Worship: Heart, Mind and Soul

Get Into God's Word

2012-02-14T07:32:00.007-05:00

It's always interesting to me how many mornings I'll get on google reader and start to skim through the mornings blogs and a recurring theme will start to emerge. This morning it came from a song, a blog post and a short video clip on the Word of God.

On Desiring God's blog David Mathis gave a word of encouragement to seminary students about staying in the Word not only for their studies but also for daily nourishment. While most of us reading this aren't seminary students, and neither am I, it still applies to us. I really appreciated this analogy based off a Jerry Seinfeld sketch:

When his wildly successful sitcom ended, Seinfeld went on a nationwide stand-up comedy tour called “I’m Telling You for the Last Time.” The routine was recorded for compact disc (remember those?) at New York’s Broadhurst Theater in August of 1998. At the end is a question-and-answer segment, where a zealous fan shouts, “Do you have favorite Seinfeldepisode?”

Seinfeld answers,

I get this question quite often. I don’t really have a favorite; they’re all kind of my babies. I did the best I could with each one. [Audience applauds.]
You know, comedy is kind of a survival industry. Comedians are very much into just surviving. It’s like if I were to ask you, “What is your favorite breath of air that you’ve ever taken?” You would say, “Whichever one I’m taking that gets me to the next one.” That’s kind of the mindset.

And that kind of mindset, alongside others, is a wise one for the seminary student (indeed, every Christian) to embrace. That you took a deep breath an hour ago won’t be much appreciated unless you’re still breathing. A great meal a month ago won’t do you much good if you haven’t eaten since. And delighting in God through taking in his word isn’t an annual, monthly, or even weekly event for the healthy Christian, but a daily rhythm.

Next was a song, which I don't normally take time to listen to things like that that are posted on blogs but this morning I turned it on as a read through some blogs and it was amazing how it connected with what I was reading. The message is simple, but something I often forget: Your Word is a light unto my path. Its by a group I haven't heard of called Seeds Family Worship. You can give it a listen here: http://www.seedsfamilyworship.net/puritypledge/

And lastly Randy Alcorn posted on his blog a short clip from Revive Our Hearts ministry on the importance of getting into God's Word.

Randy then added this:

The fact is, you and I will become the product of what we choose to delight in and meditate upon. Psalm 1 says: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”We all meditate, and we’re all shaped by the object of our meditation. We take our attitudinal and behavioral cues from it. This week, will I be shaped by situation comedies, soap operas, and newspapers, or will I be shaped by Isaiah, Luke, A. W. Tozer, and Charles Haddon Spurgeon? It depends on how I choose to spend my time.

Psalm 1 says the one who continually meditates on God’s Word “is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.” Trees don’t choose where to place themselves, but we do. We determine what our sources of nourishment will be, which in turn determine whether we bear fruit or wither.

Just some things that came across my blogger this morning.

I Can't Do It!

2012-01-31T05:44:00.003-05:00

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12

"To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ"

This was part of my devotions this morning and as I read it a few things stuck out to me, so I thought I'd share. (Note: this is without going to any commentaries or doing any kind of study like that, just my initial thoughts)

1.) We are not worthy - The call on our lives is too big for any of us to handle. That word call makes us think of a call to ministry or a specific call on our lives, which is applicable here, but I think it could also mean simply the call of a Christian to walk in the way of Christ. We are not worthy nor can we muster up the strength needed in order to fulfill that call. On our own. So when we look at the call of God to holiness and righteousness, or when we are about to face a challenge that the Lord has called us into we don't take a deep breath, hike up our britches, lower our shoulder and march in. We start with admitting - I CAN'T DO THIS!

2.) It's a process - This prayer seems to be a continual prayer over the Thessalonians and the language implies that they are being made worthy.

3.) It takes work and effort on our part - Now some may say this contradicts #1, but I don't think so. The realization of I'm not worthy shouldn't lead us to a defeated position but rather lead us to a cry for the Lords help. But Paul then mentions two things that Gods going to fulfill: 1 - every resolve for good and 2 - every work of faith. Those are both actions on our part. Now without Him stepping in any resolution or work that we do is going to be impossible. Actually let me correct that, every resolution we make and every work of faith we attempt should be impossible without Him stepping in. We need to start aiming high, we need to start taking steps of faith that lead us in a direction where we are going to fail unless He steps in.

4.) Its purpose is so that He gets glory - "So that" implies the purpose of it all - "the name of the Lord might be glorified in you, and you in him." So not only does He receive glory but because we are in Him we do as well.

Just a few thoughts over my morning coffee.

October 2nd Order of Worship

2011-10-02T17:24:00.007-04:00

Below you'll find the songs that we did at Cannon as well as some of the Scriptures and readings that we did. You can find out what other churches are doing over at The Worship Communities Sunday setlists site.

Opening Song: Hosanna by Paul Baloche. This has been a favorite at Cannon for awhile.

One of the reasons that we sing is so that we remember. As humans we are so prone to get caught up in the moment and only see what is currently around us. And we forget that the Lord holds not only our past but our future in the palm of His hand. So in good times we’re full of hope and joy but in difficult times we’re easily led to despair. Hear these words from Psalm 36:

Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;

Your judgments are like the great deep;

Man and beast You save, O Lord.

How precious is your steadfast love; O God!

We take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.

As we sing I invite you not only to sing the words but also to hear them as reminder of who we are worshipping. Stand with us as we celebrate the faithfulness of our God.

How Great is Your Faithfulness by Jonas Myrin and Matt Redman. This is a new one for our church. Today was the first time we sang it in our main set and the congregation seemed to catch on to it by the end of the song.

O God Our Help in Ages Past by Isaac Watts, William Croft and Michael Adler. We do a version that is similar to Maranatha Musics version from the Promise Keeper days. This has been a favorite of Cannons since back in the 90's probably. We bring it out about once a year and its always well received.

Sometimes it’s easy to say with our lips and even believe with our minds that God is faithful. Or maybe we think that the words we’ve been singing are definitely true…for everyone else. What’s difficult at times is to believe in our hearts that God is faithful to me. This next song is Be Still My Soul, and as I read the lyrics this week I realized that this is a song that we are singing to ourselves in a way. We’re telling ourselves to believe that what the Scripture says is true: That the Lord is on our side, that our God will undertake, that He will remain faithful through every situation. Before we sing lets take a moment and check our hearts. Do you believe that God is faithful to you? Do you trust Him when things look hopeless around you? Do you rest in Him when things are going well?

Be Still My Soul by Katharina A. von Schlegal. Verse 3 was a new one for me and were so moving.

Be still my soul, when dearest friends depart, and all is darkened in a vale of tears. Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart. Who comes to soothe thy sorrows and thy fears. Be still my soul, thy Jesus can repay from His own fullness all He takes away.

Hear God's word for you:

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! For I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Christ is Risen by Matt Maher and Mia Fieldes. We started this one at the bridge because I really wanted to emphasize what Christs resurrection from death meant to us and how it fit along the theme of God's faithfulness.

O death, where is your sting?
O hell, where is your victory?
O Church come stand in the light,
The glory of God has defeated the night.

Then Pastor Tim preached the next sermon in our current series "Church 101" called Hear.

This morning we also added two new members to our congregation.

We ended our service with our ministry time and lead Lead me to the Cross by Brooke Fraser.

Christ, Our Righteousness

2011-09-28T06:12:00.002-04:00

Most mornings I read from a devotional magazine called TableTalk put out by Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. The scripture that this mornings devotional was based off of encouraged me this morning so I thought I would pass it on. It's the first five verses of Zechariah 3

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD was standing by.

(Zechariah 3:1-5 ESV)

If you are in Christ then you can put your name in the place of Joshua. If we were left on our own and Satan came to accuse he could find lots of ground to attack us. To point to our sins and give reason that we don't deserve to be called a child of God. But, thanks be to God, we aren't left on our own. When Satan accuses we don't have to try to outweigh our evil with our own righteousness, rather we have been given a righteousness that comes from Christ. New, pure, spotless garments. When Satan comes to accuse the Lord rebukes and says "this ones mine." Don't bother getting into an argument, don't allow Satan to bring you into the muck and mire of your past or even your current failures, keep your eyes fixated on Christ, our righteousness.

Order of Worship - Sunday Sept 25, 2011

2011-09-26T14:10:00.004-04:00

I was gone this Sunday with our youth group at our annual youth retreat in Lebanon, Pa. We had a great time away but it feels like I've had so many Sundays away from church in the last two months and I'm ready to get back to leading worship consistently. Fortunately, we've got plenty of capable people at Cannon to take over when I'm not there. Here's the set list from last week led by Matt Rowan.

Opening Song: Beautiful One by Tim Hughes. Great song to get us focused on the one we have came to worship.

Beautiful One I love
Beautiful One I adore
Beautiful One my soul must sing

Main set:

How Great Thou art by Stuart Wesley and Keene Hine.

You Never Let Go by Matt Redman

You Are by Mark Roach. I'm not sure how many people know this song, but it's been a favorite of Cannon's for a couple years now.

All to Us by Chris Tomlin.

How Can I Keep From Singing not the newer Tomlin song but the old hymn. Another one thats under the radar probably but a favorite.

Thats what we did on Sunday. Check out whats going on at some other churches at The Worship Communities Sunday setlist page.

Order of Worship - Sunday Sept 18, 2011

2011-09-19T09:08:00.006-04:00

I'm going to try to get back into blogging our Sunday setlists again. I get so much help from reading through other worship leaders setlists and I hope that somehow I can be that encouragement to someone else. I'm also going to start including the Scriptures and readings that we use along with the songs. You can find out what other churches did this week over at the worship community's Sunday setlist page.

Opening Song: How Great is Your Faithfulness written by Matt Redman and Jonas Myrin. This is one I've been waiting to introduce at Cannon, its a great declaration of God's faithfulness:

The heavens ring and the saints all sing
Great is Your faithfulness
From age to age we will proclaim
Great is Your faithfulness!

Then we went straight into our welcome and announcements.

Call to Worship

This morning as we begin we need to be reminded of the God that we worship. Psalm 95 begins with an invitation to come and do just what we are getting ready to do:

Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation

But then it goes on to say why we're doing this:

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; and his hands formed the dry land.

Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our maker: For He is our God, and we are His people.

- Psalm 95 (slightly adapted)

Behold Our God written by Jonathan Baird, Meghan Baird, Ryan Baird and Stephen Altrogge. This songs feels like an ending song, but I love using it at the start as an invitation:

Behold our God seated on His throne
Come let us adore Him
Behold our King, nothing can compare
Come let us adore Him

Glorious and Mighty written by Joel Sczebel, Todd Twining and Bob Kauflin.

Glorious and Mighty, You're awesome in beauty
Joyful songs we raise!
Glorious and Mighty, You're awesome in beauty,
Greatly to be praised!

As we see God for who He is our response should not only be "God you are glorious" but also as Isaiah's response was "woe is me." For as the glory of God shines in our hearts it reveals to us the things that should not be there. Let's take a few moments and examine our hearts and confess to God the areas that we have not allowed His Spirit to cleanse.

Father this morning we confess that we do not always do as we ought. Although we praise you as Lord with our lips we do not always live as though you are Lord of our lives.

So we pray along with David:

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
Wash me and I will be whiter then snow...
Create in me a pure heart, O God
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
- Psalm 51:7,10

Join us in singing this hymn of repentance

Just As I Am written by Charlotte Elliott and William Bradley

Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid myself of one dark blot
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot
O Lamb of God I come, I come.

Hear God's word for you:

If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you!
- Romans 8:11

You Have Been Raised written by Mark Altrogge, Ken Boer and Bob Kauflin.

How do we know we've been redeemed?
You have been raised
The tomb has been opened
nothing can take away our hope in You
You have been raised

This morning we rejoice not only because God has given us life and raised us up, but because He has made us part of His family. Ephesians 1 says that in love He choose us to be adopted as sons and daughters. Before you are seated take a moment and welcome those around you as family.

Sermon

This week we had the privilege of having Rachel Craft share with us about her recent trip with YWAM as well as some things God had been laying on her heart for our church.

Ministry Time

Following Rachel our lead pastor came up and transitioned us into our ministry time. This week took a slightly different shape in that we had two couples who are walking a hard road with health related issues come and share and then we gathered around them, as well as some others who came forward, and prayed over them.

Oh the Deep, Deep Love

During the prayer time a few of us got up and lead Sovereign Grace's version of the hymn Oh the Deep, Deep Love. That song is always powerful but the words just seemed to wash over the ones gathered in prayer.

Following the service the youth put on a pasta dinner so there was great time of fellowship and being together as the body of Christ. Overall it was just an excellent Lord's Day at Cannon Mennonite Church.

Take Time to be a Dad

2011-09-05T21:47:00.014-04:00

There's an ad that plays at least once an hour on the radio station I have on quite a bit while I'm at work that ends with this phrase "take time to be a Dad today." Not really sure what organization its promoting or who runs it but I like it, and it's caused me to think as of late.

Being a Dad has been is one of the hardest, yet greatest parts of my life. There are so many times when I'm coming home from work and all I really want to do do is crash. To tune everything and everyone else out, flop down on the couch and turn on the tv, or hop on my bike and go for a nice long ride. But I know that as soon as I walk in that door there's going to be two little kids running to attack me and have some Daddy time, and a worn out Mom who is definitely ready for her kids to have some Daddy time. So while my instincts tell me it's time to check out, as I'm walking up the front sidewalk I have to consciously tell myself "it's game time." And I can honestly say that even though I may not always feel like it at the start, that first half hour after I get home is the best part of my day. The giggling, screaming and running that ensues is like coffee for my soul. By the time dinner rolls around I'm usually out of breath (I still need to somehow find time to get on that bike!) and exhausted. Life is so full but there's no other title, other then child of God, that is more important to me then Husband and Daddy. Not youth leader, not worship leader, not roof truss designer. All of those things are important to me, but pale in comparison.

I guess one of the reasons this has been on my mind is because I'm very aware that this isn't a priority for much of the Dads in our world. A couple weekends ago we went camping with my family and on that trip we had 3 kids under the age of 3: our daughter Kelsey, our soon to be offically adopted son George, and Addy a girl my parents have as their foster child. As I watched these kids play and thought about their stories I thought about how much Addy & Georges biological parents were missing out on. It's easy to look at them and feel sorry for them because of their situation, but this time I felt bad for their parents, especially their Dads. We had so many laughs, so many snuggles and made so many memories and while I'm so glad that these kids are a part of our lives I felt bad that their parents put their wants and their lives ahead of their kids, and basically couldn't care less about them. To them they were an inconvenience.

Our world is full of kids who, like George and Addy have biological Dads who physically aren't there at all, but there's also many kids who's Dads are there physically but might as well not be. Are you part of that later catagory? I'm so glad I had a Dad who wasn't and hope I can follow his example.

Yesterday I found an article called "50 Rules for Dads of Daughters" and they were a great reminder about the importance of being a Dad. They're all great but here's a few that really stuck out to me:

1. Love her mom. Treat her mother with respect, honor, and a big heaping spoonful of public displays of affection. When she grows up, the odds are good she’ll fall in love with and marry someone who treats her much like you treated her mother. Good or bad, that’s just the way it is. I’d prefer good.

9. Of course you look silly playing peek-a-boo. You should play anyway.

18. Tell her she’s beautiful. Say it over and over again. Someday an animated movie or “beauty” magazine will try to convince her otherwise.

23. When she learns to give kisses, she will want to plant them all over your face. Encourage this practice.

28. She will eagerly await your return home from work in the evenings. Don’t be late

50. Today she’s walking down the driveway to get on the school bus. Tomorrow she’s going off to college. Don’t blink.

Check out the whole article here.

Why I Love Sovereign Grace

2011-08-12T22:03:00.003-04:00

Just read the lyrics to this new song that was recorded tonight at WorshipGod 2011. This is why I love Sovereign Grace so much, the lyrics of their songs are just so rich. There's no messing around, there's no wishy-washy lyrics just to fit a tune. Music is secondary, still done excellently, but definitely secondary. This is what I want our church to be singing.

Come Praise and Glorify

Bob Kauflin and Tim Chester

Come praise and glorify our God the Father of our Lord.

In Christ he has in heav'ly realms His blessings on us poured.

For pure and blameless in His sight He destined us to be,

and now we've been adopted through His Son eternally.

