church

Flipping the servant worship switch

~ Natalie Hart ~ 4 Comments

[My point here is probably better made in the children’s message at the bottom of this post. I understand if you’d rather skip ahead to it.]

I have a confession to make: I have been a moody worshipper, grumbling and getting upset if two songs in a row left me cold. We’ve been at our new church for about a year, but even this winter, I could be in tears about music selection — and my husband was one of the people picking and leading music. I sometimes desperately missed the music at our previous church and that got in the way of my appreciation of other parts of the service. The music at the new church was (and is) good, and I love singing old hymns again, but I was wrapped up in my own sense of what “proper” worship was.

Something needed to change and, conveniently, and predictably, I didn’t think it was me.

And then this past spring I interviewed over a dozen ministers in order to write profiles on their churches (for this project). I asked each one the same five questions, one of which was, “What are your strengths as a congregation?” One of the answers changed my experience of worship — changed it utterly.

Bob Boersma of Providence Christian Reformed Church said that servant worship was one of their strengths. He characterized servant worship like this: “We ask our people to sing along [with songs they may not like] because someone else may need to sing it.” So the act of worship is not just personal, and it isn’t just communal — that is, we’re not each doing our own personal worship all in the same place. Worship as an act of service to the other people in the congregation is more intimate. It requires me to give up (some of) my fussiness about worship, to modify my need to get something out of every moment of the service and my right to be upset if every moment of the service doesn’t speak to me.

I found this glorious. And freeing. But also grounding. Even better, it helped connect me to the church that still felt foreign to me after seven months of involved membership.

It’s not like the servant worship switch being flipped made everything about worship wonderful. It didn’t. There are still songs I don’t like, songs that don’t feel particularly worshipful to me. But now I think to myself, “here’s a servant worship moment,” and I sing with my eyes open (otherwise, I close my eyes), looking around for those people who are getting their worship on, looking for the people singing with their eyes closed, or raising their hands, or bouncing their clapping baby. I listen for the voices of the older women singing their hearts out or the “Amen” from someone in the back. And in those moments, I can be glad that we’re singing that song I don’t like.

This explanation has been pretty good, but I think I said it best yesterday in my children’s message:

I’ve been thinking about children’s worship starting up again soon, and thinking about the songs we sing. Songs like the walls of Jericho song [to the adults, I noted that it was one of our crazier songs]. Some of you love, love, love it. And some of you are kind of scared by the craziness of it. And I was thinking about my 3 versions of Jesus Loves Me. Some of you love the sweet and quiet regular version and some kids love the louder rock and roll version. That happens in grown-up church, too.

I have a confession to make. Can we keep it just between us? That song we did two songs ago, [name of song], I don’t like it very much. I don’t.

But I sang it anyway.

Why do we sing songs that some people don’t like?

Let’s do an experiment. Grownups and kids, I’ll need your help on this. If you loved that song, if it made you joyful, it you felt the love of God for you or your love for God while you sang, raise your hand.

[a couple dozen hands went up]

Look at that. Look at all those hands of people who loved that song, who were really worshipping while they sang it.

So that’s why. But it’s only part of why we sing songs not everyone loves. Here’s the bigger reason.

[did the sign language for love and made the kids tell me what it meant]

That’s right. Love. We are all God’s family here, and because God loves us, we love each other and we want to serve each other. Jesus served the people he loved. Even though he was God, he washed his friends’ dirty, smelly, sweaty, disgusting feet. Serving someone by singing a song I don’t like is a lot more fun than washing their smelly feet.

So that’s why we sing a lot of different songs in children’s worship and in grown-up church: we’re a lot of different kinds of people who love a lot of different kinds of songs who feel and express the love of God in all kids of different ways — and because we love each other, we serve each other by sometimes singing things we don’t personally like. It’s servant worship, and it’s a lot more fun than washing smelly feet.

Let me note here that I am not suggesting that you stay in a church even when God is nudging you out just so you can be of service to the people there by participating in worship you can’t stand. And I’m not saying that all churches need to sing a variety of music — I’ve never met anyone whose spirit soared during every single song that was sung in their church.

I am suggesting that changing how you think about worship — in particular, changing how you think about singing songs you don’t like — can help you feel more connected to your fellow congregants, can give you joy even in the midst of songs you don’t like, can utterly change your experience of worship for the better. It did for me.

And now, because I’m talking about worship, you may commence yelling at me.

 

The Evidence I Wanted?

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

The previous diary entry was embarrassing enough that it took me over two months to recover, but now I’m ready. I think. Then, I’d bemoaned the fact that all my entries were about boys and social drama, and not about church or any of my other enthusiasms. The evidence I wanted is here, gushing out all over the place. Gushing.

There would come a time when I’d mainly write in my journal about angsty things, but in the beginning of 1984, I clearly wrote when I was feeling most sunny. Note that, in person, all those exclamation points are peppy triangles over little circles.

