I had to change my mind
One of my favourite hymns is “When I survey the wondrous cross”. Possibly I was influenced by Iona’s version of it, and I was certainly pleased to introduce a version based on their arrangement into our church’s music repertoire. For the first few times it always elicited a story from the preacher about how Isaac Watts was the first to use the word “I” in a hymn – personalising the sentiments and making them much more immediate then was previously possible. I took that as a very positive recommendation of the hymn and while unsure of the claimed history I was happy to buy into the story. Until
For several years I’ve been agonizing about our church services. “Our” in the widest sense, but most specificially referring to the church that I regularly attend, and that I would claim as “my” church, by which, of course, I am standing up and associating myself with it, not claiming it as my personal possession. I’ve written about this at some length here, and I’m starting to think I need to write at some more length in perhaps a more formal way.
I’m not sure where the dissatisfaction originated, but I started questioning everything that took place on a Sunday and before long I arrived at a stage where I could not intellectually justify any of it. None of it was done as a means of achieving a particular goal – all of it was done because traditions had to be perpetuated. Some of it you could, with a sufficiently twisted mind, come up with an explanation for. But any goal that you claimed it was trying to achieve could undoubtedly be achieved much, much more efficiently and effectively.
The singing of songs in church was a key area here. We talk of “worship songs” or “a time of worship”, which beautifully implies that this is the only time in the week that we acknowledge the worth of God. Many of the OT prophets, and many of Jesus’s actions and words, make clear that worship should primarily be our living our lives in a way that pleases God. Treating others fairly, resisting temptations, all those dull things that don’t feel remotely spiritual but which even most outside the church know are things we should do. Those are our acts of worship, and getting off on the latest great tune and clever words are not. But we like singing, and we like to think the emotional buzz we get out of it is deeply spiritual and is serving God. And singing “I” gives more of a buzz than singing “we”. Singing “I” allows us to forget that annoying bloke behind us with the halitosis, and it allows us to overlook that woman on our right who alway grumbles about everything, and so on. Singing “I” allows us to focus on God, without any distractions. In fact, singing “I” clarifies things for us so much that we actually wonder why we have to come along on a Sunday and put up with all these other people that just distract us from God. Letting our mind wonder along these lines (and I chose not to say “thinking along these lines”, because thinking is definitely not what’s going on) will lead us to get frustrated with the whole Sunday business, and start resenting the church services and the way they get inbetween us and God.
By that point we should know that we’ve gone wrong somewhere. And the where, it seems to me, starts with Isaac’s glorious “I”. For as far as I can see, I’ve got a whole week of just me and God – if I want to sing my own private song to him, then I can do it Mon-Sat without problem. Then, on Sunday, I get to join together with the other people that make up the church. I don’t “come to worship God” or “come to meet with God” on a Sunday – I come to meet with my fellow worshippers. Those who, like me, have been worshipping God, or at least trying to, all week. But who, like me, having spent a week on their own are, to use the cliché, somewhat weak. And we all need to get together and do a bit of mutual encouragement. And singing together, for all that it’s naff and reminds of ’70s cumbayah singalongs, is a good way of doing just that. But to do that, to actually sing *together*, we need to be singing “we”, not “I”.
When I survey is a great song of personal meditation. But because it’s precisely that, it’s really not a good song to sing in church. Meeting on a Sunday is of no value whatsoever if we don’t meet – meeting with our fellow believers, despite the halitosis, grumbles and whatever. Blocking them out is to block ourselves out.
I went through a similar process of “examination” several years ago at a church I had been going to for years. I ended up leaving as I found it so traumatic, but it was a really valuable thing to go through. That’s 4 I’s in 2 sentences though- probably not such a good thing.
Interesting thoughts. I do agree largely with this… and yet…
I think there is some value in the church gathered in one place making individual and personal confessions. Part of church for me is to bring my individual relationship with God into company, and to sing songs like When I Survey is a big part of that.
On 20th October this year, at ten past eight in the evening, members of Girlguiding UK will gather together to renew their Guide promise. It’s not a prayer, but I’d be surprised if I was the only person for whom it is very close to one…
…I Promise to do my best
To love my God
To serve the queen and my country
To help other people
And to keep the Guide laws
The act of repeating that promise, occasionally on my own, but most often with a group has a measure of accountability and one of solidarity. Both the personal and the communal met with the words and the surroundings. It’s not a hymn, it’s not a prayer, but it’s the closest I can get to an explanation right at the moment.
Another part of being in company is to learn about my relationship with God from others. That includes hymn writers and worship leaders, who will quite often give me the words to express my Monday – Saturday worship. If we didn’t sing the ‘I songs’ on a Sunday, how would I come across them? Even if I could learn the words I don’t read music, and I’m unlikely to buy a CD of Christian music that I don’t know (or a CD of any Christian music for that matter).