Chorus

To the praise of your glory, to the praise of Your mercy and grace

To the praise of Your glory, You are the God who saves.

Come praise and glorify our God who gives His grace in Christ.

In Him our sins are washed away redeemed through sacrifice.

In Him God has made known to us the mystery of His will

That Christ should be the head of all His purpose to fulfill

Come praise and glorify our God for we've believed the Word

And through our faith we have a seal the Spirit of the Lord.

The Spirit guarantees our hope until redemption's done

Until we join in endless praise to God, the Three-in-One.

Easter Sunday Setlist 2011

2011-04-25T10:13:00.002-04:00

Trying to get back in the habit of blogging our sunday setlists and posting them over at the worship community's Sunday Setlists site. I've started using that resource a lot to see what songs other churches are doing so I figured it's only fair that I contribute to it.

Easter is the best of the day of the year to be a worship leader. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty excited about it the rest of the 364 days of the year but on Easter I'm like a kid in the candy store. I couldn't wipe a smile off my face the whole service. We had things amped up a little more then normal, had a full worship team combined with a 30 person or so choir. I warned everyone that Easter was going to be a party, and party we did. We went from celebratory song to celebratory song without stopping. It was so much fun. If you worship leaders held back yesterday then you missed out. The tomb is empty and Christ is risen, we need to be overwhelmed with joy.

Here's the setlist, a little longer then the norm due to a couple different things but it felt appropriate to sing more on Easter.

We used the first half of a short video clip called Voices of the Cross that ended with Jesus in the tomb. I always like to start Easter Sunday with a quick reminder of Good Friday. Then we went from there:

Christ is Risen (Matt Maher)

Happy Day (Tim Hughes)

My Redeemer Lives (Hillsong)

Alive Forever Amen (Travis Cottrell)

Mighty to Save (Hillsong)

Communion Song: In Christ Alone (Keith & Kristyn Getty)

Our God/Shout Unto God (Chris Tomlin / Hillsong)

Offering Song: Lift Your Glad Voices (trad. hymn)

Sermon

Ministry Song:Love Came Down (Brian Johnson)

Closing Song: Jesus Saves (Tim Hughes)

We're gonna keep up the Easter theme from now until Pentecost. Lent/Easter/Pentecost is game time in the church calender, it's when I really try to hit those particular themes hard. We still focus on them throughout the year but for me I want to know that for at least these few months every year we're spending an extended time focusing and celebrating on the cross, the resurrection and the filling of the Holy Spirit and the call to go.

So thats what we did at Cannon yesterday, hope everyone had a great Easter!

The Big Day (or one of them at least)

2011-04-06T08:07:00.003-04:00

While the court hearing last week didn't go the way that we wanted it to, George will be moving in with us tonight. Lord willing. For now we will be his foster parents. To adopt through the foster care system a child must live in the adoptive home for 6 months before the adoption can be finalized. As long as his parents rights are terminated - which is what was supposed to happen last week but was postponed due to a technicality - within those 6 months last weeks delay won't really effect us. So today our family goes from 3 to 4. From 1 child under 2 to 2. Oh boy :)

So needless to say we could use your prayers! Pray for us as we adjust to the changes in our family. With any change there's excitement about the new but at the same time a twinge of sadness that things aren't going to be the same. Pray for Kaylene and I as we learn how to be parents to two little ones and not just one. Pray that we have realistic expectations about everything. Pray for Kelsey and George as they adjust from being only children to now having to share the spotlight. Pray for my parents and sisters as they go from being parents and main care givers to being grandparents and aunts. Pray for them as there house is now a whole lot quieter and they deal with the pain of loss but also the happiness for us and George. There's a whole lot of change and adjusting for all of us. There's a lot of areas for Satan to work his lies and deception into our lives, but we know that God would have this to be a time of joy and life. Pray that we don't give Satan any footholds and give into despair.

Thank you so much for all you're support. The excitement you've shared with us and the encouragement you've been has been incredible and been much needed. And we still need it!

So... here we go!

Stressed Out

2011-03-14T20:25:00.003-04:00

Don't you just love the timing of God's lessons. I mean really, does He have to pick the point when you've been stuck in traffic for 3 hours and the truck in front of you is trying to cut into your lane to teach you about patience? Does He have to teach me about how to selflessly love my wife and give her a break with the kids on the night that I really just wanted to crash after a long day of work. I mean seriously God, can't You work around my schedule a little more??

This past week was one of the busiest and exhausting weeks Kaylene and I had ever had. Between her Mission Passport parties, youth group and elder meetings the only evening we were both home before 10 was Monday. Add to that a daughter who likes to wake up every 2 hours and you have the makings of a wonderful week.

After this lovely week we finally had some down time Sunday night. Both kids were in bed around 9:30 (George is with us for this whole week to start the transition to living with us) so I thought I'd do something I haven't done in probably 6 months - read a book. So I opened up Crazy Love by Francis Chan and this was the first thing I read.

When I am consumed by my problems - stressed out about my life, my family, my job - I actually convey the belief that I think the circumstances are more important than God's command to always rejoice. In other words, that I have a "right" to disobey God because of the magnitude of my responsibilities.

Worry implies that we don't quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what's happening in our lives.
Stress says that the things that e are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control.

Basically, these two behaviors communicate that it's okay to sin and not trust God because the stuff in my life is somehow exceptional.

Ouch. All week I had been playing the "I'm overstressed and stretched beyond my limit so I have a right to treat you like crap"card. As if I had a right to not show others the love of Christ because I was too tired. And the funniest part was that I actually blamed my lack of patience and love on the amount of time and energy I had devoted to the ministries I'm involved in outside of my normal job. "God I have a right to be miserable to be around because I'm doing all these things to serve You." Pah!

It's funny how quickly we think that we are an exception to the commands of God. He didn't know all the stress I would have in my life when He put "rejoice always" in the Bible. He didn't know how many annoying people would cross my path daily when He told us to love others. He just doesn't get it. Yeah you get the point. And so did I. But why can't I read stuff like this on the week that everythings going great??

Introducing...George!

2011-03-08T13:16:00.008-05:00

Recently my wife and I both posted some recent family pictures that we had taken on to facebook. We got tons of comments on them of course, I mean who wouldn't comment on photos of me and my wife. Well ok, they were mainly about our kids (ok ok, they were pretty much all about our kids) but some of you may have been wondering, wait a second...kids. Plural? And I realized that those of you outside of Delaware may be wondering what is going on with this little boy that suddenly showed up in our pictures.

That little boy is George. He has been living with my parents as a foster child since he was 4 months old. Needless to say we have all become really attached to this incredible kid in the past 18 months or so that he's been a part of our family. As time went by my famil

y begin to think about George's future, since it was beginning to look like their might be a possibility that he would be available for adoption. From the start of our marriage Kaylene and I had both wanted adoption to be a part of our family, however we hadn't been thinking it would be quite so soon. But I guess God had different plans because before we had even talked about it with each other He planted the desire to adopt George in both of our hearts. So last summer we begin to take foster care classes and following that adoption classes and are now just finishing up the final stages of having our house opened up for foster care/adoption.

There were definitely times during the past year that we questioned whether or not we were really able to do this. Our daughter is almost exactly a year younger then George, so having a one year old and a two year old is a bit daunting to think about at times. Plus we are youth pastors and worship leaders as well as me working a full time job and Kaylene working a side job to help ends meet. But God has sent us little messages reassuring us that He will be more then enough for us and that we can rely on Him to carry us through.

So why adoption? Why when we have a one year old (and apparently able to have kids) would we adopt? Well first of all, just look at that face, how could you turn that down?! But seriously that is a big part, we've fallen in love with George and can't stand the idea of not having him a part of our lives. But as far as why we felt (or maybe I should say "I"since I'm writing this) all along that we'd like to adopt theres a lot of reasons. First off both of us simply love kids and have always been excited about having a family. Secondly God calls us to look after the orphans, what better way then to make them a part of your family. But the big reason is this, I was adopted. Some of you may be saying no way I saw baby pictures. I don't mean by my earthly parents, I was adopted by God. I was called His child, His heir when I had no business being called that. He chose me. He looked down and said I want that one. Thats why I feel the call to adopt, because I want my life, everything about my life to shout the Gospel. That we who were not His people are now his people. That a child who's future looked bleak now has a hope and a future. A Father reached out and loved me and took me into his family so that I can reach out and bring others into mine.

Some say you have to be a special type of person to adopt. I think that can be a crutch. Not that I'm saying everyone is supposed to adopt, but it doesn't take anyone special to love a child. I know that there will be obstacles that we'll have to overcome, but there's obstacles with any child. There's nothing special about my wife and I, we're simply being obedient to the Lords call to display His glory to the world around us. Plus, I mean come on how is this not going to be fun.

God Yearns After You with a Jealous Envy

2011-02-14T14:50:00.001-05:00

On his blog Justin Taylor posted part of a sermon from B.B. Warfield that I found extremely encouraging, so I thought I would share it as well.

James 4:5 (ESV) "[God] yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us." Another translation, the Revised says it this way: "That Spirit which He made to dwell in us yearneth for us even unto jealous envy." Both translations say the same thing, God yearns jealously over His people. Just think about that statement for a second. Below is an excerpt from B.B. Warfields sermon "The Love of the Holy Ghost" On this day that we celebrate the love that we have towards our spouses, significant others, etc let us be blown away with the love that the Father has for us. And more importantly let it change us.

See us steeped in the sin of the world; loving evil for evil’s sake, hating God and all that God stands for, ever seeking to drain deeper and deeper the cup of our sinful indulgence.
The Spirit follows us unwaveringly through all.
He is not driven away because we are sinners. He comes to us because, being sinners, we need Him.
He is not cast off because we reject His loving offices. He abides with us because our rejection of Him would leave us helpless.
He does not condition His further help upon our recognizing and returning His love. His continuance with us is conditioned only on His own love for us. And that love for us is so strong, so mighty, and so constant that it can never fail.
When He sees us immersed in sin and rushing headlong to destruction, He does not turn from us, He yearns for us with jealous envy.
It is in the hands of such love that we have fallen.
And it is because we have fallen into the hands of such love that we have before us a future of eternal hope.
When we lose hope in ourselves, when the present becomes dark and the future black before us, when effort after effort has issued only in disheartening failure, and our sin looms big before our despairing eyes; when our hearts hate and despise themselves, and we remember that God is greater than our hearts and cannot abide the least iniquity; the Spirit whom He has sent to bring us to Him still labors with us, not in indifference or hatred, but in pitying love.
Yea, His love burns all the stronger because we so deeply need His help: He is yearning after us with jealous envy.

Not What My Hands Have Done

2011-01-31T22:25:00.002-05:00

These words were written by a 19th centurt hymn writer by the name of Horatius Bonar. I was flipping through my binder that I have a bunch of hymns in and came across this one and the words blew me away. They're so rich. Read over these and allow them to really sink in.

1. Not what my hands have done
Can save my guilty soul;
Not what my toiling flesh has borne
Can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do
Can give me peace with God;
Not all my prayers,
And sighs and tears
Can bear my awful load.

2. Thy work alone, O Christ,
Can ease this weight of sin
Thy blood alone O Lamb of God,
Can give me peace within.
Thy love to me O God,
Not mine, O Lord, to Thee
Can rid me of
This dark unrest,
And set my spirit free!

3. Thy grace alone, O God,
To me can pardon speak;
Thy power alone O Son of God,
Can this sore bondage break.
No other work, save Thine,
No other blood will do,
No strength save that,
Which is divine,
Can bear me safely through.

4. I bless the Christ of God;
I rest on love divine;
And with unfaltering lip and heart,
I call this Savior mine.
His cross dispels each doubt,
I bury in His tomb
My unbelief,
And all my fear,
Each lingering shade of gloom.

5. I praise the God of grace,
I trust His truth and might
He calls me His, I call Him mine,
My God, my joy, my light
’Tis He Who saveth me,
And freely pardon gives
I love because
He loveth me,
I live because He lives!

All To Us

2010-11-23T22:26:00.003-05:00

Everytime I play this new Chris Tomlin CD a different song sticks out to me. Tonight on our way home from Christmas shopping the song "All To Us" came on. The words to the chorus go like this:

"Let the glory of Your name be the passion of the Church

Let the righteousness of God be a holy flame that burns

Let the saving love of Christ be the measure of our lives

We believe Your all to us"

As those words rang out I had to ask myself if the way were true of me. Is the glory of the Lord my passion. Seems like this message has been pounded into me lately. Am I living for the glory of the Lord or for the glory of myself? What happens when life doesn't go the way that I had planned? Do I still worship, do I still live to glorify the Father. What if the way the Father is glorified in my life is through trials and suffering. What if its through me simply being a behind the scenes person. Is Christ love really what gives me my worth? Is Christ really All to Me?

As the bridge rang out this phrase, You're all to us, over and over again I pleaded that that would be true of me. Below is the youtube video and I would encourage you to read the words as the song plays and ask that God would make these true of you

New Worship Albums

2010-11-22T14:06:00.005-05:00

If you're looking for some new music, the 3 big names, at least in my opinion, in the praise and worship genre each put out a new cd in the past year.

Paul Baloche's newest CD is entitled "Glorious" and came out almost exactly a year ago. True to form this CD is full of solid lyrics and singable melodies. The best song on the album is the title track, and it's one we've already made as a regular at our church. But there's many others that will hopefully make it on our setlists eventually. "Today is the Day" is a popular one at many churches, "To the Cross" "Just to be With You" and "We Will Hold On" are all favorites of mine.

Matt Redmans CD is a little over a year old now, but a fairly new find for me. Its entitled "We Shall Not Be Shaken" and all of the songs follow in the theme of the title, songs reminding us of the faithfulness of God and that He is our strong refuge. The only one that has made it into Cannons setlist so far is "You Alone Can Rescue" and it's been an instant favorite. While many of these songs may not be "usable" to me as a worship leader, meaning songs I can lead at church, this has been one of my favorite albums to sit down and listen to in its entirety. Every time I do I leave feeling encouraged and filled with hope.

You can't say enough about Chris Tomlin and his influence on the modern worship music movement. Every CD is filled with songs that quickly become anthems of our churches, and this one is no exception. The title of the album that came out just last week is "And If Our God is For Us" which is a line from his new "hit" song "Our God." The version of "Our God" on this album blew me away, and if you buy the deluxe version off Itunes you will also receive a stripped down acoustic version of the song which is good for services that don't have access to a violin or electric guitar. The first several times through the CD I didn't hear many songs that would be able to be used in the average church. However, after going through the CD about 10 times in the past week I've changed my tune. "I Will Follow", "I Lift My Hands", "The Name of Jesus" and "All to Us" are all songs that I hope to use at Cannon in the next year or so. Solid lyrics and, if you knock it down a couple keys, very singable- seriously Chris, who can sing in that range and not sound strained.

A few others that have came out recently:

Passions "Awakening" - I never miss purchasing Passions yearly album, however I've found myself using less and less of their songs due to different reasons. This one, however, seems to be a return to their former glory. I mentioned "Our God" and "You Alone Can Rescue" in the previous paragraphs, but "A Mighty Fortress" is one we've also done - is there a better female vocalist out there then Christy Nockels? "How He Loves", "Healing is in Your Hands" and "Where the Spirit of the Lord is" are also good ones.

Hillsong "A Beautiful Exchange" I'm usually a big fan of Hillsong but can't use many of their songs in our setlists. I haven't listened much to this new album but haven't enjoyed it as much as their past ones.

Christy Nockels "Life Light Up" I like Nockels with Passion, but a whole CD of her is almost too much for me. But this is definitely an album worth having.

Lincoln Brewster "Real Life" Not a huge Brewster fan.

Gateway Worship "Wake Up the World" - Only listened once, liked what I heard but not sure its a top album on my list.

If you're tight on money like me a great way to listen to CD's before purchasing is grooveshark. So far I've only purchased Passions and Tomlins (Redman and Baloche are coming soon) so this has been a great way for me to hear the ones I can't quite buy yet.

Which ones am I missing? I'm sure theres some that I don't know about yet.

