If you know me, you would probably know that I complain quite heavily with the form and method of praise and worship or PAW as we affectionately call it today. Throughout this semester, you could count on there being praise and worship Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Let me preface my complaint by stating that there is nothing inherently wrong with Praise and Worship, I just tend to get a little jaded at the routineness and frequency of it. It seems that we cannot have any fellowship without there being PAW. Worshipping our King is one of the greatest gifts God has given us, but the last time I recall, PAW does not limit itself strictly to song, raising of hands in the air, and closed eyes. Why can we not give as much aknowledgment to praising him with our minds or everyday lives? Why not praise Him more openly through His created nature? Is it perhaps because we are too afraid we would become like pagans or earth worshippers? Is it perhaps that we have separated the secular from the sacred when there is no biblical separation. We worship what we assume is holy, but is it possible that what we recognize as secular may in itself be a Truth of God. Has our praise and worship gotten so frequent and uncritical in reality that the noise of the instruments only contributes to the emptiness and distractions within us? I have sat through numerous classes this year that begin each day with a devotional (AKA PAW) and at the sound of the first chord you can count on several holy rollers by default automatically raising their hands. Sorry to be blunt, but it just really bothers me. I read in Matthew and Isaiah where the Lord speaks to the emptiness of our traditions and the Lord’s hatred of our conformity and mindless consumption (though I do not mean to say that PAW necessarily parallels these descriptions). Honestly, and as I have previously noted in other blogs, I think my greatest qualm with PAW is that God is not something to be comprehended with our minds. God is not be dictated within a angle, box, or area. And honestly, this frustrates me that God is not more physically evident. Rather, I have taken my qualm with his infiniteness and exchanged it for worshipping him FOR HIS INFINITENESS. I worship Him for being above us all, through us all, and in us all.
Friday night all the FFI students traveled to Horn Creek (mountain retreat center, 9,000 feet elevation) and just basically hung out and relaxed. It was awesome to see the level of community formed by our three months in Colorado. I digress. Anyway, we ended the night with a praise and worship service that I was not really looking forward to. My expectations were not as I assumed they would be. First, if you know me I have always been rather conservative and reserved in my worship. The extent of my bodily or visible worship would be eyes closed. For some reason, Friday night was different. Maybe the intensity of the songs were different. Anyway, I found myself in tears through out it and at a few points, my hands raised in the air to full extent. I am always worried of the appearance of my worship because insincerity and attention-grabbing are not two qualities I look highly upon. I really felt God’s love in this room.
Also, my mom has made me aware of a spelling error I have made throughout the last few writings. I apparently have been spelling “erred” as “aired” in regards to saying that I may “aire” on the side of caution. More later.
I am leaving for Jacksonville on Tuesday morning at 7 AM. I will be staying in Kansas City on Tuesday night at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with my mentor and friend, Matt Creath. I should be getting home on Wednesday afternoon around 3.
theologyislife 
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