of worship and witness

two new songs posted

2009-12-03T14:06:00.003-06:00

I just posted two more songs over on the new myspace page. The two newbies are Psalm 67 and Hail the King. Both songs very intentionally lend a large part of their focus to the same focus of this blog: knowing Him better and making Him known... the idea that worship and witness must be inextricable linked such that worship is purposefully viewed as (amongst other things) both the goal and fuel of missions. Enjoy the new songs!

broken silence follow-up

2009-11-19T16:07:00.002-06:00

It's been six months, so time to post again right? The conviction I mentioned last time to get a few of my songs out there for the world to hear is finally coming to a head. I recently sent lots of stuff off to the US Copyright Office, and now I've done what everyone other musician seems to do: I put together a myspace page. So far I only have 2 songs up, but keep posted as I plan to put some more up in the weeks to come. Also, I blogged over there on a few more of my thoughts of getting that page started. Enjoy!

breaking the silence

2009-05-20T15:15:00.004-05:00

Wow, so it's been almost a year of no posting. I've had a handful of folks prod me along the way to pick it back up to no avail. I've been toying with getting back in the game lately, and this is essentially me sticking my toe back in the water to see if I'm ready to give it another go.

I've been all over the metaphorical map this last year. The highlight has certainly been joining my beautiful wife in welcoming my amazing daughter into the world, but other high points have involved doing a ton of stuff with our student ministries, seeing our music ministry continue to improve, and as of late I've begun dabbling in recording some of songs that I've written that have worked really well with our congregation. I'll keep you posted with that progress as I have a goal of making some quality recordings available within the next few months (there I said it, so now I have the vast expanse of the internet to hold me accountable, right?).

free band seminar videos

2008-07-01T11:47:00.003-05:00

I just came across these band seminar videos via Bob Kauflin's blog. Some great things that every church musician playing in a band setting needs to hear (especially instrumentalists). Check out a few of the videos below as an appetizer, then go check the rest out at Zach Nielsen's blog. For you leaders, make extra sure to check out the video on leadership on his site. Enjoy!

where is your treasure?

2008-05-22T15:44:00.003-05:00

It's good for me to be reminded of the important things. I just came across a great post from Lukas Naugle, the Director of Resource Strategies at Desiring God. I've found as a musician that it's deceptively easy to get wrapped up in treasuring music gear (guitars, amps, effects, etc.). In a way I'm thankful that God allowed me to buy my cheap guitar back in college, that a guy in a bible study I led accidentally chipped a piece off of the headstock, and that my guitfiddle has continued to be a decent sounding economical workhorse. It's a reminder to me that there isn't a lot that I need in order to worship and serve God - in fact, the only thing I absolutely need is the blood of Christ. This topic is also a reminder to me that our lives should strongly reflect the truth of where our treasure resides. This should be evident and palpable to the world around us.

In his post that I mentioned, Lukas points us to Matthew 6:19-20. Also check out Luke 12:33-34 and Hebrews 11:23-26. So, where is your treasure and is it evident?

one year later

2008-05-16T08:58:00.002-05:00

Wow... the Of Worship and Witness blog is one year old day. When I started blogging last May I honestly just hoped it would be a blessing to my team and an outlet for me, but the impact has been much bigger than I would have expected. People from 38 countries have made their way here. Quite a few folks from the 10/40 window have even come, including people from countries like Iran, India, and the UAE. I'm blown away that God has turned this into something that is equipping leaders and teams around the globe. Incidentally, if this is your first time here I'd recommend you take some time and work your way through the four part "sorting through songs labels in worship" series in the left-hand column. A new feature that I also added recently is the the widget to the left that has a few books that I'd highly recommend.

I have some exciting idea brewing about what's next, but I'd also be love to hear your ideas on what subjects, topics, or issues you'd like to see more of, so leave me a comment!

7 tips on introducing electric guitar in corporate worship

2008-05-09T15:07:00.012-05:00

A while back I posted about the idea of shifting from acoustic guitar to electric as the fundamental timbre in corporate worship for the sake of the music that we lead with being an honest and relevant expression of and to the culture in which we live and do ministry. That post has been my most viewed and commented post ever since I started blogging back in May of '07. The responses that I've gotten here, here, here, and via email has been really informative. Well, I finally made the leap in our more contemporary service a few weeks ago and it went great. I gave it another shot last week and it went even better. Here are 7 things I've learned about making this jump:

Pray for direction: The desire to make a switch like this can come from at least two different sources. One is a heartfelt Spirit-led desire to engage the hearts and minds of your people with the greatness of our God such that they might treasure Him more, and to use music that they more authentically connect with toward that end. The other source of this desire can be pride that wants to look and sound like a rock star. Pray that God would first show you if this move is right for your church, and then pray that He would show you if this move your heart. If it is not right for them, don't do it. If something is not right with you, you had better wait.
Poll your people: One of my big hesitations I originally had about swapping out my acoustic guitar for an electric was that I recognize that on average, our congregation is pretty conservative - leading me to think it may not be the best move for our body. In talking with some of our leadership and members (musicians and non-musicians), I came to realize that most people did not see it as a big deal and most really welcomed the idea. There was even one guy who was really honest in admitting that while the idea weirded him out, it really only amounted to personal stigmas and he encouraged me to give it a try.
Form the foundation first: Another reason that the transition went so well was because I've been blessed to have a really faithful young electric guitarist who has put in an amazing amount of time over the last year or so and is growing to be a really good player. On top of that, our band as a whole has tightened up such that they could routinely be mistaken for pros. That being said, if I had tried this out prior to the band's growth or prior to that young guy helping to establish a taste for electric guitar from the lead guitar position I might have gone down in a blaze of glory. Is it was, I had the benefit of standing on a really solid musical and aesthetic foundation.
Practice your part: If guitars were dogs, then acoustics and electrics would be two very different breeds. When you approach leading make sure to take plenty of time by yourself to think through and play through how you plan to sit in the mix, if and/or how you'll use effects, if you'll use riffs versus standard chords, and even what chord voicings you plan to use. You'll go a long way towards making your musicians feel comfortable, and an even longer way towards ensuring that quality happens on Sunday.
Easy on the effects: First time out of the chute I didn't use any effects at all. Well, I tried to use them during rehearsal and we almost fell apart. So for the first Sunday I just set my gain such that if I lightened up my pick attack my tone would clean up, but if I dug in I would get some overdrive. It worked great. The second time I brought out the electric I started using some tempo based delay. Guess what - the band adjusted, we stayed really tight, and Sunday morning was awesome. No problems.
Love your sound guy: Remember that you and the band are not the only ones making adjustments. Your sound guy has probably spent a lot of time getting your acoustic EQ'd and sitting perfectly in the house. Make sure you plan in some additional time for him to make adjustments. At the end of the day, he determines a huge part of how good you sound.
Make sure that it still is not about you: I'm hoping that if you checked your pride at the door in your decision to transition over to electric that this won't be an issue, but knowing how deceitful pride can be it probably bears repeating. Just as on any other Sunday, everything in the course of a worship service should bring all praise, glory, and honor to our Savior. Make sure that your playing continues to not get in the way of that regardless of which guitar is in your hands.

