Since then, we have been fans of Shane and Shane. Here's why:
-They have the most amazing voices
-We love their acoustic style
-The lyrics to the songs they write are powerful, and real
-We love their hearts for God, they don't put on "concerts" they lead in worship, and are always accompanied by a speaker and a mission
So when we heard they were going to be in Columbia, we knew we had to go to their "concert!" We were truly blessed. The theme for the night was "Turn Down the Music." The speaker, David Nass, explained how they came to this title for their tour by telling the following story, in my words as I remember it of course.
There was a small town in Germany with a train stop across from their local church. It was a popular stop for the passengers to get off, stretch their legs, eat and use the necessary. It even stopped on Sunday mornings while church was in session. Until World War II started. Then the carts on the train were crammed full of Jewish men, women and children. When the train stopped in their little town, the people would cry out for help, a drink, for food, or for someone to save their child. The train continued to stop on Sunday mornings, the noise created from the Jewish prisoners was loud and interrupted the church service. They decided to change the order of their service, moving their worship time to the same time the train was scheduled to stop across the street. Although it worked at first, the prisoners eventually became louder than the people's worship. They only began to sing louder, and louder, and louder, trying to block out the Jewish prisoners cry for help.
David's point being, as Christians, we often times turn up the noise in our "worship" in order to drown out the cries for help in the world. We become so involved in our little Christian world, in our worship and activities at church, in our lives, that we tune out those who need us most. Our world shrinks, and the problems of the world are blocked out, even as we claim to be at a high place in our spiritual lives. Our worship has slowly become about us, singing on Sunday mornings, reading the Bible during the week, but it no longer includes helping those who need it most. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, sould, mind and strength. We have that one down to perfection. Yet what about the second commandment? Love your neighbor as yourself. We no longer hear or care or do anything about the averaged number of 35,000 people who die everyday due to starvation. We don't reach out to the elderly and the orphans. We do not help the poor. These are all parts of our spiritual act or worship. Worship through music is a beautiful thing, but worship is so much more.
If you are not familiar with Shane and Shane, I encourage you to visit their website at http://www.shaneandshane.com/. Their songs will bless your heart. As you have read this post, if your volume is turned up, you have been listening to the many talents of Shane and Shane, if you haven't heard anything, turn up the volume!!
thanks for the story of the church in Germany. the application is excellent, except that it can go further. truly we can block out the cries of the world, but don't we also block out our own church family's cries for help. certainly, there are individuals who minister well to the needs of their fellow brothers and sisters. but my experience has been that too many people like the feel good part of church: they don't like to be faced with their sin--thus the watered-down gospel of many churches today, but also, they don't want to be bothered by the problems of others. to truly involve yourself in another fellow believer's pain and burdens often means carrying some of that burden and pain yourself. when someone asks us how we're doing don't we often just say, "fine, fine, i'm just fine." in part that can be a result of not wanting to appear weak, it can be a result of wrong thinking: i must be doing something wrong because my life is so difficult--i can't let anyone else know, or, too, i think it comes from our sensing that the people who are asking don't really care or aren't willing to invest themselves in us. is it any surprise that we don't care more about people beyond our little comfortable "holy huddles"? on the other hand, isn't it easier to "minister" to people so far away (and outside our "holy huddles") because there is no "need" to become invested emotionally?
ReplyDeletejust thoughts. you got me to thinking this morning. thanks! I needed that . . .