expressions of worship....

Here are my thoughts for today….imagine that you were pasturing a church, and a person wanted to read a poem that he or she wrote dealing with his or her struggles with God in a worship service. Now, you read the poem and it was really good, well thought out, but it contains profanity and will offend the congregation even though it deals with human struggles in a raw and honest way. The person is a believer who just came back to the church after years of absence and this person is very unstable both emotionally and spiritually. This means that if you decline or ask to clean up the poem this person would be personally offended. Now would you let the person openly read the poem or would you tell this person to clean up the poem before he or she reads it to the congregation in a worship service?

Now in a worship service, expression of worship in all the forms (eg music, dance, drama etc) should not be discouraged rather encouraged, but do you think that having a poetry reading with colorful language is going too worldly and not God-centered?

What is Christian Music?

For my first class post, I will be talking about Christian music.
What seperates Christian music from secular music is the lyrics. I wouldn't mind listening to almost all kinds of genres if they had lyrics that glory God. However, i know many people base Christian music on the artists who sing them. if the musician is a Christian than automatically the songs that he or she sings is Christian. Does this mean that secular songs can be "redeemed" if they are sung by Christians? There are many main-stream bands that are out there who are Christians, but they don't sing songs that your local Christian book might carry. Should we label them as Christian bands?

Another thing is...what about playing secular music in a worship service? Could and would it be helpful in leading people to Christ? personally, i would never use non-Christian music in a worship service because i don't think that worldy lyrics could bring people closer to God. what do you think?

Those are my thoughts on CM right now... feel free to leave a comment.

Welcome!

Hello Everyone,
This is my little blog and for the duration of the next four months (University Experiment) I will be sharing my thoughts on Culture and its effects on the Christian Church. At the end of the four months...if i cannot find the answer to questions such as "How much culture should influence the church?" then at least I would have a better understand of culture and its influence in the church and vice versa.

Feel free to post comments and enjoy your visit.


Willyz