Hopefully this is helpful to some of you guys out in blog-land who are thinking about making the leap. Are there other things that you have found helpful in a similar transition that I didn't list?

emotionalism vs. intellectualism

2008-05-02T09:17:00.003-05:00

I've heard it said that there is a continuum in musical corporate worship with emotionalism on one side and intellectualism on the other side and that what you need to do is to find the middle ground. I thank God for guys like Wes Crawford who showed me long ago that this idea of a continuum is false. Sure you can err on the side emotionalism and get really excited about something less than the Gospel, or you can get snooty and heady and say a lot of great things with absolutely no response from your heart... but both of these things are mistakes. The middle ground would actually result in being less excited about an average amount of truth, and God is worthy of more than half of our minds and half of our hearts.

What if the great deep truths about the character and works of our sovereign, sacrificially loving, all-satisfying God were worded, sung, and played in such a way that both our hearts and our minds were fully engaged? What if the fullness of emotions that our hearts are capable of giving was corresponding to the greatness of the truth packed into the words on our lips?

22 qualities of a great church sound engineer

2008-04-28T11:44:00.003-05:00

Running sound certainly takes a special mix of left-brained tech-savvy coupled with a right-brained artistic bent, but I also love how this list incorporates the absolute need for the faithful pursuit of being a disciple. If you run sound, check yourself to see which areas need some growth. If you are a ministry leader, have your sound guy(s) do a personal evaluation and talk with them about how you can aid them in their pursuit Christ through their service as FOH.

making sense of gathered worship

2008-04-25T13:38:00.003-05:00

A while back one of the most influential guys in my life gave an outstanding message to DBC's college ministry on worship as it is lived out as well how it looks when God's people gather together corporately. It would be highly worth your time to check it out here.

great article on writing songs for use in corporate worship

2008-04-14T13:52:00.002-05:00

So ya, it's been a little while since I've posted to the ol' blog. My bad. I actually have some good stuff that I'm working on for a worship clinic that I'll be doing with one of our interns and a few select other guys. As I get that stuff together you can expect some good theological and practical things to start popping up. For today though, I wanted to point you to a great article that I just came across about writing songs for use in corporate worship. Here's a taste:

Recently I heard someone describing songwriters as ‘architects’. As writers we need to have a ‘big idea’ or a ‘theme’ that is worth working on. Often however we try and skip this architectural/planning stage and plunge straight in to building. If this was the method for structural buildings, most constructions would be lopsided, unfinished and without foundations. This is often the case for most of our songs!

Click here to read the rest. Enjoy!

tuggle and other results

2008-01-30T13:44:00.001-06:00

Ok, so after doing a preview with our high school seniors for a few weeks we launched an online community this last Sunday for our student ministries. It's called tuggle, and is something created by a genius college roommate of mine. For those out there reading this who have any sort of a role in any sort of student-focused ministry, you *must* give tuggle a look-see. For others, I could still see tuggle having great implications for other areas of ministry as it has a ton of tools for building community as well as some really outstanding administrative features that I believe will make life much easier. We had some creative ways to promo the "launch" that I may put up here at some point.

On a similar note, the launch of our church's site this at the beginning of this month has gone over really well. There have been a few bugs to work out, but it's nice to have a "new front door".

Also, if you're wondering about the concert that I mentioned in the last post - it went better than I could have hoped. I've had a bunch of students asking me when we're going to do it again.

The first month of being full-time has been a wonderful thing :-)

current things I'm excited about

2008-01-04T10:16:00.000-06:00

Granted most of the folks out in blog-land that are not a part of BCBC may not be overly pumped about all this, but here are two things I'm pretty jazzed about at the moment:

#1. Yesterday I put some finishing touches on the new face of Bear Creek Bible Church's website and it is officially lauches! I kid you not - when I finished it and made it live, I walked into our senior pastor's office (John Salvesen) with my fists in the air singing the main theme to Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man (one of the main themes used for the Olympics). When I paused he asked, "is it done?" To which I replied by continuing in song. A great end to yesterday.

#2. This Sunday night we're doing something with our student ministries that we haven't done before. One the first and last Sundays of the month we hold a youth gathering that we call Alpha & Omega. We have a ton of food, fellowship, praise, and relevant teaching. Well, this Sunday night we doing things a bit different. Sure, we'll be starting out with food & fellowship, but then instead of moving things into the youth room, we'll be setting up on the main stage in the auditorium. Instead of starting with a few songs and moving into a time of teaching, we'll be plugging in, turning up the amps, and spending a whole night in praise. It with have the feel of a concert, but the whole night will be focused on Christ. I sent a promo out to our students yesterday along with a flyer which they can print out and dispense to friends. My prayer is that they will be challenged to step out of their comfort zones and invite some folks who wouldn't normal step foot in a church. I so stinkin' excited.

sure it rocks, but will it last (part 2)

2007-12-18T08:57:00.000-06:00

Continuing from my last post, there was a question raised about whether or not guys like Isaac Watts intentionally wrote songs to stand the test of time and whether we really should be shooting for such timelessness. Here are some thoughts:

Ultimately our sovereign God chooses what will last, but at the same time there are surely certain qualities that songs which have stood the test of time for hundreds of years have in common in terms of substance. Sure it helps that Charles Wesley and his brother were dominant forces in the starting of the Methodist movement, and sure Isaac Watts is recognized as the first prolific writer of his time to step away from the traditionalism of only singing translated Psalms and start actually writing new material for the Church to sing in English (he was doing something "new/controversial" and doing an incredible job), but their historical ties aside, there is so much in terms of solid content in their songs that has surely contributed their still being used in such wide circulation today.