The Righteous Will Never Be Moved

2010-08-17T20:22:00.002-04:00

"For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever. He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord." Psalm 112:6,7

Whats your response when you hear bad news? Is it to be anxious, to worry or fear? The Psalmist says that one sign of being righteous is that we are not shaken by bad news. Why? Because we trust in the Lord. If our hope is in the Lord we have no reason to fear. He never moves. No matter the size of the problem, no matter the intensity of the storm, He remains unchanged. God is much bigger then our problems, and He has promised never to leave us or forsake us. So why fear?

Links for your Friday (4/16)

2010-04-16T20:30:00.001-04:00

Some of you may find this interesting, some may not, but Anthony Bradley from WORLD Magazine wrote about the end of an era. The era of the emerging church.

Because post-modernism as movement is also dead as scientific realism emerged as a recent culture-shaping philosophical movement, the generation of Christians struggling to meet the challenges of post-modernism, instead of yelling at it hoping it would go way, are shifting as well to address a world asking different questions. While the effects of the emerging church movement will linger for some time we will begin to see books praising and attacking the movement go out of print.

This obituary for the emerging church was also pretty interesting. I used to be one who would have considered myself a part of the movement. Well from afar at least. I read McLaren, I listened to Rob Bell, I liked to argue theological doctrine just for the sake of arguing. But I got tired of it. I learned a whole lot from Bell and McLaren and will still occasionally listen and read both (and if you read the article you'll find out that even Bell seems to be shifting) but I've fled to the reformed camp.

Over at the Resurgence Justin Hyde posted on how he pastors his family. I found this not only challenging, but encouraging and even exciting as we're almost a month away from our family going from two to three. This was one of the most challenging lines for me:

I get home from work between 5:30PM and 5:45PM each night. But I have to prepare myself before 5:30PM so that I can hit the ground running when I walk in the door. Though I am invariably tired from my day's work, I have to remind myself that the most important part of my vocation happens after 5:30PM, not before. I am tempted to mentally "clock out" on my drive home, which would be easy. Yet I have to consciously prepare myself to give more energy, more attention, and more dedicated focus as soon as I walk through the door and am greeted by my 5 year old son, 3 year old daughter, newborn son, and wife than I have all day. This takes prayer, practice, and intentionality.

I'd encourage any father to read the full article.

Oops.. I aborted the wrong baby. Dr. Mohler discusses a news article about an abortionists who mistakenly aborted the wrong twin:

A Sarasota doctor has lost his license for mistakenly aborting a healthy twin during a procedure targeting a deformed fetus. Immediately after the Florida Board of Medicine’s decision Saturday, Dr. Matthew Kachinas was involuntarily hospitalized because he said he planned to commit suicide. Kachinas had blamed faulty ultrasound equipment for the 2006 mistake. He was targeting a fetus with Down syndrome and signs of a heart defect.

This issue has been on my mind lately after overhearing a comment in the checkout line at Walmart. A middle aged gentlemen was talking to two 20 year olds about why he doesn't support Sarah Palin. I couldn't believe how matter-of-factly he said this: "I mean look at her, she knew her child was going to have Down sydndrome, and she had it anyway." To be honest I don't know if I've ever felt as much anger before. In retrospect I know that I should have said something, but the thoughts that were going through my mind were not helpful or loving or pro-life. So I remained silent. But, based on statistics, this is what a large portion of Americans think. You may not hear it stated so blatantly, but judging by our actions it seems obvious.

And along those same thoughts here's a youtube video about a young man who has was born without eyes as well as many other disabilities, but his answer when asked to describe his disabilities: "not disabilities, more like abilities."

How Quickly We Forget

2010-04-13T11:09:00.004-04:00

"God is faithful"

"God will provide"

"Just have faith"

Those are common phrases that we, as followers of Christ, use. But I question how often we actually believe them when we say them. I know for the past month or so I've been guilty of using them without any meat behind them. As we get closer and closer to the arrival of our baby girl my paycheck seems to look smaller and smaller. I add up our bills and try to figure out just how we're going to make my paycheck alone spread to cover them all. I've picked up a second job that I can work a couple evenings a week and on my off day, but things still seem like they're going to be tight. And as the months turn to weeks til our due date I get more and more anxious. Yesterday it hit the breaking point. I was at the bottom, desperate and angry, feeling like I deserved better then this. Scared that I had no clue just how I was going to be able to make this all work.

Then at 4:30 my wife showed up at the office to bring me dinner before I head off to my second job and she has a card we had just gotten in the mail. It was anonymous, and in it was a $100 American Express gift card. Somehow in all of this I had forgotten an important part, God. Not once had I even prayed about the situation. Not once had I said, and actually meant it, "I trust that You will take care of us." I had tried to use my pea-sized brain and pinch and crunch to figure out just how I was going to provide for our family. Now I know that God may have something else for us other then the jobs I'm working now, and I do need to be responsible and provide for my family. But I had completely lost my trust that God would provide for us. And while $100 dollars doesn't make our bills go away, it's a reminder that I'm not the one controlling things and that the One who is has promised He will take care of me.

Last night, with this still fresh in my mind, I sat on our living room floor surrounded by the many gifts we had gotten at our first of two baby showers I looked at the outfits and imagined what our baby girl would look like and as I read the Dr. Suess books I thought of the day when I'll have a little angel in my lap to read to. Then I looked up at the amazing wife that God has given me and thought to myself: God has blessed me with way too many good things to waste my time worrying and being anxious.

Jakob Dylan: Tiny Desk Concert

2010-04-11T10:24:00.003-04:00

Don Miller posted this on his blog this morning so I thought I'd pass it along. Great way to start off your morning. So pour yourself a cup of coffee, surf the net and listen to some Jakob Dylan.

If you're getting this through facebook click on "view original post" below to get to the video.

American College of Pediatricians: Homosexual Attraction is Neither Innate Nor Unchangeable

2010-04-10T11:26:00.002-04:00

The American College of Pediatricians had a very interesting press release to educators on April 5th:

The College reminds school superintendents that it is not uncommon for adolescents to experience transient confusion about their sexual orientation and that most students will ultimately adopt a heterosexual orientation if not otherwise encouraged. For this reason, schools should not seek to develop policy which “affirms” or encourages these non-heterosexual attractions among students who may merely be experimenting or experiencing temporary sexual confusion. Such premature labeling can lead some adolescents to engage in homosexual behaviors that carry serious physical and mental health risks.
There is no scientific evidence that anyone is born gay or transgendered. Therefore, the College further advises that schools should not teach or imply to students that homosexual attraction is innate, always life-long and unchangeable. Research has shown that therapy to restore heterosexual attraction can be effective for many people.

They also wrote a letter to school superintendents:

Dr. Francis Collins, former Director of the Genome Project, has stated that while homosexuality may be genetically influenced, it is “… not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations.” He also states [that] “…the prominent role[s] of individual free will choices [has] a profound effect on us.” 6
The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) recently released a landmark survey and analysis of 125 years of scientific studies and clinical experience dealing with homosexuality. This report, What Research Shows, draws three major conclusions: (1) individuals with unwanted same sex attraction often can be successfully treated; (2) there is no undue risk to patients from embarking on such therapy and (3), as a group, homosexuals experience significantly higher levels of mental and physical health problems compared to heterosexuals. Among adolescents who claim a “gay” identity, the health risks include higher rates of sexually transmitted infections, alcoholism, substance abuse, anxiety, depression and suicide. Encouragingly, the longer students delay self-labeling as “gay,” the less likely they are to experience these health risks. In fact, for each year an adolescent delays, the risk of suicide alone decreases by 20%.7
In light of these facts, it is clear that when well-intentioned but misinformed school personnel encourage students to “come out as gay” and be “affirmed,” 8 there is a serious risk of erroneously labeling students (who may merely be experiencing transient sexual confusion and/or engaging in sexual experimentation). Premature labeling may then lead some adolescents into harmful homosexual behaviors that they otherwise would not pursue.

You can see the full press release here.

And the letter to the superintendents here.

And here's a fact sheet on what we should know about "Sexual Orientation among Youth"

And lastly this is basically a copy from Kevin DeYoungs post.

2010-04-09T16:13:00.002-04:00

There's something soothing about sitting in a coffee shop. I may not get as much reading done as I would if I were sitting alone in a quiet room with a book, but theres nothing quite like sitting in a coffee shop, sipping a caramel macchiatto with a book in hand. The book is there but much of my time is spent observing: the paintings on the wall, the girls sitting behind me quizzing each other for there high school science exam, the thickness of foam in my coffee, the soft music drifting through the air, the sound of the roaster making a fresh batch of beans. All of this is part of the experience. Eventually I'll tune them all out and get some reading done. But for now I'm enjoying taking it all in. There's no better place to be on a dreary, rainy Friday afternoon.

Michael Spencer Quote

2010-04-06T08:43:00.002-04:00

It's amazing the way that the internet connects people. One of the blogs I've followed fairly closely since I began keeping up with blogs has been internetmonk.com. I didn't necessarily always agree with what Michael Spencer, the main blogger there, I always appreciated what was typed and would often link to his blog. And while I never knew him I was saddened to see that he had passed away earlier this week. His impact has become obvious since his death as the blog world, or at least the one that I follow, has been covered with sympathies and remorse. Trevin Wax posted a list of his favorite 5 posts from Michael over the years which were all very challenging and encouraging but I really liked one in particular:

When the quality of God’s mercy in the Gospel no longer amazes you, you will begin to justify the dilution of amazing grace into religious grace, or moral grace, or grace in response to something.
Real grace is simply inexplicable, inappropriate, out of the box, out of bounds, offensive, excessive, too much, given to the wrong people and all those things.

Read the full blog post. And check out Trevin's blog to see some of Spencers other posts.

Links of the Day: 4/1/2010

2010-03-26T09:45:00.002-04:00

Interesting links of the day:

Two news items I heard on NPR's Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me:

In the busy society we live in apparently everyone is trying to optomize their schedules. Two bank robbers decide to call ahead to speed up the process only to be surprised when the cops are there waiting for them. See the full story here.

Another set of less-then-intelligent thieves decide to reveal their exploits on Dr. Phil. See full story here.

I appreciated this post on the importance of pastors. Some of the impression that Miller is anti-church, but as you can see from this list he's obviously not. I thought it was a very helpful reminder to be thankful for our pastors.

If you haven't heard, John Piper is taking an 8 month sabbatical. Here's his announcement on why he feels this is necessary. And here is Mark Driscoll and his wife Grace's response to it.

And lastly apparently Don Miller has the inside scoop on things. The View will be having a variety of Christian male leaders fill Hasselbacks role as she will be missing a month of time. Singer/Songwriter Derek Webb will be heading up the group. Should be interesting.

Do You Notice Them?

2010-03-18T22:00:00.002-04:00

I found this clip from Piper extremely challenging. Are we so caught up in our lives and in ourselves that we fail to find those around us interesting? I know that I'm often (if not always) guilty of this.

(If you're getting this via facebook you'll have to click "original source" to get to the video)

John Pipers son, Abraham Piper, is one of my favorite bloggers to keep tabs on and not coincidently his blog is all about this very subject. Every night he takes a walk around his city, Minneapolis and blogs about what he sees and experiences. Most of his blogs are about the interactions he has with those he meets on his walks. Its been somewhat eye opening for me to see how easily I just walk right past the people he takes time to talk to and hear their stories. Check it out at Downhill Both Ways.

Glen Beck Tells us to Leave our Churches

2010-03-12T22:28:00.001-05:00

I'm not much into posting on politics anymore, but this kept popping up in my google reader today so I thought I'd pass it along.

If you haven't heard it yet on his show last week Glenn Beck urged his listeners to "run from their church" if they heard certain words:

I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

Now what Beck was talking about was the political structures of communism and socialism. However, that statement alone shows part of the problem that happens when an issue becomes part of the political platform.

I say leave your church if you never hear those words! Now before you think I'm going all liberal, hear me out. What we don't want is to build the core of our theology on this. The Gospel is NOT do your best to follow Jesus and establish his kingdom on earth. That is a fruit of the Gospel. We must get the Gospel right first. But after that... If the Gospel never compels you to long for a society that is based on justice and to seek out ways to bring justice both socially and economically then I question whether you're eyes have been opened by the Gospel. I hate to disappoint all those who think along the same lines of Glenn Beck but when I read the prophecies about the Kingdom of God I see a society that screams social and economic justice. And when I read them something inside me shouts "Yes! Thats how its supposed to be.

I realize that what Glenn Beck is saying is run from those "liberal churches." But please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. As Christians we're apathetic enough when it comes to caring for the world around us, we don't need any encouragement.

Other bloggers responses:

Eugene Cho

Ben Witherington

Out of Ur

Book Log: February 2010

2010-03-01T18:21:00.002-05:00

The snow storm may not have been good for work but it was great for getting some reading done. Four of these five books I finished during the week we were snowed in.

Forgotten God: Reversing our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit - Francis Chan.

Been hearing his name quite a bit so I figure I'd find out who he is. I appreciated this book, which was focused on the Holy Spirit, though it wasn't overly deep or new. But was definitely challenging. Why don't we look any different if the Spirit of God dwells within us?

The Legacy of Sovereign Joy: God's Triumphant Grace in the lives of Augustine, Luther and Calvin - John Piper.

A book on three great giants of our faith. John Calvin, Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards. It was a short and fairly easy read. Left me wanting to find more in depth biographies on each of these men. Get some Piper in your diet, it'll do ya good.

Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God - Bob Kauflin.

Kauflin is the music director for Sovereign Grace Ministries (or something similar to that title), which is a group I've grown to appreciate greatly as both a worship leader and a Christian who's hungry for theological resources. This is a great book for anyone who leads worship (and by that I mean singing in a corporate church setting), involved in a worship team, or simply interested in the subject. Gives both theological and practical wisdom from a guy with a lot of wisdom

The Cross and Christian Ministy: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians - D.A. Carson

This was my first encounter with Carson, and definitely not my last. The book is written somewhat like a commentary, yet not at such a level that is hard to read. Carson looks at 1 Corinthians and takes five sections and looks at what the death of Christ has to do with each of these areas: 1) Preaching, 2) The Holy Spirit, 3) Factionalism, 4) Christian Leadership and 5) Being a World Christian. Excellent book on what it means to be a cross-centered Christian.

Willing to Believe: The Controversy Over Free Will - R.C. Sproul

I'm actually not finished with this book, one more chapter so it's close enough. This book looks at the issue of free will from the perspective of church history. It traces the arguments of original sin, mans total depravity and God's effectual grace from the beginning with Augustine and Pelagius to the present. Each chapter presents a different theologian in histories perspective: Luther, Calvin, Arminius, Edwards etc. Sproul is in the Calvinist camp, so the arguments are tilted in that direction. However, the book gives a fair view of both sides and is helpful in seeing how the argument has progressed from long before Calvin vs. Arminius.

And as an added bonus: an old recommendation from my bookshelf.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Ishmael Beah

This is an amazing story of a young boy who gets caught up Sierra Leone's civil war and has to flee for his life leaving behind his family and everything he knows. He eventually gets forced into being a child soldier as a 12 year old. The story is not written from a distant perspective looking in, but the author himself is the one who lived this story. This is not an easy story to digest though. Some of the things that happened to this child are terrible, especially knowing that they are true. But I would highly recommend reading this book to catch a glimpse into the lives that some are forced to live.

The End of an Era: American Idol

2010-02-24T07:38:00.004-05:00

I could be wrong, but last night I think I caught a glimpse of the end of an era. I'm not usually a big follower of American Idol, but this year I decided I'd start watching it from the beginning. I'm actually enjoying the show and theirs a few singers that have potential. The problem is, I know from the start that the singers that I like don't stand a chance of winning it all, and thats why I think American Idol's popularity is in the decline.

Let me explain. I'm not so arrogant as to think that my opinion will bring AI to the ground, but some comments that Simon and some of the other judges made caused me to think. When I mentioned something about watching American Idol on my facebook status last week several friends who I consider to have a pretty good, and selective musical taste made some negative comments as to the music that Idol is producing. Tim said "think about the musicians we like - they'd bomb quickly." And it's true. The singers that I listen to wouldn't stand a chance. And I would never sit and listen to a whole CD of previous Idol winners, no matter how good technically I think their voices are. The complaint that the judges kept making about the contestants last night was that they didn't pick songs that made their voices stick out, there was nothing that made them say "Wow!" But the ones they said that about were the ones I liked the most. The singers that many of the next generation are listening to are not the singers of the previous decades where they were technically perfect or made you sit back with your mouth open. I like good singing, but what I'm going to listen to is music that you would hear at a coffee shop. Something almost folksy sounding. Technically they probably aren't the best of singers: their tone quality might not be the best, they might be a bit nasally, at times its almost annoying (to some at least). But thats the style of music I'm listening to, and I'm not alone. And judging by the types of songs that the contestants many picked, thats what they listen to as well.

