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August 2nd Update

I know many of you have been wanting a full update on what’s going on, and I am sorry that it has taken so long, but here it is.

First, I want to thank so many of you for your continued prayers and MANY demonstrations of physical and emotional support over the last month. We are so grateful.

Ok, so here’s what’s been going on:
Sarah had successful surgery to remove the tumor on July 12th. The doctor is confident that he extracted most if not all of the tumor saying, “her brain looks very clean.” Since then, she has been recovering from the procedure remarkably well, likely due to her age and healthy habits.

On July 26th, her staples were removed (44 staples total!) and we met with the radiation oncologist. It was here that we discovered that the pathology report was not as we initially thought – a meningioma (very benign tumor), but instead a oligodendroglioma (I even gave you a cellular picture!), which is, as the nurse so simply put it, “not entirely benign.” These particular tumors come in two varieties – class 2 and class 3 – and her’s is a class 2. Where class 1 went, we will never know. Class 2 means slow growing and less worrisome. In fact, if she was not experiencing other symptoms, and the tumor had been much smaller, surgery may not have been needed. Of course, this thing was causing a ruckus, so it was time to get rid of it! I would encourage you, faithful reader, not to research this tumor on the internet, there’s much scary information, and most of that won’t apply to Sarah’s situation. We await further testing on the tumor to see if it has a “typical” chromosomal abnormality that they like to test for, but won’t alter future treatments.

Since this particular tumor can grow back, it is essential to be sure that every cell has left her brain. This is where radiation comes in. Our doctor is recommending Sarah undergo a more recent development in radiation therapy called “Proton Therapy.” If you’re a researching type, you can read up on this. Simply speaking, typical radiation uses photons (like the torpedoes from the Enterprise) to blast a concentrated area of cells, hopefully killing the bad ones, but also likely damaging healthy cells as well. Proton therapy has a lot of math involved, but it’s more targeted form of radiation which stops DNA from replicating, and things that don’t replicate, die. That is the plan for this tumor: DEATH. It’s generally safer, and has less potential for, and less severe side effects. All of those are good things. We are having a slight hang up as of today (August 2nd). Proton therapy is rather expensive, and there are few hospitals that even have the machine (University Hospitals here in Cleveland is the only in Ohio as far as I can tell), so our insurance doesn’t currently agree with our doctor that this is the best plan. So, if you’re the praying type, please pray that they would be convinced otherwise in the next few days. Aside from this, our insurance company, Medical Mutual, has been great through this whole process, so don’t be mean to them on Twitter or anything.

The day following the radiation oncologist appointment, we met with the neurooncologist. Dr. Rogers was yet another in fantastic caregivers at UH.

Actually, can I take a moment to say how AMAZING all the staff at University Hospitals has been? The neurosurgeon, Dr. Bambikidis, the radiation oncologist, Dr. Kumar, Dr. Rogers, and the endless number of nurses, therapists, counselors, anesthesiologists, and office staff, have just been fantastic. I know we have great hospitals here in Cleveland, but I wanted to just say we now know just how great!

Dr. Rogers explained that following 6 weeks of radiation therapy, Sarah will begin 6 months of chemotherapy. This chemo is designed to continue the work of the radiation at a chemical level. In some ways, it will just prolong the effects of the radiation. Fortunately, she will be prescribed a drug called Temodar. This is an oral chemo that she will take prior to bedtime only 5 times per month during that 6 month period. While it’s still nasty stuff, she’s unlikely to spend the day vomiting or lose her hair like many people think of when they think of chemo. It might weaken her immune system a bit, but they will keep a close eye on her to keep her safe.

After this process is complete, they will schedule regular imaging appointments to be sure the tumor is not returning. No one has given us any information on what will happen if it were to regrow. Of course, the hope is that all of these treatments eliminate it permanently.

All in all, she’s feeling much better, and gaining strength and losing surgery pain each day. The boys came home following our appointment with Dr. Rogers on July 27th and it has been great to have them back.

Thank you all again so much for all you have done and all your prayers on our behalf. We are being cared for in ways we would never have expected.

Thanks for reading – I’ll see you here again in a few weeks.

The Whole Story

Here I will tell the whole story of what’s going on in my family’s life right now. Specifically, Sarah’s health issues. You may continue to follow this blog for future updates as they are available.

tl;dr – Sarah has a brain tumor and will need surgery very soon.

It all started Christmas Eve of 2015. Sarah had her first migraine while celebrating Christmas with our family. It was rough, but it was a singular event, and we didn’t think too much of it. I won’t go into every little detail, but I will give much of the story.

