Grass Roots Worship- part 1

 I've been thinking lately about the term "grass roots" and what it means. It's usually used with regard to a political campaign that is started in obscurity and is run in a way contrary to the mainstream norm. Low budget. Unconventional. Small potatoes. Barely a splash in a big pond of culture-shaping.

I like the concept. I like the term. 

I am stealing it and applying it to my life.

Most of the time I feel like everything about who I am as a person, and what I do on a daily basis, can fall under this anti-norm, opposite-of-culturally-acceptable, wildly-polarizing, unlikely-to-be-relevant umbrella. I'm a grass roots girl all the way. Always have been.

And I'm glad. I like my quiet life. I do not mind that I am small potatoes.

So when the Holy Spirit first prompted me toward this blog I am composing, I did what all obedient believers should do: I wrote a few notes down as the Spirit led.

But then, then I just left the notes sitting there. Doing nothing. Collecting dust.

Why?

Because, I'm a small town girl. I'm grass roots. I can be found wearing sweatpants and slippers on most days. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, needs to hear what I have to share on...well, most things, honestly. 

But I have been informed, via a reprimand from the Lord, that I do not share what He puts inside me to share for the sake of who may (or more likely will not) hear/read it...I write because He tells me to, and I am His child, therefore my obedience is part of the deal.

"Because I said so," carries a bit more weight when the Lord says it to me than when I say it to my kids.

And so I'm going to talk about worship for a bit. Not because I am an expert on the subject. FAR from it. Not because many, many more influential people haven't spoken and written on the topic. They have. I've heard and read much of what is out there.

No. I'm going to write because the Lord has asked me to. And I say yes, even though I first spent months saying 'no' in my actions. 

My first audience as a singer was a field full of cows. I remember it with perfect clarity. I don't remember whose house we were at, or why I was alone outside, or how old I was. My mom informs me I was around 6 years of age. I DO recall that I was sitting on top of something, looking out over the field of cows, and for some reason I started singing. And as I sang whatever song I was singing (okay so I don't remember it with PERFECT clarity. More like partial clarity) the cows, one by one, began to look my way.

Talk about grass roots. It doesn't get any more obscure than singing for cows. 

My parents both sing, and my mom plays a very grass roots instrument, otherwise known as an autoharp, and so my next audience was our church, singing with my parents, when I was 7 or 8 years old. My parents had taught me one of the songs they liked to sing together, and how to stay on the melody while they sang harmony, and while I don't remember what song we sang then either, I do remember feeling very special that they had invited me to sing with them.

I come from a very large extended family, and there are a lot of singers and musicians among us. Our family circle sing-alongs are some of my best childhood memories. For all of my growing up years, any get-together always had at least one time of singing. And us cousins would always split up who would sing what harmonies, and we would belt out the words of worship to God, carefree and confident. 

Growing up has a way of tempering our dreams though, doesn't it? Getting out into the world a little bit and realizing that you are average at best...it changes your goals and plans. Coming to the startling understanding that lots and lots of people are way better than you at what you thought you were so good at...well, it makes you reevaluate, reassess, adjust expectations.

I met and married a piano playing, singing man. My dreams of being anything big and special and important shifted to much nearer, achievable dreams of singing with him, helping as backup for our church worship team. And then we had kids, and my worship dreams morphed again. I didn't have time to be on the worship team very often, and so they became my audience. I would sing to them, and teach them to sing, and raise my hands as we sang, and tell them to "praise the Lord" with me, and they would clap and lift their hands and sing the wrong words to my childhood sing-along-songs, and it was magical to watch their eyes sparkle with joy. Children worship before they really understand, or perhaps BECAUSE they really understand. And there was a purity in their worship that struck me, and set me back into a mode of pondering.

Why don't they care what they sound like, or how they look, or who is around? How can they just sing, and throw back their heads, and throw out their arms, and abandon themselves? 

The little girl singing to the cows did the same thing.

What did she know that I had forgotten in all my growing up and learning to live small and accept my regular-ness?

For 10 years I sang occasional backup for church. We moved a few times for my hubby's job, and always, at whatever church we ended up at, it would eventually become known that he and I sang, and he played piano, and we would be invited to help out. In fact, now that I think about it, we have never attended a church where we were not involved, eventually, in the worship team ministry. 

Still, my dearest times of worship were alone, or with my kids. I struggled mightily with depression for a season. Our marriage struggled mightily for a season. I would sing under my breath in those times, during those years. Songs that were the Word set to music would rise up from my childhood memories and come pouring out of my mouth. When I didn't have the will to sing for myself, I would listen to music, and let it wash over me, and strengthen me.

And as it always does, time marches on, and the Lord heals wounds and struggles, and teaches us new things about Himself in the process. I began to understand the truth about worship; that it isn't about sounding good or even serving a ministry. It's about reminding ourselves of Who is worth all of our attention and adoration. That's the truth that the kids know and we too easily forget as we grow up and take on the distractions of life. We forget to remember ONLY HIM while we worship.We forget that He heals us when we aren't even looking at what hurts. When we look only at Him...His very presence heals. 

I had figured it out, I thought. I now knew how to worship. Praise the Lord for the learning. My small life now made sense. I was at peace with the process, because I had arrived at the place of understanding.

And then, because that is the way of it, everything changed again.

To be continued...