The August edition of Ron Man‘s Worship Notes is now available. These are valuable resources and I’m appreciative of Ron’s continual efforts to put these out each month. Take a look.
Impacting the Kingdom through Worship,
August Worship Notes Available
July 31, 2007 By Leave a Comment
Be Careful What You Pray For
July 30, 2007 By 1 Comment
It’s a no-brainer to think that when we ask God for something, we really want Him to respond with an affirmative answer. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be praying for it, would we? One example from Israel’s history shows us that we should be careful what we ask for–because God just might give it to us.
Israel Demands a King
In 1 Samuel 8, Israel was looking around at all the surrounding nations and noticing that they all had kings. But Israel didn’t have a king. Of course the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, so Israel’s elders gathered together and approached Samuel. They told Samuel he was getting old and that his sons were not the sharpest tools in the shed. “Give us a king to judge us.”
Samuel was probably surprised when God said to him, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.” But God did allow Samuel to warn Israel about the ramifications of their request. Samuel tried to convince the elders that they really didn’t want a king; he exhausted an entire laundry list of why a king would be bad for Israel. Israel responded, “No! But there shall be a king over us.”
Don’t Tell Me I Don’t Know What I Want!
My family and I live in a relatively new subdivision on the outskirts of our city. The city is about to begin construction on a park complex complete with softball fields, soccer fields, tennis courts, and swimming pools. With the construction of these types of amenities comes field lighting. Of course that is a concern for the homeowners in our neighborhood. Who wants bright lights shining into their bedroom or living room at ten o’clock at night? The homeowners were successful in their bid to limit the height of the lighting poles to sixty feet. This would allow the unsightly fixtures to be hidden behind trees and kept out of the residential areas as much as possible.
A few weeks ago, however, the developers appealed that zoning restriction with all sorts of technical data stating that at the lower height the lights would have to be aimed more horizontally than if they were higher. This lower height, they argued, would produce the opposite effect of the homeowners’ desires. If they were allowed to raise the lights to eighty feet, they could be aimed in a more downward manner and spillage could be controlled much more effectively. One of the lines in the appeal kind of rubbed me the wrong way. They said, “Those making the request do not realize the affect and would not want the results they would achieve.” They were probably right in their technical argument, but I was offended by their assertion that my neighbors and I didn’t really want what we were asking for. The whole thing struck me as a bit odd.
I’ll bet Israel felt much the same way when Samuel gave them all the reasons not to have a king.
God Gives Israel a King
Despite Samuel’s warnings, Israel demanded a king. And God agreed to give them one. Chapters 9 through 11 in 1 Samuel detail how Saul was sought out and crowned. In chapter 12, Samuel stood before Israel to give his farewell address. He relied on his good standing with the Israelites to deliver a much needed rebuke. He recounted the many times God delivered Israel from danger and still Israel demanded a king when the Lord was their king. Samuel obviously made a convincing argument because Israel begged him to pray to God that He wouldn’t destroy them.
The next part of this story is the crux. Samuel had previously warned Israel that they would cry out because of the king they had chosen for themselves and that the Lord would not answer their cry (1 Samuel 8:18). But Samuel was wrong! Rather than ignore Israel’s cry, the Lord did “not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it pleased the Lord to make [Israel] a people for himself” (1 Samuel 12:22).
When You Pray
When you pray, do you pray in such a way that you’re asking for a blessing without even thinking about how that might deter you or someone else from fully seeing God’s glory? Or do you pray in such a way that, although you might have your human desires, your ultimate goal is that God’s will be done? God was faithful not to destroy Israel for their lack of faith because it fit His purposes to do so. But that doesn’t give us license to expect anything and everything we want from Him. When we make requests of God, His glory–not our own benefit–should be at the forefront of our requests.
Impacting the Kingdom through Worship,
Pray for the South Korean Hostages
July 27, 2007 By Leave a Comment
UPDATE: (07/31/2007): Thanks to Scot McKnight for pointing out that Eugene Cho is blogging through this situation. And, yes, his concern that, “Seriously, does anyone care?” is a sad reality.
UPDATE (07/30/2007): According to news sources, a second hostage has been killed.