Fast forward to last summer, about 6 months later.
Sarah had an increasingly growing sensitivity to various foods, so we began treatment with a specialist (the same person treating me for Lyme) in hopes we could reduce or eliminate her fairly extreme (but not anaphylactic) reactions to many foods. Some of you may remember that we sold our house during this time and kept bouncing from home to home until we found the place we currently live. Some good friends opened their home for laundry purposes, since the place where we were staying did not have laundry facilities. The boys were playing outside with Sarah and our friend, while Sarah went inside to check the laundry and rest because she wasn’t feeling well. Eventually, our friend went in to check on Sarah and found her passed out on the ground. We now begin to more aggressively address the allergy issues because this and further episodes seemed directly tied to certain foods.

On Easter Sunday, 2017 while trying to sing for church, Sarah again was not feeling well. Instead of returning to the platform to sing the final songs, we decided to rest. Again, she was found by someone, this time passed out on the bathroom floor of the church. Thankfully, her father was visiting for Easter and he was able to take the boys home while I took Sarah to Hillcrest Hospital’s Emergency Room. They treated her for the pain and the allergies, got her stable, and released her, choosing not to do a CT scan at this time.

We went back to the allergy doctor a few weeks ago, and he was very concerned at the increasing frequency that she was having these episodes and told us to see a neurologist for further investigation. We began that process, but her appointment was not until August.

July 4, 2017
We had traveled to the north Chicago suburbs to celebrate Independence Day with my aunt, uncle, grandma, and family. Again, Sarah was not feeling well and chose to remain in bed all day while we celebrated outside. Her memory was very flaky at this point, especially short term memory, but we continued to put this off as either consumption or exposure to one of her allergies. However, it was becoming clear that her body was becoming more and more sensitive to these various things.

July 5, 2017
Down to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play the Rays. This whole day was crazy, so I’ll skip to the important parts. While returning to his seat, Sarah’s dad missed a step and fell very hard, badly scraping up his arm and landing on his knee. After the game was over, it was clear he could not walk (we needed to take the train 20 minutes south back to our hotel), so I told Sarah to ride in an ambulance with him to the ER and I would return downtown with the boys to the hotel.

Sometime after they arrived in the ER and her father was being examined, Sarah again passed out, but this time also went into a full seizure. Fortunately, she was in a hospital, not on a train. They took her to another room and began running tests. The CT scan revealed a large tumor over her left frontal lobe and they admitted her to the hospital. My aunt and uncle traveled the hour drive back downtown to stay with my now sleeping boys so I could go back to the hospital to be with Sarah. I finally arrived around 1am (July 6th). I found her in ICU and was able to speak to the nurse about her condition. The doctor in the ER had called me earlier and told me she would need surgery and would be in the hospital for about a week. There wasn’t much I could do at this point, and I needed sleep, so I took my first Uber ride at 2:30am back to the hotel.

The next day, my dad drove the 2 hours back to the city to pick up my boys and Sarah’s injured dad, while I returned to the hospital. We spoke to the neurosurgeon who better explained the situation and also gave us the option of returning home to Cleveland for surgery. However, this would still depend on the results from the MRIs scheduled for later that day.

Friday morning, the doctor returned to give us all the results. In a nutshell, he said that it is a good-sized tumor, but as far as brain tumors go, this is the least scary. Once physical therapy cleared Sarah to leave, we began the journey home. We spend Friday night at my parent’s house in Indiana. Saturday, we said goodbye to our kids, leaving them with their grandparents while Sarah is treated.

I was making many phone calls on Friday to get Sarah set up with a neurosurgeon on Monday, July 10th, but have nothing confirmed yet. We have spoken to doctors at both UH and Cleveland Clinic, and hopefully Monday morning, we will hear back from one or both hospitals with an appointment.

When we know more, I will attempt to just continue updates via my blog here. That way, I don’t have to tell the whole story 100 times.

Please pray:

  1. We would get a quick appointment and surgery scheduled here in Cleveland
  2. Fast recovery after the surgery
  3. Our boys as they are away from us during this time (and my parents!)
  4. That the removal of this tumor would drastically improve Sarah’s quality of life.

Thanks friends! We love you all, and we know we are loved as well.

Coming to the table

I. Love. Food.

There. I said it. I grew up with a mom who was a caterer, and now my parents run a successful bed and breakfast and all those years of “practice” for my mom have clearly paid off.

