If you're familiar with church culture, you will know that people still sing together there. If you're familiar with evangelical church culture you will know that there is usually a band of some sort with typical western cultural instruments, microphones, and youths. You may even be familiar with one particular song "Consuming Fire," by Hillsong United which is becoming less youthful with every year that passes. Here's the chorus:
Consuming fire
Fan into flame
A passion for your name
Spirit of God
Would you fall in this place
Lord have your way
I was at a Sunday church service recently where this was on the playlist and found myself walking through various phases of what I perceive to be my evolving faith. I hope you can track with me as I lay down the track that plays in my head as I participate in any kind of Christian worship these days. Maybe you can relate. Maybe you have experienced a selection of the "verses" below. Maybe this is a completely foreign line of thinking and you will be kind enough to try to understand what I'm going through as my faith changes.
Intro
As the familiar intro to this song started (I have led this song before in front of small congregations), I was hit with nostalgia. The simplicity of my old faith accessing the "passion for Your name" that I would work to achieve as we began to sing those words. The message was as simple as my beliefs, "God, I want to feel like you are here with us more than anything else right now. I want everyone else in the room to realize their pain and see it consumed in the fire of this passion as you mysteriously fall from heaven."
Verse 1
At this point, these feelings are surpassed by a harsh reaction to my old striving. You see, I would work myself up to this song. We would do a fun, upbeat song or two before committing to this one in the set. This is where you stop clapping, close your eyes, raise your hands, and plead with the creator for him to give you a spiritual high. Gross. Why does my groveling somehow change God's mind about me!? Why couldn't I just say these words or even just think them and God would give me the buzz I need to be a better person and treat people the way Jesus told us to.
Pre-Chorus 1
This is where my faith tradition guilt kicks in. "Hold on," it says to me in a firm tone, "God is not some Greek myth to be manipulated through groveling and needless sacrifice."
You see, the logic goes that I am my own worst enemy. It's my own selfishness and pride that has come between me and God and so it is moments like these where I focus all my energy on being humble that God can finally get through to me. This is the land flowing with milk and honey. This is where healing and wholeness takes place. This is a taste of unity with the church of Jesus Christ. It's complicated, you don't have to understand it, but don't stop striving or you will end up out in the dark world where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Verse 2
This is a verse of being “perplexed” in the words of Brian MacLaren in his book, “Faith After Doubt.” The pre-chorus has hinted at something bigger. Unity in one spirit. Fantastic. Why is this unity so inaccessible? Why is my striving not effective? Why are good deeds, community groups, church services, education, and environmentalism not providing a sense of meaning? Or a better question, why does meaning seem to be randomly accessible in each of these scenarios without the ability to predict it and why do church advocates seem to think that only church groups can produce unity in meaningful ways? It seems to me that when I'm camping in a place far from people in clean places that things seem right and when I'm parking my car on paved spaces next to sprawling religious machinery I get anxious? What's wrong with me? Why are the stories from my faith tradition (actually every faith tradition I've looked at) so messed up?
Pre-Chorus 2
Calm yourself. Still your heart. Let the perplexity drift by. Acknowledge it, own it, let it go. Pay attention to those around you. Be humble and accept that you don't have it all together. Breathe. Get some space from the religious institution but don't choose anger as your new home. It's complicated, you don't have to understand it. Ease off on the striving. Find room for peace and stillness, just like you find in the natural environment you long to restore.
Chorus
The pursuit of unity above all things regardless of my environment.
Reconciliation and restoration of the broken things.
Joy in the hard work of your best intentions.
Pleasure in the pure and undefiled things that you did not make.
Appreciation for all people wherever they are in their faith, life, love and desires.
Understanding of transition and uncertainty. Love for all things good.
Verse 3
Harmony with everything that resonates around you is worth your life. You were born from harmony, upon death you will be in harmony. In your living you both strive for harmony and accept harmony as you swim the seas of uncertainty. Don't put the people singing in this room in a box. The one singing next to you loves the pre-choruses more than the rest of the song. The one not singing behind you is working through verse 2. The one on stage finds meaning in verse 1. Perhaps the one who looks distracted and sitting not too close to the front to draw attention but not at the back as to signal their lack of commitment or is singing verse 3 with you.
Woops, did you accidentally just sing those verse 1 lines again? Are you choking on the words of the pre-chorus now? Okay, we're back to the chorus, fine, good...why is church coffee still served in Styrofoam cups instead of paper or reusables?
