King Tut

We went down to Chicago a couple of weekends ago to see our friends Ben and Nikki, but also to see the Tutanhkamen exhibit at the Field Museum. It was awesome! First of all, I am fascinated with ancient Egyptian culture, so it's easy for me to get excited about stuff like this. Vicki just had to humor me for a couple of hours (she really didn't mind it all that much) while we walked through the golden pieces of art and religious artifacts.

As we walked in, it felt as if the high priests were pulling back the curtain to the Most Holy Place to show us the ark of the covenant. What we were seeing had been hidden from sight for over 3500 years. A wooden chair, which should have disintegrated 2,000 years ago, stood proudly bearing the marks of the young king. His grandmother's casket, covered in gold and adorned with ancient spells from the Book of the Dead, sat in the middle of one room begging people to come closer. A crown, a dagger, and a golden necklace were prominently displayed in one of the final rooms. A creative video showed that Tut was buried adorning these priceless pieces. He wore them until they were pulled off his mummified body in the early 1900's. Man, I could've stayed in there all day!

I don't know if there is a hobby or a particular part of history or subject that you find fascinating. You know you don't regret it when you explore that world. What is that one thing for you?

Indulge me

Worship and lament

I can remember growing up in a very traditional southern country church and noticing one Sunday that every song we sung never made it back to praising God. We sung about heaven and evergreen trees. We sung about ships and mansions. But I distinctly remember one Sunday never singing one song that addressed God at all. Now this is an extreme example, and I'm not bitter at all about it . . . :) But you see my point!

Truth is, there are waves of inspiration in worship music, we write what we are experiencing and frame it within the biblical story. During the depression, we wrote songs of hope and longing for the future when we wouldn't struggle like we do. Recently, we have written songs expressing the joy we feel was missing from the corporate worship.

In light of this, I agree that the element most missing in our worship is lament. Everyone goes through painful situations, divorces in the family, loss of loved ones, etc, etc, and there is very little to express that in our services. We tend to clean things up a bit in our offerings to God. But that shouldn't be the point, should it? God wants us to be genuine and come to him in the midst of our pain, our dark times. He wants our heart, broken or not.

As I read through the Psalms (our guide to "worship music" from ages past) and it seems that about 2/3 of the songs has massive elements of lament vs. 1/3 which are upbeat and positive. It seems to me that we have some writing to do! We need more songs that express our questions, confession of sins, and just simply "God, where are you?" Off the top of my head, I can think of only a handful that do this well: Deep Calls to Deep (being the only true lament I know), Healing Grace; Lord Have Mercy; Have Mercy O God (another Randy Gill original); Create in Me a Clean Heart (maybe?); and Blessed Be your Name.

I love the honesty in these songs. It doesn't clean up our spirituality, it leaves it messy. God is big enough to handle our problems AND our questions. Don't you think?

-chris