I have instilled this love of food in my wife now – she didn’t really know there were so many amazing combinations of flavors until we were married. Of course, she now searches for new recipes and even last night we enjoyed some fantastic shrimp bisque for dinner. Dairy free, gluten free, soy free, but NOT flavor free. I remember our trip Lola Bistro, Michael Simon’s flagship restaurant in downtown Cleveland a few years ago. I have never spent so much money on food before, but it was an amazing experience. Each course seemed to be better than the last from the scallops to the DUCK to the bacon maple french toast with ice cream for dessert! I can almost taste it again as I write this.

Meals are great places to enjoy the great gift of food that God has given us, and they are great places to enjoy the people around us that God has given to us as well.

It is easy for us to enjoy a gourmet meal created by one of the top chefs in the nation. It is easy for us to enjoy our family and close friends when we come together and eat (this is part of the reason our community group always has dinner together).

However, it can be hard for us to find satisfaction and fulfillment when we come to God’s table.

A few weeks ago, we joined in communion as a church as we often do, but I was not on the stage or handing out communion as I typically am, so I saw something I had not seen before: the way our pastor savored communion. I am not sure why I happened to focus on him from my place in the front row, but I looked up as he was drinking that minuscule cup of grape juice and I saw a deep satisfaction on his face, one that reminds me of the expression someone has when they have just ingested something quite wonderful. Of course, most people wouldn’t call grape juice wonderful, in fact, my chef momma quite dislikes it, but pastor knew that what he was drinking was far more than just grape juice. This little puff of bread and sip of juice are God’s way of disclosing to us, once again, some amazing, and nourishing us with His presence.

Robert Webber, in his book Ancient-Future Worship makes a strong case for what he calls the doctrine of “real presence” in communion. This doesn’t mean that the bread and cup transform into anything, or that God is specially present in the elements, but more that we recognize that God is eternally present everywhere and the incarnation of God is disclosed through the bread and the cup. Here is a list of things he says God discloses to us when we come to His table:

  • The Whole Story of God
  • The Goodness of Creation
  • The Union of God and Humanity
  • The Sacrifice of Christ
  • A Victory over the Powers of Evil
  • The Redemption of the Whole World
  • A Participation in God’s remembrance of what He’s done to restore the universe.

Many of us will turn again to the table next week as we remember the crucifixion of Christ. I would encourage you to think on these things and pray before coming to communion. We need to realize that this is the best meal we have and it is a picture of how we are to be filled with Christ and by Christ. Let us all learn to savor the goodness of God revealed to us through the bread and the cup.

Webber ends his chapter on the Eucharist with the following:

Real presence makes no attempt to explain what happens at bread and wine. It affirms the mystery of God’s presence at bread and wine even as it affirms the mystery of the union of human and and divine in incarnation. We are called, not to understanding, but to the fixed gaze of contemplation and to an active participation in the life of Christ. Herein lies the experience of mystery at bread and wine.

In the defense of "modern worship" Part 2

So, last post I gave a very non-specific and general overview of the history of worship in the church, mostly dealing with musical issues. If you haven’t read it, you may read it here.

Now, I’m going to give my actual defense of the music used in worship today and build my thesis that: no one has ever gotten worship right, and we never will until the return of Christ.

If there is one point to be taken away from my previous post, it should be that there is no one musical or lyrical style that has ever been consistently used by the church, and there is certainly no “right” music for the church either. Of course, my review only focused on western church history and I did not even reference the fact that cultures in Asia, Africa and South America have drastically different musical and liturgical traditions that, as long as they hold to orthodox theology, are no better or worse than a hymn, worship song, choir, organ, band, or liturgical calendar. In fact, we have seen many turn away from Christ in those parts of the world when western Christians attempted to put our traditions (and, let’s face it, all our music is just a tradition whether old or new) into their cultures.

In many ways, the progress of church music throughout modern history has mirrored (and at a time, led) the progress of music in general. It was during the Enlightenment that secular music began to separate itself most drastically from music of the church, and that continues today. I think it would be appropriate to say that much of today’s church music now attempts to imitate the music of the pop culture, but I’m not sure that’s all bad either. Remember, it’s ultimately text that’s important not musical content.

So, let’s address the text of modern worship music.
1. It seems like the rallying cry of the blogosphere lately is “I’m tired of singing Jesus-is-my-boyfriend songs!” Now, maybe it’s just our church (because I’m super picky), but I’m not sure we’ve sung a song that I would consider a Jesus-is-my-boyfriend song in a long time. In fact, there are very few songs along this vein that I have seen on any recordings in the last few years. If you want to go back to the 80s and 90s, there are plenty of examples, but in the last 15 years, that trend has been waning. I’m sure you can find examples, but again, I speak in generalities. In any case, I think a little of this is probably good as it is. The Psalms have some pseudo-romantic language from time to time, and many interpret Song of Solomon as a love letter between Christ and His bride, so it’s probably not far off base to sing those songs.

