Coldplay does it for me these days.

great title as well – maybe one of the problems is church wants us to have “expected” moments of worship too much – within a tightly designed formula. Anything outside of that is messy and can’t be controlled. So many modern songs seem cynically written for a reaction by the time the chorus is reached, or the bridge, or the acapella bit, that any spontanaeity is lost.

Ephesians says to encourage each other with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. I’m not sure that “spiritual songs” is referring solely to the praise and worship genre

Matthew 11

Thrice – deff not seen as a “Christian” band have a song “come all you weary”. It has been said thought that Dustin Kensrue has professed his faith publicly before, and writes spiritually/morally positive lyrics.

“Come all you weary with your heavy loads
Lay down your burdens find rest for your souls
Cause my yoke is easy and my burden is kind
I’ll take yours upon me and you can take mine

Come all you weary move through the earth
Surrounded by rest stones and kicked out of church
A couple of loaves sit down at my feet
Lend me your ears and break bread with me

Come all you weary
Come gather round near me
Find rest for your souls
(By the rest stones)

Come all you weary, crippled you lay
I’ll help you along you can lay down your canes
We’ve got a long way to go but we’ll travel as friends
The lights growing bright further on towards the end”

Maybe my denominational background (i had to mention it) flavours my thoughts on that…..but seriously, the amount of things that i grew hearing God could not do…….”that God’ was in a box, confined to behaving how some people were comfortable with, which is not how God works….

BUt yea, i hear ya, not disagreeing – finding everyone’s thoughts fascinating

However I’m gonna continue to listen to JR and see where his perspectives co-incide with mine and what parts of his morality are worth taking on board..

It’s a whole other discussion about whether something being “non-theistic” is necessarily bad..

I’m reading a great book at the moment about church in todays culture, and one of the keys things the author is pushing, is the idea of the church as corporate, and reading the bible etc, but with a mindset of plural ‘You’,

Before the invention of the printing press, everything to do with church was very communal, and not individualistic, but as culture and technology has changed, from the printing press, to telegrams, to mobile phones, culture in general has become more individualistic, and the church has reflected that.

We need to reclaim our whole worship of God as a communal thing, I’m not saying stop personal worship, but shift the focus slightly.

that probably makes very little sense, I tend to waffle a lot

Thats the danger in this i guess, that someone thinks i am holding up Josh Ritter in higher esteem than Christian artists – thats not what i am saying

Finding that balance of what it means for ‘me’ and what it means is a tough one – the whole aesthetic of Church is so directed at “me’ though – i admit thats a struggle but i wouldn’t rule out that God can use a moment in any song, worship or otherwise, to speak to me in a way that others will not experience – finding a healthy balance of that is a challenge though or we can isolate ourselves

In fact, I think thats essentially what I’m talking about above – a different type of church community where we are sharing openly our expressions of faith….rather than 1 person using a platform to perform songs or express personal views.

I’d want to push you further on your last line. Not ‘what does this song mean for ME’ but rather ‘what does it mean for us.’ I’m desperate to found a corporate language of faith in our gatherings…and perhaps songs inspired from within the community might help.