January 30, 2015
7 – Elevens
We often hear people jokingly
refer to repetitious praise song as “7 – Elevens,” meaning a song with seven
choruses which is sung 11 times. I recently visited a church that sang praise
songs continuously for 45 minutes, verses and choruses, and we only sang four
songs — that’s an average of 11 minutes per song! Seriously, can you imagine singing,
“When the Roll is Called Up Yonder,” or “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,”
each for 11 minutes? Certainly repetitious songs are intended to praise God
and be a pleasing aroma; however, somewhere along the line my worship and
praise simply wore out — and my praise became nothing more than words. “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling
like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words”
(Matt 6:7 NIV).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I don’t think Pentecostals would like being called highly emotional, but the emotive aspects of their worship services and other mannerisms are hardly unnoticeable. I suppose Christian Science regards itself as highly intellectual (if it can be regarded as Christian.) Baptists are acutely legalistic, as are Seventh Day Adventists, though they would both object to that and to each other. At one time I watched and thought a lot of football, but I wouldn’t give twenty minutes to baseball, twenty seconds to soccer, or even one mental frame to tennis. But others are absorbed in those. So I would spend more time associating with football fans than with soccer fans, not necessarily out of discrimination, but because people like to converse about what interests them more than about what they think silly. Our minds somewhat more form around the aspects of who we hang with, and we hang with who thinks like us. Grouping is just a human thing. And this human element does express itself even in the Lord’s body.
-----If you really think about what’s going on, then, with all these different aspects of different denominations, a certain innocence of its guilt steps forward. Paul says even the entire creation groans under the effect of sin. The second law of thermodynamics is a form of that groaning; everything seeks its lowest state; energy tends to leave systems rather than pack into them; things break down into scattered parts as all existence scurries towards chaos. Except life. Life brings together individual elements, minerals from the soil into grass and hay then packed into yummy rib-eyes and t-bones. Life is the counter-process to the second law of thermodynamics. Spiritual life is the counter-process to the breaking down towards chaos that is deceit.
-----So, in the body of Christ there is a building up, edifying process that is to construct us living stones into a temple for God. If our hearts and minds were not given over to just spirituality, the pattern for this process would more resolutely be the Holy Spirit. But our minds do not tolerate well the differentiation of researching minutia, nor the synthesis of finding meaning therein. Everyone seeks truth to his own perceived level of sufficiency. Consequently, we tend to reflect the patterns of those with whom we are similar and think into the patterns of those we enjoy being around, rather than letting the Holy Spirit guide us throughout the brilliant spectrum of life in the Lord amongst all His adopted. The natures of the fellowships we form together, then, differentiate into various aspects of what would otherwise be a more spiritually healthy and full life if they were held altogether.
-----As the root absorbs minerals from the soil for packing into the berry eaten by the bug made of berries eaten by the bird made of bugs eaten by the cat made of birds eaten by the coyote made of cats, even nature itself is telling us that we live in a world of utter imperfection where godliness must somehow exist regardless of corruption. Most folks do not busy themselves with constructing since maintaining offers a satisfactorily perceptible amount of it. So our fellowships exist in states of scattered spiritual facets. And though God would be more delighted with a greater variety of expression from temples grown more into the fullness of the stature of Christ, 7-eleven will yet please Him. It's just His style, "that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places," (Eph 3:10) that is, to those who knew nothing of His mercy until there was imperfection to shine it upon.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment