Songs of Prayer (1)

Reposted in Spotify

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I am not an experiential kind of guy. When I do become emotional it is as a result of some pretty intense thinking—about God, a person (say, Liz :-), or a situation (be it good or bad). Thus, it is rare for any song to give me goosebumps or move me in a significant way with the music alone. Oddly (to most people), even the worst sounding song can move me if the truth is powerful enough.

Yesterday in the MnM Team (Music and Media Team) at my church, we were discussing the merits and demerits of the song “He Is” by Mark Schultz. I was asked what I thought and I responded, “Well, it’s very experiential,  so, I guess if you like that sort of thing. . .” to which another team member replied, “Experiential, you mean like a personal relationship with the creator of the universe?” And I admit, he had me there. It was a “touché” type moment.  But this exchange got me thinking about the experiential aspects of our faith—prayer, singing, giving, etc. I think that one of the most experiential aspects of our belief system is the experience of prayer. While theology plays an important role as the framework of our prayers (in other words—we talk to the God we know through Scripture), our prayers are expressions of real experiences: our sorrows, our joys, our failures, our fears, our hopes and dreams, and everything or anything else that grabs our attentions.

So, in honor of being experiential, here is our playlist of prayers. I’m going to start with a video of “A Mother’s Prayer” which Liz is learning so that she can sing it to our boys (now that makes me emotional!). I’ll also append it to the end of our regular playlist. (And I even included “He Is” for those of you who are a little more experiential than I am:-).