WORSHIP LEADERS
SUNG WORSHIP : DIVERSITY OF EMPHASES ( PART 4 ) GOD IS BIGGER THAN THE GRAPH | Grant Norsworthy
Which form of musical worship do you think God finds most worshipful ?
Please don ’ t try to answer . These are rhetorical questions .
PART 1 - THE RED “ X ” AXIS : THEOLOGICAL VS EXPERIENTIAL
Does God prefer to be worshipped by people singing new songs or old songs ? Tightly structured songs , or spontaneously variable songs ? Songs that are expressed from a more personal “ I ” perspective , or a corporate “ we ” perspective ?
Are songs more worshipful to God when worshippers sing directly to Him using the second person “ You ”? Or when God is referred to from the less personal ( but perhaps more reverential ) third person “ He / God / Lord / Jesus etc .” point of view ?
Is God worshipped better through songs with deep , rich , poetically worded songs that express precise , correct doctrine ? Or songs with fewer words - simpler lyrics where the singers are more likely to move into a deeper sense of God ’ s presence ?
My point is that we can ’ t know . Nor do we need to know .
This is the final article in a series of four articles under the shared title SUNG WORSHIP : DIVERSITY OF EMPHASES . These articles have shared a graph that attempts to describe and explain the rich diversity of emphases for sung worship that can and do occur - or at least the ones I have observed - within the Christian Church .
In my mind at least , this diversity can be celebrated . The differences ought not divide us .
God is bigger than the graph !
If you ’ d like to get caught up on the previous articles in this SUNG WORSHIP : DIVERSITY OF EMPHASES series , take these links :
PART 2 - THE GREEN “ Y ” AXIS : VERTICAL & INDIVIDUAL VS HORIZONTAL & COMMUNAL
PART 3 - THE BLUE “ Z ” AXIS : TRADITIONAL & STRUCTURED VS MODERN & SPONTANEOUS
AN ANECDOTE If I try a new restaurant and have a great experience there - the food , the service , the ambience are all to my liking - I ’ ll probably want to tell my friends about it , right ? If I simply share my story about this restaurant I ’ ve “ discovered ”, my friends might try it for themselves . Maybe we ’ ll even go there together in the future !
I hope my friends will enjoy the restaurant like I have . I might even expect that they will . But different people have different tastes . There ’ s no guarantee that they will ! They don ’ t have
32 July 2024 Subscribe for Free ...