The Weird Worship meme seems to have taken off. See David Ker’s latest roundup, also this one I wrote earlier today in a comment, and this comment I made on ElShaddai’s blog.
Here I offer some examples of weird worship from children’s songs. These are all from songs in my church’s official song book, although we don’t sing any of these now at least in the main services.
I’m gonna dance, gonna go completely loopy, will you? (from God Loves Me, Whoopah, Wahey!)
Great great brill brill, WICKED ! (from Oh It’s Great, Great, Brill, Brill)
You won’t get to heaven by jumping from a plane
And flapping your arms real quick (from The Camel Song)
I love custard creams and Wall’s ice-creams (from The Custard Cream Song; “Wall’s” is of course a trade mark, one of several potentially infringed in this song)
Got knobbly knees or fifteen chins,
Doesn’t matter just what shape you’re in (from Touch A Finger, Touch a Thumb)
All of these songs are by Doug Horley. Now Doug does excellent Christian work with children. But his “worship” songs, taken out of context, are just weird!
And this from a song we do sometimes sing:
More than magnet and steel are drawn to unite (from More Than Oxygen by Brian Doerkson)
Brill!
Do people still say that?!? Very big when I was in your neighborhood in 1998.
That was a quick comment! How did you react so quickly in Africa? Brill! Not sure if anyone still says it, but I guess the song was written about 1998 – no, actually 1993 according to one source, which is in fact itself an interesting and nicely broad-based round-up of weird worship.
Brill? Isn’t that a kind of cream?
Tim, do you mean Brylcreem? I remember seeing some in your hair in your wedding photo.
Of course to fellow bloggers like Jim West Brill is a just publisher of overpriced scholarly tomes. Weird indeed to worship them, although I guess Jim would not object to the collocation “brill, WICKED !”
I always thought “And Pharaoh’s army did the dead man’s float” was rather morbid.
I was very busy yesterday with the blogging lark and noticed your wicked post right away. I’m afraid that today I will be glued to the computer again working on mobile media madness. I love my job!