That is why I think American Idol is fading. Because the next generations style of music is less about technicality and big vocals and more about feeling and personality. I could be wrong.

Movie Spotlight:God On Trial

2010-02-22T19:13:00.005-05:00

I've been on a 2 year (or so) hiatus from doing much movie watching. Between going on the bike trip and then getting married movies have fallen down on the priority list. My wife is not the biggest movie fan either so that is another reason for the break. It has been good for me though. For the 5 years previous I had been on a constant movie binge it seemed, so a break was good. But now with the new addition of netflix along with our laptop and wireless network in the house I can begin to get back into movies a little. And with missing 5 years worth of movies I've got plenty to choose from! So now comes the fun part, searching through rottentomatoes.comreviews, adding ratings to netflix movies that I've already seen, searching through the list of recommendations that they give me and loading my queue (which is a very strange word if you really look at it) with scores of movies. I'm excited.

Now obviously in 5 years theres a lot of good main stream movies that I've missed, so I'll be catching up on many of those. But what really excites me is finding some more lesser known movies that blow away the big money movies - at least in my opinion. Those are usually the ones I'll write about on here, you've probably already seen all the main stream ones that I've missed, why waste my time talking about them.

I actually watched 2 movies this weekend. The first one I watched was The Insider with Russell Crowe and Al Pacino. This is actually an older movie, 1999 according to imdb.com, but somehow I never remember hearing about it. It was a good movie. It dragged a bit I thought but I thought the story itself kept you interested. Probably because it was actually based on a true story. But that was fairly mainstream so I'm not going to waste time talking about that one.

The movie God On Trial was actually a made for television movie by Masterpiece Theater and PBS. The movie takes you to the infamous concentration camp in Auschwitz during the World War II. Imagine being put into such a place simply because of who you are, you're bloodline. Imagine being forced to go through "tests" every time a new train car of prisoners would come in to see if you would live to see the next day or if you would be gassed in order to make room for the new inmates. What questions would you be asking? How would you feel about God and His character? And add to that the fact that you are the chosen people of God. You traced your lineage back to Abraham, the man with whom God had established His covenant with. Had God kept his end of the bargain? Had He broken His covenant? Being placed in that position would automatically raise questions as to the goodness of God, but even more so as Jews. So this group of Jews decide to put on God on trial. What is His crime? Breaking the covenant. Within this group are Jews that are deeply devout religiously, but there are also those who are merely Jewish by birth and nothing else. There is even one who had no clue he was a Jew, his mother was a Jew but died early in his childhood and he had been raised by his German Father. This mixture greats a tension when it comes to answering this question of God's faithfulness and goodness.

I found this movie deeply moving. The holocaust itself always makes one look deep into the heart of oneself and ask big questions. It makes you realize the atrocities that humans, that I am capable of. But this movie added a different dimension, an honest look at what those who lived through this must have asked of God. In the end they found God guilty of breaking His covenant, but just after the verdict was read they came to take many of them to the gas chamber. One of the Jews who had adamantly accused God of abandoning them and declared that God was not good was one of the ones being taken away. Facing the death and just hearing the declaration that God was guilty he looked at a Rabi and asked "where does this leave me? What do we do now?" The rabbis answer: we pray.

This movie was not a happy ending movie that left you smiley and chipper but one that caused me to lay in bed and toss and turn for hours asking what my verdict would be in that position. It's easy to say that I would believe that God was still faithful, still sovereign and still good. But I know that would not be an easy answer, though I know it would still be my answer.

God on Trial is definitely worth watching.

Karl Barth on Listening to the Holy Spirit

2010-02-10T18:48:00.002-05:00

"When we are at our wits end for an answer, then the Holy Spirit can give us an answer. But how can He give us an answer when we are still well supplied with all sorts of answers of our own?"

Around the Web: Links from 2/9/2010

2010-02-09T09:46:00.007-05:00

Parchment and Pen posted Seven Common Fallacies of Biblical Interpretation. Here's a quick rundown of them:

1. Preunderstanding fallacy: Believing you can interpret with complete objectivity, not recognizing that you have preunderstandings that influence your interpretation.

2. Incidental fallacy: Reading incidental historical texts as prescriptive rather than descriptive.

3. Obscurity fallacy: Building theology from obscure material.

4. Etymological root fallacy: Looking to the root etymology of a word to discover its meaning.

5. Illegitimate totality transfer: Bringing the full meaning of a word with all its nuances to the present usage.

I know that I've fallen into the trap of using most, if not all of these at one time or another. See the full blog post with more in-depth descriptions of each fallacy here.

Nola.com has an interesting article about the New Orleans Saints and their religious connections.

The archbishop is the most visible and recognizable symbol of the NFL organization's intertwined relationship with religion. Hannan is recovering from an Oct. 30 stroke that caused him to miss his first home game in the Saints' 43-year history. He's the face of the local religious community that counts itself among the Who Dat faithful.

"I don't think (Benson) puts him there just to flash the archbishop around or anything like that, " United Methodist pastor Gene Finnell said. "I think (Benson) respects his clergy leadership and enjoys the fact that he can share something really special for him with those church leaders."
Hannan is perhaps the first religious leader to become a Saints fan. He gave the franchise the church's blessing when a newspaper contest picked the team's mascot. State officials wanted to ensure it would not offend the church.
"I said it was OK, but you should keep in mind that all the Saints are martyrs, " Hannan recalled with a chuckle.

Check the article out here. The best part of the whole article is the picture of owner Tom Benson dancing with Sister Mary Rose Bingham at the Superdome.

Calling All Angels:

A man survives 4 weeks stuck in the rubble in Haiti.

A man pulled alive from the rubble of a building in Haiti's capital Monday may have been trapped since the January 12 quake that leveled much of the city, doctors reported.

The 28-year-old man, identified as Evan Muncie, was found in the wreckage of a market where he sold rice, his family told staff at a University of Miami field hospital. He suffered from extreme dehydration and malnutrition, but did not appear to have significant crushing injuries, the doctors said.

"He was emaciated. He hadn't had anything in quite some time. He had open wounds that were festering on both of his feet," said Dr. Mike Connelly, of the university's Project Medishare.

The people who brought him to the hospital said they found the man while digging out the marketplace, Connelly said.

CNN has the full article here.

I'll Gum Sin 'Til the Day I Die

2010-02-06T09:45:00.005-05:00

Billy Sunday:

"I'm against sin. I'll kick it as long as I've got a foot, and I'll fight it as long as I've got fist. I'll butt it as long as I've got a head. I'll bite it as long as I've got a tooth. And when I'm old fistless and footless and toothless, I'll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition!"

Trevin Wax: Holy Subversion Quote

2010-02-05T11:40:00.002-05:00

Trevin Wax posted an excerpt from his book Holy Subversion today on his blog. I have not read the book, yet. Based on the excerpts I've read and in what I know of Trevin following his blog its on my "to-read list". But I thought this section was excellent and worth passing along.

We are not merely called to tolerate those who disagree with us; we are called to love. The world’s idea of tolerance is a parody of the Christian understanding of love.
Tolerance is passive. Love is active.
Tolerance is a feeling of apathy. Love is accompanied by feelings of great affection.
Tolerance keeps people at arm’s length in hopes of not offending them. Love embraces people where they are and ‘hopes all things.’
Tolerance leaves people alone as individuals. Love ushers people into a community of generosity.
Tolerance keeps a safe distance between those in need. Love rolls up its sleeves in service even to those who may be unlikeable.
Tolerance avoids confrontation in order to maintain ‘peace.’ Love tells the truth boldly and graciously in order to bring about a deeper, more lasting peace.”
Excerpt from Holy Subversion (pp 145-146)

Around the web: Links from 2/5/2010

2010-02-05T09:31:00.009-05:00

Bob Kauflin is someone I have gleaned much insight and wisdom from in the past 6 months since I've been made aware of him. In his most recent blog post he talks about talks about being aware of what is going on around us as we are leading worship:

Why do leaders close their eyes so often? Not just for a few moments, but for 5, 10, even 15 minutes. I’ve seen leaders and vocalists keep their eyes shut from the first note we sing to the final “Amen” of the closing prayer.
There are definitely some good reasons to close our eyes. We want to shut out distractions. We want to focus completely on the words we’re singing. Our hearts are deeply moved by God’s mercy and we respond in humble adoration.
But are those the reasons we usually have in mind when we close our eyes? Are we even thinking about what we’re doing? Or why we’re doing it?

Read the rest of his blog here.

Christianity Today has an article written by Shirl James Hoffman on Americans obsession with sports and sadly, in his opinion at least, Christians following in that obsession.

Americans are consuming sports on an unprecedented scale...In 2006, Americans spent over $17 billion on tickets to sports contests and $90 billion on sporting goods, over double what they spent on books ($42 billion)...
None of this has been lost on evangelicals, who have been quick to harness sports to personal and institutional agendas. Less than a century ago, major segments of the evangelical community considered sports a cancer on the spiritual life; today their denominational progeny lead the parade to stadiums. The cozy coupling of sports and evangelicalism shows itself not only in the outsized athletic complexes that are common features of church architecture, but also in the ease with which sport and its symbols show up in the sanctuary. Pastors incorporate pithy sports metaphors into their sermons. Famous athletes are invited to pulpits to tell how their faith helps them compete. Some churches celebrate Super Bowl Sunday by canceling the evening service and assembling in the sanctuary to watch the game on large-screen TVs. "Faith nights" sponsored by local baseball teams draw entire congregations to the ballpark. Evangelistic organizations that center on the public's fascination with sports flourish.

As you can tell just from that clip, he's not too big of a fan of sports. You can read the rest of Hoffmans somewhat lengthy article here.

To read a very helpful review of the article check out Kevin DeYoungs recent blog post on it here. He describes his "love/hate relationship" with sports and how aware he is of "the place sports can occupy in your heart." Both articles are helpful to at least skim through, to see if sports are taking the proper place in our own lives.

Two street preachers were shot down and killed in Boynton Beach. Read about the story in the Palm Beach Post.

Is it Soup Yet?

Do we have a grasp of the entirety of the Gospel or do we simply cling to a truncated self-improvement version. Listen to James McDonald on the issue:

Gospel Soup from Harvest Bible Chapel on Vimeo.

For those of you seeing this on facebook you'll have to click through to go to my actual blog to see the video.

Around the Web: Links from 2/3/2010

2010-02-03T07:08:00.002-05:00

You thought that black snake in your yard was big, check out these puppies.

The New York Times did an article on the growing interest among evangelicals in MMA - Mixed Martial Arts, otherwise known as Ultimate Fighting.

Mr. Renken’s ministry is one of a small but growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low. Mixed martial arts events have drawn millions of television viewers, and one was the top pay-per-view event in 2009.
Recruitment efforts at the churches, which are predominantly white, involve fight night television viewing parties and lecture series that use ultimate fighting to explain how Christ fought for what he believed in. Other ministers go further, hosting or participating in live events.
The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”

Read the full article here

Eugene Cho, who was interviewed for the piece wrote his response to how the NYT interpreted what he said on his blog.

My hour interview was reduced to basically one quote:

“I don’t live for the Jesus who eats red meat, drinks beer and beats on other men.”

What I have a problem is when we have Christians, churches, and pastors who now begin to blur the line in the equating of MMA to Jesus; That we somehow speak with great conviction that Jesus would have endorsed MMA or other forms and expressions of the growing hyper machismo culture.

Read his full blog post here.

So what's your take on this issue? Should churches be having MMA parties as a form of outreach or does it go against calling others to pattern their lives after Christ?

Around the Web: Links from 2/2/2010

2010-02-02T21:08:00.004-05:00

A pro-choice columnist praises Tim Tebow's upcoming superbowl ad:

I'm pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I've heard in the past week, I'll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time." For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.
Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.
Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn't.
Read the full article.

Boston.com has posted some pictures of Haiti three weeks after the devastating earthquake. See them here.

I love this video from Francis Chan on taking risks.

Around the web: Links from 2/1/2010

2010-02-01T14:30:00.005-05:00

For those of you who haven't heard about Matt Chandler, a pastor in the Dallas area who is battling a cancerous brain tumor, and even for those of you who have, here's a great in-depth story about the path that he's been walking and and how he has kept his focus on God's sovereign plan through all of this.

Sovereign Grace is having a huge online sale during the month of February. They're selling all their CD's for $6 (online downloads for $5), $7 or less for most books, and $4 for study books. I would highly recommend checking them out. For those of you at Cannon who want to find some of the new songs we've been doing or will be doing in the future your best bets are "Sons & Daughters" and "Next 2009 Live" though we may be doing some on other cd's as well. At $5 each you can't go wrong. Also "To Be Like Jesus" is a great resource for teaching your kids the Gospel via song.

As far as books go I'm reading "Worship Matters" and would highly recommend it. I'm planning on reading "Living the Cross Centered Life" and "Humility" by C.J. Mahany, but I'm sure there are many others in that list.

Trevin Wax posted a commentary on what "church the way I want it" mindset looks like. Purposely extreme it still shows some glaring gaps that we're beginning to see within the church.

Russell Moore commented on a story in the New York Times about Omar Hammammi a leader of an Al-Qaeda-linked African terrorist group who grew up in an Alabama Baptist church. Moore wrote this:

It’s easy to read about Omar and to let your blood pressure rise in disgust. Who could leave all the blessings he had given to him in order to fight with bloodthirsty killers? It might even be easy to wonder what was wrong with the witness of his home church, as though there’s any church in history that didn’t have prodigals.
But, if you think about it a little bit longer, you might realize that Omar isn’t as strange as you think.
I wrote above that I felt like I know Omar, even though we’ve never met. In some ways, I feel like I am Omar. I’m internally conflicted too.
I find myself often drawn more to Bible Belt morality than to the gospel. When I go without prayer, I can still recognize the goodness of a just social order, a loving marriage, a stable community. But, when that happens, I don’t see myself as a sinner and, as a result, I don’t see God in Christ. I see God in myself. Unless I see myself in Christ and him crucified, I see God as, at the core, justice, not love, as solitary, not a Trinitarian community of love. When I forget about the gospel, I imagine that God is seeing me in terms of some cosmic scale of my good deeds and sins. That leads me to pride or despair. And it’s crypto-Koranic, not Christian.

read the whole story here.

And although this is a week late I would highly recommend taking some time and watch Mark Driscoll's sermon about his time spent in Haiti. It includes a lot of stories, pictures and video clips from his time there and is very eye-opening. Check it out here.

Book Log: January 2010

2010-02-01T11:29:00.002-05:00

One of my goals this year - as it is most years - is to read more books. I set my goal at one per month, but thats mainly because if I shoot for what I really want to accomplish I'll most likely be disappointed. Hey, if you aim low you have more of a chance of exceeding your expectations and less of a chance of feeling guilty. Probably not the best philosophy to live by, but I'll at least apply it to this area of my life.

One way to help accomplish this is to keep a book log. I've noticed a couple bloggers that I follow doing this, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Granted most of them are reading between 7-10 books every month, but hey, it's better then nothing. So every month I hope to write a short, sentence or two, recap of each book I finished that month. This will help me keep reading, remember what I'm reading, and a way to recommend good books I've found.

1) Desiring God - John Piper

- Cannot more highly recommend this book. It's been a long time coming for me in reading this book and one that will be a "to reread" book. Piper takes his life statement that we are called to "glorify God by enjoying Him forever" and applies it to each area of our lives. This book has had a profound influence on the way I think already.

2) What Difference Do It Make: Stories of Hope and Healing - Ron Hall & Denver Moore

- I did not read the first book that this is a follow up to - Same Kind of Different as Me - but now I want to. This book shares bits and pieces of that story mixed in with readers responses on how Ron and Denver's story affected their lives. Its a great story of how an unlikely friendship developed and how it left both men changed. I would recommend finding the first book "Same Kind of Different" and reading it. My only complaint that for it to be a Christian book about hope and change there is no mention of the cross or the Gospel. But it is a very inspiring story.