Think about the last 20 years. There have been a lot of new songs published for use in corporate worship in the last two decades. Many are still in regular use, but I would reckon that a great deal more have fallen into obscurity. Couple that with some of the more substantial lyrics that guys like Matt Redman and Tim Hughes are starting to write, and I think we may be seeing a great [old] "trend" within songwriting for the Church that may be helping to produce songs that will certainly be worth singing 20 years from now or however long the Lord tarries.

All that to say, Watts probably didn't purposefully set out to write songs that we would sing centuries later, but he did write with such depth of praise that gives his songs a timeless quality that I think is worth striving for on some level. If we're going to write something new, it should be at least as good as everything else we have to choose from. Right? If our new songs are less fitting to the praise of the God than other songs we have to choose from, then the choice should be obvious. Right?

sure it rocks, but will it last?

2007-12-11T18:18:00.000-06:00

A while back I posted a bit about several historical figures' takes on the classification of hymns.

Jeremy Killian had a great post recently that has my gears turning again. Here's a highlight:

According to Carl F. Price (1937) of the Hymn Society of America, there are several necessary ingredients that distinguishes a hymn from other forms of music. Price’s criteria are as follows:
A hymn is…
1. a metrical poem
2. reverent and devotional in nature
3. poetic and literary in style
4. spiritual in quality
5. expresses the worshipper’s attitude toward God
6. unites the congregation who sings it.

I love the inclusive yet controversial nature of old quotes like this because they suggest that every song that we sing on Sunday, both old & new, classifies as a hymn (as an added bonus, the folks who wrote many of these types of quotes died before our hymnals were published, so there's no getting mad at them). I love that taking this more inclusive approach creates a more vibrant and real connection between our current generation and our brothers and sisters who walked with Christ before us. It puts us into the context of the history of the Church: our family history.

A great byproduct of this more inclusive ideology of hymnody is that it ups the ante to modern-day men and women who are writing songs to be used in corporate worship with a plea to view the songs that we write against the backdrop of the treasure chest of songs that have been written of the last few hundred years and it begs the question of whether our songs measure up in terms of substance. Will our songs last as theirs have? *Should* our songs last as theirs have? These are questions worth asking both in the songs that we write as well as the songs that we pick for our congregations to sing each week.

really? ham?

2007-12-07T11:02:00.000-06:00

I just came across this picture over at Seth Godin's blog. It got me thinking... I'm going to give someone the benefit of the doubt and assume the person who made this blunder in regards to Jewish kosher dietary laws meant well. They probably work in the deli section of their store and felt they were be kindly inclusive of their Jewish patrons by recognizing their traditional eight day festival. Good intentions aside, they probably also alienated at least a few folks by not really understanding the people that they're seeking to serve.

I can't help but see a correlation back to the Christian life and to the way that we "do church".

There are certainly times when we make a small efforts to do like Paul and be all things to some group of people for the sake of loving them and seeing them come to embrace the all-satisfying joy of knowing Jesus as their Savior, but in reality we totally miss the boat. My guess is it's in part because we still care more about us than about them. Think about it, if that guy in the deli truly cared about the Jewish community in his town, and actually had real relationship with even one Jewish person, he or she would have been less likely to cause such a faux pas. The same applies to us, if we are really going to reach out to the communities that we live in, we must get in the mix and rub shoulders with the people we want to see saved.

As for the second area is how we "do church"... I'm totally on board with the concept that our worship services are not to be man-centered, but rather God-centered. Therefore, in a sense it would be crazy to structure services for the sake of people who do not worship God. We should make sure that our Sunday mornings have their foundation on the rock of Christ and their roots in the deep soil of Scripture. At the same time though, the way that we communicate ideas, the way we our music sounds, the way our aesthetics are structured, and so on all relate to culture whether we like it or not. I heard our youth pastor say something great the other day. He said that part of what it is to love someone is to love what they love, and God loves missions. If God loves bringing people into relationship with Himself, then we should love to be a part of that. Our worship services should certainly be rooted in our Bibles rather than our world's culture, but we should also have a realistic understanding of the culture around us so that we can authentically engage with it and communicate to it in ways that make sense to that culture. We shouldn't ignore it, but we shouldn't engage it haphazardly either and risk being disqualified as irrelevant in our attempt to deliver so great a message as the Gospel. Granted, we assured that there are many who won't like our message because it reveals their sin and need of a Savior, but let's make sure that we aren't getting in the way.

Jesus wrapped Himself in flesh to save us. Divinity came down covered in humanity. What are you willing to get covered with for the sake of Christ's lost sheep?

saving time via Google

2007-11-09T08:09:00.000-06:00

Two things today, first a great experience I had the other day that saved 10 minutes of my life. As I was leaving church on Sunday I talked with my wife about picking up some incredibly tasty hamburgers from Chapps here in Keller - soooo tasty. I thought of calling ahead so that the order would be ready when I got there. At this point most of us just drop the idea of calling ahead because we don't have the numbers to all of our favorite "eateries" programmed into our phones, and because we don't want to pay the minor fee involved with calling 4-1-1. May I introduce you to 1-800-GOOG411? Go ahead and program it into your phone now, it will you save, and you will thank me later.

Second item on the list today: I've noticed that a lot of you who frequent the OfWorshipAndWitness blog come directly to the site. Awesome as that is, it's probably not the most efficient use of your time because, as you've likely noticed, I don't get a chance to post here every single day - maybe someday ;-). Also, I'm guessing that if you read my blog, then you probably read other blogs too. What if you had a magical site that checked all the blogs that you frequent for you, and brought all of those posts together to one spot so that you only had to visit one page instead of many? There are a lot of RSS readers out there that exactly that, and Google happens to have made a pretty good one. Check it out here.

Now, go get productive for the Kingdom!

coffee as an analogy for worship and witness

2007-11-07T17:49:00.000-06:00

A while back Brent over at worshiptrench.com had a great insight on how the inability of his local Starbucks to have real coffee ready mirrors how we as worship leaders sometimes unfortunately miss the fundamentals for the sake of the bells and whistles. Check it out here.

Also, today Perry Noble had some really well thought out applications about how a recent Starbucks experience hit him in regards to our personal witness as Christians. You can find his post here.

If you can't tell, I like coffee... a lot.

no apologies

2007-11-07T14:50:00.000-06:00

How many times have you heard a speech or sermon started with an apology?

"I know it's early, but..."

