Though decisions are made by group concensus among our church worship team, I am still the "bottom line" regarding song choice every Sunday morning, and I have really made a science out of it! I have learned to navigate the pressures of personal preference and discern the occasions on which an obscure song or even a non-traditional one might be amazingly appropriate, as well as the times that the latest thing from "Jesus Culture" which would be totally expected from us is equally appropriate! I love the rhythm of church life and how the Holy Spirit tends to weave in the unexpected amidst the familiar and I really do believe that "song choice" can be summed up with a phrase from the book of Acts: "It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit..." God works with humans in a very intimate way and his purposes STILL wrap themselves in flesh 2000 years since the manger scene.
And that last thought brings me to the topic of Christmas. I'm sure every worship leader on planet earth noticed that yesterday was the last Sunday service before Christmas--you know the one where we contemporary churches with youthful bands who are more familiar with Weezer than the Wesleys attempt to pull off a few carols! Joy to the World is always a favorite due to its upbeat nature (thank you G.F. Handel for your foresight) and Away in a Manger works in Texas because enough "country" covers have been done that it now abides in the collective consciousness with a gentle acoustic strum. However, at least for our worship team, the carol experience is often a painful nod to the holiday--which everyone now knows is not even celebrated in the right month!
Yesterday, I decided to refuse the pressure of expectation. I went to church with a list of songs that had no direct reference to the Christmas story, in full confidence that every bit of worship we do has to do with the fact that Jesus was (and still wants to be) incarnated into the real world. What could be more celebratory of the incarnation of Christ than people gathering to sing, shout and dance around, fueled by the inner confidence of his absolutely transcendent reality? Though I love the carols, I felt suddenly liberated from the need to adapt them to a rock band format! You go girl, right?
If the story ended there, it would have some merit, but God had an infusion of the unexpected. Someone on our team said, "Let's do some Delirious," and I accommdated that request by reaching back a few years to the standard and ever-popular I Could Sing of Your Love Forever which did seem fresh because it had been a long while since we had done it. It was the last song in the set and flowed well with the other songs, general celebrations of God's grace and goodness. As you do, when we reached the end of the song, we went to that "flow-y" place of improvisation that dances in and out of the prophetic--you know how it goes: one minute you are lyrically exhorting the congregation to "go ahead and sing of his love in your own way..." and then suddenly a phrase shows up that is from somewhere beyond the lyrics. You sing it out and you sense the worship has just stepped up to another plateau...suddenly things are spontaneous--vocally and instrumentally you are venturing out into the great unknown of God!
And that's when it began: I heard myself start to sing about...wait for it...Christmas! Out of my mouth came the most amazing streams of words completely unpremeditated. The last line in the Delerious? song says, "I will always sing of when your love came down..." and I suddenly remembered a line from a song my mother used to sing, "Love came down at Christmas...love all lovely, love divine..." and there I departed. For about ten minutes, I sang this spontaneous Christmas medley of sorts that for a while centered on "O Come O Come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel..." and then focused on the line from O Holy Night that says, "...till he appeared and the soul felt its worth..." It was amazing and rambling and rhythmically flowing with what the musicians were laying down and it just kept coming. Words, like a river popping into my head from all that has been sung through the years about Christmas, but now being incarnated into an utterly contemporary setting. It was like my brain stood in awe of what was coming out of my spirit, and, clearly, (and I don't mean this as disparagingly as it may sound), we all got our "Christmas fix"!
Later, as I pondered, I marvelled at the lesson that I gleaned--the same lesson that all of life seems to be wrapping around me these days--a Kingdom lesson that I wish I could shout from the rooftops! We so often waste time and energy trying to fulfill expectations--especially our own--when in fact there is a fully equipped expectation-exceeding "machine" inside us! The Kingdom of God is swirling inside us Christians, fully resourced with Christmas words and music--or anything else desirable--accessible precisely at the time needed! The Kingdom wants to emerge with more power and force than we could ever muster in our own initiative--we just need to participate in its incarnation! The Scripture in Hebrews that urges us to come boldly to the throne to find grace to help in time of need need not only mean a desperate approach in a desperate situation. That comfort is only a slice of a much broader pattern of living to which God is calling us: there is always empowerment for life and action to be experienced in our contact with God--He is always wanting to demonstrate Himself by showing up in the moments of our lives with surprising displays of Presence. The throne of grace is a throne of participation and partnering between heaven and earth. This God truly wants to live Himself out among us still and gladly does so--much to our enjoyment--when we refuse to nervously overplan his arrival!
And that really is, now that I think of it, the message of Christmas. The obvious answer to the popular Christmas song of a few years ago, Mary, Did You Know? is a resounding NO! Mary did not know that the pivotal Person of all time, eternity and spiritual substance was residing inside her young womb. How could anyone "know" that and bear up under it? She did not know, but she was willing to "let it emerge". She carried the Kingdom of God the way we all should--with the sense that she was participating in a mystery that her mental capacities could never fully master, yet remaining open to all the possibilities. The good news of Christmas is vast, but one very real aspect of it is this: This spiritual Kingdom to which we Christians now belong requires none of the effort, strain and fevered pursuit that we bring to it. This Kingdom, like the Savior that instituted it, wants--more than we know--to emerge. It wants to leap into being and fill every time and space around us, making things whole and right, hopeful and holy.
When we actually resist the pressures of do-it-yourself professional Christianity, we give the Kingdom a chance to show its overwhelming orchestrational ability and take our very breath away. Whether it is one Sunday morning's worship experience, or deliverance in the midst of an impossible situation, or the transformation of the nations--it's really all the same. God help us, as we hurl headlong into 2010, to learn the rhythm of Kingdom participation. Give us the incredible grace to, like Jesus, refuse to run to the dying Lazaurs, because we have already observed the power of resurrection and its ability to EMERGE! I'm looking for--and hoping to be a part of--an army of strangely sane Christians with eyes fixed on another realm. I'm looking to fully lose the religious performance frenzy and march forward with bold confidence minus the need to push or prove. Sign up now and leave the pressure behind...I think the call is clear.
