Pastor's Corner by Pastor David M. Jahn

It feels great to say those words and to ponder that great truth.

In fact, every Sunday when we gather together as God’s people, we hope to bless God with our praise, thanks, and worship, but we also hope to proclaim and to hear the truth about God. I don’t think it’s possible to be reminded too often about all that God is and all that the Holy Spirit has done for us.

One of my goals when we are preparing and planning for worship is to make certain that everything we say and sing and do in worship tells the truth about God.

Now, you might think that this would be easy, a no-brainer really. If we just stick with tried and true stuff we should be fine right?

Well, not exactly. Just because something is comfy and familiar doesn’t make it true. In fact, because our use of language has changed over time, some of the old, comfy things we say about God in worship might sound odd or even alarming to someone who doesn’t know the “lingo”.

For example, someone who doesn’t spend much time in church might not hear someone asking for mercy except for on a TV show, perhaps as a victim asks a thug to spare him from a beating or from death. In our culture saying “Have mercy” to someone strongly implies that they are not normally merciful. (That’s why you are asking.) What are we saying about God to the people of our time and place if several times during worship we say, “Lord, have mercy”?

And what do you think the average person would hear in this statement, “Lead us not into temptation”? If I was going out with some friends and one of them said that to me I would get the strong impression that they expected me to lead them away from the straight and narrow. Why else would they were asking me to make an exception this time? Does God ever lead us into temptation? Why, most every week, do we ask the Holy Spirit not to do this? What does it teach our kids and our visitors about God. “God is one who would normally lead you into temptation, but each week we ask the Holy Spirit to not do it”.

What impression would you get if someone kept saying to you, “Listen to me”. What if they said it after every sentence? And yet, we end many of our prayers with, “Hear our prayer” as if God doesn’t. It’s almost a habit for many of us to pray, “God, be with us…” as if there was a place we could go where God might not show up.

If we don’t change anything about our language in worship there are two, equally unsatisfactory possibilities:

1) We just stay comfy and let our kids, visitors, and anyone else who doesn’t know the “code” hear us saying (every week) that God will not be merciful, attentive, or present unless asked, and (unless you ask God to quit it) the Holy Spirit will most likely lead you into temptation.

or

2) People will hear what we say together in worship as meaningless “church-speak”, things we say just because we are supposed to say them.

Frankly, I’m not happy with either one of these scenarios. I believe, as a congregation, we need to have a meaningful conversation about the language of worship and discuss how we can say what we mean and mean what we say when we gather as God’s people. Maybe you disagree with me. Perhaps you think we are already doing this. My goal is that every word we say in worship will powerfully communicate the truth about God to every person who says or sings it. Can we talk?

Pondering with you,