The singing thing has generated some reaction. Dan has a post with her take on it and there are some interesting comments in the previous post.

As I was chatting with Geoff Westlake free batman begins major payne divx (a biannual blogger!) today on the way home from our Forge team meeting I mentioned the singing question and we discussed it a bit.

I told him someone had suggested that “once you meet Jesus you want to sing”. He told me this was setting up a syllogism. I told him I didn’t know what that was… (and probably can’t spell it) Basically it implies that if you want to sing when you meet Jesus then people who don’t sing therefore… yep… can’t have met Jesus. Possibly not the case you reckon?

His Banksia Grove crew have explored 6 or 7 different modes people have of expressing worship, kind of like Hybels 7 pathways of worship. He told me that of their 24 people they had 3 in each category (which of course then means there must be 8 categories they use!)

From memory the 7 ways people may express worship are thru:

1. Creation – being in the natural environment
2. Art – creating
3. Serving – activistic worship
4. Contemplative – reflective practice
5. Relational – thru being with other people
6. Intellectual – thru study
7. Singing

I’m not sure what Geoff’s 8th one would be.

I actually find that with the exception of the artistic element I engage fairly often with all the others. Perhaps the ones that are ‘most me’ are a blend of the intellectual (I feel close to God when I study and learn about him) and creation. I could sit in the ocean for hours and ‘be’ with God and never get bored.

How about you?

As for singing?… I enjoy a good sing every now and then, but if I was mute tomorrow it wouldn’t change my ability to worship much at all.

What are the implications of this for our corporate worship?