I’ve seen absolutely nothing about this on any of the theological blogs I keep an eye on (maybe I missed it, but I don’t think so). Michelle Malkin, a political analyst, has been providing pretty much the only coverage I’ve seen.
To summarize, a group of twenty-three South Korean Christians was kidnapped several days ago by members of Afghanistan’s Taliban. One of the hostages, a pastor, has been killed and the fate of the other twenty-two is unknown. Several deadlines have passed, the latest of which was at 3:30am Eastern time this morning (Friday, July 27, 2007).
Pray for the hostages’ witness and safety as they await freedom. Either way, freedom is coming their way, and so we pray God’s sovereign will be done.
Impacting the Kingdom through Worship,
Worship God for What He Has Done
July 25, 2007 By Leave a Comment
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been “returning to the basics” with our choir at the church I have served for nearly five years and have been covering some fundamentals of worship leading from a spiritual standpoint (we cover the practical standpoints every week but often forget about the deeper foundation). This is the third in that series.
Worship God for What He Has Done
I’ve been studying worship passages1 from the beginning of the Bible this year and one thing has become increasingly clear: worship in the Bible is many times a response to something God has done2. In Genesis 8:20, “Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” Why? Because God had spared Noah and his family and had delivered them through the earth’s flood. In Genesis 12, Abram built an altar to God as a result of God’s promise to give the land of Canaan to Abram’s offspring. David offers worship many times throughout the psalms as a result of God’s saving him from His enemies.
Is there something you can point to and say, “That was undoubtedly God’s activity in my life”? Is there something you can worship God for because you know He’s delivered you from hard times? God is an active God. He is not passive in the sense that He is devolved from participating in our lives.
As worship leaders, we need to be able to recognize God’s activity in our lives so that we can offer appropriate worship to Him and so we can lead others to do the same. Of course, I’m not necessarily talking about rejoicing because God let your favorite sports team beat their archrivals. And I’m not usually one to attribute finding a parking place close by to God’s activity. Maybe it is; maybe it isn’t. But no doubt each of us can look back on events in our lives and know that without God’s activity, things might have turned out much differently.
Worship God for Who He is and for what He has done.
Impacting the Kingdom through Worship,
Pastore: al Qaeda Supports the Emerging Church
July 24, 2007 By Leave a Comment
I went back and forth trying to decide whether or not to address this article. I almost mentioned it yesterday’s post A Couple of Important Links, and then decided that if I were to say anything it would warrant its own post.
I’ve mentioned here before that while not everything about the emerging church is helpful, one of the faults many of its critics have is their tendency to “throw the baby out with the bathwater.” In other words, because some things within the movement are bad, we should reject everything outright (or so they say).
Pastore Definitely Not Pastoral
Tom Ascol registers his concern with a recent article by California-based talk show host Frank Pastore. And Justin Taylor rightly categorizes the article as an embarrassment.
I call the article shameful and irresponsible and its premise absurd. Pastore has most (if not all) of his facts dead wrong and shows his complete lack of understanding of the emerging movement. It seems as though he is more interested in jumping on a bandwagon than he is showing wisdom and deference to brothers and sisters-in-Christ.
He Doesn’t Speak for All Christians
I am not a part of the emerging church or the more quasi-official emergent movement. But I’m familiar enough with it and have done enough of my own research to know that Pastore is simply doing more harm to the Kingdom than he believes he is doing good. There is room for criticism within the emerging movement (as there is with all movements/denominations) but there is much good with it, too. Pastore has done little more than give non-Christians another reason to marginalize believers as weirdos and nut cases.
This article is as wrong and ridiculous and hurtful and unhelpful as Dr. Ergun Caner’s statement that “Calvinists are worse than Muslims” (scroll to the bottom of the page, third from the last question). Certainly Pastore is allowed to hold his own beliefs. Unfortunately, he holds the Kingdom hostage with ideas like the one he espouses in his article.
UPDATE: The Internet Monk shares his insight into Pastore’s article as well. It’s the first segment in the podcast (which you can listen directly on the site–no need to download anything), so if you’re not up to listening to the whole thing–although you really should–you don’t have to guess when it’s coming.
