Great reminder

I found this article on the Christianity Today website. Great stuff from Carolyn Arends (any 90's Christian music fans remember her? "Just out of reach" (the cookie jar song). )

Anyway, I digress. This is a great reminder for worship leaders especially, for all who lead in corporate prayer, but also for all of us as we pray and seek God.

Play Catch, not Throw

Good Call!

HT: Mark


Um, this is the most ridiculous call ever made on sports radio. Watch this whole clip and then go consult 1 Corinthians about the biblical gift of prophecy (i kid, i kid)

Bizarre

Last week I was perusing some John Piper sermons and came across this one from last month at a Christian Counseling conference.

here ( the bizarre-ness is in the first 5 minutes. . . .but the whole talk is great,. . . listen to it!)

This is one of the weirdest things I've ever heard. If you've ever heard John Piper speak you know that he doesn't do the typical "open with 5 jokes" as he preaches. He will use humor, but not in the way that this crowd was expecting.

This crowd of counselors just keeps laughing at Piper as he begins, and he eventually has to ask them to stop.

Greg Gilbert observes that these folks have just been conditioned to laugh at all the other speakers and so they thought Piper was going the same way.

This is kind of chilling as you realize how quickly folks can be conditioned to respond in a certain way, regardless of what the current purpose of the speaker is.

This had to be hopelessly awkward and Piper deals with it well. But, I hope this clip can push us towards more of a balance at church. Yes, we should laugh and have joy as we meet together. We shouldn't be so glib and light, though, that we can't feel the weight of heavy truths anymore. Or, as in this clip, feel the weight of someone confessing their sins(Piper was trying to be humble and broken in front of these folks). We should pray that we never get desensitized to God's truth and the weight of sin.

Great Parenting Resource

I think "Gospel powered parenting" is a great resource for the modern day parent. First, because it will encourage those who are stuck in the "I'm a terrible dad/mom. . . . " condemnation cycle. But, also, it will push us towards being concerned about different things as we parent, and focusing on different results. Many of us need correction in this area and need to get out of survival mode (read this awesome blog post from my awesome wife) I haven't read this book yet, (I will), but after reading this interview, I think it will be great.

Aaron

I wish this were true in most Evangelical churches. . .

"A preacher should ascend to the pulpit to declare truths that are true even if he had never been born"

"He Should preach of things that are out of his control"

Doug Wilson--from the Desiring God conference last weekend.

Let it be true

Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson, in Counsel from the Cross: Connecting Broken People to the Love of Christ (pp. 86-87):

When relationships are built around the truths of the gospel—the truth that we are walking in light even though we are still sinners in need of cleansing by his blood—we can be free from feelings of inferiority and the demanding spirit that is born of pride. We can pursue relationships without fear of being discovered as the sinners we are. This kind of open relationship rests solely on the realities of the gospel. We are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe, and so is everyone we know. Because of this, we won’t be surprised by other’s sins. They won’t expect us to be sinless either, so we don’t have to give in to self-condemnation and fear when they see us as we really are. We don’t have to hide or pretend anymore.

The gospel also tells us that we are loved and welcomed without any merit on our part, so we can love and welcome others whose merits we can’t see. We can remember the circumstances under which we have been forgiven, and we can forgive in the same way. We don’t deserve relationship with the Trinity, but it has been given to us. We can seek our relationships with others because we know that we have been sought out by him and that he is carrying us all on his shoulders. (Yes, he is that strong!)

HT: JT

Subjectivism in Worship

Recently I saw a video of some folks talking about worship. They were apparently asked “What does worship mean to you?” or “Why do you love worship so much?”, etc. . Their answers were heartfelt and I appreciated their sincerity and heart of love for God. Some of their answers were:

“When I worship, I forget where I am, . . . . . . . I don’t even know that I’m doing this or that when I’m up there. . . . . I feel like I’m saying, “God, can I talk to You?” . . . I love worship, it fills me up so much to sing to God”.

I resonate with a lot of those emotions. There is a felt benefit to leading God’s people in worship, and in the presence of God there is “fullness of joy”.

However, these feelings that leading the singing (I’ll stop using the term “worship” now, since worship is our life’s response to God, and singing with our church body is only one, important, outlet for that) produce are not the most important thing about our times of corporate worship together.

The most important thing when we get together is God, who He is, what He has done, and what his Son, Jesus, has done for us. It was a bummer that no one referenced anything objectively true about our great God in that video,. . . but only their subjective feelings about Him.

Unfortunately, many worship songs lead us to those responses with mainly subjective lyrics (not just “new” songs. . .how about “I”ll fly away”. . . now there’s a theological masterpiece J )

That’s why I make it a priority to sing objective truths about our God with songs like “The Solid Rock”, “Creed”, “In Christ Alone” and “Jesus, Messiah”. It’s these truths that we can hold onto no matter what our circumstances are like. And, yes, when our corporate worship is not going so well, and we’re missing notes, and we’re not feeling it. . . .these things are still true, and always will be.

These are the truths that I want to celebrate and “lose myself’ in. As Rich Mullins once wisely stated. . .

“Someone came up and said to me ‘ I really felt the Spirit at that one point of the song when you guys hit that crescendo’ . . . I said, no, I think that was the kick drum”

Let’s build our faith, and our gathered, musical worship on The Rock, and not on the subjective “sand” of our feelings, or the emotional effects of the music.

Let’s use all of that to glorify great truths about God and help folks to know and treasure Jesus in all of His Greatness and Grace.

Worshipping with you,

Aaron