outWORD by Matte Downey

I just finished an online spiritual formation course. The final assignment was a creative project based on some concepts we studied over the last 4 weeks. Usually, ideas line up in my brain and eagerly pepper me with scenarios for possible projects. But this week, much to my dismay, everything was silent. On Saturday, I tried to put some ideas down on paper, but after three attempts to come up with something creative (all of them whined about the fact that I was uninspired), I stopped. What do you do when you lack inspiration? Everything seems deflated and limp, void of life. Words fall flat - monotone and without meaning. Music becomes mechanical. I abandoned another idea mid-sentence and scribbled two words beneath the mess: phone book. My lack of inspiration was reminding me of a saying. When something does not hold our interest, we say that it is about as exciting as reading the phone book. On the other hand, it is also said of someone who has great charisma that they can read the ...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Green Online Worship Values Course with Dan Wilt The trinitarian nature of the Godhead fascinates and puzzles me. It is like a prism or multidimensional sculpture that one cannot take in all at once, but every time you look, you catch a different angle. And so I keep looking and moving closer and catching new glimpses of this God who is unlike anything or anyone that I know. One. Three. One. Hard to describe. Virtually impossible not to be challenged and changed and loved by Him, if one is up for it. For my final project for Essentials Green, I painted something inspired by my studies on the trinity this year, both in this online course and in my theology classes in university. I turned the video camera on and started painting, not sure exactly what I would come up with. It turned out to be an afternoon of joyful and playful creation. Sticks, fingers, knives, apples, and paint a...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Green Online Worship Values Course with Dan Wilt I just returned from 5 days in Florida. This trip held a number of firsts for me, one of which was flying first class. Thanks to the generosity of our hosts, Dean and I were able to enjoy this rare treat together. I had been told about the special treatment we would get: the special line to check in, the special food, the special attention to our needs, and the special seats. I was looking forward to this experience of not being one of the "regular" people for a change. We arrived at the airport and got into the special line which was indeed much shorter than the regular line, but soon after we got there, we saw our check-in agent walk away. She did not return for a long time, obviously dealing with the special needs of the people in front of us, and we were left standing there feeling somewhat un-special. At the stop-ov...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Green Online Worship Values Course with Dan Wilt Something interesting happened to me last week. We had a number of visitors at our Sunday evening meeting at church and at the end of the night, a guy came up to me and asked me if I was the person who answered the phone. I said, "Yes." The phone number given for the church on our website is my home number and always has been, so yes, if he called the church, he talked to me. He said he had called the church in 2005 when he was in the Netherlands. He had been facing a surgery the next day that he was concerned about and wanted someone to pray for him. I interrupted him at this point to say that I did not have a clear recollection of this call, but that I get a fair number of people who contact me with concerns. I usually just pray for them on the spot and unfortunately, the details do not stay with me for long. He confir...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Green Online Worship Values Course with Dan Wilt The topics this week have been accessibility and cultural relevance in my online course. Not two of my favourite concepts, I have to admit. I think I have just had these ideas crammed down my throat by leaders once too often in order to get me (and other artists) to mellow out or put us more within their comfort zone. Or I could be misrepresenting the leadership's motives; I have been known to do that, but I do believe there is at least some partial truth in it. I am a pretty messy truth teller sometimes, this past week being a good case in point. I will see a hazy picture of a situation, grasp a partial wisdom, get a vague idea of where something is going, and then let the words fly without really ordering them into cohesive and accessible sentences. Yes, I need to develop my skills as a communicator, but I believe that truth...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Green Online Worship Values Course with Dan Wilt Intimacy and integrity are funny things (laugh here if you like). Yes, of course, I want them in my life. In fact, the best thing in the whole world is to have a friend who totally knows you, can be counted on to be totally dependable in every situation, and does not change their affection for you no matter what. I would like to be that kind of a friend, too, and so I try. I work on my relationship skills, letting people into my life and inviting people on the fringe to get closer. I am not naturally gifted at people skills, especially in group settings, so these things require some concerted and conscious effort on my part, but I work at them. It is worth it. I am perhaps a bit better at living life in a consistent and unhidden way. Sharing my life lessons and journey is not that hard; being there for people is a bit more challe...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt I love some of the prayers of the saints that have gone before us. They carry a rhythm, beauty, maturity, and depth that I often lack. They say what I have inside my heart but sometimes can find no adequate words for. They remind me of truths and needs that I have forgotten or neglected. I have long loved the prayer called St. Patrick's Breastplate but I have always found it difficult to keep all the words straight. So, I decided to put together some of my most favourite prayers of the saints into a rhythmic melody much like a chant, but with a modern twist. This song is primarily a memory aid for me, and if it is helpful to anyone else's conversation with God, that's a bonus. I meant it as a tool that I could use to keep my mind turning to God as I walk throughout my day. I wrote it in what I hope is a comfortable wal...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt Have you ever heard a song or watched a movie or gazed at a painting or let your eyes wander over a sculpture or felt a drumbeat deep in your chest and for some unexplainable reason, you felt like you were in love? We have been discussing the role of art and music in worship this week and from the many stories that people posted, I could see that each person, at some point, has been deeply moved by some simple creative offering by another member of the human race. Some of these works of art were complex and masterful, some were simple and childlike, others were works in process or centuries old. The creative power of a human soul turned towards God catches us in places where we are not guarded and it pricks us. It gets under our skin before we even realise that we have been invaded and spreads its strong emotion and enlarging visio...