Among many of Seth Godin's great insights on communication is this concept: Don't do anything you need to apologize for. Or to put it another way: If your speech needs to be prefaced by an apology... don't give it.

I wonder how much more effective many of our sermons / lessons / Bible studies / times of corporate worship would be if all of us as communicators started with this mindset. For Seth's complete post on this topic, go here.

free book

2007-10-26T10:56:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Nate over at Practical Worship for this great find. We all love free stuff, and if you're reading this blog then you probably care about reaching people for the sake of the glory of Christ. Looks like the Barn Group just put out a new book that came out of three years worth of research on how teens to 30-somethings really perceive Christianity.

The offer is limited to one copy per church. Get yours here.

significant investments

2007-10-26T10:43:00.000-05:00

A while back I posted about a great outlook at retirement. This morning I came across the following two videos of John Piper speaking on retirement. As someone who by necessity worked in the field of finance for a while, this is a refreshingly Godwardly focused, eternally minded, and greatly needed perspective of how to approach the final decades that God gives us as His blood-bought children. Will we truly worship Him with everything we have, even those final years that our culture tells us are for us to spend on self absorbed pleasures because we "earned" them?

is acoustic guitar still contemporary?

2007-10-22T14:34:00.000-05:00

Something I've been stewing around in my head for a while is whether or not to bring out my electric guitar on Sunday morning. I regularly lead from acoustic (as do a huge number of other guys out there), and as much fun as playing electric is fun isn't the reason I've been considering putting it up front. My main reason is this: the vast majority of music produced by our culture in the last 40 years is driven by electric guitar. It's odd to me on some level that we still consider a band led by an acoustic guitarist to be "contemporary" or "modern". Granted, the first time I ever was present at a Sunday morning worship service/gathering with a worship leader playing electric guitar, it came off to me as weird at first (and this was within the last two years). It never seemed strange to me to have electric be the lead sound at youth gatherings, but in "big church" it threw me at first. The main reason was likely because I had never seen it done in an all-church setting before.

If our musical style should be contextually relevant to our culture (content is a different story), then this really should be a logical next step. Shouldn't we be seeing more and more worship leaders trading in their acoustic guitars? At least one very influential guy out there started making this transition quite a while ago:

So here are my questions to you other leaders: have you thought through this issue? Have you tried it out? What has been your congregation's response, or how do you think that they would respond? I'd be curious to hear thoughts from folks who are not regularly in front of a microphone as well.

how are you viewed?

2007-10-15T08:02:00.000-05:00

Yes indeed, the sign is real. The heart behind this sign is obviously meant to be good, but some lack of thought on someone's part led a local church to publicly declare a passion for the abuse of their fellow neighbors rather than a passion for the showing of mercy to those who are going through pain.

We may snicker at this sign, thinking we would never do something that silly. The truth is though that we often do worse. Every local church sends different messages through sermons, marketing, song choice, building decor, volunteers, ministry structures, choice of staff, instrumentation, web presence, community outreach, focus on missions, and so on. Do all of these areas of your local church point towards the glory of Christ or something else? Most of us have experienced ministries and people within ministries that give greater importance to other things than the Lord. Whether it be the exaltation of tradition or newness, isolationism or a focus on solely on numbers, emotionalism or stoicism... We need to step up and ask what kind of message we are really sending to the world around us. Are we authentically communicating the love of Christ in our communities in ways that are clear, understandable, and palatable... or do we send the message that we might club you if you get too close?

How do you gauge this at your local church?

what are your visitors experiencing?

2007-10-12T10:45:00.000-05:00

Another blog I frequent just finished up a series on the perspective of visitors at your church. In this last part of their 9 part series they reference an article by a Seattle publication that sent out 30 reporters to 30 different houses of worship (not all were churches). They all reported back the fears they felt, the community they shared, the absurdity they experienced, and so on. This isn't for the light of heart or for those offended by language, but still it's an incredibly eye opening look at how non-Christians interpret Sunday morning corporate worship. The article can be found here.

Take some time today to think about what visitor experiences at your church on Sunday morning. Consider querying some of your newer members about what it was like to be brand new to your local church body. What did they respond well to? What rubbed them wrong? What made them stay?

modifying you methods

2007-10-12T08:57:00.001-05:00

I was reading the other day in Mark 4 where Jesus got into a boat so that he could teach a much greater number of people at once. He hadn't taught from a boat up to that point in His ministry. He had surely taught outdoors before along with teaching inside synagogues and homes, but this boat thing was new. Some people might have been appalled that He would utilize a new method in His teaching process rather than sticking to the old established ways, but He swept tradition aside for the sake of those He was trying to reach.

What are you doing in life or in your ministry right now that could be modified so as to make a greater impact on the people you are reaching? What could be changed to make that greater impact reach out to an even larger number of lives?

questions to ask your kids

2007-10-05T11:50:00.000-05:00

Lord willing, I hope to be a father someday. Someday I also hope to foster such an authentic, christ-centered relationship with my yet-to-be-kids that I can ask them questions like these:

What is God teaching you?
In your own words, what is the gospel?
Is there a specific sin you’re aware of that you need my help defeating?
What’s daddy most passionate about?
Are you aware of my love for you?
How am I doing as a dad?

For more expanded list, check this out.

Jonathan Edwards sale - 30% off

2007-10-05T09:48:00.000-05:00

The guys over at desiringGod are so generous. I'm assuming some of you guys remember the $5 book sale back in June. Well in somewhat similar fashion they are celebrating the birth of Jonathan Edwards (10/5/1703) by giving a 30% discount on all Edwards-related products that they sell. It's only happening today through Sunday, October 2nd though so get on this while it lasts!

because gear can point us back to our mission

2007-09-28T20:39:00.000-05:00

I just came across some of the new offerings from Electro-Harmonix that they recently introduced at the Summer NAMM show (check here, here, and here). I'm really curious to try out the new Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai, especially since the only video demo I could find had the mic next to the demonstrator's mouth the majority of the time, which makes judging the actual quality of the effect that the box has frustratingly difficult. Another pedal that looks like it could have some really useful applications is the Knockout Attack Equalizer. At first I figured it was yet another EQ pedal, but after hearing some of the sound samples over at Macdaddy Music I'm actually pretty impressed. It really does a decent job at making humbuckers sound like single coils.

