Growing up in the more than faintly 'commune-style' world of my parents mission - one of the hallowed events of the week was the Friday Evening Prayer meeting. It was a time of worship (lots of guitars and tamborines - we were still in the days of the 'Jesus people') and much focussed and spontanteous prayer.
Though I don't remember any specific statement - I know what we were putting ourselves up against - the 'dead ritual' of reading litanies and prayers from prayer books and orders of service used by 'traditional churches' (almost synomymous with 'dead churches' in our minds).
It was only years later that I realised how ritualistic our own 'unstructured' worship was. The same songs. The same prayers. The same styles. Words like "we fall down in worship" etc. etc.
This video has been around at least a year - but I think it says alot about the manufacturing of church.
At the end of the day we serve a gracious Master who accepts the prayers and praises of His people. They are very precious to him. Be they the lisping of the smallest child - singing simple Sunday-school songs. To the final hymn sung off-tune but with gusto by the bed-side of the dying. To the racous joy and dancing of some and the silent formal prayers of others - our Lord is big enough to accept the broken offerings of contrite hearts.
Its not the package, its not the wrapping, but the gift inside that counts...
Oh praise Him.... Hallelujah...
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