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feminizing church
I lead worship in a military town. Obviously we have some manly men in our church. I really would like to do a few songs but simply can't because of their feminization. Like for instance:
Beautiful One-can you see a man calling Jesus beautiful
At the foot of the Cross-Kathryn Scott-"Trade these ashes in for beauty
And wear forgiveness like a crown
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy"
Hungry-"Jesus your all this heart is living for"
I think you get the point. What do you guys think?
Beautiful One-can you see a man calling Jesus beautiful
At the foot of the Cross-Kathryn Scott-"Trade these ashes in for beauty
And wear forgiveness like a crown
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy"
Hungry-"Jesus your all this heart is living for"
I think you get the point. What do you guys think?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Daryll on -
I think you don't have to be in a military town to be manly.
All the men in our church are manly and we sing those songs.
Beautiful One was written by a man, so was Here I am to worship which has great words like
Light of the world
You stepped down into darkness.
Opened my eyes, let me see.
Beauty that made this heart adore You
Hope of a life spent with You
Here I am to worship,
Here I am to bow down,
Here I am to say that You're my God
You're altogether lovely
Altogether worthy,
Altogether wonderful to me
I think we could look at those words and question if He really opened our eyes.
Is He really Lovely, Worthy, and Wonderful.
Speaking as one, I think a manly man can get in touch with his feminine side when worshiping Christ and act like His BRIDE.
In His service
>< ))/*>
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Permalink Reply by MIke on -
I don't think these what these songs are referring to is feminine at all. These songs are about worshipping Him and being intimate with God. Jesus compares his relationship with the Church (that's us) to that of a husband or wife. What's wrong with a man calling his wife beautiful? You also have to understand that God is not a man or woman. Yes, when Jesus was on the earth his body was that of a man, but He is a Spirit now. God does not have a gender. If men feel uncomfortable with these songs it is because of intimacy issues in their own lives. I haven't met very many men who have a problem with saying," I love Jesus." To reduce worship to gender is as absurd as calling a man homosexual because he says," I love Jesus." (who is most often looked upon as a male) I'm not by any means saying that you are reducing your worship to a certain gender or anything. I just believe its stupid and wrong to base things on the way people feel. (Sorry if I sound blunt or harsh. My heart is not to offend, I just don't know of another way to phrase what I'm saying. People often sugarcoat things and that is something I hate.)
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Permalink Reply by Justin Kirkendall on -
Exactly.
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Permalink Reply by Gloria Goodwin on -
Well spoken, Mike. I agree completely!
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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on -
Good word, Mike.
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Permalink Reply by David Goodwin on -
At The Foot Of The Cross is one of my favourite songs ever. And I love Hungry too.
I don't actually see these lyrics as being feminine in and of themselves (as Mike noted). Of course, the world might think differently.
Anyway, I'm metro so I'm possibly not qualified to really answer this discussion ;)
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Permalink Reply by Justin Kirkendall on
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haha David you make me laugh.
=)
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Permalink Reply by EBBUNNO TONGBRAM on -
John 4:23-24 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. [24] God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
Worshiping is about praising God, communion with God singing new song or making new song in our heart or expression of how gratefulness, to see the wonders of His creation, His Faithfullnes etc. In this expression some time it can be feminize way or just the way we assumed in our mind or may be it is just a mind game. Sometime men are men we are just raw and can't relate to intimacy or emotional expression to one another or to God.So we become less effective in our one to one relationship or even we become bad example in our marriage if we married.
Saying i love God ! by one of our sister or brother in our church i don't see as which gender ?
But if your looking for a way out to inspired your crowd may be its' time for you to work harder, learning new songs and sharing in the crowd is always inspiring and creative.
God Bless.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Kirkendall on
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I honestly think this fear of doing "feminine" songs which aren't feminine at all is just a strange way to hold the church back from worshipping. Those songs are great songs. and I think that if you are led to do them- then you should do them. Don't let manly men stop you from leading the Church as a whole into worship.
Not to sound condemming (which automatically says i'm fixing to haha- sorry), but it seems that the question leans alittle more to the "I-don't-want-to-offend-people-with-our-worship-at-church" kind of thinking...not saying that is where you are coming from because I am sure that your question is more of a wanting to not shut anybody out of the worship service with the songs that you sing- which is a valid concern.
I think that comes with maturity. Both individual spiritual maturity and congregational maturity
I'll give you an example.
I sang Jon McMillians "How He Loves Us" which has the line and "heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss" and I lost over half the congregation when i sang that- they were hung up on sloppy wet kisses...and they giggled and laughed and talked to their neighbor (mind you these are grown adults) the other half "got" the song, saw no problem with the imagery, and fell in love with it. A level of matuirty-
There are some songs however, that I have held off on singing because of that fact. Or because it would be advertly strange for me (a male) singing the lyrics and people would get to hung up on that and not worship:
Case in point:
a great worship song by Jessie Rogers-Goodman "When I Find Him"
that goes
Have you seen my Lover?
Have you seen Him here
Walking down the streets or anywhere
All night long I search
For the One that my heart loves
He is all I want and all I need
When I find Him, I will not let go of Him
When I find Him, I will hold Him close
and Not let go....
Great song. I love it. Use it for my personal worship time all the time. but if I sang that song at church- everybody would be hung up because of the gender issue. Rectify that situation? Have a female lead out on that song.
I KNOW that gender doesn't mean anything when singing to the Lord- but some people just have a hard time getting over that- so i sympathize with you. but I think there comes a point that you have to objectively look at the songs (without gender overshadowing it) because if not your church is going to miss out on some powerful worship songs!
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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Blycker on -
Wow, it seems ridiculous to me to call people immature when they laugh at "sloppy wet kiss". It's a funny lyric. I'm pretty sure it was written to be light-hearted. You can't be silly onstage and ask people to pretend it's serious.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Kirkendall on
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that statement was taken out of context.
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