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About Jesus Steve Sweetman On The Cutting Edge Of
What I’ll
lighten things up a bit for this article. There are no difficult Greek
words to twist your tongue around or deep theological issues to ponder
over, but as usual I do have something for you to consider.
I’ve
recently felt vindicated from an unusual source for an apparent mistake
I made 14 years ago. On his
“Live in So
here’s the story. I played
lead guitar for a certain church’s worship team. I
prefer playing guitar or harmonica in the background instead of being
up front leading the singing. On
one occasion the congregation was stuck with me leading worship because
all the good worship leaders were away.
It became evident that our pastor would have preferred me playing
in the background that day as well where I’d have little choice in
what happened during worship.
I decided
to tune up my banjo and play it for the opening song. I picked “This
Little Light Of Mine” to start things off.
It sounded nothing like Springsteen's version. That
was my mistake. I figured
the children might enjoy this, and maybe I could put a smile on a few
older faces before we got into serious worship.
Our
pastor didn’t have a smile on his face.
He considered our church to be on the “cutting edge” in
certain respects, and especially when it came to worship.
My banjo and “This Little Light Of Mine” weren’t
“cutting edge”. After
the meeting I was asked “why I led off with my banjo and that
camp-fire song”. I
didn’t realize that “This Little Light Of
Mine” was actually a camp-fire song and that banjos were meant
to be played out of doors by a fire.
Bruce Stringsteen didn’t seem to understand this either, but of
course why would he understand cutting edge church stuff.
I just wanted to bring an element of refreshing fun into our
gathering. Besides, I’ve
always considered the banjo to be a happy guitar in disguise.
Don’t you think a banjo sounds happy? Then
there was my friend. He was
invited to speak one Sunday morning.
He asked if he could speak first and have worship after he spoke.
His request was denied. After
such events I’ve stopped using the words “cutting edge”.
It tends to be a put down anyway. If I say I’m cutting edge,
I’m probably implying that you ‘re not.
By most people’s definition, our church wasn’t cutting edge
anyway. We were very
traditional. So I’d
suggest we throw these words out of our Christian vocabulary.
We should simply promote Jesus instead of our cutting edge
church. You’d be surprised how many of us witness more about our
church than we do about Jesus. I
don’t recall Jesus suggesting that He or His followers were on the
cutting edge, even though some of His followers did experience the
cutting edge, but it was the cutting edge of a Roman sword against their
necks. I doubt if we’d be
interested in that kind of cutting edge. When it
comes to our meetings, maybe we should think about having a little more
fun as well as seriously bowing our hearts in worship before our Lord
Jesus, neither of which some churches experience.
Maybe
I’m figuring wrong, but I figure that if Bruce Springsteen can record
“This Little Light Of Mine”, surely I can lead off a Christian
meeting with this little song, don’t you think? So
that’s why I feel vindicated after all those years and no longer worry
about being on the cutting edge.
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