2. The other major issue people seem to make is the lack of theology in modern songs. To me, this complaint is just pure ignorance. I could spend a long time listing the songs being written today full of rich, poetic theology, but I will just name a few.
Grace Alone – Dustin Kensrue
In Christ Alone – Getty/Townend (this one goes without saying)
This I Believe – Hillsong – basically just a sung creed which is great because singing helps people remember it better
For Your Glory and For Me – Newspring Church
If you don’t have much theology in your church music repertoire, try one or two of these to start. Yes, you could list plenty with weak theology, but there’s plenty of hymns with weak theology and bad poetry as well. That’s why we only sing hundreds of them, not thousands, because the best of the ones written are the ones that are still around. I think my grandkids will probably be singing In Christ Alone, just probably in a different way than I’ve been singing it lately. The point is, the songs are there, our worship leaders just need to use them!

3. I’ve also heard it said that the songs in the past were written by pastors and today they’re not anymore. Again, this is just a lack of understanding. Yes, many songs were written by pastors in the past, and many were not. Probably one of the most prolific hymn writers in the U.S. was Fanny Crosby. She was not a pastor, but she could certainly write! Few would argue her contribution to the music of the church. Today, however, there are many pastors writing music. In fact, the majority of our repertoire at our church is from other churches. Hillsong Church, New Life Church, Gateway Church, Vertical Church Band (Harvest Bible), Newspring Church, Elevation Church, Austin Stone (who, by the way, have theology papers for all of their songs on their website). Even the leaders from Passion: Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, David Crowder, Kristian Stanfil, and others serve as pastors in their churches.

4. While there are more topics I could address, the last I will address is sing-ability. Again, there are plenty of songs written throughout history that are really hard to sing. As I mentioned previously, the introduction of polyphony really irked people because it’s really hard. Also, if Bach had not “fixed” Luther’s original melody to A Mighty Fortress is Our God, we might not be singing it today. Thankfully, Bach knew a great song when he heard one, so he contextualized it to his contemporary culture so they could still use it (sound familiar?). As far as this is concerned, my only response is: time will be the deciding factor. Songs that are hard to sing will cease to be sung, while the ones that are good to sing and have solid theology will stay around much longer.

So, here we are nearly 1,000 words in, and no mention of my thesis.

The reason we have never gotten worship right in the history of the church is evidenced in the smattering of blog posts bringing down judgement on modern music and even in my posts of response and, of course, in the brief history lesson.

We are idolaters.

Yes, we want to do the right thing and point people to Christ, but inevitably, we put the things that don’t matter – music, style, presentation – as the centerpiece instead of the God who lets us use those things to worship Him. It is too hard to honor God with our lips while our hearts are far from Him, and spending time arguing and judging other God-honoring Christians shows we just care more about the method than the message.

Fortunately, God meets us even in our idolatry.

I don’t know your church. I don’t know if the music is too old or too new, too loud or too soft, too lovey or too deep. What I do know is that the people who plan the music in your church, probably really care about you. They want you to know Jesus more through the music they work hard at presenting each week. Sure, the songs may have a side purpose of bringing in unbelievers, so what? That’s all the more people who can sing praises to the God of the universe! Sure, the songs may be older than your great-great-grandpa, so what? We have an amazing history of music in the church that should not be ignored!

Final thoughts

  1. Just love each other. Going back to Paul in 1 Corinthians, if you don’t have love you’re just a blaring organ, a screechy choir, or a banging drum set (my translation). Can we stop the fighting and just focus on what we have in common – we all want the Lord of Creation to receive the praise of men through the glorious means of song.
  2. Love your pastors. Senior pastors, worship leaders, youth pastors, children’s pastors, etc. These people work really hard to help you worship through the Word, song, story, and more. They need love.
  3. Get to know someone who likes different church music than you and teach yourself how to understand what they love. Maybe even visit a church that’s different from yours and see how God can work in so many different ways.
  4. PRAY for the idolatry of the church. Pray that we would always know our way is not the only or best way.
  5. SING. Even when you don’t know or like the song. We are commanded all over scripture to sing, but we are not given qualifiers on when or how or even to only sing when “they’re playing my song!”

Even so, come Lord Jesus, come.