Impacting the Kingdom through Worship,
Ed Stetzer Takes Up Blogging
July 24, 2007 By Leave a Comment
Well, actually, he’s kicking his blogging efforts into gear. He’s been quasi-blogging at a couple of places around the net but not too frequently. The JollyBlogger, David Wayne, mentioned yesterday that Dr. Stetzer was going to start blogging and I thought that was a peculiar statement because he technically already was blogging. And then today SBCOutpost provides a link to the new blog.
I think Dr. Stetzer is a major asset to the Southern Baptist Convention. And I’m glad he’ll be offering his insights regularly now. You can read his blog at EdStetzer.com.
Impacting the Kingdom through Worship,
A Couple of Important Links
July 23, 2007 By 1 Comment
I’ve been on a few days’ vacation with my family and a slight change in plans brings us back early. I’ll catch up on the rest of my vacation time later. Here are a few links I thought were worthy of passing along to you.
» Abraham Piper offers wisdom in regards to Better Blog Reading (HT: Justin Taylor)
» Worship.com posts a long article by Scott Wesley Brown entitled “Worship this side of Heaven: the call for ‘Unified Worship’” (follows a similar subject line as my article “Worship Services and the Generational Divide“)
» Adrian Warnock asks if he’s being greedy to “want it all.” (A must read!) (HT: Joe Thorn)
Impacting the Kingdom through Worship,
Why Would God Want to Hear You Sing?
July 18, 2007 By 3 Comments
Over the next few weeks, I will be “returning to the basics” with our choir at the church I have served for nearly five years and will cover some fundamentals of worship leading from a spiritual standpoint (we cover the practical standpoints every week but often forget about the deeper foundation). This is the devotional thought I will share with our choir this evening. I wrote this article, but in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, the underlying idea of why God would want to hear us sing to Him came from Mickey Henderson, Minister of Music at the First Baptist Church of North Spartanburg.
Why Would God Want to Hear You Sing?
How we live our lives outside the walls of the church building is vital to our roles as worship leaders. Jesus told the woman at the well in John 4 that worship was not confined to a time or place. In other words, worship is an all-of-life event. We worship in our work and we worship in our play. In other words, we don’t go to church to worship; we are the Church at worship.
God has given countless people the gift of singing. Beverly Sills, Ella Fitzgerald, Luciano Povorotti, Willie Nelson (well, maybe not). You could add your favorite singer to this list. God gave these people the gift of song. He gave you the gift of song. As you examine your life and your fitness to lead His people in His worship, ask yourself this question: Out of all the extraordinarily gifted singers He ever created, why would He want to hear me sing?
God wants to hear you sing to Him when you are in a right relationship with Him. You may or may not be as talented or as trained as the singers mentioned earlier, but when you have an ongoing fellowship with God, He wants to hear you sing to Him.
Are you living your life in such a way that God would want to hear you sing to Him? What does He hear when you sing to Him? Does hear beautiful music? Is it a sweet, sweet sound in His ear? Or does He hear noise and static?
Impacting the Kingdom through Worship,
Worship Services and the Generational Divide
July 17, 2007 By 9 Comments
Greg Brewton, Associate Professor of Church Music at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has an article up dealing with multi-generational worship services. The crux of Dr. Brewton’s argument is that “offering different music styles in different services is not healthy for the church.” Although I have never addressed this issue at IsaiahSix, I’m on record in other contexts as agreeing with Dr. Brewton’s stance. “Dividing the church along generational lines is sinful,” I would say. And in theory I still believe that; but haven’t we been doing just that for decades in other ways?
An Aha! Moment
A couple of years ago I attended a leadership seminar led by Reggie McNeal, who was at that time a church leadership development specialist with the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Reggie is now with the Leadership Network. In that conference, Reggie offered insight that I had never processed before and it brought new light to the stance I had long held. In one of the sessions Reggie said, “In the past we have learned in generationally segregated small groups (e.g., Sunday school classes) and we have worshiped in generationally connected groups. In the future, the exact opposite will happen.”
