Filed under: Essentials Blue
For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.
As my friends gathered together last night to discuss the readings and resources we’ve been taking on, the topic of the Trinity came up as a particularly interesting discussion. It seems that everyone wholeheartedly believes in the Trinity, but strangely, Trinitarian theology makes practically no difference in the way we know and relate to God. It’s more of a concept to tidy up a few loose ends that’s used by people with more degrees than we do.
And yet how sad it is that one of the most beautiful and mysterious biblical doctrines in all of Christianity is little more than a footnote to a majority of us, let alone a central element in our worship and understanding of God. Being that we are the only Vineyard in Lexington, practically none of our band had any prior experience with the Vineyard before joining our community, and therefore came from a variety of theological and denominational backgrounds. What we found in our discussion was a diverse background in understanding Trinitarian theology.
For some, their past experiences were of overemphasizing one member of the Trinity. For the most part, this was the Holy Spirit for those coming from charismatic backgrounds. For others, their traditional backgrounds emphasized only the work of Jesus, ignoring the activity of the Holy Spirit and the role of the Father. One of our guys even grew up in an Apostolic background, where belief in the Trinity wasn’t even present (Jesus only).
This has me thinking – is our worship leadership Trinitarian in practice, not just belief? Do our songs reflect the beautiful Trinitarian theology in all it’s mystery? I can only think of a few songs off hand that explicitly mention or emphasize the Trinity, and so I’m pretty sure our song catalogue is lacking in this particular element. As worship leaders, I think our set lists need to allow our communities to connect to each unique person of the Trinity – Father, Son, and Spirit. Otherwise we risk our congregations growing to have a limited view of the totality of who God has revealed Himself to be, which is beyond tragic.
In incorporating Trinitarian theology into our worship, we allow our communities to both know more and know less about God; to draw closer to the majesty and the mystery of our God.
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