Al Gordon
From HTB
8 July 2008 - 10:49pm
Why have we written the Father out of much contemporary worship? If you survey the songs you sing week in week out, it's likely that most of them are about Jesus, and few are about the Father and the Spirit. Why is it we find it so hard to write about the Father?
This is a huge issue - Jords is right about many people having bad Father experiences nowadays, but I'd argue that that should mean we're writing MORE songs about the Father's love, not less. If people have no concept whatsoever of what a father's love is like, we need to be describing it as fully as possible. And re the cross being the centre of our faith - Jesus died so we could be restored into relationship with the Father, like it was in the Garden of Eden when God walked with Adam and Eve and knew them as friends (how amazing is that?!) - so even with a focus on the cross, we can't escape what it was actually for, which is to know God the Father.
In fact Al, funny you should mention it (!!) but I've just finished a song that's loosely based on psalm 8 and the parable of the Prodigal Son (greatest short story in the world) as my tiny attempt to fill a huge lyrical gap. I can post the music in songwriting section if you're interested.
VERSE 1
O Lord our God your name is mighty
Your splendour fills the earth and thunders through the skies
You stitched the stars into the heavens
Your fingers formed the sun, your power makes it shine
When I consider all your works Lord
Such brilliant beauty without end
I am amazed by this great mercy
That my creator calls me friend
CHORUS
How can it be that God above
should care for me
What gracious love
Such mystery
My Father loves me as I am
VERSE 2
O Lord our God your name is holy
The darkness flees before your perfect sinless light
Your know the depths of your creation
For nothing can escape your all-perceiving sight
So you know all my fears and failings
The weakness of my fickle soul
Yet by your mercy you accept me
& by your grace you make me whole
CHORUS 2
How can it be that God above
should care for me
What gracious love
Such mystery
My Father loves me as I am
How can it be that heaven's King
should welcome me despite my sin
With outstretched arms my Father meets me as I am
TAG
Your love is wonderful to me
so wonderful to me
www.RESOUNDworship.org
Free New Worship Songs
When it comes to the Fatherhood of God, I think one of the challenges we as worship leaders and/or song writers have is reflecting a biblical understanding of the term, rather than just a cultural one.
To pick one recent example, there was a big debate in the House of Lords recently over legislation that would remove the requirement of IVF clinics to consider ‘the need of that child for a father’. One of the Peers said the change was to allow the law to be 'both effective and also reflective of modern society', adding that, 'technology has moved on and so have attitudes'.
Add to this the problems that poor earthly fathers have left for many Christians trying to come to terms with the concept of God as Father, and we need to get beck to scripture to allow it to set the standard for the fatherhood of God.
So what does scripture say on the subject? Far more than I could put in one post! But to start us off, I’ve been very helped by a John Piper sermon 'Honour your majestic Father' from Malachi 1:6, in which God says: 6 "A son honours his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honour due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?" says the LORD Almighty.”
Our society tends to downplay the concept of honouring of our fathers. The coolest dads on TV shows are the dads who can hang with the kids. The modern emphasis is on the intimacy and love, and the privilege of relationship with our father. This, of course, is gloriously true of our relationship with God, our Abba, Father! But it’s only part of the truth – the truth about God’s Fatherhood is bigger than this one thought! We must honour our Abba, Father.
Ps 103:13 holds these two aspects of the Fatherhood of God together well in healthy tension: ‘As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.’ God’s Fatherhood comes to us in oceans of compassion. But his compassion is directed towards those who fear him! Fear here is not a trembling insecurity, but a healthy respect and admiration for honouring God. As Piper puts it ‘Who will frolic in the ocean of God's compassion? Those who bow with reverential fear, and honour their majestic Father.’
Piper closes his sermon with the following prayer:
“That we not be cowering or dumbfounded or paralyzed in the presence of our merciful Father; nor that we be flippant or careless or trifling or presumptuous in the presence of our majestic Father. But rather that we discover in the power of the Holy Spirit the mystery of godliness:
- a bold brokenness,
- a reverential relaxation,
- a fearing familiarity,
- a trembling tenderness,
- an affectionate awe.”
The challenge to us as songwriters is to write biblically on this subject. To give the church songs that reflect something of the full biblical scope of the concept of the Fatherhood of God. Can we craft lyrics that hold these thoughts in healthy tension? Can we enlarge people’s view of God as we seek to do so? It’s my strong conviction that, if we can, we will lead them to more profound and life-changing experiences of worship. May God help us to do so!
music.glenabbey.org.uk
I don’t suppose to have the best answer; and I’m kind of repeating things others already said. But since the concept of God the Father has a very real contextual relationship to each of our earthly fathers, writing about God the Father easily conjures up mixed emotions and ideas which we learned from our earthly fathers. Even though we may have had excellent experiences with our fathers, the imagery at its best still falls short.
To further confuse things; we also base much of our expectations of a successful father on cultural standards and norms. An example of how this might mudd things is our perception of the father as provider. But in our culture much of our provision is focused on material needs, i.e. food, toys, homes, cars, etc. That most surely affects our view of God the Father, our songs might sound like “God the Father, you provide for me all I need, Vehicles, health, security in my job, and entertaining things.” While it is true that God is "concerned" about those things, I don’t think our cultural perception of fatherhood accurately depicts God.
If that is true I guess God the Father does fight an uphill battle, of sorts, when we try to understand Him. That would make the concept a bit more difficult to write a good song, from the heart at least. I think it is something that would really benefit the church if the concept of God as our Father was more prominent; but it would require some work from the songwriter! I can acknowledge a deep rooted desire for that perfect Father figure which only can be fulfilled by God the Father; I’m sure a well crafted song would resonate with me in that way.
I think good songwriting would more easily follow good teaching from the pulpit on this one.
Oh, and Matt! Should you be inclined I'd love to hear that song you wrote.
I think the Father-ness of God is difficult to grasp as it's the unrevealed side of our God? I'm instantly aware that we have a contradiction here: if we've seen Jesus, we've seen the Father - yet the thread about the sheer "otherness" of God ties in with this one for me.
At least with Christ, we can begin to approach some kind of human understanding of who and why God is....to try and imagine or behold that WITHOUT Christ is very difficult. I would hope that any form of worship which explicitly mentions one third of the trinity is in fact always including (albeit implicitly) the other two thirds. By our ickle human nature we can just about handle references and images to Jesus, but they tend to eclipse our vision of the Father "beyond Him" sadly. When in reality, it should magnify our view of Him and make the Father all the more clearer and conceivable.
Perhaps over the next few hundreds of years, or beyond the pearly gates - the balance will be redressed a bit more equally and Father, Son and Spirit will all receive due praise and worship according to their nature :)
Maybe we can learn from the presence of God in the holy family of Nazareth. The trinity of Joseph, Mary and Jesus could be another source of inspiration for understanding the heavenly trinity of Father, Son and Spirit. God lives in a fruitful community, with order and love.
The obedience of Christ is seen just as easily towards his earthly "parents" as to his heavenly Father in the garden of Gethsemane. But as our modern culture becomes more and more anti-family and regards the traditional male role of the father with less respect and understanding, isn't it only natural that we start to misinterpret this very fundamental revelation of God's being? In accepting alternative family models too quickly without due care and attention, we might be at risk of overlooking an unchangeable aspect of God's father-ness, which we are called to imitate in our own families and society at large.
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