So at this point you may be wondering why I'm going on about random bits of guitar gear when usually I focus more so on issues relating to corporate worship and how our worship as a body should spill out in love in for the form of missional lives. Here's the deal: non-christians actually come up with really practical, useful, innovative things all the time that can have huge implications for how we do what we do. For a guitarist to be able to use a $67 pedal to drastically expand the tones he/she can tastefully creating in the pursuit of helping to better focus the minds and hearts of a congregation on the person and work of Christ is actually a pretty huge thing. Granted, most of us musicians need to practice more than we need to get a new toy, but the point remains.

What is happening or being thought up in the unbelieving world around you that could be used in dramatic ways for the sake of the Gospel? Are you looking? For some great perspectives from the inside out, start here and here. For some very needed perspective from the outside, start here.

strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

2007-09-24T13:32:00.000-05:00

Kuddos to Matt Redman for consistently writing worship songs that recognize that God promises us that this life will be painful, but that if we cling to God (and He will not allow us to slip from His hand) then though this life be filled with pain it will also be filled with joy. Most folks have heard Matt's song Blessed Be Your Name. Have you heard this one though?

Outstanding lyrics. You know, I have a great friend who found strength to hold on through constant surgeries due to Crohn's disease largely because of incredible songs such as Jesus I My Cross Have Taken. Another to certainly cling to is John Newton's Begone Unbelief. What songs are you using right now that are worth committing to memory and clinging to in your darkest hour?

do you have 6 minutes?

2007-09-14T08:21:00.000-05:00

Chances are you have 6 minutes you can spare. Chances are there are lots of people who could spare 6 minutes. That was the idea that Abraham over at desiringgod.org got after reading Tim Challies's post this morning. The result: a fairly succinct and very impacting 6 minute video presentation by John Piper of the Gospel. Hope you grow from it. Hope you spread it.

God of Justice by Tim Hughes

2007-09-12T13:21:00.000-05:00

Recently a friend of mine pointed me toward this new-ish song by Tim Hughes. I love how the lyrics begin with simple truth about who Jesus is and what He has done, and then spends the rest of the song in a committed cry to live out the Great Commission as emissaries of the King.

“I Don’t See How Someone Can Worship God With A Booming Sound System.”

2007-08-30T15:04:00.000-05:00

I just ran across a great post from Perry Noble, Senior Pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. Here's an hors d'oeuvre:

In the 1970’s and early 80’s one of the most innovative things a growing church could do was to have an orchestra. AND for some churches–THIS WAS A BATTLE! Seriously–churches split over this very issue–some people were so offended that ANY instrument other than a piano or organ (neither of which are in Scripture for the true literalist out there) would be on stage.
These guys fought that fight–they stood for “innovation,” yet they are the ones who seem to be most resistant to it today! (This really challenges me to embrace the next generation!)

Check it out here, and let me know what you think.

into the future

2007-08-21T16:37:00.001-05:00

Under recommendation of my senior pastor John Salvesen, I've been reading through Elmer Towns's book Into the Future. Chapter 9 alone is worth the read (especially for those involved in any capacity of leading corporate worship). In this chapter he not only does he go quite a bit deeper than I did in looking at troubles involving singing throughout the throughout the history of the church, but he also does a great job providing some great data on what people need, why they stop coming / don't come in the first place, as well as different suggestions for how to cope with certain areas of tension that likely exist regarding your worship services - and that's just one chapter!

Incidentally, Towns offers quite a few of his books for free in pdf format on his website.

a few interesting insights from Seattle

2007-08-03T08:40:00.000-05:00

This morning as I going through my list of subscriptions on google reader, I came across a great interview with Tim Smith , the head worship/creative guy from Mars Hill Church in Seattle (the last few paragraphs on contextualization are definitely worth the read). From there I stumbled across the idea of contextualization gone wrong, and finally I found an article that outlines the extremely pride-saturated ideology that I was actually addressing in part 4 of the "sorting through song labels in worship" series.

So, the interview was encouraging to me, the post about clueless contextualization was convicting about how corny Christian music usually comes across to the rest of the world, and the last post just made me depressed. I'll focus on the last one for a moment...

This guy's basic premise is that he hates "praise music" based on a disdain for the different instrumentation, the lack of historical heritage, and lyrics that he refers to as trite, gag-making, and devoid of meaning. He particularly picks on Dennis Jernigan's "All in All":

You are my strength when I am weak,
You are the treasure that I seek,
You are my all in all.
Seeking You as a precious jewel,
Lord to give up I'd be a fool,
You are my all in all.

Jesus, Lamb of God -- worthy is Your name.
Jesus, Lamb of God -- worthy is Your name.

Taking my sin, my cross, my shame,
Rising again, I bless Your name,
You are my all in all.
When I fall down, You pick me up,
When I am dry You fill my cup,
You are my all in all.

He claims that the main theme idea, of Jesus being our "all in all" means nothing. Is this true? Apparently J.C. Ryle, C.H. Spurgeon, Jeremiah Burroughs, and the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul all seem to think that it means something...

He also picks on the use of the phrases "treasure that I seek," and "precious jewel". He calls them trite... Take a look at Matthew 13:44-46. Granted, I personally interpret these verses in Matthew as a illustration of Christ paying the greatest price of all for his chosen people (with the Jews being the treasure hidden in the field and the Gentiles being the pearl - as it comes from an unclean creature). On the other hand, *many* people interpret these verses in such a way that points to Christ being the treasure and the pearl (or jewel), and that this illustrates that He is worthy of us giving up everything else in life for because ultimate satisfaction resides in Him. I can only assume that this is exactly what Dennis Jernigan was going for. Using imagery that speaks to the all-sufficiency and immeasurable value of Jesus and surrounding it with another term that confesses complete satisfaction in the Lamb of God actually seems to create a good bit of depth if you ask me (even if the song doesn't use big words like "pavilioned").

So, what is the point I'm trying to make? Even though this guy's heart is yearning for depth of songs like "O Worship the King," which on the surface is a great thing, it seems to me like pride is getting in the way of him seeing the potential depth of simple songs, and worse: it has crept in so as to cause him to intentionally miss his local body's corporate time of praising God in song - which breaks my heart. At the end of the day, we as worshipers of Christ must decide which is more important: our preferences or His praise. If Christ is worthy, and if He is deserving, then let's make sure that we aren't robbing Him of what He is due.

lesson from some spartan warriors

2007-07-24T09:34:00.001-05:00

I finally saw the movie "300" recently. While it certainly lived up to its action packed, comic book-esque, blood soaked reputation, the two of the things that I haven't been able to get out of my head though where the unity of the Spartan soldiers, and their unwaivering allegiance to their cause.

