My church is rich in culture with diverse ethnic groups of Asians, Sub-Saharan and Southern Africans, continental Europeans and of course, Britons but the central theme is the Cross of Jesus Christ. I particularly told Geoff that I struggled when I joined on what I did term "sluggish mode of service" as a result of where I was coming from where there is an effervescent (that word again, Geoff. Lol) "gospel" approach to music but after some time, IB and I began to look indepth at the lyrics from the Praise! Hymn book and "landed" on 676-To God be the glory! Stanza 2 line 3-4 made perfect sense and I quote inter alia "the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus, a pardon receives". So when we sing at TABC with only an accompaniment of soft piano and flutes, I have come to now pay particular attention to the lyrics of the hymns with emphasis on God.
Why did I struggle? I have been used to my "place of birth" Baptist Church in Lagos, Nigeria and the Pentecostal church I was with for 15years both Nigeria and London where we worshipped God in Praise and Worship accompanied by a large ensemble of choristers and musical instruments. Let me run a quick example juxtapositioning Hymn 676 with Gospel singer, Donnie McClurkin's "Great is your mercy towards me"-a very popular worship chorus in pentecostal churches. McClurkin sings "great is your mercy towards me, your loving kindness towards me, your tender mercies I see, day after day......" That line that I have come to love "the vilest offender who truly believes....." Has the same semantic semblance with "great is your mercy towards me" because both points to the Cross of the Savior, Jesus Christ and despite the fact that I was born a baptist, hymn 676 never made impact until I joined TABC. I was extremely cocooned in my culture of "heavy metal drum sets and bass guitar" without being pedantic to the lyrics. Pls, don't get me wrong, there's nothing absolutely wrong in worshipping God with those instruments but sometimes, they can form a sort of distraction where we are unconsciously swayed away by the rich music.
Another issue that Geoff and I discussed is the mode of prayer. I come from a background where we pray for hours at "Night vigils" and petitioning God in a prayerthon approach and interjecting these prayers with hundreds of thunderous "amens" and phrases like "The blood of Jesus" and "Holy ghost fire" having the belief that prayers are answered only when you pray "hard". When I joined, IB and I struggled heavily with the mode of prayer as we found it extremely "sluggish" for us until God began to deal with us on who He really is and the ways to approach Him in prayer. IB and I now see this "erroneous" sluggish prayer mode as good because we don't bombard God with tons of prayer requests all pointing towards tautology and "Me, myself and I".The question thus arise that now that we have changed our prayers to the way it is done at our church, has God not answered us as a family? A capital YES affirming that we have testimonies to the goodness of God.
I have taken time out to write this because I see myself as a microcosm of the family unit at TABC who had gone through the stage of cultural clash and pray that God reveal Himself to us more so that we can fully come to the understanding that a God's church must be Christ themed with a background know how of this year's Men's Fellowship theme "That I may know Him, the fellowship of His suffering and the power of His resurrection".
Thanks to Geoff for the opportunity to share my thoughts with him. God bless you bro!
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