This is a serious question. Why do so many 'contemporary' Christians seem fixated on 'the house of the Lord' in their worship songs and online commentary? It's 'your house' this and 'this house' that. I keep coming across it and it all seems so Old Testament. Whatever happened to "a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem … time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth"? I mean, I worship in a building most Sundays myself, so it's not as if I am anti buildings, but why this fixation? It just seems wrong to me, out of balance. And it disturbs me when I find this stuff infiltrating my own church. Is it just the megachurch influence? Any thoughts?
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I think it might be two things…
Joshua’s statement “as for me an my house, we will worship the Lord”.
And Jesus, “in my father’s house there are many rooms”.
It is mostly a Charismatic/US-Evangelical thing particularly in mega-church.
But, I don’t think it is about buildings per se. I think it may be more about belonging… and about the concept of ‘heaven’ being associated with ‘going home’.
There are a lot of cultural things about the church that don’t follow any logic. So I suspect it is more about adopting ‘Biblical language’ as a means of trying to get a warm fuzzy feeling not about a deeply considered theology.
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“the Most High does not live in houses made by men” Acts 7:48
I reckon it goes back to the sacred vs secular split where we come to ‘meet God’ in church but He couldn’t possibly be out there in our workplace/street/pub. As you say, very Old Testament, but the unfortunate thing is that this sort of language probably makes it actually harder for christians to engage meaningfully with the real world.
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To play devil’s advocate, maybe just because it sounds poetic? 🙂
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That’s a good point. I had been noticing the trend towards people saying that a lot but hadn’t really thought about the implications of it. Like Chris, i would also have to wonder if part of it is just that it sounds poetic and cool.
The other related one that gets me is when worship leaders say something like “worship him in this place.” Well given that i’m here i don’t think i’m going to be worshiping him in any other place at this moment!
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Chris, poetry always comes from somewhere. I am too much of an esotericist to accept there is no meaning behind their language.
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Joanna, what would you say to the megachurches that televise their preacher’s sermons over multiple campuses? It may be that he isn’t in “this place”! I wonder if the Spirit gets captured on video tape like that ghost in The Ring?
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Extending that thought, I wonder if they play such songs in virtual churches?
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One of my pet hates…
“Better is one day in your house than a thousand days in the world’
Really?…
Argh…
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As a matter of fact Hamo, it was a song with lyrics veeeeery similar to that which inspired this post.
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Seems more people need to remember ‘a house is not a home’ or ‘home is where the heart is.’
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