In the defense of "modern worship" Part 1

If you are at all interested in the music of the church and you have glanced at Facebook or Twitter over the past 6-9 months, you have probably noticed a slew of posts slamming the “modern worship” movement. Now, I put “modern worship” into quotes because, in reality, there’s nothing “modern” about worship. Worship itself has been around since before the foundation of the world when perfect worship occurred solely between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God, in His brilliant creativity and grace, created man and then allows us the privilege of worshiping Him. When people use the phrase “modern worship” they are almost certainly referring to a style of music alone, and are many times (at least as far as these bloggers are concerned) basing that primarily on what is heard on the Top 20 Christian Radio selection.

So, here is my thesis: no one has ever gotten worship right, and we never will until the return of Christ.

This will be in two parts – part 1, a brief history of musical worship in the church, part 2, my defense of what’s happening today.

The first act of worship we see occurs in Genesis 4 with Cain and Abel. You know the story, they both went to worship God, Cain messed up, killed his brother, he was banished by God – and we haven’t improved music since. As we journey through the Old Testament, idols constantly get in the way on true worship. In Exodus 32 the people were impatient and threw their gold in the fire and “out came this calf” (v.24). The church in Corinth was so caught up in the “how” of worship that they forgot to love, and Paul’s reprimand of them turned into a cute verse to read at weddings. So much anger is being fired at the contemporary church, and while it’s far from perfect, there is “a still more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31) namely, love.

Of course, this pattern continues throughout history as the worship of the church began to evolve over the course of 2,000 years. Study music history at all and you will see that music has always been an important part of the worship of the church, but you will also see that the music of the church has never stayed the same, and each time it changed, someone got really upset. Monophonic chant, turned into organum, then we added the “confusing and hard to sing” polyphony, finally homophonic music breaks in and eventually J.S. Bach shows us something simply marvelous. As music moved further west and into America, more folk styles were introduced, but the homophony of Bach still ruled the day, just in simpler fashion. The folk styles moved through the 1850s and early 1900s, which is when Christians in the U.S. began to pull away from culture. Gospel tunes morphed into Southern Gospel, the melting pot of America formed more styles and in all musical genres, and then the Jesus People in the 1970s decided that the “devil shouldn’t have all the good music.” All of this eventually leads us to where we are today. It’s not wrong. It’s just where we are. It might not be your music cup of tea, and it wasn’t mine for a while (in fact, I still prefer 20-21st century classical music), but it’s not going away tomorrow.

Now, the last paragraph didn’t even make mention of the transformation and argument in text over the last 2,000 years. Remember, for a very long time, the church music was only in Latin, and no one going participated at all, and even when they did, most did not understand what they were saying. Ok, so we can put the liturgy in the vernacular, GREAT, now everyone knows what’s going on. Should we use the same text we’ve been using all this time, or write something new? Perhaps we should write songs to teach people since they cannot read. No, don’t do that, we should only sing Psalms, since that is the songbook given to us by God. Never mind, let’s go back to the teaching songs. Alright, now those songs are getting too wordy and hard to sing, so let’s make them easier. You know what? This world’s really getting bad, let’s write a lot of songs about heaven. More teaching songs? We can do that. No, now we need songs that connect people’s hearts to God, not just teach them a Sunday school lesson, after all, they can read. What if we repeat the same words over and over again so people really grasp the text and take it with them throughout the day? Handel did that, Taize worship in France seems to be pretty repetitive, even the Psalms are full of repetition. No, that’s no good either. Love songs to God? Sounds good, after all, we are the bride of Christ. No, I don’t want Jesus to be my boyfriend. Remember all those hymns written a while back, we should sing some of those again! How about we just write some new ones too? You know what? I think we need more theology in our songs again…

Ok, that really crazy paragraph pretty much sums it up and I didn’t even get into the arguments over instrumentation. Instruments or no instruments? Lute? Pipes? Organ? No, that’s the instrument of the devil (just ask Zwingli). Piano? Yeah, that’s fine. Orchestra? Choir? Guitars? Drums? No, you’re sending us all to Satan himself! Jingling Johnny perhaps?

Forgive the large amount of generalizations contained above, it was necessary to stop this from being a textbook.

Everything is constantly changing, and will continue to do so.

Come back next time for my conclusion based on this galactic view of history and my thoughts for today.

