outWORD by Matte Downey

A significant portion of our gathering as a church community is spent in what we call worship. It is usually a time when we sing songs together. For the most part, we assume that people know what to do during these times of worship. We encourage people to engage, to be present, to participate, but we say very little about what that might look like. In some ways, worship is natural; we easily attribute worth and value to those things which we admire and love. But the expression of those beliefs or feelings needs to be cultivated, developed, and practised. Worshipping God is something we need to learn how to do. Worship, what is it? Worship is closely related to love. In fact, sometimes I find it helpful to substitute the word “love” for “worship.” Worship is demonstrating love and devotion to someone or something (worth-ship). Worship is an expression that comes out of our deepest convictions, feelings, and desires. It is the heart in full bloom. Worship is both personal an...

I like to read stories. I also like to write stories. I have done a fair bit of both and, over the years, I have learned a few things about what stories do and do not do. In essence, a story is a trajectory. It sets the reader or listener on a path toward something or someone. It has a beginning (a specific starting point in time), it has a middle (in which characters face various challenges, setbacks, and victories), and an end (which is not really the end, but an invitation for the reader to imagine past the last sentence). Stories are always partial and incomplete. They never tell it all, but they do set us on a particular journey. What stories do NOT do is seek to make a case for absolute truth statements. Stories do not prescribe a particular plan of action in order to achieve certain results. Stories do not give us universal rules and regulations. When we try to force stories to perform apologetic, didactic, or juridical tasks, we end up mishandling them. A story inv...

NOTE: I am going to make some pretty strong statements below, but understand that it is my way of taking an honest, hard look at my own worship experience and practice. My desire is not to be overly critical, but to open up dialogue by questioning things I have assumed were totally fine and appropriate. In other words, I am preaching to myself. Feel free to listen in. --------------------- When I am in a church meeting during the singing time, I sometimes find myself silent, unable to get the words past my lips. At times I just need a moment of stillness, time to listen, but other times, the words make me pause because I don't know that I can sing them honestly or with integrity. This is a good thing. We should never mindlessly or heartlessly sing songs just because everyone else is. We should care deeply about what we say in our sung, communal worship. At their best, songs sung by the gathered body of Christ call to life what is already in us: the hope, the truth, the l...

In 1908, a Franciscan Friar named Paul Wattson instituted the Octave of Christian Unity, 8 days focused on praying for church unity. Over the last century, this period of time morphed into what is now known as Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and at present, it is observed by many churches in the Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. This past week, I was privileged to participate in an evening of prayer and worship commemorating this ecumenical call to prayer. There were ten churches represented as we gathered in downtown Montreal on a stormy January evening. That in itself seemed pretty significant. One of the large Catholic churches in Montreal, Mary Queen of the World Cathedral, hosted the meeting in their parish hall. Their priest gave a very gracious opening welcome. Short meditations on reconciliation were given by a female Anglican pastor (in French) and by the pastor of a small congregation affiliated with the Mennonites (in English). A chor...

Christ Pantocrator, one of the first images of Christ developed by the early church Image from sophiainstitutenyc.org I have started a series of talks in our faith community on the Decalogue (deka = 10, logous - words, commonly known as the Ten Commandments since the 16th century). You can find the gist of the first one dealing with worshiping God here , It must be remembered that these directives were given to a people whose only experience of government was being slaves to cruel masters. These ten words  were meant to show them a new way of life, a life lived honouring God (the first four words ) and treating their fellow human beings with respect and love (the last six words ). Jesus summed it all up by saying that all the law and prophets were found in these two commands: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. Yesterday I talked about what it means to make an idol and worship it. Here is the text from Exodus 20: ...

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend and she introduced me to the French term "le non dit" which means that which is not said .  One of the theories in certain streams of medicine is that when we repress and internalise traumatic and painful situations, leaving them unspoken and undealt with, they eventually emerge and manifest themselves somehow in the body.  If we run with this theory, then various pains, diseases, and maladies might be related to the dis-ease and unhealthy state of our minds, souls, and relationships. I can testify to the fact that when I have been wronged or have wronged another person and there is tension in my relationships, my digestive tract is affected. I watched a video this week where a musician was talking about the story behind one of his songs, The Lord is My Shepherd . He said this: "I think one of the hardest questions I have had to answer for myse...

