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Let the world see JesusBeating more timeLET THE WORLD SEE JESUS Although they contain the same material, I saved a lot of time by watching the DVD first. It was a complete turn-off. So many beautiful people, cool clothes, immaculate hair, ecstatic faces, energetic dancing, tasteful arrangements, accomplished musicianship, huge sound, excellent lighting, flying cameras, brilliant editing. So professional. So unreal. ‘Let the World See Jesus’ sums up the heart’s desire of our church. We wanted this to be the album’s title track because the church is the only glimpse of Jesus the world will ever see. We are God’s address on the earth, we are God’s shop window ...’ So writes pastor Paul Scanlon. I guess it all adds up. What you see is what you get. And for all the public protestations to the contrary, I still detect more than a hint of a prosperity gospel. But let’s not go there! The CD sounds great. It is just what you would expect from an Abbey Road production. And they really are a very talented bunch of writers and performers. OK, lyrically there’s not much to write home about. The theology is Trinitarian and mostly cross-centred, but there isn’t much depth. ‘Psalm 40’ (by Mark Stevens) seems to be only very loosely based on David’s original. ‘Wonderful’ does a slightly better job with Psalm 19, but fails to get beyond verse 6. So what’s the point? Some other numbers are far less satisfactory. Maybe I’m just too picky, but lines like ‘I love you Jesus though you first loved me’ really bother me. It might be true, but isn’t the real wonder that I only love Jesus because he first loved me? I have similar problems with ‘Now that I’ve found you I can never let you go’. Surely, I found him only because he first found me? And I am so very prone to let go of him! My only confidence is that he will not let me go. I’m always looking for useful new songs for our corporate worship. These 13 are certainly new, but not one adds anything useful. Despite their huge bouncy congregations, I really don’t think Abundant Life Ministries gets corporate worship. All the songs are personal. All are a one-to-one between the me and God. And there’s nothing wrong with that per se. But the words ‘we’ and ‘us’ only appear once in the whole set. There is no speaking to one another. There is no instruction. There is no proclamation. How is the world to see Jesus? This DVD says ‘watch me, and do what I do’. And what’s wrong with that? After all, the Psalms allow us to evesdrop on some pretty intimate personal moments with God. However, the big difference is that the things we overhear in the Psalms are both true and instructive. But perhaps the hardest thing for me to swallow was seeing the children aping the ‘grown ups’. They have the same body language, the same screwed up faces. But is that real spirituality, or just learned behaviour? In a word: yuck! PGDH © Evangelicals Now - December 2005 |