Tuesday 22 May 2007

The Naked Pastor

Been looking at various people's list of recommended bloggers and someone has called themselves The Naked Pastor...I have not actually clicked on to their blog yet, but it sparked me thinking about the pros and cons of being a "naked" pastor. A few years ago I was worshiping with the Icthus Community who Graeme Kendrick belongs to (think he does anyway) this was taking place in the William Booth College Assembly Hall. During sung worship I noticed a lady dancing uninhibited at the back of the hall, totally lost in worship.....and I thought to myself, 'that is what David meant when he said that he was dancing naked before the Lord' - no inhibitions - an audience of ONE with God.

So being a Naked Pastor touches me on two levels - how "naked" am I in worship and how "naked" am I when coming alongside people in pastoral way. My prayer is always that I will be authentic and genuine at all times - why then do I find it so hard to be totally free to be "dance naked before the Lord" ? Maybe it is something to do with having to lead worship - when do I actually worship myself ? mmmmmm

6 comments:

Dawn said...

As a member of a group that leads worhsip I usually find myself closing my eyes. I have to shut off from the world around me...if on the platform I did open my eyes, lots of times I think I would completely freeze and I certainly couldn't worship. It would be me and them, rather than me and God. I guess it's slightly different for Phil, in our context, as our 'leader' he has a more communicating on concentrating to do than I do!

Liz said...

Naked also implies vulnerable too, something which is seen, by the world, as a weakness, but in the topsy turvy world of faith in God is a strength.

Worship is just SO caught up with 'performance' during our(TSA)services though isn't it?

Perhaps we need to 'do our dancing' or actually do some dancing in private to equip us to be more vulnerable in corporate worship?

I dont know why I used nd

Liz said...

Opps, meant to delete that last cryptic sentence.It was going to be about inverted commas!

Unknown said...

People keep nicking my blog ideas!

Ann I hear you. As Dawn says, when we are in the worship band we notice that we have to make a real effort to make it actually worship because of the upfrontness of it. I can only imagine how difficult that makes it for you and Richard.

How do you be vulnerable and yet retain the position of 'leader'?

Unknown said...

'How do you be' doesn't make much sense does it? Sorry, it should read, 'how can you be'.

Anonymous said...

Read it - he is very thought provoking and at times hilarious!