Ain’t It A Shame?
I have been really careful about worship music lately. I am a firm believer that we learn what we sing, therefore when we choose songs for a Sunday or Wednesday night service we are teaching people theology through those songs, good or bad. We have quite a few praise songs that completely contradict scripture and theology. In our fast past culture we try to make things relevant or even write words that grip our emotions and sing those words proudly and even tearfully completely unaware that they contradict scripture itself. It’s amazing. However I have recently learned that this is not a new problem at all. Look at this song from the 1956 Heavenly Highways Hymnbook which was a Stamps-Baxter Publication. This songbook was used intimately in our churches...
Children in Worship – should they be allowed?
While reading the book Christian Worship by Franklin M. Segler I came across a chapter dealing with children in worship services. If nothing else this chapter has brought to my attention a few concerns about how churches handle children in worship. There are a large number of churches that have what is called Children’s Church on Sunday mornings. More often than not this is not in addition to, but instead of the regular worship service. The children actually go to a separate room to have their own service away from the adults. I began to ask myself the question, what purpose does this actually serve? Does it have a positive or negative effect on our children? I would like to clarify that I am talking about older children, around 1st grade and up. The...
Better Is One Day
We are back from One Day, but I certainly have not recovered yet! This event like all other things had both it’s good and bad sides. 1. The praise and worship music was excellent. With Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall, Nathan and Christy Knockles, Matt Redman, Shane and Shane, David Crowder and many more. I would have to say that these are some of the best worship leaders and song writers of our time and God uses them in such a way that simply brings the people into a spirit of worship. 2. The speakers were also excellent including, Louie Giglio, Beth Moore, and John Piper. From 10:00 Monday morning to 11:00 Monday night there was non-stop praise and worship and preaching on this huge stage that was set up out in the middle of a big field. 3. Even though there...
Caught between Joy and Sorrow
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” John 14:1-4 Jesus was trying to explain to his disciples that he was going to die. He wanted them to know that he was going to the Father’s house to prepare a room for them and that they would one day be reunited and because of that he told them to not let their hearts be troubled. Jesus leaving them was a hard thing for the disciples because they, like most of the Jews in that time,...
For the Birds
I was so excited today because when I went to get gas it was $1.16 a gallon, which is the cheapest gas has been in a long time. On my way to the gas station I realized that they must be filming the new remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds, because when I looked up into the sky I saw nothing but a big dark form of birds flying around. In fact I have never seen so many birds in my life. It didn’t matter which window or mirror I looked out of in my car, you could not see the sky, all you could see was thousands of birds. And then it hit me… literally. Large white piles of bird dung came tumbling out of the sky like I had never seen before. Splat.. splat…splat…splat… splat…splat…splat, all over my front window,...