beyond the box

What's this all about then?

Hi everyone,

My name is Matt and this is not my blog. Well, it sort of is, but it's not supposed to be; not really. I should explain:

I have another blog, which is my blog. You can read it if you like but I wanted to find a place where I could talk a bit more exclusively about my passion: worship.

What I specifically wanted to do was to journal my way through my experiences with worship, what it's like to be part of a worship team, and how it's going, without you having to trawl through the rest of my thoughts and quirky life. In short, I don't think this blog should be about me at all - I want it to be about this nebulous thing we've labelled as 'worship' and in turn then, all about God, whom worship, however you square it, should be all about anyway.

Some of you are already a step ahead. Your whole life is worship, Matt. Correct. In fact, I can't tell you how much I hope that both blogs reflect that. But this one, Beyond The Box, is not about my life: it's about the thing we come together to do, the collective offering we bring as church, and about the way we lead and co-ordinate our 'worship' as musicians and worshippers.

Why Beyond The Box?

We love boxes. In worship, it's pretty easy to find a nice comfortable box and pitch up there Sunday after Sunday: same songs, same musicians, same old same olds time and again. That's what happened to us a while ago. We found a lovely box and we stayed there.

The trouble with God is, he doesn't really do boxes. Look at this:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us... to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21

If you can imagine it or ask for it - he can do it. If you can think of it, dream of it, conceive it or desire it - he can go bigger, further, better. And the good news is that he wants to. The fact that we worship someone who sits outside of time ought to be a clue. There are no boxes.

That means that our encounters with him must also happen in a way that takes us beyond the box. It's fine to stay inside - he's there too. But worship ought to be uncomfortable, dangerous, radical and different.

Do you agree?

I think this is the journey we're on, and I'm quite excited about it.