The reason they were so effective in was because they functioned as one body. While the opposing armies would come at them with full force they could not only stand firm, but even gain ground because each soldier understood their function so well and acted on the need to be completely united with his fellow soldiers. I think the Church could learn a lot here. If we are to function as a united body of Christ, we need to understand how God has made each of us, what He has gifted us to do, how He wants us to use that giftedness to better further the cause of the Gospel of Christ.

Also, something that King Leonidas's character says several times during the movie is that a Spartan never retreats and never surrenders. I started thinking about Paul's words to Timothy (2 Tim 2:3-4): Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

So not only are we as soldiers of Christ to have an eternal mindset that does not get sidetracked on temporal things, but also consider this mindset in regards to your own personal battle against sin. If we had half the passion to live out holy lives that spill out in love to people that these Spartan soldiers lived out for the sake of their nation, I wonder what the Church would look like - especially since we serve a greater King, are citizens of a greater Kingdom, and have been give a greater commission...

Never retreat. Never surrender.

*** Disclaimer added on 8/6/07: It came to my attention after having spent some time with some old friends that if you have a week stomach for violence/blood/gore/etc, then you may want to pass on this movie. Additionally, guys - look away and keep the covenant with your eyes when they consult the oracle and when Leonida's wife asks him what a free man should do.

sorting through song labels in worship (part 4)

2007-07-05T11:43:00.000-05:00

Recently a thoughtful guy named Alex over at the Worship Frequency forums posed some great questions:

Is there a larger underlying purpose for these articles?
You mentioned discipling the younger members of your team and sorting through your own thoughts, but is there something deeper that you're trying to get at?
Like whether these different forms can or should co-exist in any given local church and why (or why not)?
Or what spiritual / cultural / <<>> forces are at the root of the tension between adherents of these different forms?

Your identification and exposition of the problem appear to be well-researched and, on the whole, clearly communicated; but I'll be curious to hear your take on the root cause(s) and possible solution(s) (or resolutions)...

I thought the most appropriate way to continue our journey through all of this would actually be to begin answering these questions pertaining to a deeper underlying purpose, the roots of tension, and possible solutions & resolutions.

As for the purpose of all of this... The overarching purpose is that God would be more greatly glorified in the Church during corporate worship as His children worship Him in unity and authenticity. More simply put, God is amazing, and He is deserving of worship that is so free from our pride that we are able to find our fullness of delight in Him alone with music acting as an aid toward that end. With the glory of God being the overarching aim, the means I'm seeking to provide is the equipping of the Church's leaders of corporate worship with a Biblical and historical foundation of why we do what we do when we do music as a church body. This equipping will hopefully aid them in more authentically worshiping the Lord and leading others in worship, and in time being able to better equip more and more believers with that same foundation.

If you're following me at this point, you're probably still asking Alex's questions of, "why address this so thoroughly?" Primarily because it's very hard to be free from pride and for our focus to be where it should be. A few years back I had a real struggle with being ultra-critical of worship songs. I considered an awful lot of them "too simple", "musically boring", "cliche", and so on. What this critical spirit really came from was less of a heartfelt desire for the magnification of the glory of God, and more of an arrogant pride issue. Since the root of pride is essentially the idolatrous worship of ourselves there comes a great danger when pride or intense criticism rears its head. The danger is that we are in fact worshiping someone or something that is certainly not God.

If God's glory in corporate worship is so important and if our hearts are so deceptively prone towards pride, then we need to be so rooted in His Word and so aware of our Church history in this matter so that we are more fully equipped to battle against pride and battle for fullness of joy in Christ alone. From time to time I see that same pride that I saw in myself in other people... even people in our local church. Sometimes it comes in the form of a person who has enmity against a simple song like "Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord" (which is actually a really good and very Biblical rooted song) for the sake of sounding deep or hyper-spiritual. This would be an example of the worship of themselves or their intellect. Sometimes this idolatry comes in the form of someone angry that anything should ever be changed from what they classify from their experience as "traditional". This example usually falls into the categories of the worship of the past, the worship of sentimental feelings, and the worship of themselves from knowing the "correct version" rather than the worship of God. Granted sometimes these expressions do come from the heartfelt desire to genuinely worship God without distraction, but I fear that this is in the great minority.

This really brings up the tension. We as redeemed people that are still wrapped in sinful flesh that draws us to worship that which is not God. If we are to worship Him is spirit and truth, and if we are to use music and singing as a vehicle to do so corporately, then we should humbly utilize the best of the old as well as the best of the new. If we only use the old then we fall into the danger of the worship of sentimental feelings and stagnancy of our faith. Our relationship with God must rather deepen and grow and a great means of this is to bring fresh new songs of praise that He is surely worthy of (and that, incidentally, He commands). On the other hand if we only sing new songs then there is a dangerous disconnection from our past and a greater danger of worshiping our culture and the excitement of newness. God worked in so many lives through the years and it seems utterly foolish to neglect such a treasure chest of incredible expressions of God's character and grace to His people as are contained in so many older songs of praise. I think these different forms can and should co-exist in corporate settings of local churches, but I think that we as believers must do a pulse check occasionally to ensure that our foundation is solid, that pride is completely absent from our worship, and that nothing is being worshiped except for our magnificent Triune God.

More to come...

$5 books???

2007-06-26T13:53:00.000-05:00

Guys, don't pass this up. DesiringGod.org is having a $5 book sale. Every book in their online store will be $5 on [edit] June [\edit] 27-28.

If you haven't read John Piper before, Don't Waste You Life is an excellent place to start. If you're wanting to dig deeper theologically, check out the classic Desiring God. If you're in vocational ministry, Brothers, We are Not Professionals will be a huge encouragement to you. If you're at all interested in world missions, Let the Nations Be Glad is worth the purchase price for the first chapter alone.

Happy hunting.

sorting through song labels in worship (part 3)

2007-06-06T12:42:00.000-05:00

For this third installment about songs of praise to God we'll be looking at what Scripture has to say on a few of these issues that have already been raised (check out the parts 1 and 2 if you need to get up to speed).

