Honoring Christ In Human Rights-Day 6
Fasting & Feasting Pt. 1 The original mandate given to Adam by God, was to multiply, cultivate the world, and produce. Unfortunately, our world today is driven by consumption. We consume food, drink, programs, services, and most of all, people. The church, though it should be a glowing example of production and human flourishing, often turns into the same program-riddled machine that eats and wears people out as...
Honoring Christ In Toil And Suffering- Day 2
Over at MakeJesusCulture.com we had Latiphah Alattis talk about songwriting, but in the midst of it she grew very honest about her father’s funeral. Her father died young, all things considered, and she was a younger woman when it happened. As a Christian songwriter, the despair really sang pretty deep into her melancholy spirit and festered there. Meanwhile, the parishioners and fellow citizens all passed her by ignorant of the...
Honoring Christ In Toil And Suffering- Day 1
At MakeJesusCulture.com we had several speakers talk on toil and suffering in their work. One of them was Harrison Hollingsworth, the New York City ballet conductor and bassoonist who leads worshippers at Redeemer Presbyterian Downtown. His main talk revolved around how meaningless our toil is without relationships – particularly relationship with the father of heavenly lights. And this of course applies to all made things, whether...
Honoring Christ In Our Singing-Day 6
TARGET IN SINGING We’ve considered our singing through the use of these words; total, text and tone, and now we must add one more perspective to the list—our target. Target with 1 – 2 – 3 Mike Cosper in his book Rhythms of Grace offers some helpful insight to our conversation here in what he calls “1-2-3 Worship.” He says that our singing should have three audiences or targets: God, each other, and...
Honoring Christ In Our Singing-Day 5
TONE IN SINGING Recently, I found myself philosophizing with friends over the state of singing in the church[jm1] . We talked about how the church has grown too “happy;” wherein we pop songs like worship pills and it seems to stink of inauthentic denial. Jesus, in his perfect, fully God, fully man state, here on earth, experienced the full tones of human emotion. He wept, he laughed and he got angry and tired[jm2], etc. He...
Honoring Christ In Our Singing-Day 4
TEXT IN SINGING | Pt. 2 Continuing from Day 3, one more thing emerges for our consideration in our songs. If we think back to the words of Colossians 3:16, our singing is actually supposed to “teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, through singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” Dave Yauk in The Tempo of Discipleship: The Rudiments and Rhythms to Shaping Followers of Christ helps us devise some quick learning...
Honoring Christ In Our Singing-Day 3
TEXT IN SINGING I hope we can all agree that songs are as important as the sermons from our teachers in telling the total story line of God. Our songs are important in total scope in how they develop a broader mentality, but this also does not negate the fact that songs are also important in textual specifics. Those who write lyrics, or share them with others, are responsible for the words they put...
Honoring Christ In Our Singing-Day 2
TOTAL SINGING One of my Professors in college once said that most Christians are struggling deeply with their faith because they believe in a “canon within a Canon.” He shared this when talking about the 66-book Canon (or standard) of Scripture. What he meant is that most people cherry-pick verses from the Scriptures in whatever manner they like, and assemble the truths (apart from their context) into beautiful worldview bokeh...