Week 1 reflections on media content

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

As I reflect upon the media content for the first week of this course, there’s a thread, a stream of thought that sticks with me that I’d like to explore and expound upon here.

I’m first drawn to the comments made my Dr. Don Williams in his “Why Theology” piece.  Williams makes a key remark about our journey with theology.  Theology is about discovering the truth about God – who He is, His ways, His word, His plans and promises for all of creation.  

Thinking about our theology is important as our theology must be rooted in the truth of God as much as humanly possible.  Our theology is intimately related with our practice, with how we journey out our lives.  If our theology is not rooted in the truth of God, we will ending up either not producing fruit that God is concerned about (ala John 15) and/or we will end up producing fruit for the Kingdom of Darkness.  Sounds harsh, but Williams states that ‘God is truth and everything else is from the evil one.’  He takes this idea further by stating that ‘if we’re not speaking the truth of God, we are trafficking in the Kingdom of Darkness.’

Our journey of theological discovery is a tremendously important one.  Here we have both opportunity and need to discover the realities of God and His Kingdom and be able to walk in them and gain life in God.  We also have the opportunities to break free from the control the evil one has over us and this world (1 John 5:19) and the opportunity to turn to the Kingdom of God and experience his wondrous rule (Mark 1:14).

Next I’m drawn to the comments of Brenton Brown in his piece “Theology in Worship.”  Brown makes a few statements that are critically important.  He says that we have a “pastoral responsibility” to present good, solid theology in our songs, remarking that our songs carry weight with their power to be more easily remembered the than other teaching expressions.  

I very deeply resonate with this sense of ‘pastoral responsibility’ as worship leader / worship pastor as it relates to the content that I lead our church family in worship.    I also resonate with Browns’ other ‘pastoral’ comments how a song just does not need to be theologically sound (though that is necessary), but it also needs to be something that is lived and is a very real part of the expression of our lives.  A song needs to be more than abstract thoughts, but heart held faith that brings about the motion of our lives.

I realize that I’m over my word quota, so I’ll close with the thought that from this place of discovering theology, and realizing our theological pastoral responsibilities towards those we lead, we begin to embark on the journey of the Worship Artisan.  One who takes these ideas and values and crafts them into a form that brings beautiful expression to the things of God and carries the participants in a glorious journey towards Him.

10-4.