Final Project (ICEWS, e*b 08)

For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen's University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

When I started to think and pray about my final project, the first question that came to my mind was, who is my community?  I haven’t quite settled yet into a church because my placement bumps me around quite frequently.  So, it turned out that the guys in prison were my most consistent community.  This led me to wonder, how do they meet with God?  I thought it would be really interesting to put together a piece of liturgy, but I quickly realized that they would have a really hard time entering in with that worship tool.  What I have learned about these men is that they love music, and they love music that tells a story.  

One thing that we learned in our course on worship theology and biblical worldview is that being made in God’s image makes us Salivific Storytellers.  We are to retell God’s redemption story over and over again with our words and our actions.  To illustrate this relevantly, I decided that I would take a tune that my friends would be familiar with and write lyrics that tell the Redemption story.  This way, when they have this song running through their head, they might remember these lyrics instead.

Many of these men have been in prison more than ten years, and most of them will have been in there more than twenty by the time they get out.  This causes a serious barrier between us.  To them I am completely innocent, have never done anything wrong and could never do anything wrong.  This causes a real roadblock when it comes communicating the Gospel.  My goal is to break down the barrier that says I am good and they are bad, and to level the ground between us so that they can see that I am a sinner, too.  If they can understand that I am just as much of a sinner as they are, then maybe they will be able to more fully understand how Jesus rescued me.  And if they can understand how Jesus saved me, they might understand how they can be rescued, too.  

Here's a link to the mp3 and the chord chart.