Emergency Pocket Confetti by Kat Silverglate ©2023
It was a random social media repost by a friend.
My 8yo in the car today: “Do you want me to throw the confetti in my pocket?”
Original Facebook post by “Ana the Distracted Gardener”
Me: “No not in the car! – why do you have confetti in your pocket?”
8yo: “It’s my emergency confetti, I carry it everywhere in case there is good news.”
It’s one of those screen shots frequently reposted because it hits that spot in us that nods and smiles and warms and says “awww.” As soon as I read it, my mind went the way minds go when memory is tripped -- to PT 7280, one of my seminary classes dedicated entirely to the topic of worship. How do you fill a full quarter of class time on that topic? Registering for the class, I remember thinking it was going to be less weighty than some of the core curriculum. More dessert than main course. It was anything but.
Early in our time, the professor asked the group:
“When we think of worship, we think of?”
His rising intonation and searching eyes invited us to toss answers into the room like confetti.
“Praise,” one student started. “Thanksgiving,” another added. “Singing about God and to God?” the question floated out. His nods, which fell on us with gentle affirmation, were followed by a long silence. These ideas were consistent with my thoughts -- worship is a celebration of who God is and what He does. What was there to add?
“What else?” he pressed us.
I don’t recall his exact list of thought provoking questions, but the essence of it went something like this:
“What if your studies are an act of worship? What if the way you treat your neighbor or your spouse or your kids is an act of worship? Or how you treat your body? What about lament as an act of worship?
Paraphrase of Professor Steven Roy's intro to Worship Class
What if your very life is an act of worship?”
He had our attention. WOW! Now sprinkled with aspects of the topic we hadn’t voiced or perhaps even considered, we wanted all he had to offer; or at least we thought we did until we got to an overview of one of the central facets we’d be discussing -- the dangerous act of worship.
The what? Dangerous? Worship? They don’t seem to belong in the same sentence. Do they?
The substance for this section of the class drew largely from a book by Mark Labberton called The Dangerous Act of Worship. The premise was easy enough to grasp. We become like what we worship. If we worship God in Spirit and in truth -- He wrecks our comfortable lives. He turns the world’s notions upside down and inside out. He calls us to do justice, love mercy, to walk humbly before Him. Worship wrecks us because it wakes us up to God’s purpose for our lives in the world. The author of that book, Mark Labberton, calls worship that leaves us and the world around us unchanged dangerous.
“Worship names what matters most: the way human beings are created to reflect God’s glory by embodying God’s character in lives that seek righteousness and do justice... Worship turns out to be the dangerous act of waking up to God and to the purposes of God in the world, and then living lives that actually show it.”
Mark Labberton, The Dangerous Act of Worship
I think most of the students loved the class because it wrecked our simplistic notion of worship. Worship doesn’t prevent emergencies, it creates them. When we worship, our understanding of who God is, why He made us, why He calls us out of darkness, how far He went to reach us, what He’s doing with our one ridiculous life… it quickens us. We don’t have to wait for an emergency when we worship. Worship in Spirit and truth brings us to the truly urgent. It beckons us toward the Lord in the best possible ways. In ways that transform our lives and the lives of those around us.
I imagine most adults love that viral social media post about emergency confetti summarized at the start of this piece because we want to be more like that child. The eight-year-old isn’t worried about the mess. She’s ready to let the confetti fly when the news is good.
Which begs this question:
Isn’t responsiveness to God always good? Even when it’s hard?
Emergency/Pocket Confetti, December 2023 Mobile Mission TheRidiculousHour.com
Truth be told, most of us are more like the adult than the child in that vignette. I don’t want to make messy changes to my neat little life, even good changes sometimes. I love the idea of confetti in principle... of celebrating the right and the noble and the just and the true and the worthy and all that jazz listed in Philippians 4:8 until I count the cost. Until I realize I may have to wreck my plans or my comfort or my pride to walk in those places with God.
But not doing so? In Labberton’s words… that is some kind of dangerous worship right there! To proclaim the true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praise worthy things of God to God in worship and then to walk the other way without moving in them or toward them? When you put it that way, it just doesn’t sound like a very good idea. He;s the maker of heaven and earth. Of me. Of you. Of us.
John Ortberg, in his forward to the Dangerous Worship book hits us between the eyes with his summary of where worship is intended to lead:
It is the knee-buckling, jaw-dropping acknowledgement of the gap between the creature and the Creator, the finite and the Infinite, the sinful and the Holy. It is the heart-rending, spirit-mending gratitude and joy of those who have tasted the wonder that words like redemption only hint at.
From John Ortberg’s Forward to The Dangerous Act of Worship.
It makes us want to pray humble prayers...
“Lord, make us like that child with a handful of confetti in the car! Loosen our grip. Help us let the confetti fly without fear of the mess it will make of our plans, our comfort, our ideas, our ways. Make us like David who faced his Goliath with what he placed in his pocket knowing that it was nothing but a pile of pebbles without faith in the power and the promises of God. Let our worship bring the right kind of urgency to our lives. Amen.”
Our Mission is simple but not simplistic.
We started 2023 with a mission called Counting Detours. In January, We looked ahead to this last month of the year, and we said we’d make our plans but we’d count the detours as gain because God was with us in them.
So, in your Mission Pack [if you don't have one, email us at [email protected]] you have two bags of pocket confetti with a card that says Emergency Confetti. The word EMERGENCY is crossed out and the word POCKET is written over it. Aren’t they fun? A member of our team assembled thousands of them for this mission. Thank you Gladys Cabrera. You are wonderfully ridiculous. One of these bags is for you and one is to give away.
As we look back at 2023, can we celebrate the detours? It’s easy to celebrate the things that went as planned. But the things that didn't go as we hoped? Over the course of this month, consider making a list of the things that didn’t go as expected. Can you celebrate the times when God poked, prodded, nudged or redirected you? Can you meditate on His presence in them?
As we look ahead to 2024, will you invite the right kind of urgency through worship? Maybe now would be a great time to decide to refuse to wait for an emergency to turn toward God? Can we set out to be more like that eight-year-old child who’s less concerned with the mess than the goodness of responding to God?
Let's the messy confetti fly in December of 2023!
Amen? Amen!
