If grief and lament need expression through contemporary worship, where do we begin? Obviously, one could start with the laments in Scripture. Worship leaders can incorporate biblical laments into worship through readings or music. The church can also search its history. Worship leaders can mine “The Book of Common Prayer” (e.g., Ministration to the Sick) or the Church Fathers (like Chrysostom’s “Letter to a Young Widow”) or hymns (like Cowper’s “God Moves in a Mysterious Way”). Finally, the Holy Spirit’s inspiration can provide words and expressions of lament. Worship leaders can write their own music that will express grief and lament in worship.
In all of these ways and others, worship leaders should offer creative expressions of the necessary worship of lament. In so doing, they will provide both a more biblical and a more robust experience of the love of God in Christ Jesus, who was himself referred to as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). In imitation of the Word written and the Word incarnate, the American church must reclaim the lament in worship or risk losing “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40) who is grieving.
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