16th birthdayLast time, I included a one-off entry from August, 1984 that had slipped into the previous diary, but this book is all 1984, starting halfway through grade 11 (my junior year of high school, for my American readers). I’d just turned 16.

New Year’s Not-So-Rockin’ Eve

You will notice that the first entry was New Year’s Day and I was at church, good Christian Reformed girl that I was. Am. There was a good chance that I’d worked the pancake breakfast that morning, which I had little problem waking up for because I wasn’t partying hard with my friends the night before. Nope. Until my second senior year of college, when my parents lived in California, I spent every New Year’s Eve with my extended family.

The big event for my Hart clan was New Year’s Eve. I’m sure this year the kids hung out separately from the adults until we all came together somewhere around 11:45, when my oldest uncle read a Psalm and prayed in the New Year. These were long prayers that I believe got very specific about what had happened in the family that year. My memories of the prayers are vague because it was midnight, my eyes were closed, and I’d probably filched some wine. Scratch the probably — this was my European family. Wine was available. Then we’d creak to our feet, walk around giving kisses and saying “Happy New Year” to everyone, ignore any of the adults who might be having a more intense hug or kiss, have one last bite of food, and head home.

It was tradition. Also, since I try to tell the truth here, I was never invited to do anything else on New Year’s. Never.

The Evidence (a larger chunk than usual since I managed to write for 5 days in a row)

1/1/1984  Happy New Year! Church this morning was good. He talked about faith. H said nobody understood Tuyle’s sermon, even her parents! K slept over. I had dinner at H’s and watched Von Ryan’s Express. The only thing I didn’t like was that Ryan died. R didn’t spend New Year’s Eve with C; H and I are so disappointed. D, the deaf boy from camp, was at her house. They get along really well. Nothing else happened today: so bye! Uncle D came over and the four of us had a really good talk. I feel amazing about myself!

1/7/84  I went out with H, L & N tonight. It was pretty good. A carfull of 4 guys yelled at H and I: ego boost! We pigged out severely. It was a Thurs. today and H and I skipped last class. I know, I know, naughty, naughty, but I know! Life is wonderful! Praise God!

1/8/84 I sat today and read the four Harlequins H and I bought. I had a real riot. They were cute but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

1/9/84 Schuller this morning was great. He talked about faith again: it was really directed to church goers this time. He ties things together so well. I really enjoy listening to him and always learn something. I went nuts trying to read Great Expectations. At the moment I hate that book cause it’s driving me nuts. Oma was also over.

1/10/84 Today just whizzed by! I think it was the shortest Tuesday I’ve ever had! H said that too. Each class seemed like a rec. period. It was great. H and I are doing our English seminar on the title, I hope it works. No workout tonight. Darn! But catechism was great. We talked about parent-child relat. as compared to craftsman-apprentice. It brought up a lot of discussion. We really saw the true colours of some of these kids. Sad! I’m having problems with my devotions: I’m not doing them. I have to shape up. But I think I will start slowly by praying every night, then I will go to reading the Bible every night as well. I thanked God heartily for my family: I always will!

1/11/84 Today has been an absolutely amazing day! It was the 1st ISCF meeting of the year and it went so well. We played games & then had an exec. meeting. We made up such amazing topics. We have two blocks of subjects: relationships and faith! Praise God for the ideas! I know that they came from Him because everyone was so enthusiastic. M was over. At the end (5:15) her and C went to T’s and H, P & I went to Orange Julius and had a riot. We then walked to P’s house, getting crazier as we got colder and had hot choc. I then walked with P and P to Uncle D’s cause they were going swimming there. That was really fun and we walked faster because H wasn’t with us. No, that’s mean. School just zipped by again today: it was great. I’ve started to teach myself to type using R’s book. It’s going to be hard but very useful. Young People’s is probably finished cause L and J quit. I’m really sad but I want to go out with a real bang. Like going to JJ’s cottage and getting plastered. Oh well! H and I are really serious about going on a diet because we severely pigged out. I can tell my workouts are working. I can add 5-10 more pounds to my stomach and the pushups are a lot easier! Praise God!

Where to start?

Those entries are an accurate representation of how I remember my mid-teen years: friends, faith, romance novels, my reality always falling short of my ideals. Actually, this sounds like me now. Let’s do a comparison.

Me at 16: I’m having problems with my devotions: I’m not doing them. I have to shape up. But I think I will start slowly by praying every night, then I will go to reading the Bible every night as well.

Me, just a few days ago: I’m trudging along a path that I have created in my brain, and which my brain desperately wants to remain on, whether it’s leading me where I want to go or not. I am Resisting mightily the development of new habits that would be better than some comfortable old ones. And when I manage to head out on a new path, I drift back to the old one way too soon….That’s it for now. I’m not going to try to revolutionize my entire schedule in one fell swoop. If making that change doesn’t bleed over into my bad evening habits, I’ll revisit this process in the new year.

Yup.

The second entry cracks me up. Was my response to a litany of random boys honking at me, pigging out severely, and skipping school really, “Praise God!” With an exclamation point? It does sound like a fun day, but I can only shake my head at myself.