3.) A Million Miles in a Thousand Years - Don Miller

- I always look forward to Don Millers next book. I read this one in about 2 days. Once I started reading it I couldn't put it down. His reading style is enjoyable and it always seems like I can connect well with the stories of his life. This book I could especially relate to. I found it challenging and forced me to look at the life that I'm living and where it is going. Again, I would definitely recommend this book, especially to all those out there who are Miller fans, you won't be disappointed with this one.

Why Its Important What We're Singing

2010-01-25T20:10:00.003-05:00

I'm currently reading Worship Matters:Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God by Bob Kauflin. It's a book a got for each of our worship team members almost a year ago and have just now gotten around to reading. It's an excellent book on the how's and why's of leading worship. It ranges from the practical to the theological and is such a great encouragement and challenge to worship leaders. I'm finding so many different things in it but I just read one thing that I thought was worth sharing. In one of the chapters Bob talks about the question "why music". One that has been asked by many I'm sure and one that can be a very touchy subject within the church. Bob talks about the different dangers of music, how it can be made the center of our worship rather then what we are actually singing.

What we are singing is so important for many reasons, but he cited a Scripture in Deuteronomy that I had never noticed before. God is giving Moses instructions on how to prepare the people as they are getting ready to enter into the Promised Land and he tells Moses this:

19 “Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel. 20 For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me and break my covenant. 21 And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.” -Deuteronomy 31:19-21

God told Moses to put His commands in the form of a song so that when they had forgotten Him, this song would be in their minds and it would confront them in their sin. Thats why it's so important that as worship leaders we pick our songs carefully, because songs stick in our mind much easier then a list of theological truths. They will remind us to turn from evil when we are tempted, or they may remind us to return our hope to the Lord when we're in the valley, or it may wake us up from our spiritual slumber when all is going well. What we sing goes farther then simply what sounds nice or flows well on Sunday mornings, its a way to embed theological truths in our mind.

A Christmas Carol: O Holy Night

2009-11-28T20:47:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm not usually a big fan of Christmas songs but this year my view is changing slightly. I'm still not up for listening to the Christmas radio station that plays 15 songs over and over again - maybe having 3 versions of each so, but after listening to Chris Tomlin's : Glory in the Highest some of these songs have had a new meaning. Or maybe I'm just actually getting the meaning to them. If you actually read the lyrics to them they are pretty amazing declarations. So in the spirit of the many countdowns to Christmas I thought I would start "A Christmas Carol" countdown. So ever couple days I'll post a new carol with a few thoughts on them, hopefully adding to the meaning of the song next time you hear it on the radio or sing it in your church services.

O Holy Night

Interesting facts from wikipedia about this song. It was actually the first song to ever be broadcast on the radio. On December 24th 1906 Reginald Fessenden broadcast the first ever AM radio program, which included himself playing "O Holy Night" on the violin.

Here are the lyrics to the traditional way of singing it:

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of Our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world In sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd And the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope The weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks A new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! O, hear the angels' voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.
Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts By His cradle we stand.
So led by light of A star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men From Orient land.
The King of Kings Lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials Born to be our friend.
He knows our need, To our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Behold your King.
Truly He taught us To love one another;
His law is love And His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break For the slave is our brother;
And in His name All oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy In grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us Praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,
His power and glory Evermore proclaim.
His power and glory Evermore proclaim.

I love the sense of longing in verse 1: long lay the world in sin and error pining

I don't think we truly understand the longing the Jews had for the Messiah to come. I don't think that we even understand the longing we had for the Messiah to come into our own lives before the scales were removed from our eyes and we beheld him for the first time.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices

for yonder breaks a new and glorious dawn.

A hope that was long forgotten has been awaken with the coming of the Messiah. Just as a new hope has been placed in our lives as we have come to the Savior.

All of verse three could be repeated. Not necessarily something that is emphasized at Christmas. I love this line in particular: chains shall He break for the slave is our brother. How are the chains broken? Not through some miraculous occurrence that happened when Christ came to earth, but because of the first lines of that verse: truly he taught us to love one another; His law is love and His Gospel is peace. Chains are broken because when we grab hold of this Gospel (or rather this Gospel grabs hold of us) we realize that the slave is our brother. And who keeps their brother as a slave? I love that phrase His law is love and His Gospel is peace. Thats something to raise your hands and shout amen too. Or perhaps even better, do as the song says, Fall on your knees in worship.

Chris Tomlin: Glory in the Highest

2009-11-26T12:13:00.003-05:00

I'm not usually a big fan of Christmas music, not that I don't like it, I just don't like listening to the same 20 songs for a month and half straight. As a worship leader I'm usually slow to do many of the traditional songs during our Sunday morning service because I always feel like we sing them simply because we "like" them rather then we actually are understanding what we are singing. The other day I was picking up some stuff at our local Christian book store and they had Chris Tomlins "Glory in the Highest" at the counter so I thought I'd grab it for my wife since she's obsessed with Christmas music and maybe I could bear this one a little more then some. The other night we were cleaning up the house to get ready to head to pa for the holidays and decided to put the CD in and I was amazed at how great of an album it was. I don't how I expected less from Tomlin but this CD is truly a worship album. Here's just a run through of some of my favorite songs:

1. O, Come All Ye Faithful

This has always been one of my favorite Christmas songs to use during a worship service. Tomlin uses a choir to really capture the feeling of the song. The song builds up to the last verse of the song "We'll worship Him forever..."

2. Angels We Have Heard on High

Tomlin captures the excitement of the shepherds after hearing the shepherds announcement with this song. I've always felt like the chorus (glo-ooo-ooo-ria) was a bit odd, but not the way Tomlin does it. He doesn't change the melody on this song, or any of them actually, but puts a lot of energy behind the song.

3. Emmanuel (Hallowed Manger Ground)

This is a new song written by Tomlin. The chorus is simple "Emmanuel, Emmanuel, God incarnate here to dwell. Emmanuel, Emmanuel Praise His name Emmanuel." But the verses go from the scene at the manger to the 3rd verse looking ahead to the cross.

5. My Soul Magnifies the Lord

This is my favorite song on the whole CD. The lyrics come straight from Mary's Magnificat, which I have always thought is one of the most incredible, and overlooked, sections of the Christmas story. This song captures the excitement that Mary was feeling as she burst out in song of praise in Luke 1.

6. Joy to the World

Tomlin adds a chorus to this song that I really like. The whole song reflects the title and the lyrics to the song.

The rest of the tracks on the CD are excellent as well, these are just a few that I really liked. I would highly recommend this CD to anyone looking for a good Christmas CD

Rob Bell's Gospel

2009-11-12T11:30:00.004-05:00

Two prefaces to this post: (1) I love Rob Bell. I have faithfully listened to him for the past 5 years on an almost weekly basis. I love the style with which he preaches, I like the way he studies the background behind passages, I like the analogies and real life examples he uses to connect the message in a way thats helpful. And I love the excitement and fun he has as he preaches. He has done a lot to reach out to those who normally would not be found dead in a church. I love Rob Bell. (2) I hate it when people bash others in the form of the internet. Especially when they really have no clue who that person is, they simply hear a snippet or two and base their whole thinking about the person on that comment.

So what I am about to say is not an attack on Bell, simply a reflection on one of his sermons that I just heard and a theme I've seemed to notice. I will continue to listen/read Bell because there is so much good I glean from his teachings.

The sermon I'm referencing is called "Blessed are the Poor in Spirit" and you can find it on their website here. A friend posted the below quote which got me thinking:

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, the zeros, those whithout a wisp of religion, the pathetic, those who haven't kept the covenant, those who don't believe all the right things, those who have really realy really screwed it up in an endless litany of ways - to all those, God is on your side. To all of those who don't deserve the blessing of God, the blessing of God is here and - it - is - on - your - side

I agree with what he was trying to say. When Jesus came to earth he did not come to the religiously astute Pharisees, he did not come to powerful rulers, he didn't even come to the wealthy. He bypassed all of them and went to the poor. He went to the marginalized. The outcast. Those who the world had no time for. All the wealthy missed him because they couldn't give up their wealth to follow him. The Pharisees were so stuck in their laws and moral perfectionism that they missed their long awaited Messiah. Jesus came to those we had all forgotten. And we're in danger of becoming those who missed out on Jesus. But there is something not quite right about that quote. Something missing.

Bell then went on to give some examples and thats when it hit me. He said this (well maybe not word-for-word but this is the idea) "those of you who have an abortion, God wants you to know He is on your side" "those of you who just can't stop going to those websites God is on your side." And he said that this is the Gospel. But hold on a second, is this the whole picture? You see, I had just listened to a sermon from Mark Driscoll where he talked about abortion as well. In the end he came out with the same result: God is on your side. But (and this is a big BUT) he started out saying "you are murderers" (it was actually quite harsh and almost hard to listen to). But even though you are murderers God sent His son because the penalty for murder is death. Stripe for stripe, life for life. You see the Bible clearly says all over the place that God is not on the side of the wicked. God is a God of justice! For Him simply to overlook sin and say "I'm on your side" goes completely against His nature. Bell never once preached the cross. He never once preached the need for repentance. That above quote basically says "God is for everyone!" Which is true, but it is so much greater then that! The Gospel is so much more then "God loves those no one else does." We were murderers, adulterers, slanderers, etc. and God had every right to do away with us. But He loved us so much that He sent His Son, came to those who the world had completely forsaken, those who just couldn't get it right, those who couldn't follow all the laws, those who were sick, lame, broken, marginalized and created away for them to come back into commune with God.

I love Rob Bell and I know that Rob Bell loves Jesus so much and wants people to come into relationship with him, but you can't keep the cross out of the Gospel.

The Vanity of Wealth

2009-11-12T06:01:00.002-05:00

I've been reading through Ecclesiastes for my morning devotions this week and was struck by a passage this morning. Here's the passage:

Ecclesiastes 5:13-17
"There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt, and those riches were lost in a bad venture. And he is father of a son, but he has nothing in his hand. As he came from his mother's womb he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand. This is also a grievous evil: just as he came, so shall he go, and what gain is there to him who toils for the wind? Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness in much vexation and sickness and anger."

Now I haven't done much word studying or anything like that on this passage so this is just my understanding as I read it this morning. Basically you have a man who spent all his life working to build up his riches. Relationships weren't of importance, family wasn't of importance. All he cared about was making his name great. Getting as high as he could on the corporate ladder. Then, with one bad investment he lost it all. Everything he had spent his whole life pursuing was gone. As I read this I thought about how many people probably experienced this in the past 2 years. All that they had spent their lives working to build was gone when the stock market collapsed. They spent their whole lives pursuing wealth, building up their riches. Anyone who got in their way got stepped on. Marriages came and went because they were too committed to their jobs. Kids grew up without their parent even really knowing who they were because they were always away on business. Friendships lasted only as long as they were useful for pursuing the next level up. And now that man/woman is 60 sitting at home with nothing. Who is going to come and comfort them now? The only thing they ever care about was money and its all gone. That huge house they spent all their time working for now haunts them because all it does is make them feel even more alone. All they can do now is wallow in their anger and bitterness and point their finger at Wall Street and tell them how they've ruined their lives. What a sad sad picture. But this is the trail we are told to head down. This is the American dream gone sour.

I was extremely challenged by this this morning. Even though I'm far from building up riches I still feel that desire in me. The desire to put my money into getting things. Thinking of careers or ways that I can get more money so I can get more things. And when I do get something rarely am I satisfied for very long before I want the next thing. At the end of the day all of this is futile. Chasing after the wind. You spend your whole life chasing it and at the end all you end up with is being worn out with nothing to show for it. Invest in the things that matter.

Sunday Setlist: Oct 4th

2009-10-04T22:11:00.002-04:00

It was good to be back leading worship again after being away last Sunday. I find that I feel like somethings missing when I go a week without being a part of the worship team. However, when I do have that week off there's much more of a build up within me when I get back. For two weeks I've been playing through these songs so I was excited about singing them with the congregation.

Greater Than We Can Imagine

The first time we did this song it wasn't as "fun" as I thought it would be. By that I mean when I anticipated singing this with the congregation I thought it would be one of those songs that is bursting with joy. And perhaps it was simply because it was new. But this time it went much better. We sang through it once while people were coming in and then started from the beginning and sang it again once everyone was in.

Psalm 89 - Call to Worship

Blessed Be Your Name

It seemed like a lot of people in our church have been going through a rough patch lately and I felt like we should sing songs that make us look past our current situations and fix our eyes on God. This song started us down that path. It reminded us that through every situation in life we can declare "Blessed be the name of the Lord." The rest of the songs focused mainly on how we can do that: by understanding that we are a child of God and focusing on His love for us.

The Father's Love

This song connected well with Blessed Be Your Name with the bridge:

Though sufferings may fill our lives

we're confident, we're heirs with Christ

And so we cry "Abba Father"

As well as pointed us to the next songs which focused on the love of God which was shown to us through Christ.

By This We Know Love

This was a new song for us. Another one that we brought home from Sovereign Grace. Such great lyrics:

By this we know love, that He laid down His life

God's very own Son came from heaven to die

Suspended He hung, as He shed His own blood

What grace in His pardon, by this we know love

Oh the Deep, Deep Love

This is the second time we've done this song. Such a beautiful song (especially with my wife singing it) and great, encouraging words.

Sing His Love

We did this song as the offertory. It's an old hymn that Caedmon's Call & Indelible Grace spruced up musically. We struggled with it a little, mainly because it has a heavy country beat in it and none of us play country much. But it was fun. I've enjoyed being able to bring out some different songs to do during our offering.

This week showed the influence Sovereign Grace has had on our worship team, all the songs except for one in our main set were from them. The theology in their songs are so rich. No wasted verses, no fluff. I've been challenged so much since I've been leading and singing these songs.

For the rest of our service, instead of having a sermon, we had a prayer service. Tim read a passage of Scripture, gave a short reflection on it and then one of the elders would pray the Scripture. It was a really meaningful service and I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of it.

As always check out other worship leaders setlists at Fred McKinnons site!

Sunday Setlist: September 20th

2009-09-22T08:37:00.003-04:00

Clay lead and planned out the service this Sunday. Which was really nice, all I had to do was show up and play piano. I'm trying to do that at least once a month, and then have one week were I'm completely off. It keeps it from feeling like a burden or overwhelming. It also gives the other guys a chance to develop their skills and to see what themes or songs God has been putting in their hearts. Clay did an excellent job with both the selection of songs and leading the service. I was a little skeptical Thursday when we first practiced because a lot of the songs were difficult and ones that are easy for the congregation to sit back and listen to. But the message that carried through the songs was so strong I didn't say anything. The songs turned out to be perfect for this Sunday and the congregation really grabbed hold of the songs.

Floodgate

I love this song as an opener to our service. It's a cry out to God that we're in the desert longing for His rain to come and fall on us.

I Will Sing of My Redeemer

This is the version from Selah & Barlow Girl. 4 verses of solid theology about what our savior did for us.

Hallelujah What a Savior

Hallelujah what a Savior, I owe everything to Him

Hallelujah what a Savior, Hallelujah to my King!

Completely Done

This song was new for us, its another one from Sovereign Grace off of their Sons and Daughters CD. What a great truth to sing:

The old is gone, the new has come

What you complete is completely done

We're heirs with Christ, the victory won

what you complete is completely done

Mighty to Save

Always a Favorite

Offertory: Come Ye Sinners

We did the version from Indelible Grace.

After the sermon we had communion and we played Jesus Paid it All and This is Love.

Sunday Setlist: Sept 13th

2009-09-13T21:38:00.002-04:00

As always this is part of the Sunday setlist over at Fred McKinnons blog. Check it to see other worship leaders setlists.

We did things a little differently this Sunday as far as the order of service. We did an opening song then went straight into the preaching and had the majority of our singing time at the end of the service. It felt a bit odd because it wasn't what we were used to, but because of the message of the service Tim and I both agreed that this would be the best for this Sunday. And was it ever a great service! It was such a filling service, just to be so aware of the presence of God and to sing and declare the truths of these songs. Mmm Mmm good!

Our Walk in Song was Days of Elijah, which is always a favorite.

