Monday 14 June 2010

What language to we use to describe God?

Jonny Baker is his blog has posted a very interesting article on the words we use to describe God.

grace on saturday night ( yes i decided to go and watch the football later...) was really good with lots of stuff to chew over for months to come i suspect. we've been having a few discussions on the language we use in grace and how it can be used to include or exclude often unwittingly. speaking of god was the first service where this has been picked up. jenny has written the service up in the grace archive, with links to prayers, confession and so on...

I do thoroughly recommend you take a look at this but please do it with an open heart. It has really made me think about the language we use to describe church and how open or closed we make God in the language we use. Do take a look at the archive, I found it very interesting the words the congregation at Grace decided to 'park'.

The whole use of language and moving away from some of the standard phrases we trot out (like those that Grace chose to park) got me thinking about musicians and some of the work we do with Wellspring helping them to free themselves from the music put in front of them and improvise.

Once you start to improvise you have to listen to what everyone is playing to make sure what you are playing fits with what others are doing. You need to listen. When playing the 'dots', you don't need to listen in the same way, you have the security in knowing that someone else has worked out that what you are playing will fit, so you don't have to think for yourself. But when improvising you have to listen, think and then decide if what you are doing is working.

Thanks Jonny and the folk of Grace for making me think.

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