Loving Jesus is so gay!

So we all know Jesus said absolutely nothing about homosexuality (although there is the possibility he was endorsing it with the healing of the centurion's slave and his references to eunuchs - but that's another issue).

I'm wondering about Jesus being the object of our love, our passion. We are encouraged to fall in love with him and there are even sexual overtones to the relationship when we look at the metaphor of the Song of Solomon.

These are traditional christian doctrines, in fact doctrine isn't really the right word. Its a natural reaction to how we perceive his love for us. In fact its the emotion of love directed at God.

This is very real for most christians and extreme in many cases. And its sexless. Well, that's interesting, because I know many guys get a bit creeped out by the concept of falling in love with a another guy. I mean, Jesus is absolutely male, and yet christianity's central beliefs will have us falling in love with him, or at least professing that love. You only have to listen to most of the songs in church these days. There's no beating around the bush with them.

Its just so gay! Oh, well, maybe its sexless rather than gay, but Jesus is NEVER portrayed as anything other than male. So women tend to be more emotionally involved with Jesus, and some guys are just fine and don't think twice about it, and some just don't want to go there.

Sure, there's lots of theology you can throw at it, but we are talking about something pretty basic here. We are so conditioned to just accept this that to question it sounds like you are a pervert or something.

Its just interesting isn't it.

Singing in the spirit

While writing some content for my book, I was thinking about the first time I heard "singing in the spirit" in a charismatic church in the 70s.

It was an incredible experience. I couldn't really hear much, sitting up the back, and the songs were all a bit tacky, but then they started this “singing in the spirit” thing. This was the most amazing sound I had ever heard as waves of random harmonies

went sweeping over the auditorium. I couldn't believe that this could be so wonderful and spontaneous! I'm not sure if it was just because it was the first time I heard it, but nothing else ever came close. It tweaked my musical creativity and my spirit simultaneously – truly awesome.

As I moved into charismatic/pentecostal worship leading this became common place and was something you did to bring the "anointing". I learned all the tricks, but I could also just feel what to do, how the dynamics worked, and found it was easy to bring that elusive anointing.

There is a unique dynamic that goes on in community singing - in ALL cultures. People are united by singing together about common themes, which can be spiritual or social. When you listen to and watch these other cultures there is the same freedom to express joy and admiration as christians feel, and there is the same sensitivity to the dynamic. From wild happy celebration to mystical solemn song and chanting. Now some would say its a demonic copy of the Holy Spirit. But I would say its something built into our nature.

The music and rhythms can touch subliminal thoughts and emotions, so in a christian context we have Jesus as our common focus. The sounds are culturally based however, so what would bring a state of ecstasy for Mongolians would probably send your average Texan running from the room screaming.

I would now dare to hazard that its nothing to do with "anointings" but with our innate ability to find a state of joy, strength, unity and ecstasy through culturally applicable, focused, community singing.

Now this doesn't negate our "praise and worship" times, but it takes away the illusion that we have to do it right for God to anoint it and for some reason think He suddenly turns up when it "feels" right or some appropriate climax is reached.

God is always 100% there, in us and with us, so He ain't going to turn up any more than He is already. But its our focus and unity we feel when we sing about Him together. We switch off everything else and allow our spirit and emotions to express themselves in the music. This is the same for all cultures and has nothing to do with Christian doctrine as such, we are just tapping into a common human experience and using it for enhancing our experience and relationship with God.

This is actually great news because we can relax, without any expectation of some mystical experience determining whether the "worship and praise" was anointed or not. We are free to accept Gods presence in and with us all the time, and that our singing together is for us, its for our benefit, it makes us feel good, and makes us feel good about God. Its natural and wonderful without any need for hype and super spirituality.

So back to the singing in the spirit... Its like mystical chanting in many cultures. It can drift and swirl with rhythm and harmony relevant to the culture. A uniting expression that unites spirits and focuses emotions. And its beautiful, freeing, and its something we can use to enhance our intimacy with God and each other.

I'll continue to work through this and comment more on the spiritual side another time,

Worship??

What do we do about praise and worship?!

Many of you probably know I've been a "worship leader" for about 25 years. I've played with some big names, done the rounds, taught in colleges, done workshops, studied, the whole kit and caboodle (whatever that is!).

Most of this time I have longed to understand the nature of worship, especially in regard to music. There are so many questions and so many factors that come into play:
Music is only a tiny part of worship
Our whole lives should be an act of worship
Is worship an act of obedience or an act of natural love and adoration
What is the psychology of community singing - every culture has it
How does our emotional state relate to worship
Should singing songs in church be considered worship
Should we even think in terms of singing a few songs in a structured meeting being an act of worship and praise

...and the list goes on!

I could give a list of all the correct responses to those points, but they would be responses based on current traditional thought and biblical interpretation.

I want to know the heart of the matter! Yes, I know, I'm probably analysing the whole thing too much and destroying the simplicity of it in the process. So if you just love signing along on Sundays and all that entails, you'd better stop here and go back to whatever you were doing.

Here's something from a worship leaders perspective. When you first start leading worship you are panic stricken that God won't show up, you'll get all the words and chords muddled, and that you'll "quench" the flow of the Spirit. After a while you start to get comfortable with the whole thing and can feel where its going and how people respond to various cues. You settle into the routine. Its just what we do in meetings.

So what do we do at home with God? Are our hearts as open to Him in a meeting/worship context, or are they more open? Can we worship Him in any context, with or without songs and music, especially in our intimate times on our own. Perhaps this is far more important than singing worshipful songs together (not saying we shouldn't).

What if there was no music at our meetings? Would we deem it any less spiritual?

What if we abandoned the whole meeting structure paradigm and just got together once a week to hang out and be friends? Perhaps we could get our teaching on-line, or print something out and hand it around. Or ask someone if they had something neat to share. Or if anyone would like to sing something, or lead us all in singing? Or whatever. Would the church fall apart? Would we all become indifferent to God?

So what am I saying in all this? I think we have formulated "praise and worship" into a particular style of corporate singing that is conducted at meetings and is a prerequisite for God to successfully move in our hearts and prime us before we hear the preacher. We then like to make sure we are in a good space before we go, so sing another one or two before we leave.

This may sound cynical, but I'm not trying to be. For me these are genuine questions and part of my journey into true freedom and allowing Father to break down the walls that divide the spiritual from the natural, to make us fully "integrated" beings, where our intimacy with God is a totally natural part of our lives.