This morning I read a thought-provoking blog by Daniel Darling called “Don’t Let Non-Christians Write Your Liturgy.” The core message of the article is that we should be careful how far we go in attempting to make our worship services attractive and accessible to non-believers. There are certainly important steps we can take in this area, for instance: Making everyone feel welcome … Read More
Seems like there’s blogger out there with a reason for everything in worship these days 10 Reasons to Do This. 11 Reasons to Do the Exact Opposite. 12 Reasons Why the First Two Guys Were Dead Wrong. Most of the time these types of posts are helpful. They can help us think outside our context and consider a new point … Read More
I grew up in church on a steady diet of children’s musicals. My favorite was Fat, Fat Jehoshaphat! I recall singing a solo as one of the priests in the aforementioned musical which, while it displayed a callous insensitivity to the morbidly obese despite the complete lack of textual evidence that poor Jehoshaphat was actually fat, also contained some killer … Read More
For the last couple weeks, Jess and I have been praying about something specific for one of our kids. Rather than explain all the details, I’ll simply say that it’s important to us, but in the grand scheme of life – not to mention the world at large – it isn’t of utmost significance. We were reflecting on our prayers … Read More
Recently Jess and I released a brand new Christmas single, Unto Us (Isaiah 9), with a text based entirely on one of the most familiar Christmas passages in scripture. You can watch the video below and download it on iTunes here: http://apple.co/1jbWccj. The song also references one of our favorite pieces of music, Handel’s Messiah. With our involvement in various … Read More
Kids have needs. Lots of needs. Constant, mind-numbing, are-you-serious, can-mommy-and-daddy-get-a-break kinds of needs. Evan, our oldest, just started kindergarten this year, and at first it was a bit of adjustment. (This adjustment may have involved a few tears, some blood-curdling screams, and gym-full of kindergarten parents thinking, “Awww, poor guy. Well, at least that’s not my kid…”) Fortunately, he adjusted … Read More
There goes Creflo Dollar again…making us all look bad! The megachurch pastor’s appeal to “friends from around the world” to help fund a $65 million Gulfstream G650 jet has made national news in recent months, and in the process has once again muddied the waters about what Christians truly believe about generosity. Painting with their (typical) broad brush, a recent … Read More
Dear Friends Who Play Coldplay Songs in Church Services, What in God’s name are you doing? Okay, intentionally inflammatory opening sentence aside, I mean that without a trace of sarcasm: what are you doing in the name of God? Don’t get me wrong. I love Coldplay. I love U2. And I love you, too. (Although, in the interest of full … Read More
Do not succumb to false hope. There is nothing about you that would give you any reason to believe that you will be different today than you were yesterday. (Wow, that was borderline depressing. Hold on; it’s going to get worse before it gets better.) We conceive of time in a linear fashion, but in cosmological terms we have simply … Read More
About Stuff I Had to Learn: I’ve been leading worship for almost two decades now. I started out thinking I knew everything, while actually knowing very little. Now I’m painfully aware of how little I know, even though I know much more about my craft than I did seventeen years ago. Along the way there have been a host of people, … Read More