Advent Awakening

“There’s been an awakening…”

These are the first words ever heard from the new film “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” when the original teaser trailer debuted about a year ago. From that point until last night, there has been an advent of sorts as fans, casual and passionate alike, awaited the release of the new film. In many ways, it was shrouded in secrecy with little knowledge released, recycled footage in each subsequent trailer or commercial, and gag orders put on everyone who worked on the film. So, even in our age of over-abundant information, I sat with my friends last night with relatively no idea where the film was headed. Even as the opening text crawl began, I was amazed to discover the true plot of the film, which was not at all what I expected it to be, and the surprises continued for the next two and a half hours. Then, it was over. I enjoyed it, but there was a strange emptiness I had, probably because of the years of anticipation which was finally over. All the waiting and wondering  – it was done.

A friend of mine looked a little disappointed leaving the theater, and he remarked, “I was just hoping I would get that same feeling I got when I saw “A New Hope” for the first time.” In a way, I think I was maybe hoping for the same thing, but we both agreed that was far to much pressure and expectation to put on the film, and on our view of the film as well (it was a really good film, by the way).

“Comfort ye my people…”

Those are the words of the trailer of sorts for the coming of the Messiah. We spend each December in preparation to remember the Advent (coming) of Immanuel, but what are we preparing for? Are we preparing for parties and gifts and programs? Does life speed up this time of year and we blow past it just trying to get to that 25th day? The difference here is that we don’t need gag orders and secrecy, because we already know the end of the story. But, what happens when we retell that story? Maybe you’ll hear it this year at church, or around the dinner table, or sitting in your PJs on Christmas morning just before opening presents. After you hear the story, what will your reaction be?

Is it just the thing you’re supposed to do on Christmas morning?
Are you just getting it out of the way so you can feel like you acknowledged Christ before getting to the “fun part?”

Do you ever hear the Christmas story (or get through the holiday itself) and say to yourself, “I was just hoping I would get that same feeling when I heard that story for the first time?”

I know for me, there is a magic that seems to have gone out of Christmas. Maybe it’s the bill for the presents, or the extra work at church, or even the distance from family, but it just doesn’t seem the same, and I get the feeling that I’m not alone.

Maybe it’s time for an Advent Awakening. A stirring in our heart back toward the light (Star Wars pun intended). There’s something mysterious and magical about God becoming a man and showing us His Word in human form, something way more magical than anything George or J.J. or Disney or anyone else has ever imagined.

So, this Christmas, allow yourself to be inspired by the birth of Christ again. Allow your heart to be stirred by the mystery of the virgin birth in a dirty cave, and most importantly about the beginning of the earthly life of a little boy who would crush a greater evil than “The Dark Side,” the evil of all the human race. Bringing light and life to humanity and restoring us back to God in the way He always intended.

Why Do We Preach?

In his book, Vertical Church James MacDonald says:

…worship…is eternal while preaching is temporal. On earth even the best of preachers is just inciting worship as a participant, but in heaven the only preaching will be God inviting our worship as recipient. We preach so that worship will increase, not the reverse…We don’t worship so that preaching will be more impactful for us; we preach so that worship will be more impactful for God.

This hit the nail on the head for something I always thought must/should/could be true, but was too nervous to admit because of the church culture we typically have as evangelicals. After all, I’m the “worship” guy, so by wanting to emphasize worship, I’m just tooting my own horn (no pun intended, but still allowed). For years, we have heard and been taught that the “worship” part of the service is just to set up the message. Unfortunately, this greatly reduces the importance of the “worship” time and gives people an excuse to come in late, or leave early – as long as you get to hear the sermon, that’s what church is for, right?

First, let me say that what James is and is not saying is that preaching will make us want to sing more/better/louder. In one way, yes, our congregational worship can and should increase because of the preaching of God’s Word. We just heard the Words of the God of the Universe, so of course we should desire to lift our voices and bow our knees as a church body. At Trinity, we like to move around where the music and the message occurs in the service, and this is one of the reasons. We want the preaching of the Word to inform our congregational worship. The other reason is to emphasize that it’s all worship.

Earlier, I wrote the word worship in quotes when talking about the musical part of the service. This is because when believers gather on Sunday mornings, the entire event is supposed to be worship. Greeting and fellowship (even the dreaded hand-shake time), reading of Scripture, singing of songs, prayers and confessions, sermons, and benedictions – all of it is one act of corporate worship! There should be no distinction between these parts of the service in that regard. Every thing has a purpose, and ultimately, it is to point us to God and for His glory.

That is why we preach. So that when we hear the Word of God our hearts and minds are stirred with wonder for who He is and ALL of our worship – in church and most certainly our life worship – will increase. Preaching is not so you can learn a few new cool facts about God, or so you will be “fed”, or even that your behavior will change (although those things will probably happen), it’s ultimately so that you will be more in love with God.