I was reading an introduction to 1-2 Chronicles a few days ago and came across an interesting phrase:  accurate worship .  It seemed strangely out of place, yet I know Eugene (Peterson) meant to use exactly those words.  So I did some thinking and reading and researching.  Here are some thoughts that came out of that. First, let's look at the word 'accurate.'  I consulted with a few people who are well-versed in archery and came away with some good pointers on accuracy.  First, orient yourself towards your target.  Never let it out of your sight.  Second, anchoring is very important.  Be firmly grounded (solid stance) and find a point of reference which will help you to be consistent.  Some people draw the bow back till it touches their cheek.  Every time they aim, they then pull to the exact same spot -it helps them be consistent.  This is called anchoring.  Third, use a soft grip....

Yesterday Dean and I went to see a film called Senna , a documentary about the legendary race car driver from Brazil. Quite a fascinating and moving story. Of course, filmmakers choose what bits of someone's life to showcase and what parts to leave out, but the overall sense was that we were seeing the man not only as a great racer, but as a man who had one passion and a remarkable instinct for it. He spoke freely about God, read his bible regularly, was referred to as a humble man by his colleagues, and obviously loved his family and his country. The racing world was not always kind to him, yet he showed great restraint in how he dealt with those in his profession. After he won one of his first Grand prix races, he recounted that near the finish line, he went into a kind of otherworldly zone. He felt the presence of God, a sense of peace. Dean leaned over to me halfway through the movie and said, "This was worship for him." And yes, in some ways it reminded me ...

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 ...

I am in month 2 of a reading course which will take about six months to complete. It will form the basic building blocks of the research for my MA thesis, which I hope to complete next summer. I have chosen a topic that is dear to my heart and that I believe I will enjoy learning about for a year, but some days, like today, I don't really feel like picking up a book on mysticism and taking notes. Today is one of those "just show up" days. And that is worth more than we give it credit for in our present day and age. In fact, it is a rare thing in many ways. I was in a class a few semesters ago where about half the class did not show up on a regular basis. I don't know how they expected to do well, or maybe they didn't. One of the strong images from my childhood is the presence of my mother when I came home from school every day. For the most part, she didn't do anything special or amazing, but she was there every day, and that counted for a lot. I have bee...

I sang at our weekly gathering of Church on Sunday night. Well, I sing every Sunday, but this time it was in front of a microphone. It had been a few weeks, so it was great to set up the keyboard, let my fingers flutter over the notes, and lift my voice to join with Dean's to tell of the wonders of an astounding God. The first song that we rehearsed in the sound check, one that I happened to sing the lead in, starts out very low and ends up really high, just on the edge of my range. I should have known better than to begin with that, especially without a warm-up. I squeaked, cracked, and strained my way through it and by the end, was feeling pretty sorry for anyone who had heard the sound check. I hoped I would do better when the time came to sing in front of everyone, but I wasn't too hopeful. We ran through the rest of the songs, and then I headed off to the bathroom. My throat felt a bit raw and I berated myself gently for not singing and practicing more consistently ...

A friend of mine told me a story last week that has stuck with me. It went something like this: a man met with a few people in a coffee shop and they started talking about God and life. Over the course of several weeks and months, more people started to join in and it evolved into a regular gathering of people who talked about matters of faith. Soon, someone asked the man the question, "Is this church?" He pondered the question for a bit and then responded, "No, this isn't church. If this was church, you would care as much about what happens here as I do." I have been living with this question, "What is church?" for a long time and in the past few days, come to the realisation that I have shrunk the concept of church to fit the casual, culturally dialed-down, transient nature of what we are involved in. I have reduced church to a shadow of the magnificent, unstoppable beauty that Jesus proclaims it to be. Church is not a building, it is not a weekly m...

We just lost an hour when we switched to Daylight Saving Time this weekend. Well, nothing was really lost, the numbers were just changed in order to make life brighter and more productive for everyone. I don't know about you, but I could use both of those. Let's hope it works. :-) Time is a funny thing. We treat it like a precious commodity in some ways. We say, "I just don't have the time for x or y anymore." Did we lose it; was it stolen? We say, "I wish I had more time," as if there might be a time depot where we could go to get some. We talk about buying time and spending time, and I guess if you have a cell phone, it sort of applies. "I should make time for that," implies that with the correct ingredients and a good recipe, we could indeed whip some up. Or when we say, "I'll find the time somehow," it conjures up images of an intense hunt for those hours that know how to hide all too well. The truth is, we all start with 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...