Music and Worship and the stuff in-between

I don't know about you, but at times I find it really hard to worship. Now, this might be an especially disconcerting thing to hear from the person who just got hired as the primary AM worship leader at Quest, but I figure I might as well start my tenure as transparenty and honestly as I can. At the risk of tooting my own horn, when it comes to the task leading worship, I think I've got enough experience and skill to accomplish the superficial work of leading a group of people in song relatively well. I know how to carry a tune, I know how to shift dynamics, I even know how to say "spiritual" things that make me look like I've got this whole God thing down pat. But when it comes to actually worshipping, worshipping in spirit and in truth -- that's a little rougher sometimes. Like many of you, I've got a lot of things going on in my life that can easily pull my mind and heart away from Christ. For one, my aforementioned experience in leading worship is often the greatest hurdle as it can be tempting to just go through the motions and get the "job" done. But in the midst of preparing and (to be perectly honest) freaking out about entering into this new role at Quest, I just so happened to hear a story that spoke deeply to my heart.

I was listening to NPR the other day and heard this amazing story about a father and his love for his son.  This particular story is one of a father whose son is profoundly autistic and completely incapable of the most basic communication. Even common and everyday tasks like taking a bath and leaving the house were incredibly traumatic for the boy because to him, every experience was a new and terrifying one. However, the father noticed that despite his son's many dissabilities, he seemed to have a particular and unique memory for music and could remember thousands upon thousands of songs note for note. Given this new revelation, the father began using music to help his son through those previously harrowing tasks by making songs for bath time and for leaving the house. His son began to recognize these songs and associate them with the experience and overcome the terrible fear that once made these basic tasks unmanagable. It really is an incredible story and I don't think I've quite done it justice here so I encourage you to listen to the story if you have 8 minutes to spare.

I know that as Christians, we tend to have a particular weakness for Father/Son narratives [understandably so, I think :)] so naturally, this story had me primed to draw some spiritual parallels. As you've probably surmised already, in this story I saw myself as the son: profoundly disabled by limitations of understanding, incapable of articulating the most basic of feelings, and at times completely terrified at the percieved newness of tasks and lessons that have been presented to me time and time again. Now here comes the twist in my parallel: though it would seem logical to put God the Father in the metaphorical role of the father in the story, in my mediations I came to a slightly different conclusion. To me, God's role in this metaphor is the same role in the original story -- God is the creator, the God who equipped even those profoundly disabled with a way to overcome seemingly unmanagable obstacles. I think that the church is a much better parallel for the father in the story. Just as the father provided the son with music to remind him of the knowledge hidden within his mind, every Sunday we are given the opportunity to sing songs that can serve to remind us of the goodness and grace of God in the midst of obstacles like hurt, tragedy, cynacism, and whatever else troubles our minds, hearts and souls. Music has an unexplainable but undeniable power that is clearly God's intellegent design.

As we explore the power of worship through music together, I pray we would be reminded again and again about the goodness of God and at the same time, pursue fearlessly the newness of how much we don't know about the unsearchable mystery of who God is. And while I have you here reading, I want to ask you for your prayers. At times I feel awkward about asking for prayer [probably another unfortunate by-product of the pride that can sometimes come with too much church experience] but a good friend of mine recently wrote it better than I ever could so I'll put it in her words: 

... what I'm saying is: pray for me. Want for me that I would grow in godliness and that I would pursue life in Christ more.

It's in your best interest that God mold me into the image of His Son. Trust me when I say that it'll be better for you if there is more of Christ and less of me and not the other way around.