For a time, I was apprehensive about getting a seminary education because I have heard stories about and witnessed people who become arrogant with their knowledge about God, and look down on those who don’t know as much. Perhaps you’ve heard the joke that seminary is really just “cemetery.” It’s sad, but it is sometimes true. However, I have been taking a seminary systematic theology course lately, and the exact opposite has been happening for me. The more I learn about God, the more I am amazed by Him and the more my worship has increased. Hopefully, God will continue to humble me in this endeavor instead of my prideful flesh taking over.

May that be true for us all. Let us listen and be in awe of the Word of God, not for our sakes and our knowledge, but that we would bring God more glory in our corporate gatherings and with our daily lives.

When you have 10 jobs

This November, I will be speaking at the Worship Facilities Expo in Nashville. As part of the preparation for that event, I was asked to write a practical article for someone working in the church and decided to post it here as well. You can find out more about the conference here: http://wfxweb.com/2015/

 

Technology has changed the church in ways I don’t think anyone could have ever predicted. Sunday services used to depend on a piano, singer, pastor and good acoustics and now have setups that rival some national production houses. The internet is a fantastic tool for sharing ideas, but I have found that it can also be intimidating to see what some larger churches are doing, and feel like those in smaller churches “can’t compete” with those productions. However, we find someone in the church and call them “tech director” because we feel like we need someone to organize all of the technology in our building and make sure everything runs smoothly. I have found that in many churches, this tech director is asked to perform numerous duties which can sometimes be daunting for one person alone.

Worship Leader. Tech director. Sound Tech. Graphics Designer. Stage Designer. Video Editor. Producer. All of those things (and probably more) fall under my own job description, and you may have others as well.

So, with many responsibilities and the desire to use technology in creative and exciting ways, how do we manage to survive each week without working 60 hours? Here are a few suggestions that will hopefully be helpful to you.

  1. Keep the main thing, the main thing.

We need to focus on our relationship with God first – after all, what we do is Spirit-empowered work. In our church we talk about how all people are ministers of Jesus, and you wouldn’t expect your pastor to go a whole week without reading his Bible, would you? Well, you are a minister too. Start by being with God, then you can do His work. Family is next after God. If your kids think the church is your home, you need to reevaluate your time. Finally, proclaiming the Word of God is first. Our ideas are great, but the Word is what inspires our worship, foremost.

  1. Know who’s in charge.

Your pastor has the final say. I know this can be hard, especially after working hard on a great idea only to see it thrown away, but that’s his position. Hopefully, you have good communication with whomever you report to in order to minimize those situations, but no matter how good your idea is, it is still up to him to give it the thumbs up.

  1. Know your limitations

As much as trying to do everything seems heroic and playing the martyr gets pity points, we just can’t do it all. Trying to plan Sunday services, edit videos, visit people in the hospital, schedule volunteers, and write click tracks is a big load for one person. You need to be clear for yourself what you can and cannot do, then lovingly communicate to those who lead you about your limitations.

  1. Find help!

Start to find people to come around you who can fill in your gaps. Not good at organization? I’m sure there are 10 people in your church who could happily spend a week in The Container Store. Maybe there are some teens in your church who love shooting and editing video, or a stay-at-home volunteer who can get on Planning Center and line up volunteer schedules for you. Start by making a list of the things you have to do, then list all the things someone else could do. This takes humility, and letting go is hard, but not only does it help you focus on what you’re best at, it also empowers someone else to use their gifting.

  1. Learn how to say “no”

Jason Hatley from the Journey Church says that “Sundays come along with great regularity.” We are not planning for a major musical production three months from now, we have seven days to prepare something that stirs people’s sense of wonder toward the greatness of God. Some things just cannot happen with short notice. I had a pastor once who did not realize the effort to create a short video and gave me one day’s notice, it just was not going to work. This is also a great time to “lead up” and encourage your pastor to work with you in planning further out so more creative things can be added.

  1. Dream Big

Just because you’re a small church, doesn’t mean you can’t execute big things. Our church of 400 has done Willow Creek productions. www.churchstagedesignideas.com is full of small churches doing great stages. Work with whatever staff or volunteers at your church, seek God, dream, and plan. Ministry is hard work, but it should be fun! We proclaim the God of Creation, Redemption and Restoration!  We can’t do it all, but together we can inspire people to authentic worship, by showing people God through our art.

What (and how) does worship teach?

