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Howdy. We've moved from Cayce, but St. Elizabeth of South Rose Hill or Lizette de Waccamaw de Sud just don't do it for me.

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

"Just, Jesus"

When looking at the Shrine of the Holy Whapping's guidance on writing bad church music, I saw this post (same page, further down):

"Lord, we just, we just thank you for this food and we, we ask you to bless it and to bless our fellowship here today..."

The most obvious fact which presents itself when Baptists or Free-Churchers insist on "spontaneous" (as opposed to memorized) prayer is that their "spontaneous" prayers are always the freakin' same, except that not everyone can take part and it comes out choppy.

But I recently had the occasion to hear a "extemporaneous" dinner prayer, and I was struck by a bigger, more interesting question: Many Protestants aren't keen on blessing much in particular, like the aforementioned Baptists and Free-Churchers. But we all know they bless food.

So why stop there? Why to they only bless food?Is there any good theological reason that they see a huge difference between blessing food before you use it as opposed to, say, a car or a church before you use it? Or do they just not realize what they're doing when they bless food, that they are blessing physical objects as such?

Or would it just be too painful to sit through a extemporaneous church dedication?

I'll admit that I have Hated listening to (OK, I have squirmed with embarrassment at) the "Lord/Just" prayer style.

Lord, we just want to, just, Lord, we just want to thank you, Lord God, and we just, Lord, want to say that we, just, Lord, want to give You thanks, Father God, because we just, Lord, want, Lord God, to .....

I think this one came from the Ch'rismatics, and hit the Evangelicals through Campus Ministries.
All in all, I think I prefer the "whostolemyhonda" style of prayer to the Lord/Just style...

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