Okay, I got a bit distracted towards the end there but that's my song so far. I'm not sure if there are more verses coming. I'm not sure if verse 3 is a load of horse-$h!t but it sounds good to me at this point in my life. I'm very open to being wrong right now. I'm also very closed to you being absolutely sure you're right (which might be something I need to work on). I'm not even sure what I hope for will be the last verse of my life any more. For whatever reason that gives me so much peace. At least it means I can pursue a harmonic flow for my life rather than strive to write a song that is off key...
END-NOTE
If you've had enough for now I invite you to stop reading. If you're interested, here is my line by line translation of "Consuming Fire" to my current line of thinking. It's not particularly useful because it jumps around all the verses/thought process above and adds in a bit too much sarcasm but maybe you can at least sympathize. Also, I'm not joking. This is what it takes for me to get through a worship song these days.
Each line is provided and then my mental work in brackets.
There must be more than this (no kidding, yes please, let me know when you figure out what it is)
O breath of God, come breathe within (that sounds good. God is more recently defined as a universal consciousness to me that really does seem to give breath to my life)
There must be more than this Spirit of God, we wait for you (what we are actually trying to say is that we aren't ready yet. Give us a sec and we'll put our phones down for 30 mins and see if this helps us find meaning in life)
Fill us a new, we pray Fill us a new, we pray (we're riding off past experiences here. Lets scrap the times that it didn't work and really focus on the times when we felt better about being together. Say it twice because we got distracted for a second)
Consuming fire Fan into flame (yup, make whatever spiritual experience we're looking for bigger cause right now it's not very big)
A passion for your name (’name’ is an old framework for encompassing the whole being, so yes, a passion for God, unity, a universal coming together)
Spirit of God Would You fall in this place (I'm pretty sure we're going to hear a sermon next saying that you're everywhere so this line doesn't make sense but it's another way of us saying we were not here, now it's Sunday morning and we are here. We're putting down our phones and giving this a college try)
Lord have your way
Lord have your way with us (gross, you can't say that anymore)
Come like a rushing wind (yup, Pentecost. Love that story, would have loved to have been there for that)
Clothe us with power from on high (on high vis-à-vis, within, the universe, a "higher" or better place. Not the upper atmosphere or outer-space. Clothes, good metaphor to wrap you head around, counter to the teaching of God changing your heart from within, we'll let is slide for artistic license and good use of metaphor)
Now set the captives free (I'm on board! If you could do this without us having to actually break any international laws that would be great)
Leave us abandoned to your praise (I swear, I'm not going to check my phone)
Lord let tour glory fall Lord let your glory fall (okay, okay, I'm here, I'm focusing, I don't know what's for lunch but I'll figure it out. Glory = that warm fuzzy feeling you get from being a part of something bigger than yourself. Fall, because we're sticking with the outer-space metaphor, not using clothing any more).
Consuming fire (that's metaphor for a God or universal presence that isn't just passive but actively coming after us to make us better as a species. This is probably my favorite part because we can't really describe universal consciousness very well but I would love for it to be good and pure and pursuing me rather than a collection of all the conscious people on earth because my experiences with people have been typically underwhelming)
Fan into flame (again, it was small, trying to make it bigger, wait, we sang this already, no harm in repetition, especially since my expectations of people to engage with what they are saying is also pretty underwhelming so why not say it again)
A passion for your name (see above, I'm back on track)
Spirit of God Would you fall in this place (I wonder who's preaching today)
Lord have your way Lord have your way (NOPE)
Stir it up in our hearts Lord Stir it up in our hearts Lord Stir it up in our hearts (Ah yes, the bridge. I do like the bridge. Once you realize that we're here for a while you can actually relax for a second. You don't have to translate anything new for a minute. Feel the music. There is something special about a band who can nail the bridge really well. I felt this at a Walk Off The Earth concert too. Music is of the soul. Why have I allowed the church to own it my whole life when there are so many good songs out there. Classic rock....never appreciated that like I do now. Right, back to the chorus).
Okay, that's enough from me. I’m sure I’ve thought other things as well. The next time this song comes up I hope I think different thoughts too. I want my faith to be evolving and not stuck here. The song repeats different parts but I won't make you suffer through the rest. Thanks for listing to my latest track!