PJ's Journal

  Faith is an interesting word. The very nature of the word conveys the idea of trusting that what a particular source says is right. The source of that trust can be a personal experience, a religious text, or patterns that you observe in life. When one chooses to believe what they have determined to be facts, then that too is an act of faith. Faith is trusting a source. The source of my faith is ultimately the Christian Bible. There are reasons for this, and I will tease these reasons out over the next several weeks through this blog, but I say this now as an example that faith requires a source. The difference between faith and opinion is that faith is based on what a trusted source says, and opinions seem to have their roots in one’s own thoughts. We all have opinions; however, my faith is built on a trusted source. Instead of speculating, I draw upon the wisdom of what this trusted source says about a subject. Why am I writing about this? I wanted to take about seven addi

Seems like a silly question.  Of course they aren't wrong!  You see all kinds of emotions displayed in the Psalms, which is a book to guide worship.  You see tears and chants of victory, sorrow and dancing, grief and hands raised in joyful celebration.  God made us as emotional beings.  That is part of being made in the image of God.  Emotions in corporate worship have been a part of the the human experience for a long time.  However, in some faith traditions, there has been a cautious avoidance of emotional expressions in corporate worship.  There are many reasons why that has been the case.  For some, certain emotional responses are seen as irreverent... a distraction to worship.  Others are very cautious because of the fickle nature of emotions and how they can easily manipulate the human heart.  For others, they are just not used to it, so it seems out of place.  All that said, emotional responses are not a bad thing.  In fact, I would say they it is actually a good thing.  We