From there we went straight into our offering and sang the hymn Are You Washed in the Blood. Unfortunately none of knew the song well enough apparently and it was a bit of a struggle. Either we started it too slow or the song is slower then I thought it was because it felt like it was dragging.

After the sermon our set list was as followed:

My Savior, My God

This song went great with the message about keeping the cross and the gospel at the center of our focus. I wasn't sure if we were going to do this song or not, but when we practiced it before church I had such a good feeling about it that I knew we had to. And it was a great song to start off with.

Nothing But the Blood

The Wonder of the Cross

This was a new song for our church. I had thought about doing it a while back, and we had even practiced it but had never done it before. But after talking with Tim this week I knew that this needed to be sang. I'm not sure how often we'll use it, its a great song but I'm not sure how congregational it is - I guess anyone from Cannon can give me some feedback on that. But the chorus was exactly what we wanted to emphasize this morning.

May I never lose the wonder, the wonder of the cross.

The cross is not simply the starting point for the Christian faith, but it is all we have to cling to. We must daily be reminded of our need for a Savior and live with the cross as our focus.

All I Have is Christ

I could sing this song every Sunday. I absolutely love it! You don't get much better then this as far as what we should be singing. I'll have to put it on the shelf for a little while - I've done it a lot lately - but this is one that I will always be quick to use. And the church really grabs hold of it as well.

Be the Center

From here we played through a couple of different songs as we went into our ministry time. The front of the church was full of people responding to the message.

Lessons From a Hard Day of Biking

2009-09-12T17:53:00.003-04:00

This morning I rode with Dad in the Amish Country Bike Tour. This is the second time we've riden this ride, the last time we did it was 2 years ago. It's a really nice ride through beautiful country. There's different rides that you can do, but we've always chosen the 62 mile loop. Most of you know that last year I rode cross country with a couple of my friends. We would usually ride at least 70-80 miles in a day, sometimes topping 100 miles and once riding 167 in a single day. We rode over the Blue Mountain Range in New York, the Alleghany and Appalachians in Pennsylvania, the Rockies of the Midwest and the Cascades of the west coast. And when it wasn't mountains it was a strong headwind through much of the flats of the midwest. This was only a year ago. So 62 miles through flat Delaware on a relatively windy day should be no problem right?

The problem is since returning from our bike tour last year I've maybe ridden 100 miles. I was doing pretty good for the first 40 miles, maybe a little sore but nothing too bad. But when we got back on the bike after the second stop (which was an amish school house with some incredible pies!) my legs began to tighten up on me. I would ride for about a minute and suddenly my quads would begin to tighten up to the point where I could hardly move. So I'd try to stretch while still on the bike and then they'd loosen for a couple minutes before they would tighten up again. At that point I was riding with Dad and a friend from work and his wife, and they slowly begin to get further and further ahead of me.

"How in the world did I ride cross country and now can't even keep up on 62 mile ride? This is embarassing" was all I could think. It's amazing how quickly I got out of shape. I mean, I rode 5,000 miles in 3 months 12 months ago, and I've already lost it! And then I begin to think about something I had shared with our youth group after I showed them the Joshua Harris video I posted on here. Josh asked the question, why does Proverbs 3:7 say turn from evil? Why not just be far from evil? And his response, which he showed with a great skit, was that even if we are far from evil, if we are not turned from evil and fleeing it, it's amazing how quickly we can be underneath it's power. Many times we think that we can put it into coast with the Christian life, we're saved, we go to church, live morally, but we're not really actively moving closer to God. We're not pursuing Him. The problem is, you can't simply stand still, if you are not moving closer to God, if you are not seeking after Him, then you will soon find yourself ensnared by sin. Psalm 1 says

"Blessed is the man who walks not in the cousel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers."

And verse 2 was what struck me, this is how we avoid those things:

"but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night."

To simply not do evil is not good enough, because if our focus is on not doing evil then we will slowly start to slip closer and closer to it. But we must submerge ourselves in the pursuit of God and the study of His Word. Just like me with biking, unless we continually discipline ourselves to read the Word and to pray, we will quickly get out of shape. It's so easy to get caught up in life, work, family, friends, church, etc. Even to get caught up in doing good things. And quickly we begin to realize, I'm not hearing God anymore. I'm struggling with things I didn't use to struggle with. We gotta stay focused! Stay in shape, keep pursuing God and filling yourself with His Word.

Social Media Revolution

2009-09-10T17:50:00.004-04:00

This is fascinating? What do you think? Does this scare you, excite you? Should the church shy away from this or should we be exploring more ways to use social media to spread the Gospel? (If you're viewing this via facebook click "view original source")

Live From Artists Den: The Swell Season

2009-09-09T12:49:00.002-04:00

Josh Harris Is Eaten by a Beanbag

2009-09-06T21:33:00.000-04:00

Sunday Setlist: Sept 6th

2009-09-06T13:25:00.002-04:00

It was just one of those Sundays. It felt like there was a spirit of heavyness over the congregation. Hardly anyone sang or looked like they were very engaged. We did one brand new song and one that we had only done once, but usually thats not a problem. I think alot of people had a rough week and were carrying that with them. Whatever the reason was, it was a rough Sunday. Musically I felt like we were together and not a distraction, and I felt like I wasn't distracted in my focus, just felt like we didn't usher people into God's presence.

Our Setlist:

He Reigns

Greater Than We Can Imagine

The Fathers Love

In Christ Alone

How Deep the Fathers Love

Offertory:Come Thou Fount

As always, this is part of the blog carnival over at Fred McKinnons site. Check it out to see what other churches are singing.

The Shack: A Review

2009-09-05T11:24:00.002-04:00

I read The Shack probably about a year ago. I walked away from it with mixed feelings. I understood why many people loved it, but for those same reasons I was somewhat concerned because of some of the inaccuracies that it portrayed of the Trinity. I know it was not meant to be a theological doctrine book (I even used that argument myself to defend it) but I was still uncomfortable with it. This morning I read a review that JT at Between Two Worlds posted from Trevin Wax on The Shack and really appreciated his perspective. Whats your take on his review, agree? Disagree? Did you like The Shack if so why? If you didn't, why not?

When you deal with non-fictional characters, you inevitably open yourself up to criticism.

Let’s say you meet an author who wants to use your grandparents as the main characters in a novel. The author tells you that the narrative will be fictional, but that your grandparents will have the starring roles. Sounds great! you think.

But when the manuscript arrives in your hands, you discover that the story does not accurately represent the personalities of your grandparents. The relationship between them is all wrong too. Grandma berates Grandpa. Early on, they run off and elope (which is totally out of character). At one point, they contemplate divorce.

When you complain, the author responds, “Remember? I told you it would be fictional.”

“Yes,” you say, somewhat exasperated, “I knew the story would be fictional, but I thought you would get my grandparents right. The grandparents in your story aren’t anything like my grandparents.”

“Who cares?” the author responds. “It’s a work of fiction.”

“Well, I care,” you say, “because people will put down this book thinking that my grandparents were like the way you portrayed them.”

My biggest problem with The Shack is its portrayal of God. I understand that the book is a work of fiction, not a theological treatise, and therefore should be treated as fiction. But the main characters are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are actual Persons. To portray God in a manner inconsistent with his revelation to us in Scripture (and primarily in Jesus) is to misrepresent living Persons.

When people put down The Shack, they will not have a better understanding of the Trinity (despite the glowing blurbs on the back cover). They will probably have a more distorted view of God in three Persons.

Bob Kauflin on Singing Together

2009-09-04T22:20:00.002-04:00

I stole this from Doug over at the lifetogether blog. I believe this is from a sermon I was listening to the other day that Bob gave at the Desiring God 08 conference.

Bob Kauflin:

How many of our thoughts about music and worship revolve around what we like, what we prefer, what interests us, and what we find appealing? And how often is that attitude passed on to the next generation, who then focus on what appeals to them?

I suspect this may be one of the reasons churches develop separate meetings for different musical tastes. In the short run it may bring more people to your church. But in the long run it keeps us stuck in the mindset that musical styles have more power to divide us than the gospel has to unite us. (my emphasis)
How do we pass on biblical values of worship to coming generations when we can’t even sing in the same room with them?
We have to look beyond our own generation, both past and future, if we’re to clearly understand what God wants us to do now. Otherwise we can be guilty of a chronological narcissism that always views our generation as the most important one. As Winston Churchill insightfully wrote, “The further back you can look, the further forward you can see.”
Enough thinking about ourselves and what kind of music we like to use to worship God. God wants us to have an eye on our children, our grandchildren, and even our great grandchildren. We have a message to proclaim: “God is good, for His steadfast love endures forever.”
Let’s not allow shortsightedness or selfish preferences keep us from proclaiming it together.

Don Miller Interview

2009-09-02T14:44:00.002-04:00

All You Donald Miller fans out there might like these, I at least found them interesting. Michael Hyatt of Thomas Nelson Publishers interview Don about his upcoming book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years."

August 30th Setlist

2009-09-01T09:20:00.003-04:00

We had another incredible Sunday at Cannon. God blew me away because I was extremely anxious about how this Sunday would go. Most of my leaders musically were gone this weekend so I knew that I would have to fill a larger role, even to the point of singing, which had me extremely anxious. So when people came up after the service and said how moved they were by our worship time (by that I interpret them saying, the singing part of our corporate worship service) I could only give thanks and credit to God moving through us.

Here's our setlist:

Lion of Judah

This is still one of my favorite songs. The words are so good and there is something powerful about how the melody goes with what you are singing at the chorus.

Call to Worship: Milton Vincent Quote

You can read the quote in one of my previous posts. Whenever I hear or think about this quote it inspires me to a deeper level of worship and gratitude.

Because of Your Love

This song followed up perfectly with the quote.

Jesus Messiah

I Stand Amazed

This week verse 3 really struck me:

"When with the ransomed in glory His face I at last shall see

'Twill be my joy through the ages to sing of His love for me"

After just singing Jesus Messiah and hearing what Christ has done for us and to think of one day looking on the face of the one who has redeemed us... Incredible. And I think that really hit a lot of hearts this Sunday.

All I Have is Christ

I could sing this song every Sunday. It's the gospel:

vs 1: I once was lost going my own way, living the life that I wanted and thought I was doing pretty good.

vs 2: But as I was going my own way, You led me to the cross, and there I beheld God's love displayed and now all I know is grace.

Chorus: Hallelujah! All I have is Christ

vs 3: I'm all yours, use my ransomed life to bring You glory.

We ended All I Have is Christ and went right into the 1st verse of Amazing Grace and sang that through a couple of times.

I Will Sing of My Redeemer

We did this song for the offertory which was really cool, we had Matt and Vincent Borders play and sing it together so it was sort of like special music, yet the congregation knew the song, and it's a really good song, so it felt like it was a continuation of our corporate worship set.

I've been doing my best in the past several weeks to pound (and I mean that in the nicest sense possible) the gospel into our congregation. I want that to be at the forefront of our minds at all times, and especially as we come together to sing praises to our God. And I don't want it to simply be a head knowledge, but I want us to really get it. To really get it that we were lost, that we deserve death and wrath, that we are the worst of sinners and were in desperate need of a Savior. No matter how polished we are. No matter if we grew up in a nice Christian family that always went to church. No matter how clean our past is, we deserve death. But God... He came, He redeemed and sealed us. When we really get that, I mean really get it... wow are we going to worship!

Milton Vincent - A Gospel Primer

2009-08-27T11:09:00.002-04:00

This year a WorshipGod09 Pat Sczebel read a quote from Milton Vincents A Gospel Primer during a worship set that he lead and ever since I've been trying to find that quote. I finally found it today and wanted to share it with everyone. As Pat read this it compelled me to an even deeper level of worship and realization of how great God and His love for me is and just how sinful and in need of His mercy I am. I can't wait to get my hands on this book, and though I haven't read it yet, I would highly recommend it based on all the reviews I've read.

"The gospel reminds me first that what I actually deserve from God is a full cup churning with the torments of His wrath. This is the cup that wold be mine to drink if I were given what I deserve each day. With this understanding in mind, I see that to be handed a completely empty cup from God would be cause enough for infinite gratitude. If there were merely the tiniest drop of blessing contained in that otherwise empty cup, I should be blown away by the unbelievable kindness of God toward me. That God in fact, has given me a cup that is full of "every spiritual blessings in Christ," and this without the slightest admixture of wrath, leaves me truly dumbfounded with inexpressible joy. As for my specific earthly circumstances of plenty or want, I can see them always as infinite improvements on the hell I deserve"

Caedmon's Call - Let Me Be

2009-08-25T11:21:00.002-04:00

I have loved Caedmon's ever since Judson got me listening to them at Toccoa. Musically they are excellent and enjoy their style, but the real reason I appreciate them is their lyrics. They are quality lyrics. They don't sacrifice anything for the sake of appeasing. Alot of that is because their frontman is Derek Webb and if you've ever listened to Derek speak or heard any of his solo stuff you know that the reason he sings is to get a message across. I remember first listening to them and thinking "these guys are very Reformed in their theology", then taking a step back and realizing "I can tell where their theological stance is from their songs, thats rare!" But at the same time, it doesn't feel like they are trying to force a view on anyone, it simply comes out in everything they do. And they also don't try to force every single one of their songs to have some deeply Christian meaning. Some of them are simply fun songs. All that to say, I've appreciated Caedmon's for the past couple years.

The song "Let Me Be" just came across my Itunes and I was profoundly struck by the words. It's a song I'm sure I've heard before, but just haven't really listened to. Unfortunately I couldn't find a youtube video or anything like that for it, but I posted the lyrics for it below. It's off of the "In The Company of Angels Vol 2" album.

Let Me Be

Caedmons Call

Lord, You are the maker of my heart
The framer and reshaper of my soul
Master and Creator
Healer and Sustainer
I will put my trust in You alone

Teach me to be faithful to confess
In this way my spirit will be blessed
Though my sins are daily,
You have loved me greatly
Removing them as far as East from West

Let me be open
Let me be humble
Let me find the joy of my salvation in Your cross
Let me be broken
Whenever I stumble
Let me remember the great mercy of my God

Give me the full measure of Your grace
As it is reflected in the Word
Faith and reassurance
Mercy and endurance
Carry these to those who haven’t heard

All I have needed is laid at your table
All my achievements, I lay at your feet
Alive in your spirit, I’m willing and able
You make my joy complete

Sunday Setlist: August 23rd

2009-08-23T21:51:00.002-04:00

Alrighty, time to get back in the habit of doing this! Life's been so hectic this summer and I haven't had much of chance to blog our setlist, or more to the point, keep up with others setlists. To check out a bunch of other setlists from around the globe go to Fred McKinnons site.

This Sunday was the first opportunity I had to lead worship at our church since getting back from WorshipGod09. So I've had 2 weeks of planning, praying and anticipating this Sunday. And we also started having mid-week practices, so ever since Thursdays practice the excitements been building. In reading over the lyrics to this weeks lineup I told my wife that what we were really doing was presenting the gospel in the songs we were singing. How incredible to be singing the Gospel to each other? Thats one thing I took away from WorshipGod, not only are we singing our praises to God, but we are also hearing the words sang over us by those in the congregation. And hearing those words compells us even deeper into an attitude of praise and worship. So I was really excited heading into Sunday morning.

1. We started out with Hosanna by Paul Baloche. This is one of my favorite opening songs. Its a song full of praise and the music matches the attitude of what we are singing so well. Plus its just a fun song to play. The church was into the singing from the start and Pastor Tim decided to just keep things going and move all the announcements and offering to the end of our singing time.

As a call to worship I read Ephesians 2:1-9 not only did it reflect many of the songs we were doing but it was a great invitation to worship. It's basically the gospel: We were dead in our sins, going our own way, no better then the rest of the world.. But God... who is rich in mercy, while we were still dead in our sins made us alive in Christ.

2. The Fathers Love

This is a new song by Sovereign Grace that we learned at WorshipGod09. It went perfectly with Eph 2

How wonderful the Fathers Love, the Fathers Love for us.

That He would send His only Son to come and rescue us

He has saved us, called us blameless, guides us now and will sustain us

Oh how wonderful the Fathers love.

We sang through a verse the chorus and bridge with nothing but voices and acoustic guitar to teach the song and then went back and sang through the whole song, which really worked well. When we came back into the first verse the congregation really sang out. After the song we read some short scriptures that were focused on Christ coming to redeem us and went back and sang the chorus with just a piano and vocals.