There is a sort of ‘I song’ that I think should be retired though, it’s the sort that put words into my mouth that I don’t hold to. Either at the time of singing (“I am H-A-P-P-Y”, “Oooh I feel like dancing” etc.) to theological rubbish (“You took the fall, and thought of me above all”).
Would “When We Survey The Wondrous Cross” work? It sounds wrong to my ears, and instinct tells me that it is wrong on other levels – but why?
I could probably come up with a lengthy comment about each paragraph here, and in fact I’ve been pondering it over since you posted it so probably I could actually come up with a mind numbingly verbose discussion about most of the sentences too. But don’t worry, I’ll spare you. Like Lemly, I agree with a lot of that.
I just want to comment [not *counter*, but *comment*. sorry, didn't mean to go on so long] on this (because, as you know, I have a “sufficiently twisted mind!”):
“I’m not sure where the dissatisfaction originated, but I started questioning everything that took place on a Sunday and before long I arrived at a stage where I could not intellectually justify any of it. None of it was done as a means of achieving a particular goal – all of it was done because traditions had to be perpetuated. Some of it you could, with a sufficiently twisted mind, come up with an explanation for. But any goal that you claimed it was trying to achieve could undoubtedly be achieved much, much more efficiently and effectively.”
I was not raised ‘in the church’, but was raised by a God-fearing woman. My mother was ‘not allowed’ to go to church by my over controlling, aging and lonely father who was too scared to think about God having anything to do with him (and wanted nothing to do with God in return) and too traditional to not have his family together on a Sunday. So she didn’t go to church. But she did occasionally slip away, and took me with her to whichever church she thought she could face at the time. I went to a Methodist church for awhile, a Baptist church for awhile, a Wesleyan church for awhile, plenty of what they would call Bible churches and I can’t even remember what else. I went with my school friends to Catholic, and Presbyterian churches and when I was old enough I settled on going to a Charismatic Episcopalian church, because when I was 8 I promised God that someday (when I was old enough) I would sort myself out and pick one and go by myself every week. I developed a theory at that time that ‘having different denominations was God’s provision for having made people so different.’
What I’m getting at by that, is that I never really had *one* way to ‘do church’, but the traditions that I experienced showed me how much it meant to the people who went to each church. It meant something to people that they had a ‘way’ of doing things. I’ve had “a lot of dissatisfaction” and have done “a lot of questioning”, as well, when I finally settled into one church (and have even left it for several periods over the last 14 years), and no, I can’t “intellectually justify” any of it either, and yes there probably *is* a way to do it “much more efficiently and effectively.”
All I know, is that the last 14 years of my life, for reasons nothing to do with my church, have been grueling, testing, painful and for the past 4 years, downright traumatic, and my relationship with God (Father/Son/and Holy Spirit) personally and with my friends/community/family socially has been up/down/around the bend. I’m not saying every last second of it has been so, but *all I know* when it *is* so, is that I belong there. Despite the fact that I have to keep many of my thoughts to myself, despite the fact that I believe and do things in ways that other people don’t, despite the fact that it may not be the best way to commune with either God or my neighbour. . . I can count on it and the people to carry me ‘across the Jordon’, so to speak, when I’m too weak to carry myself. And when I’m not doing well with trusting God, I can at least trust in my neighbour, and well, most of them trust in him, so maybe at least I can take their word on it.
You said: “all of it was done because traditions had to be perpetuated.” Yes, it’s true. But personally, sometimes those unjustifiable traditions have been more of an anchor to me than I was able to succeed in making my actual faith. And when I start to do a bit better, invariably my faith remains.
I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of weeks but haven’t had any chance to actually respond til now.
I’ve done the whole thing of questioning everything we do in church for years and years. My conclusion is that human nature is to end up settled on a standard format, and this applies equally to house churches who tried to slew off all tradition. They just end up with their own traditions which are self-perpetuating. I became increasingly of the opinion that the traditions you have don’t matter, what matters is the attitude you bring to them.
I don’t think that Sunday ‘worship’ is just a matter of mutual encouragement, though that is important. It’s also a rare chance in the week to stop for a few minutes and concentrate on God, and communicate directly with him, in the presence of others who are doing the same. I think that ‘I’ songs can have a place in that, and I agree with Lemly that songs and hymns give us a language for our faith, which would be much the poorer without ‘I’ hymns. We need to be able to express ourselves personally to God. That personal relationship is at the heart of evangelical worship, so inevitably in evangelical churches we have ‘I’ songs. The problem is surely one of balance – we don’t sing enough songs that encourage us to worship together, and we don’t sing enough songs that simply glorify God without reference to you or me or us.
I think there is a major issue about how we change our mindsets away from the individualism and egotism of our culture. ‘I’ songs can perpetuate that. But equally, many of those same songs are trying to get us to focus on God in a way which causes us to come before him humbly.
Very thought provoking post! Thanks.