praise His holy name!

But now, I have to remember that I carry the answer for others in this dying world. Paul said that we are “stewards of the mysteries of God.” I love that. We possess knowledge that people around us need, knowledge that they are desperate for without understanding what that need is.

At the grocery store, at home, at work, even at church, so many people are hopeless. Do you notice it on their faces, their quiet desperation? They need Jesus and the salvation and hope that He gives, and we can show them the way!

Perhaps the challenge is to be Christ-centered, rather than self-centered. When I’m self-centered, I’m thinking about how wonderful is my life in Christ, how much peace and hope I finally have in my soul, and I come across as a kind of Pollyanna. I tend to just have my head in the clouds, so to speak.

I need to maintain my focus on the cross in order to serve others and address their needs for peace and hope and salvation. I have trouble keeping that focus.  Why is that? Doesn’t seem like it should be that hard! What should I be doing, praying before going into the store, or carrying a Bible with me?. . . I honestly don’t know.

When No One’s Looking

A friend of mine is always saying, “We are who we are when no one’s looking.” I think this is a very powerful truism and so I have started saying it to myself quite often.

And boy, do I miss the boat sometimes.

An old acquaintance called me recently, someone who knew me as a smoking, drinking, swearing, partying gay woman. I am no longer those things, I am not that person any more. When a person is overwhelmed by the love of almighty God, you can’t not change.

I stammered about it, I knew this was an opportunity to speak up and testify. All I could think of was to explain that, well, I’m not like that any more.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Here it was, right in front of me. Open invitation, couldn’t have been any easier. And I didn’t know what to say. This is how I blew it off with her: “Well, I’m really kind of a Jesus freak now.” Seriously, that’s what I said, and I am so ashamed of myself.

Because I treated it lightly, so did she, of course, and our conversation abruptly ended. The chance was gone. There was no one else around to witness how badly I handled that, but I imagine Jesus shaking His head and sighing. I’ve got such a long way to go. I sat and cried; another chance, another failure.

What should I have said? People you interact with when you get a perfect opportunity to witness to them, how do you even bring it up?

. . . as we forgive our debtors

My own healing, and the path back to Jesus, began with an act of forgiveness.

I’m not sure if the saying “To err is human, to forgive divine” is taken from the Bible, but I do believe forgiveness is something that does not come naturally to us. We as human beings are not naturally wired this way. Instead, our nature is to think of ourselves first, to protect ourselves and “look out for number 1.”

I harbored a venomous hatred and resentment for most of my life against someone who had done me wrong as a child. Harboring it was venomous because it infected everything I did, every thought I had, every decision I made. 

Holding on to it, nursing and nurturing it for years, not only made me sick to my very core, but it effectively created a huge chasm between myself and God. My life fell apart: jobs, health, relationships, self-esteem, mental stability. The hatred that I cradled was killing me. One day, I realized that fact.

Hatred kills, whether it is directed internally or externally, not loving yourself or not loving others. So I let go of it. I made a conscious decision to forgive, though I kept that decision to myself at the time.

It was a foothold into my psyche. Soon, I was feeling a little better about myself. My thinking started to change on subjects that I would have sworn were set in my mind. I wondered about new possibilities. Bitterness began to fade, most relationships improved. Eventually, I found myself at the foot of His throne, asking God to forgive me of my sins and to save my soul.

Bitterness, envy, hatred, anger–the first step to healing is forgiveness. It is a tremendous gift whether we are on the giving or receiving end.

Sorry this is not a novice christian question today, it was just on my heart.

Forgive me, won’t you?

God’s Help for Addictions

The topic of addictions is so vast, it would be impossible to cover all aspects of it here. But perhaps we could look at it in a way that covers the overall picture.

Addictions can be physiological dependence, such as cigarettes or drugs. But it can actually be any habit, behavior or appetite that controls us, such as sex, gambling, lying, food. We can be addicted to chaos and drama, we can be addicted to people. Anything that controls us, anything that we would lie and deceive to get or keep or engage in can be an addiction.

Oh I know, we all say, “Well, it doesn’t control me!” If we lie to cover it up, it controls us. If we hide it, it controls us. If we refuse to admit it, it has enough of a hold to cause us to deceive ourselves.

I especially like 2 Peter 1:5-9 on this subject, where Peter talks about how we need self-control. But here is the tricky part for me: as long as I am reading my Bible, I’m praying, I’m talking to Jesus, I’m good. I have no problem resisting temptation.

Then I get out into the rest of this world and I find it so hard to resist. I know others who have the same problem; others who live in constant pain and so have become addicted to prescription drugs; others who still smoke, even though they don’t really want to. I know what problems I have just with food addiction, so I have no room to judge.

Surely others have dealt with these kinds of problem, too. Any suggestions? Thank you!

Bible Translations

I was raised on the King James Version Bible, so often passages seem to sound more “right” to me from that translation. But sometimes, the context is too archaic for me to make any sense out of it.

Soon after my encounter with Jesus a couple of years ago, the first thing I did was get a Bible. I picked out the New King James Version, and just started inhaling scriptures; it seemed like I couldn’t get enough. But there was so much I didn’t understand.

Then I bought a book called Understand Your Bible from Adam to Zion by Alister McGrath. This book covered all the passages of the Old and New Testaments, explaining some of the archaic language, the symbols, the contexts of the stories. This was also very helpful in increasing my knowledge.  

But I found myself still hungry. (Perhaps I always will be, and if that keeps me reading and studying, I think that’s ok.) Anyway, I discovered the NIV Study Bible. I kept checking verses in that Bible every time I saw it in the stores, until I became convinced it would be helpful also. So now I use the NIV as well. This version generally adds another layer of meaning for me on the hard-to-understand verses.

Are there strong feelings about certain translations vs. others? Is one supposed to be better than others, or more “authentic” or more “true”?