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt This week we have been studying baptism and the Eucharist . If there is one thing that I don't like about baptism, it is that you only do it once. You can take the bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus every day of your life if you want to, but baptism is pretty much a one time deal. And I sometimes wish that I could do it again. Not that there was anything wrong with my first time, a pouring of water over my head at a Mennonite church, but a lot has transpired since then. At times, I seem like such a different person. I have given up many old habits and come alive to lots of new ones. I have corrected my course a few times on this journey with or "into" Jesus. Every day I die to some fear or ignorance and find myself discovering new life in truth and love. Yes, baptism symbolises that choice of dying to self and liv...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt Remembering is not one of my strong points, at least in certain areas. If I meet you for the first time, I will invariably ask you what your name is a few times before I get it. When we go to a movie, a week or two later I will not be able to tell you the main character's name. I am admittedly a person who lives most of her life in the here and now. While I see that as primarily a good thing, a fresh and engaging way to live my life, it does mean that I can miss out on important lessons and resources that are embedded in the past. This week we started reading a book about the importance of forming spirituality by living the Christian year (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, etc.) along with all its implications. Ritual has very little appeal to me, and I will usually look for a way to extract a modern and meaningful app...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt I am in Beaverton , Ontario at a national leadership gathering for the Vineyard Church of Canada. And doing my homework for Red Essentials. Having discussed where we are going as a church movement and sitting in a lot of meetings in the past 24 hours, I am starting to realise that the word meeting has become a bit of a misrepresented word in our world. Meeting is, at its very basic, a coming together of two or more. I meet with God. I meet with friends. I meet a stranger. I meet with colleagues to get some work done. A church meeting is simply a coming together of two or more people who are joined to Jesus. This can happen anywhere and anytime and anyplace. This week in the online worship course I am taking, we explored the elements of time and space in regard to encountering God and our subsequent worship of him. It was amazing t...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt A few weeks ago I woke up singing this phrase over and over: I Love This Body. Those are not words that would normally come out of my mouth, so the fact that I was singing them in my sleep made me think that perhaps I should also be saying them while I was awake. To be honest, these words make me uncomfortable. I don't really go around saying, "I love my body," and yet it is the most intimate, miraculous, and mysterious gift of God that I experience every day. One need only read any medical writings to get a sense of how intricate this marvellous synergy of tissue and bone and blood and muscle and all kinds of other good stuff is. Plus, it is intertwined with a unique personality! This body is my most constant reminder that God loves me and is as close to me as my next breath. Every day that I wake up and breathe an...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt One of the recurring thoughts that I came across in my readings this week was that worship is a response. It is the appropriate reaction to encountering God, to experiencing his love, to living on his earth, to viewing his creation. What exactly that response looks like is hard to pin down. We think of majestic songs, intimate whispers, loud shouts, bowing down, sacrifices, caring for the poor, submission, exaltation, crying and laughing and jumping. All of these can be appropriate, but what is appropriate today, right now? Today, after a week of reading theology texts and doing assignments for three courses (this one plus two university courses), my thoughts are fuzzy and scattered. I can't remember what I think about every aspect of the Trinity or my humanity or what all the names of the theologians were in the 20th century...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt This week we had to put together a brief statement that reflected our worldview or the big story as we know it. Here is my attempt: It all begins with God. This originator - beautiful, awesome, complete, and communicative in himself and all he does - liberally sprinkles his living and breathing compositions into time and space. Of these, the one that carries his likeness, his breath, and joins in his project of growing a loving and glorious holy community is mankind. In the middle chapters of this story, the lovee (that would be us) wanders away from the lover (that would be God), deciding that life needs to be explored on her own terms. Disaster ensues. While everything that the original Lover touches brings life, everything that moves outside of that love starts to decay. But listen, this Lover, he cannot be thwarted. He pursue...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt I am grappling with a few concepts in my own personal systematic theology right now. The first issue I am not sure about is the concept of the Trinity, and the second one (creation 'ex nihilo' or out of nothing) just popped up this week. I am not questioning whether these are true or not (okay, I am but just hang on), more like whether these are adequate concepts for us today. Each people group in their own place and time has to find language and concepts that relate Truth to where they are at. This is not relativism; this is the beauty of eternal Truth taking some concrete form in our human world and being able to touch every person at every point in time. Some ideas that were explored and explained centuries ago still find a hold in our day and time, but others do not. If anything, I feel that the concepts of trinity an...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt Usually there is one thing that sticks out in the hours of reading and listening and writing that I do for this online course. This week it was something that Dan Wilt said in his video teaching (Dan Wilt, Essential Worship Theology, Week 2 video of Essentials Blue online course). And I quote, "We don't have a mission; a mission gets a hold of us." I was preparing a few thoughts to contribute to our home group meeting last night. The topic was Decision-Making: directing your life without being a control freak. Interesting topic. As I thought about it and asked God about what he had to say on the subject, I remembered this line that Dan used in the video. And at that point I clearly saw that we are a very individualistic, self-centred, self-indulgent, and unsubmissive people. We act like we are the rulers of our own...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt This is my first blog for the online worship course I am taking (see the above lengthy subtitle that will herald each of these posts). There is a plethora of reading, listening and watching to do each week which is enjoyable, but after a few days of this input, it sort of gets muddled in my head for two reasons: first, because I inexplicably just don't remember specific details about things that I read or hear after a few days, and secondly, I am also taking several university courses at the same time and there is only so much my brain can process and hold! For this reason, I take notes and try to write down the things that strike me as important. But there are some things that do not have to be written down; they are the things that impact me in a deep way and that often hit me like a good, refreshing slap just when I need i...