the trinitarian aspect of convergence worship

[HelenaZF]

CEC worship should be trinitarian. Our first Patriarch, Archbishop Adler in his final messages was urging the communion to refocus their worship songs and use songs that are sung "to" God rather than "about" God, or about us and our response to God. He recognized that many CEC churches had gotten pulled off-track into the Vineyard, Emergent Church, and other contemporary worship styles that focus on our response and offerings to God, rather than to God Himself. This is not the direction that he felt the Lord was taking the CEC. It is time for us to take this to heart in our song selections as we plan our Eucharistic services.



At this most recent convocation in Orlando, the keynote speaker, Dr. Simon Chan, stressed the importance of Trinitarian worship, and the need for song leaders to select and compose new worship music in that vein. [Audio links to <URL url="http://www.cechome.com/?p=445">THURSDAY and <URL url="http://www.cechome.com/?p=454">FRIDAY sessions with Dr. Chan, two one hour sessions in MP3 format at each link]

Dr. Chan's notes:

<URL url="http://cechome.com/convovation/Theology_of_Convergence.pdf"><LINK_TEXT text="http://cechome.com/convovation/Theology ... rgence.pdf">http://cechome.com/convovation/Theology_of_Convergence.pdf</LINK_TEXT>

<URL url="http://cechome.com/convovation/Practice_of_Convergence.pdf"><LINK_TEXT text="http://cechome.com/convovation/Practice ... rgence.pdf">http://cechome.com/convovation/Practice_of_Convergence.pdf</LINK_TEXT>



What is trinitarian worship?

Trinitarian worship always focuses around the nature of God, the fullness of the Godhead, and the things He has done. In contrast, what some call "Unitarian style" worship focuses on our response to God and our response to the things He has done. Trinitarian worship is addressed normally to the Father, centered around and focused toward the Eucharist. It is not about anything we can do for God or offer to God. It is about joining the eternal celebration that is already in progress.


<QUOTE author="Andrew Thompson">

The emphasis in trinitarian worship is not on ourselves and our own action; it is on Christ and Christ's action on our behalf. Trinitarian worship is not about our response to God. Worship happens just fine without our involvement, because worship is at the center of the Triune interrelationship. Christ is the great and perfect worshiper. To use an illustration, the perfect party is already going on, and we, through unworthy of inclusion, have been declared worthy and have been invited to join in the celebration. We attend wearing someone else's name tag. It is not about us. By extension then, it is most certainly, not about me.

As CEC song leaders, we have the challenge to examine our song choices. So much of what is available in the contemporary music realm has a unitarian basis, and we may not even be aware of it. In fact, many "I" based songs masquerade as worship songs--they sound like worship songs and feel like worship songs, but when you examine the lyrics, they are all about "me" and my response to God. One of the things I would like to do in this forum is develop a list of good contemporary worship and praise songs that fit the trinitarian model, and another list of popular songs that don't, in order to help our music leaders sort this out.