Context
My wife has taught me many things.
She is one of those people tenaciously bent on learning. I love that! Though sometimes I tease her. Like when we have devotions together, and we start reading something in Ephesians, she looks at the beginning of the book to understand how it fits with the whole letter. I’ll jokingly say, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” As if she’s going back to the beginning of the whole bible.
I know. I’m still a bit infantile sometimes. It keeps me young.
But she’s right. That the little verse we were going to read makes a whole lot more sense when we understand the context. I misinterpret less when I put it in context, and the individual sentence seems more alive when I find the larger story. This is true, especially if it’s a well-known verse.
For example, did you know that it was in the context of Jesus explaining the basics of salvation to “a prominent church leader” that we find the famous John 3:16 verse? More people know that verse than just American football fans from the 80s.
And there’s no better-known and loved season than the Christmas season. Well, it’s famous, but is it really known? Do we fully grasp what it’s about? Do we see the context?
Our family is building a tradition to teach us. During this season of Advent, we have daily devotional that takes us through stories from the beginning… creation (now who’s laughing?!), the fall, Noah, Abraham, the ram, Jacob’s ladder, Joseph, Passover, the ten commandments, Rahab, David… to name a few. We made a wooden ornament for each day that will find its place on the tree. All this is the context for what we’ll celebrate on the 25th.
And it lacks meaning without context.
As worship leaders, we must be rich with context. We want to become the most inquisitive, tenacious learners in our communities. We want to sprinkle in snippets of our learnings as we lead. We want to embody a depth of meaning and understanding in the music we share.
You may already have lots of context for the Christmas carols and the history of the Advent season that kicked off the church calendar year.
Or you may loathe having to do anything other than “real worship songs.”
But we can be a gift to those we lead if we learn the context and share it.
Or we can end up in some sort of cultural confusion... (like the image at the top)
-Dave Helmuth
(purchase my book, "Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)" HERE)
Context (Nº 352)
