What can you do when you’re more depressed than a sock monkey and don’t know how to dig yourself out of a sticky morass of self-doubt, self-flagellation, self-disgust and all things self- hyphenated? There’s an old hymn that goes like this:
"Count your blessings, name them one by one.
Count your blessings see what God has done.
Count your blessings. Name them one by one,
Count your many blessings see what God has done.”
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Did you ever really listen to what you sing on Sunday mornings? We get together and just sing, sing, sing, sing. We promise to follow Jesus, to do this or not do that, we ask to be sent out, we ask to be gathered in, and on and on seemingly without end. But do we really listen to what we sing? More importantly does God listen? Worse yet does He listen and hold us accountable for what we say (sing)?
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As 2012 closes, I find myself saying goodbye to the church I serve. I have been here since 2007 and have experienced ordination, had two children who were baptized here, and took part in ministry opportunities I wasn’t expecting. I walked along side this church during good times and bad, through deaths and births, through disagreements and celebrations...
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I have an 18-month-old granddaughter whose first words in the morning are generally “Eat, eat.” Yesterday, she actually climbed into her high chair, strapped herself in, pulled the tray into place and waited, not patiently, to be served. When she’s full, she starts to play with her food or she throws it on the floor. If you offer her something she doesn’t want, she looks insulted, turns her head away and shouts “No!” But if she likes what she’s eating and is still hungry, she yells, “More, more!”
Whenever she starts up the “More, more” chant, whoever’s with her takes notice and gives her more of what she wants. Why?...
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I was thinking about the story in 2nd Chron. where King Jehoshaphat was going to war with three different "countries" at the same time...It seems that the Lord spoke to him and told him to send the musicians and singers out in front of the army at the start of the battle. Scripture says he "consulted the people" before doing this. I was thinking about what the soldiers must have thought...I'm sure there was more than one who was sure that the enemy would be so tired from hacking their way through the musicians that they would be easy to defeat...
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I’m a big believer in the idea that we do, with excellence, the things we care to do. And the things we don’t care to do, we just do. To get done. To get them over with.
Like fitted sheets. I don’t fold them. I take them out of the laundry basket, hold them up, frown, fold an awkward rectangle, and give up. I then commence to roll them into a ball and stuff them in the closet. I try to tell myself that my lack of sheet-folding savvy is due to the insane level of intelligence it takes to fold a fitted sheet, and it’s just too hard.
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There’s an age-old question among worship leaders that goes like this: can you actually experience worship while you are leading a congregation in worship? I’ve answered this in various ways since becoming the music director at my church five years ago. Initially my response was, absolutely not! I have to pay attention to too many things, i.e. are the words on the screen the same as what I’m singing, am I going too fast or too slow for the team, did I just make a mistake right now? I wonder if anyone noticed? Is the team doing all right? Is the congregation yawning or are they participating?
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Here we see God: He sits up there on a cloud in his castle, eating grapes and drinking
wine. And the poor servant boys and girls hold their faces to the earth, kneeling in the dirt, pleading their cases. And God pretends to listen, waving his wand, but we know he's paying more attention to the drama of Desperate Housewives than our problems. All the while, we are poor servant boys and girls gathering to plead with God over our cancers and flat tires and broken homes. We lie down here and say, "O God, bring us a good gift of healing. Take away our pains." But we know our hearts are saying, "Come on God.You've got to have something better up your sleeve."
Like a lot of dogs, Omega is afraid of storms. Yesterday, my wife and I left for about an hour to go look at some apartments. It was thundering just a little, and it was sprinkling. In no way, would I say it was storming. But no one was home and Omega was scared from the thunder.
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For many across the world November 1st represents not only a massive sugar hangover from the night before, but also signifies a day in which we remember the lives lost in the previous year.
All Saints Day means different things to different denominations but the primary purpose is to remember the lives lost from one’s congregation or family during the year.
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Tonight, my wife and I were talking about going to church. We were reflecting on the fact that we’ve been “members” of churches in four countries. By far, our preferred church setting is one in the international context! We fit just right. It’s a lot of fun.
My favorite scripture is Revelation 7:9 which talks about worshipers around God’s throne from every nation, tribe, people and tongue. It’s a powerful image, the miniature version of which we’ve gotten to take part in over the last 11 years – and we love it! It made us reflect on the cross-cultural church dynamic in so many contexts – not to mention within the US where we’ve been “members" of a dozen churches between the two of us...
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I recently read that women run the western world.
(Pshhh, duh!)
Okay, maybe that’s giving us too much credit. But, the idea behind it, I find intriguing. The theory goes that when women are morally for or against a cultural phenomenon, that phenomenon is deemed either acceptable or taboo.
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Last year I made almost two hundred teenagers and adults participate in a retreat in a graveyard. Well, not exactly, I guess. We constructed a graveyard set and decided that it was the most appropriate way to express our worship of God over the course of the weekend.
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I was talking to a friend the other night about some of the things he's struggling with. He's going through practically the same situation I have been through, so he felt comfortable talking to me.
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Last week I made a list of the top ten things I want to make time for this coming year. Like most people, I usually do this around January 1st, but I was getting so frustrated with the way I was wasting my time, I figured it would be a good idea to start a little early.
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It was a dark and stormy night...I found myself in a church in central Michigan, with my friend Brian Graham,on the first of several ministry trips I took with him. Brian was an Evanglist (by calling and trade) from Darlington, England, who was living in Celina, and serving at the church I had just recently started to attend. As we were sitting in the church waiting for our ministry time to arrive, Brian leaned over to me and said,"when it's time I want you to come up and sing with me". I recoiled in horror!
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Here's a great way to get some prayer this week! Use the Twitter hashtag #hearourprayer at 11 am EST this Friday where Meg Augustine, Dr. Lester Ruth, and the entire Basic Worship class at Duke University will be praying. You can follow the class @prayingclass on Twitter if are interested in participating or you can just tweet using the #hearourprayer hashtag. Jump below to read the write up from Meg Augustine's blog on the topic. From www.MegAugustine.com:
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I have always enjoyed Richard Foster’s Celebration of Disciplines, to me it is a book that can constantly cause us to push ourselves deeper and deeper into relationship with God.
One of the disciplines Foster talks about is Worship. On a mission trip with my youth this past summer we used these disciplines for our time of reflection for the week, and when we got to the end of the week we struggled together on what it means for worship to be a spiritual discipline.
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