I was struck by this statement because it made me realize my stance on generationally-divided worship services was inconsistent with the practice of the vast majority of churches. I had been arguing that dividing the church along generational lines for worship was sinful when, all along, we had been dividing the church along generational lines for Sunday school or small groups for decades. Either way, in at least one or more aspects, we were dividing the church along generational lines. And if this is true that we will learn multi-generationally and worship generationally separated, then I can’t really stand on my argument that we’re dividing the church; my argument becomes a straw man.
Reggie went on to ask a question that I don’t believe serves the argument well, but I knew where he was going. “When you ate dinner last night, how much of your meal did you expect to edify you? Three percent? Ten percent? No. You expected pretty much the entire meal to edify you. Otherwise you wouldn’t have paid for it.” The consumerist-minded flaw within this question aside (and I know Reggie would not argue from a consumerist mindset), I think we can make a similar analogy that fits worship more aptly. When we approach worship, how much do we expect to give? Three percent? Ten percent? No. We are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength. And aspects within a worship service that more naturally fit one generation remove to a lesser or greater degree the opportunity for other generations to offer themselves fully.
Multilingual Congregations
I have often used in my teaching the idea of “musical language.” Musical language is largely determined by the cultural factors within a church. For example, a small country church may have a predominately Southern Gospel musical language. A church plant in downtown New York City may have a decidedly edgy musical language. A new church work in the plains of Africa will have an altogether different musical language than either of the first two.1
I lead worship at a church where we blend the musical styles. A two hundred year old hymn may very well be combined with a two year old (or younger) hymn or worship song. The criteria for selecting music in our worship services isn’t based on age of the material but on its content. We do our best to create a “multilingual” congregation. And for the most part, I believe it has worked for us. The “worship wars” in our church were fought by my predecessor and by his predecessor, and for that I’m grateful. But we still get complaints about the music from both ends of the generational spectrum. These complaints are largely based on preference but they highlight the differences between the generations. Which brings me back to Reggie’s statement.
Reggie’s argument is based on the fact that the gap between the oldest and youngest generations is wider than ever before. We have more distinct generational groups alive and active now than at any other time in history. And creating a “blended” worship gathering where all these various generations will be able to offer something of themselves in a meaningful way is simply not possible. According to Reggie, “The blended worship service had a useful lifespan of about three years.” I think that statement is a bit of hyperbole, but I’m still not convinced he’s wrong in general.
If we’re going to divide the congregation along generational lines, how and under what contexts should we do it? According to many, today’s younger generations are the first in a long time that enjoy being around–indeed want to be around–older generations. Setting up multi-generational learning and service opportunities seems to me to be the most logical way to take advantage of that because that’s where the real interaction and growth happens. And perhaps that would open up the possibility of creating worship gatherings where the participants have the ability to speak their own “language” more fluently.
Finally . . .
There are definitely some questions to be answered either way. For example, if you do offer separate worship opportunities, at what point to do you stop? If there are six different generations in your church, are you going to offer six different types of worship services? Or are you just going to drill down as much as possible to maybe two or three services and folks within those services will have to be multilingual–to a lesser degree than in a full multi-generational service, but multilingual nonetheless?
I’m really just thinking out loud here. I haven’t come to any conclusions. On the one hand, I have a longstanding belief that worship gatherings divided along generational lines are more harmful than helpful. On the other hand, I read and learn from respected leaders that perhaps the opposite is true and I’m perplexed. Although comment traffic on this blog is low to non-existent (I know you guys are out there, I see the traffic stats), I invite you to dialog with me on this issue.
Impacting the Kingdom through Worship,
- These are meant to be examples, not stereotypes. [back]
Tonight was one of those rare occasions . . .
July 15, 2007 By Leave a Comment
. . . in worship leading ministry when the congregational music set was as solid as you could ever pray for. It was one of those after which you almost expected the pastor to say we could go home. Here’s the set:
»And Can It Be
»How Deep the Father’s Love For Us
»My Savior’s Love (I Stand Amazed in the Presence)
I’m not trying to pat myself on the back and I’m not trying to pump up our musicians. This was completely a Spirit-led time of worship. In fact, we could try the very same set next week and it might end up a complete flop. But tonight, tonight it was something special. It was one of those times that make me truly appreciative that God called me to be a worship leader.
Impacting the Kingdom through Worship,