3. I Will Boast

This song musically didn't go as well as I wanted, for some reason we could never quite get on the same page. But it wasn't at all distracting and the message of the song connected with the Scriptures we had been reading.

4. His Name is Jesus (All Hail the Power)

This was another new song. Really it was just a chorus added to the traditional hymn. The way that Sovereign Grace does it the verses have a little different rhythm then the hymn, but in order to not cause a distraction for our congregation we decided to keep the rhythm as close to normal as possible. I love this hymn anyways but the chorus really brings it home:

His name is Jesus, Risen Lamb for sinners slain

His name is Jesus, all creation sings the praise

of Jesus' name.

5. All I Have is Christ

This song was the climax of our lineup. I've been singing this song for the past 3 weeks and couldn't wait to introduce it. It went really well. I sorta watched peoples expression as we sang through the 1st verse and I could tell that they were really hitting home. To read the lyrics and hear the song check out my last post.

6. Give Me Jesus

We stayed in an attitude of listening and waiting for awhile with All I Have is Christ and sang one of the verses again and made sure not to rush into the next song as if we were merely going through an order of service. This song fit that mindset perfectly because it's one of those songs that more people worship by listening rather then singing along. We had people up at the altar during this song and their was such a spirit of freedom and hunger for more of God. It was incredible. My wife, Kaylene, does an excellent job with this song (even though she claims she doesn't) and it's always one that ministers to me.

Give me Jesus, Give me Jesus

You can have all this world

Just give me Jesus.

The team really did an excellent job of not only being worship leaders but being lead worshippers. I really felt like this was a breakthrough Sunday not only for our church but for our team. And it was so much fun to bask in the presence of God and feel the joy of being His child. Can't wait for next Sunday!

WorshipGod09

2009-08-21T17:57:00.003-04:00

Life has been so incredibly busy in the past month with going different places and changes in my position at work that I haven't had anytime to blog or post anything. And even though this is almost a month late I wanted to post something about the worship conference some of our team at Cannon went to. You can find out all about WorshipGod at their website and even find links to seminars from this year - and past years - speakers. I would highly recommend the two by John Piper, they were amazing and so encouraging as a worship leader. The conference was put on by Sovereign Grace Ministries. If you haven't heard of them before don't worry, I hadn't either until a coworker went to it last year. Sovereign Grace is an incredible ministry organization. In the past year I havegleaned so much from them, whether it be from their music or listening to sermons and seminars or reading Bob Kauflins book, Worship Matters. But this conference topped it all. I can't imagine a conference for worship teams being done better. It was so extremely helpful both with practical things as well as giving us theological teachings behind what we do. And it was also just so encouraging. There was something about being in a room of 1600+ people who are interested in and going through some of the same things we were. And the times of worship were incredible. There was no worrying about what the person beside you thought of the way you were expressing your worship or whether the song style was appropriate or anything like that.

The songs that they sang at the conference were what I really appreciated and took home with me. Alot of them were songs we didn't know because Sovereign Grace has their own music label and own musicians who write most of their stuff. But these songs were solid songs. The lyrics we sang those 4 days were incredible! And I can't wait to start using them at church. I just found a video of the song that was probably my favorite from the week. Its called "All I Have is Christ" and the words are incredible. The verses are rich and move from us being lost and going our own way to God calling us to Himself and then to opening ourselves up to be used by God. The chorus is simple, yet powerful. And ever since the conference I've been singing it. We're actually doing it this Sunday so for those of you at Cannon check out the video so you can be ready to sing from the start. I posted the lyrics to the song and then a video that was taken from another one of Sovereign Grace's conferences called Next. Enjoy!

I once was lost in darkest night
Yet thought I knew the way.
The sin that promised joy and life
Had led me to the grave.
I had no hope that You would own
A rebel to Your will.
And if You had not loved me first
I would refuse You still.

But as I ran my hell-bound race
Indifferent to the cost
You looked upon my helpless state
And led me to the cross.
And I beheld God’s love displayed
You suffered in my place
You bore the wrath reserved for me
Now all I know is grace.

Hallelujah! All I have is Christ
Hallelujah! Jesus is my life

Now, Lord, I would be Yours alone
And live so all might see
The strength to follow Your commands
Could never come from me.
Oh Father, use my ransomed life
In any way You choose.
And let my song forever be
My only boast is You.

© 2008 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI), by Jordan Kauflin

All I Have Is Christ from Sovereign Grace Ministries on Vimeo.

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

2009-07-22T11:40:00.003-04:00

I just got through listening to a sermon from Rob Bell at Mars Hill Bible Church on Matthew 18:21-35 and the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. As I heard the text read (and they actually did a dramatic reading of it which was nice) and listened as Rob pointed out different aspects of the story I had one of those "aha" moments. It was a story I've known since as long as I can remember, yet it struck me differently this time around.

Just a quick recap. The parable is of a servant who owes the king an obscene amount of money. An amount that he would never be able to repay. The servant begs the for more time to pay and the king has mercy on the servant and completely erases the debt. The servant is free. No prison, no debt, free. As the servant was leaving the king he sees one of his fellow servants who owes him money. He grabs him by the neck and yells at him to give him the money that he owes him. The king gets news of this, calls for the servant whose debt had been completely erased and turns him over to the jailers to be tortured.

A couple things about the story: First off the amounts that were owed. The The servant who owed the king owed him 10,000 talents. Since we don't function in talents lets put it in a number we can understand. 1 denarii = a day's wage. 1 talent = 6,000 denari. So 10,000 talents would be equal to 60,000,000 days of work. So about 164,383.5 years! Basically, there was no way this guy was ever going to come close to paying the king off. The Jewish audience hearing this parable would have been blown away by this number, it was extrme to make a point. So what about the other debt in the story: 100 denarii. If you look at that number alone thats still alot of money, 100 days wages. Take away what just happened with the king and I'd want that money too. But compared with the 10,000 talents, 100 denarii isn't much money at all.

But the big thing that stuck out as I listened to Rob was just that fact. The servant had just left the king. Just left after being forgiven of such an enormous debt. And he immediately forgot. He immediately got caught up in his own world. And then he saw someone who owed him. Someone who had money that was rightfully his. And he forgot. He forgot. How quickly do I forget. How quickly do I get caught up in my own world. Get caught up in my world of my rights and getting what I deserve and having people treat me the way I want to be treated and elevating myself up above others. How quickly am I consumed with me.

And here's the deal. The king took away what the servant owed. What was rightfully his. Because what was rightfully his was prison, for the rest of his life. There was no way the servant would ever pay that amount back. But the king threw out the book. But not the servant. He brought his book out and started keeping tabs of his rights. So what happened. The king held him to his rights. You want to play by the rules (i.e. law)? Then fine, you hold them to the law, I hold you to the law. You see here's the deal with us, we like that when it comes to us and God we don't get what we deserve. But when it comes to us and those around us, well then we'd rather keep track of things a little better. But you can't have it both ways. We've got to remember what we have been forgiven of and allow that impact the way we live. How could that servant have left the kings presence unchanged? Well you look at my life sometimes and I could ask myself the same thing.

Lately I've been listening to a lot of ancient hymns via Indelible Grace . Many of them are hymns that I have never heard of before. And many of them focus on a similar theme. Grace. As I've listened to these hymns they've reminded me how important it is to keep that at the center of our thinking. To wake up everyday and realize that we are saved not because have loved and chosen Christ, but because he first loved and chose us. Here are the lyrics to a couple of those hymns that have really impacted my thinking the past few months.

Father Long Before Creation

verse 1

Father, long before creation
Thou hadst chosen us in love,
And that love so deep, so moving,
Draws us close to Christ above.
Still it keeps us, still it keeps us.
Firmly fixed in Christ alone.

verse 3

God's compassion is my story,
Is my boasting all the day;
Mercy free and never failing
Moves my will, directs my way.
God so loved us, God so loved us
That His only Son He gave.

Free Grace

Chorus: Free grace has paid for all my sin
Free grace, though it cost so much to Him
Free grace has freed even my will
Free grace to the end sustains me still

3. It's not for good deeds,
good tempers nor frames
From grace it proceeds,
and all is the Lamb's
No goodness, no fitness
expects He from us
This I can well witness,
for none could be worse
(Repeat chorus)

Bridge: Sick sinner, expect no
balm but Christ's blood
Your own works reject,
the bad and the good
None ever regret it that on Him rely
Though guilty as Saul or Jonah or I

July 12th Setlist

2009-07-12T20:33:00.003-04:00

Today was a bit of a different Sunday. Last week the youth went on a missions/discipleship trip to Columbus. It was through RMM and it was something called city challenge. Kaylene and I had the privilage of going along as sponsers and had a blast. Not only was it great hanging out with the youth, but it was such a stretching and growing experience. So this Sunday was basically the youth telling the congregation about what they had experienced. So I decided to use the youth for our worship time as well and had them form somewhat of a mini-choir. It was awesome! And something I'll probably do again. I think the congregation really enjoyed it as well. Our lineup was made up of either songs we had learned or sang throughout the week, or songs that reflected what God had been doing in our hearts. I was really concerned that we wouldn't have enough practice time with learning two new songs and adding some different elements. But amazingly it worked out perfect. It was just one of those Sundays that are fun (seems like every Sunday should be that way huh?).

You Are Holy (Prince of Peace)- Pretty obvious why this was a good song for our group, put the choir to good use. It had been awhile since we had done it so it was good to dust it off for this Sunday.

From the Inside Out- This was a new song for our congregation, but one we had learned at City Challenge. For the first time doing it it went really well, not sure yet if it will be a regular for our congregation yet or not. But it was great for this morning.

He Reigns- An oldy but a goody. The church always loves this one. We tied the chorus to Our God Reigns on at the end of it and that was incredible. We started out with just my piano and Kaylene singing and kept building. Then once everything was full we cut to just the voices. It was powerful!

Holy God - This is another new song from last week. I didn't think we nailed it like we did in practice but it was still incredible. This is a Brian Doerksen song if you're trying to figure out which Holy God. Started out with just my piano and the choir singing the chorus and kept building just singing that simple chorus: "Holy, Holy, Holy God." It was awesome! Definitely a new favorite of mine. I'll put a youtube video of it on the end of this post in case no ones heard it.

Majesty- We knocked this one down a couple keys to make it easier for the choir to hit, and so we could transition easily from Holy God. Started out real empty at the chorus and then came in with our typical intro. I thought this one went really well too. Seems like the last couple times we've done it it has had that "overdone" feel to it but not this morning. The words really hit home for me. Just the idea that we have absolutely nothing to offer God, yet He laid down His life for us. Incredible, could say so much more but I'll get back to the setlist.

Still - Did not nail this one like I wanted to. Basically kept it pretty mild and never got a good build to it.

My Beloved- Another new favorite both of mine and Matt's and the congregations I think.

It was such a fun Sunday, it just felt like everybody on the worship team really enjoyed it. It was great having the choir up there, gave Matt much more freedom to ad-lib some stuff and not simply stick to the melody. Just a good good time.

As always, check out other worship leaders blogs at Fred McKinnons site.

C.S. Lewis on Forgiveness

2009-07-07T08:47:00.003-04:00

"Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have someone to forgive."

- C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity

Crazy Organist!

2009-06-30T10:04:00.001-04:00

Thoughts from ROOTS

2009-06-30T07:02:00.002-04:00

My wife and I have been watching the ROOTS series the past week or so and its really been causing me to think quite a bit. For those of you who don't know what ROOTS is, it is a show that follows the lineage of an African- American from the present time all the way back to his great-great-(add a couple more)-grandfather being captured and brought over on a slave trip. We've only watched two episodes so far, the first being about his capture and trip on the slave trip and the second showing him bought as a slave and being brought into submission on the farm. It's been a hard 2 episodes to watch. The hardest part was the way these slave traders and owners were self-proclaimed Christians. They were constantly talking about being Christian, although you got the feeling that they were Christian because they were American. But there was a scene last night that really bothered me. One of the slaves had tried to run, but been quickly captured. And they show the slave owner sitting in his study reading the Scriptures as the "chief slave" pleads on behalf of the runaway. The owner will hear nothing of it. And they show the owner sitting there reading his Bible as you hear the sound of the whip cracking over the runaways back followed by horrifying screams.

How does this happen?

Towards the beginning of the movie they show a sea captain who is on his first voyage of a slave trip, and you see the suprise and how bothered he gets when he finds out that his ship will be hauling slaves. And they contrast that with these other men who have become calloused to the fact and see absolutely no problem with it. Both groups tout Scripture as backing their beliefs.

If you've read my blog before you know how critical I am of the mixture of Patriotism and Christianity in our country. This is why. This is why I'm slow to say our nation was founded on Christian principles. If you begin to associate any nation with Christianity, you have to include all of this junk. I'm not saying that all of our history was like this, but if you begin to call your nation a Christian nation you quickly begin to talk like the slave owners and act like the slave owners. I'm telling you the way these guys talked about how unintelligent the slaves were and how superior the white man was, mixed right in with talk of the Scripture absolutely disgusted me.

But not only did it disgust me, it made me begin to question myself. What am I missing? What is going on outside my window as I have my nose in Scripture that is contradictory to what I'm reading and proclaiming. How have we as 21st century Christians who also happen to live in America lost sight of what the Scriptures are saying?

NPR on Gov. Sanford

2009-06-29T10:12:00.002-04:00

I haven't followed this story at all and don't know the details. Somehow, despite all my blog reading I missed this the day the story came out and caught wind of it a couple days later. However, as I was listening to my Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me podcast (an NPR game show of sorts) I found this quote by the host quite telling:

“Governor Sanford of South Carolina joins the growing army of social conservatives who decided to get a jump on destroying their own marriage before same-sex couples could do it for them.”

Peter Sagel NPR Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me

There's many things I could say, but I don't have time right now to think them through. But this is an excellent point. And a reason why I don't think the church should spend time trying to legislate morality. Not that I'm comparing Sanford to the church, but the way to bring about a revival of Christian morals in our country is not by making laws. We try that and all they have to do is point to the statistics within the church that show how prevalent abortion and divorce and such are within our walls. Our focus should be on purifying ourselves and allowing the image of Christ to flow out of us and effect the world. If not, we're just going to have people making jokes like this about us.

Sunday Setlist-June 28th

2009-06-29T07:28:00.005-04:00

Happy Monday everybody!

Yesterday was a great, busy Sunday in the Yoder household. Left the house at 8 am, came home for an hour nap around 3 pm and then it was back to church until around 9pm. Now mixed in there was some tim spent with extended family that was in town for the weekend, so it wasn't all church related, but it made for a long day. A good day, but long.

The mornings set, was much more low-key then I had planned. Much to the disappointment of my drummer, but sometimes thats just how it goes.

Beautiful One - Probably shouldn't have done this one at this point of the service. A little bit different then the normal walk-in song, but it went well either way. There's certain songs I always associate with certain leaders/singers, and this is definitely a Matt song.

Nothing But the Blood- This was the traditional hymn, not the Redman version, but we did it really upbeat with instruments. Started out with heavy toms on the drums and gave it a nice rythmic feel.

Mighty to Save- Wish I would have done a different song at this point, one a little more upbeat, but everyone seemed to sing out really well and got involved with the song. I read Psalm 95 before singing this and really brought a focus to the chorus of this song.

In Christ Alone- Got the feeling that this song might have run its course at our church, might need to put it on the back shelf for a little while. Though someone came up to me afterwards and mentioned how much they like the song, so maybe not.

My Beloved- This was a song we had worked on a couple months ago but didn't get to use it in the service. So we had been looking for a chance to use it. This song is a bonus track that is on Tomlins "Hello Love" album, but I think it's only on the itunes version of the album. Its really basic, but the words and the movement of ideas through the song is incredible. I wasn't sure if it would be a song that people would really be able to sing along with, but I think it might actually catch on. The only problem is the melody range, it has a wide one, but I think that most of the guys can just drop an octave. Either way I thought this song went excellent for the first time doing it.

My Jesus I Love Thee- Done as a traditional hymn, except with instruments.

I Surrender All- We did this as our altar/ministry song. Should have worked more on it practice, felt like we were all just kind of following each other.

