Archive for the ‘Worship’ Category:
How Ironic
This Red vs Blue clip emphasizes how sometimes we use words that carry different meanings to different people. When we discuss heavy topics, we are often doing so with some very loaded terms. What are some terms that you have frequently seen misunderstood?
Dead Man Walking
For Holy Week, my church put on four worship services to illustrate the story of Jesus’ last week on earth. The Wednesday night service was organized by the pastor and church plant leadership team we are preparing for in St. Louis city (Mike and I are on that team). The pastor and the worship leader are incredibly artistic men, and instead of the usual worship-preaching-worship model of service, they crafted several short videos that were interspersed with music played by the “Soul Expedition Band.”
The evening’s theme was “The Sweat of a Son,” telling the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying before he underwent torture and crucifixion. To communicate the stark intensity of this struggle, the video showed some blunt video imagery. Clips from the movie “Dead Man Walking (the scene where Sean Penn’s character is executed by lethal injection) were inserted to help contextualize Jesus’ impending execution. The following short video utilized clips from “The Passion,” with frequent flashes of the previous video, to connect and contextualize Jesus’ prayer in the garden with the struggle of knowing he would be executed.
Now, I explained all this because we’ve received some interesting responses after this worship service. One response in particular was noteworthy. Read more »
The State of Worship, Part 2: Purpose and Motivation
The first part of this post was (honestly) mostly a rant, but it outlined some of the problem from my perspective. I make no claims that it is THE perspective to view this debate from, only that it could be a common one. Having been a guitarist for six years, which is longer than I’ve been a Christian (and thus listening to Christian music), I bring a “less-churched,” if not an “un-churched,” perspective to the table.
Worship is ANYTHING that we do that fulfills God’s purpose for us and thus glorifies Him. This can be anything from working in your garden and rearing children with your spouse (Genesis 1:28) to writing and playing sweet guitar riffs (Psalm 33:3). If we do these things with God-given motivation and purpose, then we are worshipping Him indeed!
A fair number of Christians, particularly those in the American Evangelical Christian “sub-culture,” seem to have abandoned or compromised the very motivations and purposes that define worship, with respect to music. Read more »
The State of Worship, Part 1: Linkin Park in… Church?!?!
I am a rocker. I love most music, but some good rock (everything from classic to alternative and hard rock) just hits my soul. I think it is because of my affinity for the versatility and focus of guitars in the genre (I’ve been playing for almost a decade now), as well as its in-your-face percussive nature.
I was doing some reading this morning while listening to Linkin Park’s newest album, Minutes to Midnight. If you are not a Linkin Park fan, they popularized the rap-rock fusion (pioneered by bands like Beastie Boys and Aerosmith with Run DMC) called “nu-metal” and paved the way for a lot of the more rhythmic emphases in alternative rock. I would consider their earlier albums pretty good on their own, but they weren’t necessarily products of mature musicians. In my opinion, Minutes to Midnight moved Linkin Park from a “pretty good band” to bon-a-fide artists.
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