For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt (ICEWS, eb 08)
Blogging is intimidating and stretching! I find I'm reticent to put my core thoughts, ideas and beliefs out for all the cyberworld to view because I'm unsure about my ability to communicate them well. That said, here goes...
My first post included three questions, two of which I've begun to process this week:
1. “How healthy and true are my own thoughts about God, the scriptures, the story of humankind and my faith?”
2. “How healthy and true are the thoughts about God that are forming and informing my views about worship, and the how do they affect the way I lead others into worship?”
After listening to Don Williams talk about theology I read through the Vineyard statement of faith. I began attending the Vineyard in 1978, when I was 18 years old. My then-friend-now-husband took me to a service there and we've been at the Vineyard ever since. Although the whole of my adult life has been spent in this movement, and I remember when John and others decided we needed a Vineyard statement of faith, I never read it until this week. It brought tears to my eyes! Reading it caused worship to well up in me! I downloaded it and have decided to take Don up on reading it every day for a month; to look up the scripture references, to memorize it, study it, and learn it.
Don also said the following:
...if I'm just spitting out stuff that is confusing or heretical...it's not only that it's dishonoring to God and confusing to His people, it's trafficking in the Kingdom of darkness. It's that simple. So, I need to get it straight: What is the gospel? Who is God? What is God's purpose? What is His plan of salvation?...This just requires clear thinking about the foundations of the faith.
My hope is that this 5-week course will be a time in which I "get it straight" because, as Don also said, "If you can't write within that (statement of faith), you shouldn't be writing for the Vineyard and you shouldn't be writing for the church..." I think I'm a songwriter. As my pastor used to say, "old orders are good orders until there are new orders." I think my old orders and my new orders have to do with songwriting. I'm inspired to write and I'm grateful for the inspiration.
3 comments:
Absolutely beautiful Cindy - for artistic temperaments to weep when they read a statement of faith (a rich one, at that) - this is a gift.
Cindy,
I just got a chance to read your post. Wow. You hit it on the head. I pray that the Lord increases the gifting of writing on your life. Not as a reward for you doing more, but as an extra set of powerful tools to help you as you mine God's heart and words for new expressions for all of us to sing. I love your honesty in your post Cindy.
Kim
I had never read that either. It's really all there isn't it? We really should all read it and commit it to our hearts and minds. Thanks for linking to the statement. I'm very grateful to be a part of this family! Wonderful.
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