I seemed to mess up more then the usual amount this morning. I don't know whether I was distracted more then normal or what was going on. But about halfway through I was able to get it together musically and focus more on actually worshipping. My Beloved was kind of the center song for me, I love how it starts out with simply the statement. "My Beloved mine, I his" then moves to what my Beloved has done for me: "his precious blood was spilled," "he raised my life up from the dead." Then you get to the best part: "When my eyes shall see his face," and there at His throne we will declare "Mighty God, Faithful One. My Beloved, My Beloved. You're the Lamb of God, You're the holy One, My Beloved, My Beloved, my Beloved." I love that. I love songs that focus on what Christ has done for us and then we declare what it will be like to worship at His feet in heaven. So many hymns do that. There last verse is about heaven. I think we need more modern worship songs that do that.

Last evening we had another service of worship and prayer. I really love those. They're usually laid back and very comfortable to lead worship in. It's easier to feel like I'm simply there as one of the worshippers. We always want to have that attitude, but sometimes it's more difficult to do that on Sunday mornings. It was a great Sunday!

Check out Fred McKinnon's site for more worship leaders set lists!

Jon Stewart & Mike Huckabee on Abortion

2009-06-26T20:18:00.003-04:00

I'm really starting to like Jon Stewartand The Daily Show. By that I mean I don't agree with all of his stances, but I appreciate his ability to facilitate a good conversation with the other side. And Huckabee was excellent with the way he carried himself and argued the pro-life perspective. It was really good to hear Stewart, someone who is in the Hollywood spotlight, to come out and say that this is a tough issue. These types of discussions are what actually help us to begin to make some headway as opposed to one side blasting their point of view on their talk show and the other side doing the same on theirs. Like a previous post, this is conversations is divided into 3 parts, its the full version as opposed the edited TV version. Each part is only about 5 minutes long so it won't take much time. For some reason I can't embed the videos on my blog so you'll have to click on the links and go to The Daily Show's site

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Dan Kimball on the Emerging Church

2009-06-26T15:34:00.003-04:00

I've been doing more then my usual amount of blog reading today. By that I mean I'm actually reading more blogs rather then reading the titles and moving on like normal. I came across this one by Dan Kimball and thought that it connected with my previous post well. Especially some of the comments.

His Love Can Never Fail

2009-06-26T14:37:00.003-04:00

Apparently I am blog-happy today.

I've been listening to Indelible Grace almost non-stop for the past week or two. Listening to those kind of lyrics all day long will really have an effect on you. I was creating a CD to give to one of my worship leaders with some songs we might do at church in the near future and the words to this one really stuck out to me. This is a hymn written by E.S. Hall in 1897 and its words still ring true today.

His Love Can Never Fail

1. I do not ask to see the way
My feet will have to tread;
But only that my soul may feed
Upon the living Bread.
'Tis better far that I should walk
By faith close to His side;
I may not know the way I go, But oh, I know my Guide.

Refrain
His love can never fail, His love can never fail,
My soul is satisfied to know His love can never fail.
My soul is satisfied to know His love can never fail.

2. And if my feet would go astray,
They cannot, for I know
That Jesus guides my falt'ring steps,
As joyfully I go.
And tho' I may not see His face,
My faith is strong and clear,
That in each hour of sore distress
My Savior will be near.
Refrain

3. I will not fear, tho' darkness come
Abroad o'er all the land,
If I may only feel the touch
Of His own loving hand.
And tho' I tremble when I think
How weak I am, and frail,
My soul is satisfied to know
His love can never fail.

Advance 09

2009-06-26T13:24:00.002-04:00

Here's the video's from the Advance 09 conference. Speakers were Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Matt Chandler, Ed Stetzer, as well as several others.

http://theresurgence.com/advance_conference_2009

Am I Becoming Reformed?

2009-06-26T10:59:00.002-04:00

For those of you who know me well, or if you've simply followed my random bloggings over the years may have noticed a slight shift in the people a reference or the types of blog. Or maybe not, maybe I just notice it. In the past the majority of my reading came from guys like Brian McLaren, Don Miller, Rob Bell, etc. and those were also the types of prechers I would spend my day at work listening too. But lately I've noticed a shift towards a different crowd of people, especially in who I am listening too. That crowd would be Greg Boyd, John Piper and Mark Driscoll. I did not change to the exclusion of the others, I still listen to Bell, keep up with McLaren's blog, and will read anything that Don Miller puts out as soon as I can get my hands on it. And actually Miller doesn't really fit into the catagory with the other two when it comes to this issue.

I love what Rob Bell and Brian McLaren bring to the discussion when it comes to issues of faith. Bell especially has had a huge impact on my life through 3+ years of listening to his sermons every week. McLaren started me on a journey to really ask how I was going to take the religion that was handed down to me through my parents, grandparents, community, school etc, and make it my faith. And more importantly, how I was going to take it beyond doctrine and right belief (which is essential) and put it into action and right practice. I appreciated, and still do appreciate, the movement that these men are a part of. It is doing great things to cross generational lines that many others were failing to cross.

And this post is in no way a shot at them.

This shift has been brought about by several factors. Two of them are the fact that Tim begin to point me towards Driscoll and Piper and the other was trying to find a group of pastors and authors that we can both listen to and read. But another main factor is when I begin to listen to Piper and Driscoll I smelled something I had been missing; but didn't even realize I had been missing it. That was the Gospel. Now I'm not saying that the Gospel is not preached by Bell and those others, and I believe that there movement was started on a desire to return to the Gospel, or to speak the Gospel into a different group of people. But somewhere along the line it got lost in the mix. Or at least lost as the core or it all.

Piper said something the other day about the Good News of the Gospel, is not simply Good advice. We don't simply offer people a better way to live: "if you do this I think you'll find it more satisfying." We don't simply offer people a way to make the world a better place. We offer them Good News that God, the creator of the universe became flesh, became a baby. And not only did he live on this earth and show us how to live, he suffered on our behalf, took our sins upon his shoulders, became our substitute. And died. And 3 days later rose from the dead. And we, though wretched and sinful as we are, can take that atonement and cover ourselves with Christ so that we may be blameless on the Day of Judgement. No amount of good advice can beat that. It's true that Christ is our example of how to live. It's true that he calls us to be a people of peace, and it's true that if we truly get what God's kingdom is about this world will be a better place because of us. But none of that is a substitute for preaching the Good News. That must be at the center of everything. The center of every sermon that is preached. The center of every book that we write. The center of the very way we live our lives. Don't let that get lost in the mix.

And thats why I've started to lean back towards these other guys. Suddenly I find myself reading blogs that frequently use terms like Reformed Theology, Calvinism, Southern Baptist Convention, etc. It suprises me more then anyone. But I love it.

Sunday Setlist June 21st

2009-06-21T21:25:00.003-04:00

I guess I'll simply start with our lineup:

I Will Boast - Didn't nail this one quite like we wanted, but it's the walk-in song so it wasnt a big deal.

Come, Ye Sinners- If you've read my previous post you know that I've recently discovered the group Indelible Grace, and all week I've been listening to their CD's so I knew I had to do at least one of their songs this Sunday (and we actually did two). This version of the hymn is completely different from the original, at least musically. The congregation had a hard time catching on and singing along, but it was done during the offering and the words to this song are just so good that it didn't really bother me. Some songs it's good for people to just sit back and listen and let the words soak in. It's a pretty basic song and Clay really nailed it with the lead and it was just a fun song to do.

Hosanna - If there was one song from this Sunday that if I would take out if I had to do it all over again it would be this one. I knew alot of our songs were either going to be new, new renditions, or songs we hadn't in a long time, so I wanted to throw in one that the church really responds well with. The song itself went good, I think it's just time to retire the song for awhile. When we first started doing this song we majorly over did it and it's hit the burnout point.

The Solid Rock- We basically did this like the traditional hymn, we just changed the rhythm slightly to add a little "spice" to it. We started with just the djembe and the lead vocal on the first verse, then we kept building as the verses progressed. For the last verse we changed keys from D to E and ended the song with just vocals and djembe. I thought it went well and the congregation really blasted the tune out.

Jesus Paid It All- We kept Vince on the djembe so that added a little bit of a change to the song. Once we had built on the bridge we cut everything except the djembe and vocals and blasted out "O Praise the One..." I loved it! Really brought a focus to what we were singing.

Jesus, Lover of My Soul - Suprisingly, and maybe sadly, we have never done this song at our church. (This is the Hillsongs song, not the hymn). It went fairly well, we didn't do quite as much instrumentally as I'd have liked but we didn't have much time to practice so we just followed each other.

I Need Thee Every Hour- This is the other Indelible Grace song we did. Check both of the songs as well as all of Indelible Grace's stuff here. This is an awesome rendition of the classic hymn, and Sonya knocked it out of the park. It was a fitting ministry song to go with the rest of our lineup.

During the prayer at our altar time Bruce mentioned that the theme of our worship seemed to be that Christ alone is the Rock on which we stand, that He alone is what we need and He alone can satisfy. It's funny, because that wasn't necessarily the reasoning behind picking these songs, these were just the songs that had been on my heart this week. I think alot of the reason is because most of this week I've been listening to alot of hymns via Indelible Grace and Sojourn Music. And as I've listened I've been trying to read the lyrics to allow the words to sink in. And I don't know if you've noticed or not, but a lot of hymns really hit home the fact that we bring absolutely nothing to the table, that Christ alone is all we can cling too. And that has really been on my mind this week. It's often easy to forget that, especially those of us who grew up in church and never really had our "wild days." Greg Boyd said something the other day that made me think though, he was talking about viewing ourselves through the cross and he said something along the lines of "you can tell how devastating the disease is by the intensity of the cure." And as you look to the cross and realize that that was what was needed to cure my disease, you begin to realize just how lost you really are. So this week has been a reminder of that for me, and it naturally came out in the songs we did.

The team was great this morning, as always, but most importantly they were flexible and easy to work with. I threw a lot of new stuff at them, but they handled my stretching them with grace and really grasped what I was trying to do. Another great Sunday at Cannon, can't wait til the next one!

To check out other worship leaders blogs and setlists check out the blog carnival going on at Fred McKinnons site.

Indelible Grace Music

2009-06-18T09:26:00.002-04:00

If you love the depth and rich truths of the hymns and also love the folksy, indie type music of Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken (compare to The Weepies, Sufjan Stevens, Wilco) and similar artists then you need to check out Indelible Grace Music. I don't think that this is a new group but I just recently discovered it through NoiseTrade (which is a great resource). On their homepage they put this as a description of themselves: "Our hope is to help the church recover the tradition of putting old hymns to new music for each generation, and to enrich our worship with a huge view of God and His indelible grace. This site is designed to nurture this movement by offering resources and a place to interact with others about hymns and worship."

As a worship leader I've always struggled with knowing how to handle the hymns/"contemporary worship" debate. For one thing, I hate the terms and the implications that go with them. I love the hymns, and that love has grown even stronger recently. The depth of their words, the poetry that is found in them, the way they cause you to think about what you are singing. But I've always struggled knowing how to use them. To insert them as an acapella piece in the middle of your set seems to interrupt the flow of the set, at least in my point of view. And if you try to do an acapella hymn every Sunday it causes it to feel like it is a token hymn that you have to do and you need to do it the beginning which limits the types of hymns you do. It's also hard to introduce new hymns, by new I mean ones that the congregation, or at least a majority of the congregation, might not know. Teaching with nothing but vocals can be difficult and awkward. Plus I am a musician, I don't sing (at least into a mic), so when I am leading I am doing it through the means of my piano. And I have so many great musicians on my team I want to use their gifts to lead in worship. So I've always had this dilemma of how to incorporate hymns into our Sunday morning sets. So when I found this group I was estatic! Not that all of these arrangements lend themselves to a coorporate setting, some might be better suited as an offeratory, but it at least gives me ideas on how to put some of these songs to music. Plus I love listening to these albums, so it puts these hymns into my memory so I can pull them out as I'm thinking towards Sundays.

Finally, one of the best parts of this is that they have a free online songbook where you can get the chord sheets, lead sheets and even find out the history of some of the hymns. Check it out! Whether you are a worship leader looking for some new material, a lover of hymns who is looking for a new rendition, or even simply a music lover who always has their eyes searching for new material, this is some great stuff!

Sunday Setlist-June 14th

2009-06-15T09:57:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was one of those Sundays where I didn't feel a strong leading towards any particular theme or song. Perhaps that was because the week was so busy- working 7-5 everyday then our church had vacation bible school and I had to lead the singing for the kids every night. But sometimes I think, for me at least, planning out a worship set becomes way to cerebral and I put so much effort into having "just the right songs." Some sundays as I'm starting my planning process I just feel like we just need to have fun. Come before God in worship and enjoy it, and thats enough of a theme. So that's kind of what this Sunday was, though once I picked 1-2 of the songs I still built the rest of the songs around those. Here's our lineup:

Rock of Ages - Opening song. A song I always love to play, great to use as an opening song while people are coming into the sanctuary.

Rising (Baloche & Redman) - A new one for our church. People didn't pick up on it quite as much as I was hoping but I think it will catch on once we play it a couple times.

Your Name

Everlasting God

Blessed Be Your Name

It is Well

You are Still Holy

There were a couple spots that we didn't do things quite the way we practiced but no one but us noticed. I really enjoyed bringing back some newer old ones that we haven't done in awhile. It's always refreshing to do ones that the congregation blasts away on.

As always check out other worship leaders blogs at Fred McKinnon's blog.

John Piper on Finding Meaning In Your Life

2009-06-11T10:07:00.003-04:00

I thought that this video related well to the Don Miller book, at least the part of the Don Miller book that stuck out to me. How do we make our life meaningful. Of course the questions that are wrestled with in Miller's book are still relevant, however I think when you look at them through the light that Piper puts on them you get a better understandinng of how to tackle them. I also thought the video they put with the sermon clip was really cool.

Keeping With the Don Miller Theme...

2009-06-10T16:22:00.003-04:00

Don Miller just posted to his blog a response to an article that was written in The Weekly Standard about him. You can read his response here and if you really want to you can read The Weekly Standard article here. But after reading Millers blog I think you'll realize there's not much point in reading it. First off, this is just fun reading for all of those who appreciate Miller's writing style and particularly his humor. But I also really appreciated the way that he handled the criticism. In speaking of criticism in the past Don said "Some of the comments were mean. But I know they weren't talking about me. They were talking about somebody they thought was me." Thats an easy thing to say, but much more difficult to actually carry out. Throughout this blog I was impressed with Don's response to the criticism that he encountered. I know that if I read something that someone published about me that was not only totally biased against me but also full of inaccurate statements I would immediately want to lash back. Anyway, you can read the article for yourself and post what you think.

By the way, if you are reading this through facebook I don't think that the links, pictures or videos show up. Click on the link that says something about going to the original source and it will take you to my blog and you can see the full post there.

A Million Miles In a Thousand Years

2009-06-09T23:19:00.004-04:00

I just got done reading the first three chapters of Don Miller's upcoming book A Millio Miles In a Thousand Years and was reminded again just how much I love Don Miller's writing style. I realize that he's not always right on with his theology, and perhaps sometimes he's unapologetically honest about his past, and perhaps some Christians think he does some things that they don't think Christians should do and they're upset that he puts it into writing. But I find that refreshing. And so often I can relate to the issues that he's wrestling with. And that fact proves true again with this book, at least in the three chapters that are available online to read. Take the Author's note at the beginning of the book:

"If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you probably wouldn't cry at the end of the movie when he drove off the lot testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn't tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on and sit in a chair to think about what you'd seen. The truth is you wouldn't even remember that movie a week later... Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who got a Volvo.

But we spend years living those kinds of stories and expect life to feel meaningful. Maybe that's why we go to so many movies, because our real lives don't feel meaningful anymore."

And then later on he tells of a conversation he had with his friend Barak:

"Barak said he hopes a casting director will hire him for what he calls 'the right part,' a character he can play that will make him feel like he's not really acting. He said when he's playing the right role he comes alive."

I think we can all relate to Barak's feelings. I know that I at least I can. So many of us spend the majority of our time finding that right job, the right girl/guy, the right location, the right you-name-it that will fulfill us and then all will be right in the world. That seems to be a constant irritation of mine lately especially.

If you like Don Miller I don't think that you'll be disappointed with his upcoming release. Make sure and check out the first three chapters here.