For the Audience of One - Intro

Well I'm going to try and be more of a push and pull technological expression.

This will be an attempt to provide some questions for reflection on Mike Pilvachi's book For the Audience of One. I know there are up to 40 copies circulating within a couple of churches and I decided to help people really engage with the implications of worship and worship leading. My desire to help people get to the heart of the matter and perhaps experience a true heart change and even an attitude shift. I'm posting a set of questions about every 5 days, in order that there is a chance for real thought.

Some of us are head people and other heart people and the questions attempt to reach both. Work with both sets; the ones you find easy ones and the difficult ones. I am setting this up on my blog so questions will be posted here once a week to match the chapters of Mike's book. This is because my desire is for deeper reflection rather than rushing through the book and feeling you've done it.

I've said for a long time “Sincerity is not enough. Proficiency is required.” This book and study will lay open your reasons and motivations for worship if you are willing to be honest to yourself. Sometimes the audience of One is not God but the audience of Me or the audience of the fellowship/congregation.

Find others to talk about what you've read and be willing to encourage others to think and examine the implications and God's challenge to your lives.

Read the Foreword by Matt Redman and the Preface.

1. What surprised you, if anything, reading these few pages?
2. What are the elements of worship and what are the expectations for worship?
3. Why are you reading this book? What do you hope for?
4. Are there desires in your life/heart that attracted to what is being said about worship?
5. Go back to Ephesians 5:10 and ask God to show you.

Posting 301

You too can join the individualized personalized universe and create your own handwriting font for free off this internet site (here) Be warned the site has been flooded by requests especially because of Lifehacker.com from which got the info.

This sort of phenomenon fascinates me. I dislike my own handwriting because it tends to be untidy and slow, and this new font installed in my computer offers a legible version. The odd thing is that I have created a very impersonal personal form of communication. Handwritten letters and card and messages are very personal and often treasured. A typed/printed letter is very formal and impersonal. What is a message printed with my personalized unique handwriting font? Some form of chimera (see mythological beast) or pushmepullyou. (See Dr Dolittle for the latter)

In worship I suspect this is no different from playing canned music at various points during the service. It is precise, has its place and is aesthetically quite beautiful to listen to, but I'm not sure who it's for? In spirituality I wonder if it's the difference between a personal encounter with the divine and listening to a sermon or message or a guided meditation.

This is is already my 301st post in this blog. Seemingly blogs are push and pull technologies, push is called a publish/subscribe model where a client can subscribe to various information sources. By contrast most web feeds, such as RSS and atom are technically pulled by the client. I really can't figure out whether I have become merely an expression of push technology here.