Psalmody conference and little emo thoughts

My thoughts get away with me sometimes. I can attend a conference and not have too many issues with it, but then, when I hear something related to it the next day, things get out of perspective and I focus only on the issues; the straw that broke the camel's back, if you will. Other times, I run marathons in my mind, trying to grapple with questions that go nowhere. I can actually get quite emo when I'm left to contend with my thoughts. It's not always bad, most of the time I enjoy thinking about things but sometimes it's weird.

On Thursday and Friday I attended a conference for Psalmody, which is a ministry that focuses on encouraging Christians to go deeper in worship (http://www.psalmody.org/). It's very charismatic, and the worship sessions reflect that. At my church, we've done one of the Psalmody courses, learning about the biblical basis for praise and worship, looking at the Hebrew and Greek words that are translated as 'praise' and 'worship' in the English. The large majority of what I've heard in those talks is edifying and the course has really transformed the way I approach worship. I'll post a more detailed explanation of what I've learned about worship later, because there are some great things. Not everything's great, though. It does tend to lean sometimes towards prosperity teaching, although not in an extreme way, and infrequently.

I was initially hesitant going to the Psalmody conference. Although I tried not to, I focused on those things that I disagreed with in the teaching, rather than all the wonderful things that I had learned in the course. But generally, the teaching was good. Occasionally, little things that I wondered about, but nothing that caused me to walk out denouncing the preachers as heretics. I'm trying to think of them now, and I can't actually remember what they were, which is probably a good thing. But I do remember I had some interesting discussions with people afterwards! The main idea of the talks was making sure that God is the foundation of everythign that we do. That any ministry or initiative we take in any sphere of life is something that God wants us to do, that we keep coming back to God as the foundation of our life. So often we can go ahead with things in our lives, even with ministries, without remembering that it is God that builds his house and God that causes everything to grow. It's a challenge to get back to that place of dependency and humility before God. There was also a real focus on worship, and how important it is. Worship is not just singing, but is an attitude of adoration towards the Lord. It is moving towards him, responding to his presence. It is something that can involve our whole life.

After the talks, there was generally a time of what can possibly be called 'free worship'. I don't know if that's the best way to describe it, but that was the terminology I heard. There was time at the beginning when we all sang, but this was more spontaneous. Some people were speaking in tongues, some people were singing, most people had their hands in the air, some people were dancing. My mum was getting right into it, dancing around at the back! I don't have a problem with any of that theologically, but I didn't quite know what to do. I didn't feel anything like the other people probably did. Which doesn't mean God isn't still there, so I just thought about God for a bit. But, seeing people getting into that free worship is a challenge. I probably won't speak in tongues, but it is a challenge, for me and many others (I don't know if it's a cultural thing or a denominational thing) to be freer and less inhibited in worship.

I actually received a few words for myself during the conference, both of which related not to jumping around crazy in worship but about being quiet and contemplative before the Lord. The first was Luke 2:19, in which Mary treasures and ponders things in her heart. The second was a phrase: 'quiet, unshakeable conviction in who Christ is and in what he has done.' So, when the pastor said during the last worship session to move in what God was leading, while everyone else was jumping around and cheering, I just stood completely still, just thinking about how infinitely good God is. Maybe I'm not supposed to jump around like everyone else, but maybe there is something to that aswell.

The conference also ran yesterday and today, but I felt a peace about not going. Although I found a lot of the conference helpful, it was hard work for me, so I needed a rest just to think about all I had experienced and heard. So, after going to church today, I started getting all emo in my thoughts again. It's not that I don't like the charismatic expression of worship, but it seems sometimes that's the only kind of conferences we go to, and I started stressing out about the need to find that balance between deeply worshipping God and deeply getting into his word, being passionate about being in the Lord's presence, and about declaring his gospel message to others. I know that my stress was most likely unfounded and out of perspective. In fact, even after spending about half an hour typing all this, I'm feeling better about all of it. God is good, anyway.