Month: January 2021

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Worship in 2020: Part 5

This is the final post in this series looking back at the worship songs that have been particularly important to me during 2020.

Spirit and Truth

Worship has obviously been very different in the last year. We’ve not been in a Church building since March. The summer festivals I’ve been going to every year since a teenager didn’t happen in the usual way. We haven’t been able to join together in worship with others (apart from family) in the same place. We’ve adapted to worshipping at home. Sometimes on our own, sometimes joining in with a live stream or pre-recorded time of worship.  It has been strange. Uncomfortable at times.

Does Jesus’ promise that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20) only apply if people are in the same physical space? What does it mean to gather together in worship when we cannot be in the same building?

But yet we’ve been singing “We’re gathered here, the time has come to praise the Father, Spirit, Son”. We sung that song with our Church on one of the first Sundays of online worship during the 1st Lockdown. And it felt strange, yet somehow reassuring, to be proclaiming that “we are gathered here” when we were all in our own homes.

The Dutch community ‘De Spil‘ say that “We pray together even if it isn’t in one chapel”. Wherever we gather, I am sure that God meets us. Whether we are physically present with others, joined with people through the wonders of modern technology or simply united by the power of the Holy Spirit we can sing with confidence and assurance that “we’re gathered here the time has come to praise the Father, Spirit, Son”.

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Worship in 2020: Part 4

We Shall Not Be Shaken

This is an older song than the others I’ve shared. It was written during the time of the financial crisis in 2008/9 when a number of banks in the UK collapsed. It’s message is even more relevant now. With all that we have been facing over the last year, this song is a reminder that “When fear is found all around” God is the “solid ground”.

This doesn’t mean nothing will go wrong, or that we will be protected from any harm. “Nations could be quaking, Economies failing”. Or viruses spreading. God is still our solid ground.

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Worship in 2020: Part 3

Champion (Bethel Worship)

It took me a while to process the lyrics of this song. On first hearing, it seems to be more about us and not enough about God. But as the words sink in, it is a powerful testimony of how God transforms us. He is the Champion, the one  who “crowns me with confidence” and invites us to be “seated in the heavenly place”. He gives us what we don’t deserve.

In proclaiming “I have the authority Jesus has given me” there are echoes of Peter healing the man at the temple gate in Acts 3, as well as Jesus teaching in John 14 that “whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these”. This song also reminds me of the words of St Teresa of Avila:

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

St Theresa of Avila

This song for me is an encouragement of the power of Jesus. His power to transform us, and to use us to bring glory to His name.

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Worship in 2020: Part 2

The second worship song that I have particularly found to be powerful during 2020 is Run to the Father by Cody Carnes.

I find the Biblical imagery of the lyrics, combined with the anthemic melody particularly powerful. The first verse seems to speak about us “casting our cares on the Lord” (Ps 55), and it has reminded me of the invitation of Jesus to take his easy yoke and light burden (Matt 11). The chorus is my favourite part of the song: There’s the picture of Adam and Eve hiding from God in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3) and how we have a similar tendency to keep parts of our lives hidden from God; the comparison of God healing our hearts and being a friend to our soul, and that we can keep running into the arms of God constantly – it’s not just a one-time act. The bridge references Psalm 139 – that we were “in God’s sights long before [our] first breath.
 
Written the first person, the song speaks of how we were not created to be alone, and that we need to “run to the Father” to receive the intimacy and healing that comes from a relationship with Him. It reminds us that God is our merciful redeemer, father, healer and friend.
 
What have you been listening to recently?
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A new voyage begins

2020 has been a crazy year with events that no-one would have expected or predicted. We last posted here almost three years ago to the day sharing how 2018 was the start of us becoming “settlers” after a time of journeying. We had been led to a new community where we felt called to love and serve both the gathered congregation and the people who live in the local area, and at the time had envisaged that we would remain part of that community indefinitely.
 
2020 gave us time and space to reflect on all aspects of our life, and we started to get a sense that God was once again asking us to start a new journey. Or perhaps finish the old one that we started in 2017:
 

Continue reading “A new voyage begins”