An Unusual Child

My parents hadn’t attended our church for a few years already; I’d either watch Robert Schuller on the Crystal Cathedral on TV with them, or walk to church by myself and be the final Hart family representative in “our” pew. I’d listen to the sermon. I was even known to go to evening church, mostly because our minister at the time didn’t feel the same pressure to be the “domine” in the black robes behind the podium then, and gave wonderful messages. I attended Young Peoples. I was an officer in the Inner School Christian Fellowship group at my public high school. I was a representative of our church at regional young people’s planning boards. I went on service weekends and to conferences. I believe at this time I also went to a Friday night Bible study (8pm – 12am) with a bunch of Pentecostals and Baptists in a suburb of Toronto. I was a thoroughly churchy girl, with no specific encouragement to be such by my parents. I just loved it. This makes me unusual, I know. And I still love church. Even when it frustrates me, pains me, hurts me or my friends, it gives me joy and comfort, it challenges me.

Still me

While the grownup me uses very few exclamation points in both public and private writing, most everything else in these posts is still part of who I am. I still thank God for my family every day (although I’m less judgmental about people who didn’t have such great families of origin). I’m still involved in churchy matters. I still read romance novels (although not Harlequins; they’re too short). I still love food, movies, God and my friends. I’m still not as regular as I’d like to be with Bible reading. I still like to periodically skip things for no good reason.

So I will give that dear gushy girl of my past a hug. She wouldn’t always be so up.

 

 

Anybody Else Need a Hand Slap?

~ Natalie Hart ~ 1 Comment

No, I don’t mean a “you’ve been naughty” slap. Or a “stop that” slap. I’m talking about the practice of volleyball teams to slap hands with each other when a point doesn’t go their way. (Of course, nobody else finds it interesting, so I have no photo to go along with this.)

I have a hard time tearing myself away from Olympics coverage, which means I wind up seeing sports I’d never watched for any length of time before. I’ve been struck by how supportive volleyball teams are. After every point that goes their way, they huddle and clap each other on the back or shoulder. After points they lose, they make a point of going around to almost every player and slapping palms with them, as if saying, “alright, next one,” “we’re still good.” No matter what, they affirm that they are in it together.

It’s part of the rhythm of every point, with every team that I’ve seen.

Which makes me think about failure and disappointment in my life. I tend to make a big deal out of them. I stew about them for a while before I say anything, and when I do say something, I’m rather emotional (this may be an understatement). And then I mull it over afterwards. This takes a lot of time and way too much energy. Maybe that’s why the matter-of-fact hand slap looks so appealing: no emotion, no recrimination. Just an understanding that failure happens, it’ll happen to all of us, we have another chance to not fail in 30 seconds, meanwhile, I’m here for you.

I’m focusing here on those hundreds of little failures: anger and irritation flaming out, saying something that unintentionally hurts someone you care for, not doing something you say you’re going to do. I need to work on being more matter-of-fact about these. On giving myself or my loved ones the equivalent of a simple clap of palms together to acknowledge that this whatever didn’t work out the way we’d hoped, but we’re in it together, let’s get ready for the next thing.

There have been times I’ve done this well with the kids, when I’d send us all to our rooms without a big fuss when it was clear we weren’t working well together. But I didn’t do so well yesterday, when both my kids sprung sudden school activities on me that required outlays of money and time and which they’d never done before, so I let my irritation and anxiety get the better of me. Not horribly, and things will work out fine with both things, but I don’t like how I handled it. I need to give myself and the kids the hand slap and move on.

I might try to cultivate this for bigger things, too. As regular readers know, my family left our longtime church two months ago. It still makes me very emotional; I still cry during every church service we aren’t at our old church. It’s not a crime to cry in church, of course, but I’d like to stop being so actively sad so I can better get ready for the next thing. Because the next thing is upon me. We start at a new church soon, my husband in an official capacity, and I don’t want to give the new people the impression that I’m not happy to be there — because I am glad to be there, I’m still just sad about the other.

Do I need to work on the volleyball hand slap approach? Or is that impossible while I’m still grieving the place I left?

Let me throw in another analogy, just to keep things interesting. In my favorite summer TV show (other than the Olympics), So You Think You Can Dance, dancers are put in partnerships that last about half the season (unless one of them leaves the show and partnerships get shuffled). Some of those pairings have amazing chemistry from the beginning, some pairs have to work up to it. But then, when they reach the top 10, partnerships get switched every week, and every week they have to do their best with someone new. The winners are those who can make any partnership, any style of dance look good.

I had great and immediate chemistry with my prior church partner, but I can’t be with them anymore. I have a new partner. It isn’t the same as the old one, but it’s got its own style. It’ll do some things better, other things not as well. I need to give myself fully to this partnership, learn its strengths, and do everything I can to make this successful, which, in my terms, means that I serve God’s people and bring glory to God’s kingdom.

We’ll see on Sunday whether I managed to analogize myself out of crying.