I love the preaching of John Piper. He exposes things in the Word of God that shatter my perceptions of what this life should look like. Once again, his sermon on The Samaritan Woman has exposed sin in my life that I need to deal with. Thank God for His grace.

We’re all in some way like the Samaritan woman, running from place to place looking for something to satisfy our souls.

//R.O.O.//

Tonight I drove out beside the lake with my fiancee. It was just another normal Tuesday evening, talking about random things such as houses and how we want to live our lives as a couple.

As we approached the lake I was struck by how amazing the scenery was – this coming from a guy that doesn’t really get struck in that way. The sun was setting with the Toronto skyline in the background, and the whispy clouds were scattered across the orange-red-yellowish sky. Once again, the truth of our existence stunned me – we are on earth for a very, very short time, and as much as us humans like to think of ourselves as special, we walk by the wonder of God time after time after time, failing to stop and give glory to the mighty maker of all things.

Take a minute and stand in awe of the God who made us, and just as easily could have chosen not to.

Psalm 103 – “Know that the Lord, He is God! It is He who made us, and we are his…”

Matt Chandler is an amazing preacher from the Village Church in Texas. A couple of great clips from him…

Francis Chan preached this sermon a couple of years ago, and it was honestly very convicting. It was a great blessing and is worth sharing.

Enjoy.

R.O.O.

Great blog post by Tim Challies over on his website.

I think the “got to” vs. “get to” mindset most often holds Christians back in prayer and reading the Bible more than any other thing. What we naturally revert to is the “got to” frame of mind, which we need to constantly draw away from in the light of the grace of God and the love of God.

Mark Driscoll actually spoke a little about this on his first sermon in the Pray Like Jesus series. You can find it over on the Mars Hill Church website.

R.O.O.

…that phrase often comes out of my mouth (and I suppose anyone and everyone that likes music) as soon as the beat drops and you recognize the start of a song. A guitar riff, a drum beat, an opening line…and you’re all excited at the prospect of listening, waiting for your favourite line, singing along…whatever rocks your boat.

It’s interesting that in our music-saturated world, the same attitude we have towards songs on the radio can be the same attitude we have towards songs of corporate worship we sing in church. You’ve done it before – you get a new CD, put it on repeat for 2.5 weeks, then don’t want to see it or hear of it for 12 months. After a year, you listen to the CD again and fall back in love with the music. I do it all the time, although I usually last about 4-6 months with the stuff on repeat…which is just not good for anybody.  

We’re blessed to have some amazing song-writers and great songs in the church. I currently attend a church renowned for its corporate worship songs. The people who lead worship on an average Sunday service here literally sell out stadiums around the world, with thousands paying just for the experience of seeing these guys play music (well, it’s not JUST playing music, but the point is people pay to see them). Anyway, the music is great, and the songs are just churned out year after year.

So a few days ago, a chap I know commented about how he was “so over” a certain song we sing at church, pretty much because he’s heard and sung a lot over the past years. It got me thinking whether it should be possible for that to happen with a corporate worship song. I think it’s fair to assume that most people would go ahead and just say, “Of course, if you play a song every week, people will eventually get tired of it…that’s common sense. We need to make sure the music coming from the stage is always fresh (and yes, I got the memo in Psalms about singing a new song to the Lord).”

Well, I see at least 2 problems with that sort of statement.

Firstly, the assumption is that the primary weight of the song comes through in the musical characteristics (melody, beat, etc). That’s to say, as soon as you recognise the song, what starts to stand out over time is the musical landscape and structure.

Secondly, the statement assumes that you make the ultimate decision as to the timeliness and usefulness of the song (i.e. when you recognise the song, and that thought comes, “YES! I love this song!”….OR….”Oh man, not THIS song, we’ve sung this thing the past 3 weeks straight! Why aren’t we singing [insert favourite song name here]…..” – you know what I’m saying…the thought has occured to all of us).

First, I think to assume that the weight of a corporate worship song lies in the musical make-up is erroneous. This pretty clear because we don’t just stand around and listen to instrumentals during corporate singing time – we need to sing words. The weight lies in the words. There is a power in what the words communicate. The music supports the words. I’m no worship leader, but that’s my opinion. This isn’t to say you can’t play instrumentals to the glory of God…I’m just not sure you can play in that fashion for a whole corporate worship time. With this in mind, the resulting view we should have of a song should ask questions like, “What is this song saying? What do the words communicate? Are the words true?”.

When it comes to our own feelings about certain songs, the timeliness and usefulness issues (at the root of it) can sometimes highlight the consumer nature of corporate worship. When the first thing we think about is our feelings when it comes to worship, there’s something wrong. CJ Mahaney points to this error in his book, ‘Christ Our Mediator – Finding Passion at the Cross’. While in this passage he’s primarily talking about Scripture, the same applies to music. He says:

“Our common tendency is to habitually begin with the internal, the subjective, the experiential, then use those feelings and impressions to determine what we’ll accept a being objective fact. We let our feelings tell us what is true, instead of letting the truth transform our feelings.”

How true - it’s so often about how we feel instead of what the song says, the truth it speaks that should transform what we feel, bring out our affections for Christ and what He has done for us.

So next time I hear a song I’ve heard over and over, I’m going to try focus on the glorious words first of all. I’m convinced the truth they speak will transform my feelings.

R.O.O.

Charlie is just too funny.

R.O.O.

Matt Chandler gave a great message back in 2006 at the Resurgence conference titled, ‘The Weight of Pastoring and the Knowlege of Christ’. I’ve listened it a few times, and even though its directed primarily towards pastors it has great benefit to anyone willing to listen.

Here is a link to the video on the Resurgence website. There’s a heap of great resource on that website as well, so take time to browse whether you’re a pastor, the average Christian around the block, or even a non-Christian.

R.O.O.

For some reason the clip wasn’t showing up on the post when I tried to put it up before, but it can be found here.

Great lyrics and message.

R.O.O.

If you’re into writers such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the like, it’d be worth checking out a Christian perspective of what they promote (and in case you didn’t know, they promote atheism).

Al Mohler’s book – ‘Atheism Remix’ – looks to be a gem, going by Don Carson’s little review. Mohler has an ability to communicate very clearly, and from the stuff I’ve read that’s been written by him it’s obvious that he’s not an ignorant, tunnel-vision kinda Christian.

Looking forward to reading it, as well as Tim Challies’ review of it.

R.O.O.