The first musician in biblical history was a guy named Jubal. Take a look at Genesis 4:19-24. One of the things you'll notice is that Jubal was the son of Lamech. Lamech was a murderer, a mocker of God, and the world's first polygamist. I've read authors who claim that today's modern song of praise to God are inherently tainted and cannot serve to glorify God because they are borne out of a culture that is inherently idolatrous, man-centered, hedonistic, etc. If this were the case, then technically all music would fall into the "tainted" category because of the culture it was originally born out of in Genesis 4. Incidentally, notice the specific instruments that are listed: the lyre and the pipe. Many people still believe that guitars and drums can't rightly be used in praise of God. Ignoring for a moment that the lyre is essential the ancient ancestor of the guitar, consider the lyre was King David's instrument of choice, it was used in celebration before the ark, it was mass produced for the temple musicians, and it is spoken of 13 times in the Psalms - many of which are commands to praise God using this instrument! What I think these example show is not that culture taints music or instruments such that they can never be used to the glory of God, but rather that God is in the business of redeeming an evil tainted world for the sake of His glory. Incidentally, we were once tainted with sin too, and now He uses us for the sake of His glory.

On a side note - in the Old TestamentGod commanded music to be used in His praise. This included strings, vocal, brass, woodwinds, and percussion. That's right: percussion. It seems that God happens to like cymbals and tambourine. Between the drumhead of the tambourine and all those big and tiny cymbals, you have the early workings of a modern drum kit on your hands. Ironically, there are two instruments that you will not find mentioned in your Bible: piano and organ.

Granted, the New Testament somewhat is quiet when it comes to how music should be used in worship, but I think that there is a great reason for this: the Great Commission. See, we aren't trying to create a world of people worshiping God with the Hebrew language or with traditional Hebrew instruments. No, God calls us to cross cultural lines and wants to use us in the creation of new worshipers who will worship Him most authentically with their own language, dialect, and yes: music (or else, there would be no hope for the piano or the organ!).

Speaking of the New Testament, two well known verses of the NT that mirror each other in their mentioning of three different classes of songs are Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16. The first class is psalms. This word can denote actual individual Psalms from Scripture or other pious songs. Next up is hymns. This has definitions ranging from sacred songs to celebratory songs giving praise of heroes and deities. Finally, we have spiritual songs. The word for songs here just means "songs" or "odes". The Greek word pneumatikos (spiritual) is what make this class drastically different from just any old song. Check out Colossians 1:9-10 to see how Paul uses this word to distinguish the wisdom and understanding that we get from God (also check out the fruit!). Again, our pragmatic minds want distinct categories and rules, but instead Paul by the Holy Spirit gives us three vague categories that essentially tell us that our songs of praise should be based on Scripture, should celebrate Christ's victory, and should be fundamentally different from the songs of the world because they are directed towards our Maker and Savior.

So why didn't God just make it easy and give us rules? The Gospel is not about rules. It's about Jesus - it's about the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (whether they're 1st century Jews, 17th century Germans, 19th century Burmese, or even 21st century Americans).

- Stay tuned for the next installment of this series. Amongst other things, we'll look at about in our songs - the good, the bad, and yes: the Scriptural foundation.

another of the many reasons I love Google

2007-06-04T15:28:00.000-05:00

Have any of you ever been putting together charts or slides and needed the copyright information from CCLI only find something like this?

If you don't have SongSelect, or know the name of the author offhand, and if "key line" and "also known as" fields that CCLI supplies don't help then you may have a headache on your hand. As with many other areas of information finding, Google comes to the rescue. Utilizing their great searching capabilities with a lyrics rich site like pwarchive.com, you can quickly and easily find the cure for what ails you.

Just use Google's site search feature as shown below and the title (or some of the lyrics if you don't know the title) and you can quickly find the author(s) of the song you're looking for. Bookmark this link - it'll save you a ton of time. (pwarchive.com also gives you the CCLI song #)

Incidentally, if you are looking for lyrics, Google steps in again to help you out. Due to copyright restrictions, pwarchive.com (as with many other sites) has had to remove many of the lyrics of its chord charts. Using Google's "cached" links you can still find the lyrics to go along with most of these chord charts. To give this a try, check out the normal link to their chart of Holy is the Lord versus Google's cached link. Enjoy.

marketing the Gospel?

2007-05-31T09:58:00.000-05:00

Seth Godin is one of today's most insightful guys when it comes to the issue of marketing. In his most recent post to his blog he looks at what it takes from a business standpoint to market to groups of people of different sizes. It's very interesting how his views line up with certain areas of personal evangelism, church growth, and world missions. As for reaching all people he says:

You need to be many things to many people, embraced by the passionate but not offensive to the masses.

Granted, Paul shows us an example of being all things to all people so that by all means he might save some, and Peter reminds us that we are never to compromise because for many Jesus will be a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense. I also don't think Godin's view of reaching the "few" translates quite right to our application as Christians(we are never to shun the non-believers), but take a look at what he has to say and see if there might be some application in your ministry.

We have the Gospel (the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes). The question only remains: will we be faithful in spreading it to the ends of the earth?

categorizing thoughts

2007-05-23T23:36:00.001-05:00

Ever tried to take your ideas and put them into separate pockets? It's easy when you have two very different categories. For instance, my economy four-door sedan is very unlike the nachos I just ate. On the other hand, my wife's SUV has similarities and difference when compared with my car. Where am I going with this?

I started to try and put the few posts I have on here so far into categories, but quickly realized the blurring of those same categories. Even the name of this blog suggests two different categories that are are actually inextricably meshed together (read John Piper handle this relationship of worship and missions better than anyone else I've seen). All this to say that for the sake of simplicity, and for the sake of me not straying off into ridiculous off-the-wall topics, nothing will change. Nothing changing may not be a newsflash, but then again people have been pretty excited about postmodernism (which has certainly marked a shift in culture and in the way large groups of people think about things, but it is largely just a repackaging of existentialism for a more diluted generation that doesn't want to come to grip with reality).

the passion + the means + the opportunity

2007-05-22T14:02:00.000-05:00

I ran across a very refreshing and counterculture look at retirement. What would you do if you had all the time in the world and none of the worries of work? Take a look and reevaluate if need be.

sorting through song labels in worship (part 2)

2007-05-21T11:34:00.000-05:00

Two things as I start on this second look at this issue:

#1. I'll try not to go on as long of a tangent as last time.
#2. I recognize that I'm going about this completely backwards, but I'm going to keep going anyways.

Backwards you say? Yes. The right way to get into this would be to look at what Scripture says and learn from that, but sadly I said I'd look at history first. So, that's what we'll look at this time, even if only very briefly.

Time for quote #1:

There are several reasons for opposing it. One, it’s too new. Two, it’s often worldly, even blasphemous. The new Christian music is not as pleasant as the established style. Because there are so many new songs you can’t learn them all. It puts too much emphasis on instrumental music rather than Godly lyrics. This new music creates disturbances; people act indecently and disorderly. The preceding generation got along without it. It’s a money making scene and some of these new music upstarts are lewd and loose.

For those of you who have been keeping up with with blogs on worship, you know where I'm going with this. For everyone else who's either gasping or amening this quote, first recognize who it's from, when it's from, and who wrote the "new Christian music" it's addressing. First the quote is from a guy name William Romaine which he wrote in An Essay on Psalmody. Romaine was a Calvinist Anglican preacher and he penned these words back in 1723. So yes, apparently people were against contemporary stuff a long time ago too. Here is the real story though: his critique was of Isaac Watts. That's right, the guy who wrote Joy to the World, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed?, and several hundred others. There's great shock value in a quote like this. It brings us back to asking whether newness is really inherently evil. The LORD alone is eternal. Everything else was new at some point.

Now for quote #2:

Know ye what an hymn is? It is a song with praise of God. If you praise God and singest not, you utter no hymn: if you sing and praisest not God, you utter no hymn: if you praise anything else, which pertains not to the praise of God, although you sing and praisest, you utter no hymn. An hymn then contains these three things, song, and praise, and that of God. Praise then of God in song is called an hymn.

Alright, so essentially this guy from a long time ago said that if you have a song of praise to God, then it classifies as a hymn. This definition would seem to include everything that we sang last Sunday morning, which happened to include songs written by Chris Tomlin two years ago as well as How Firm a Foundation which was written by John Rippon in 1787. Before you call this writter above misguided or a heretic for being so inclusive, recognize that quote #2 is from Saint Augustine. Yes, one of the greatest minds of the history of the Church seems much more progressive than many of us would probably have assumed him to be.

On a completely different note, John Calvin advocating lifting of hands in prayer, but that's a whole different issue that I won't go in to now (though check it out in the Institutes and in his commentaries).

My hope with these few quotes is begin to show:

#1. Our present day quarrel over newness is actually a very old problem within the Church.
#2. Our "Family history" has a lot to teach us about ourselves (as we've barely scratched the surface).
#3. Isaac Watts has written lots of great hymns, and apparently so has Chris Tomlin. There is more to a song of praise to God than when it was written or how familiar you are with it.

the value of old friends

2007-05-19T23:38:00.001-05:00

I just spent several hours with a great old friend of mine (check out some of his work). There's just something otherworldly about fellowship with guys who have known you at your worst and love you in spite of it. It doesn't matter to him what my title is, it just matters that I'm his brother in Christ. Do you have someone in your life like this? Have you ever? Do you need to rebuild a burned bridge?
Stay connected. Stay grounded.

sorting through song labels in worship (part 1)

2007-05-18T09:02:00.001-05:00

I would guess that just about anyone who's been around the church in the last twenty years has a pretty good feel for the tension of preference that has gone wild. Some people want things more traditional, some more contemporary, and some want something in the middle. One of the problems here is the vagueness of both of these words, and thus the impossibility of really catering the either of these preferences (if indeed that is even a desirable end to work toward).

Like it or not, in this context the term "traditional" does not point to a specific way or worshiping God that is common to a large group of people. What it does point to are specific people's perceptions or experiences of what they have become used to. For instance, there are likely quite a few young adults that grew up on more "contemporary" (more on that loaded word in a moment) settings of worship that would have to honestly say that "traditional" corporate worship for them does not include singing what most people would classify as hymns. Probably one of the largest problems with sticking to tradition is that it necessarily excludes new expressions of love and praise for the Lord. I would have to think that if our God is as great and glorious as He promises us that He is, then He is certainly worthy of fresh expressions of His praise (a new song?) even in multi-generational settings.

As for "contemporary" worship, one of the main tugs here is that this definition necessarily changes all the time. In fact to make the distinction between songs written, say in the 1980's, and songs written today, some people now feel the need to classify today's songs as "modern praise and worship". Who would have ever thought something "contemporary" would be considered dated? This constant reclassification actually shows a potentially deeper issue within the contemporary camp: a lack of connection or even a possible disdain for the past. I'll concede that when I became a Christian in college I had a bad taste in my mouth for older songs at first primarily because of musical pride (verse after verse of the same tuned seemed repetitious) and because the somewhat "dead" perception that I had of the corporate worship the church of my youth. Since then, God has done much to open my eyes to the richness of our Family history (the history of the Church) and the incredible ways that many of our brothers and sisters of the past have put in to words things that my heart can sometimes barely begin to express. This potential disconnection from our past for the sake of our taste is surely to our culture's detriment.

This actually brings me to another instance of irony in the midst of all of this vagueness. Arguably some of the greatest, deepest, and most heartfelt songs of our faith written in the English language were composed between roughly the 17th and 18th centuries. One might then expect that these would be the favored songs of most traditional services, but by and large they are not. The reason is that most people who favor tradition desire to remember times past, and thus their preference is largely the song of their parents' day. What is interesting is that it seems their parents were apparently singing mostly "newer" songs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not that these are bad songs, but there is a striking difference by and large between the depth of content and expression that these later songs (often classified as "Gospel Songs") employ when set against much of what was penned by folks like Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, William Cowper, Anne Steele, and Augustus Toplady to name a few (incidentally, the guys from Indelible Grace have done a phenomenal job of revamping some of this treasure chest of great old songs in to forms more palatable to some modern ears). My fear is that one side of the fence comes perilously close to making an idol out of sentimentality, and that the other side does the same with newness for the sake of newness all while severing the roots of their Family tree.

So we obviously have some enormous issues here concerning people's preferences (my own are often swayed more than I would like to admit), content, and how we classify it all. Next time we will take a look at how our brothers and sisters who came before us would classify some of this madness, and we'll start to dig towards a reconciliation of these two extremes for the sake of His glory.

blogging?

2007-05-16T16:35:00.000-05:00

So, I've been throwing around the idea of starting a blog for a while. On one hand I'm not really sure that what the world really needs are my thoughts poured out across a webpage. On the other hand I recognize the value of getting all this stuff out of the crowded compartment of my slightly oversized noggin. I figure that if God uses even one idea that I've been tossing around to bring one of His children into a closer walk with Him then this "shot in the dark" endeavor will have been more than worth it. So, buckle up and check back soon.