It’s a strange thing to think that we are “taught” something in worship, or at least it would have been a strange thing for me to think a few years ago. Perhaps that is why I am now using the word “formed” in place of “taught,” but it is still instruction in one way or another.

Now, this is not a new concept at all. We see, especially in the Old Testament, that poetry and songs used in worship were used to teach people the things of God or remind one another about what God has done. Psalm 78 is a great example of this, going through much of Israel’s history in those 72 verses to tell “things that our father’s told us” that “we will not hide them from our children, but tell to the coming generation” (vs. 3-4). More recently, we talk about hymns written as great theological teaching tools. Of course, widespread literacy is a relatively new phenomenon in the scope of history, so much of church worship (not just the hymns) – liturgy structure, confession, song, message, etc. – was designed from the beginning not only to lift people’s eyes to God, but to teach them the things of God they couldn’t learn themselves since they couldn’t read the Bible.

We are fortunate that we can open Scripture itself and read and understand it not only in our native language, but in dozens of different translations (there’s 52 English translations on Biblegateway.com) that can help us understand complex things by coming from slightly different wordings. Certainly, our treasury of theologians throughout history also give us plenty to digest.

For many years, I failed to realize the true power behind what we do as we gather together on a Sunday morning (I say this, realizing that 10 years from now I will look back on 2015 me and hopefully think the same thing). Yes, corporate worship is a grand and glorious thing, giving us our closest glimpse of heaven we can get here on earth, but for those of us who plan corporate worship, we have an opportunity to instill things (for good or for bad) in the hearts and minds of our people.

Ok, all that for introduction, now, TO THE LIST!

  • Worship teaches who God is (name above all names, a mighty fortress)
  • Who we are (prone to wander, nothing good in us, loved by God, forgiven)
  • How to pray – after all, songs are just prayers set to music. not to mention the numerous prayers offered by pastors and lay people during corporate worship
  • Helps us memorize scripture (rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice!)
  • How to express the entire Gospel story (our Gospel “rhythm” we’ve been talking about)
  • Worship calls us to mission (greater things are yet to come in this city)
  • How to confess our sins (a thousand times I’ve failed, still your mercy remains)
  • How to study Scripture (one of the many tasks of the sermon)

That’s the short list, I’m sure.

The lesson here is twofold.

  1. For those of us who plan corporate worship (from the greeters to the sermon), we need to realize that everything we do and say teaches someone something about God. Are we making sure we are teaching them what we want them to know?
  2. For those of us who attend corporate worship (people mentioned in #1 included), do we realize that we are being formed when we come into church? Are we prepared to have our hearts reformed by the Spirit when we gather? Do we take for granted the high calling and burden put on those who lead us to make sure that what we hear is from God, trusting Him to plan and form their words?

That’s all for today. I hope your hearts are moving toward the grand celebration of resurrection in just a few weeks!

What does worship do?

WDWD?

Sorry, brief throwback to 90s Christian subculture. It was too hard to avoid the temptation.

It’s a strange thought to think that our worship does anything, but in reality, there’s a lot going on when God’s people bring Him praise. To be clear, I’m talking about specific worship acts here, whether done alone or in small groups – prayer, Scripture reading, song, meditation, fasting, and a whole list of other possibilities – rather than just the all-important “life worship” that should be our normal way of living.

First, what does worship do for God?
Well, I don’t know. Here’s the thing about God (which you already knew): He is completely self-sufficient in everything and doesn’t need our worship. We do see that God desires and takes pleasure in our worship, however. Even more than that, He requires worship that leads to good works and justice. From what I can tell, God gives us the opportunity to worship Him more for our sake than for His (go ahead and start the arguing now!) Anyway, I’m sure entire books have been written on what worship does for God, but that’s probably for a different post.

Now, what does worship do for US?
There are two parts to this, I will only post the first part today, then the next part later. This first part is entirely stolen from Zach Neese from Gateway Church in Southlake, TX, but I think he’s on to something here, so I’m just going to go with it. I won’t go into detail on these, feel free to discuss any of them, or look up referenced Scripture for yourself.

  1. Praise positions us to enter the Promised Land – Number 14
  2. God shows up when we praise Him – Psalm 22:3
  3. Praise is a weapon of spiritual warfare that invites the warrior (Christ) to fight on our behalf – Psalm 8:2
  4. Praise aligns us with heaven – Revelation 4:11; 5:12-13; 15:3-4
  5. Praise is evangelistic – Psalm 40:3
  6. Praise is a teaching tool – Colossians 3:16

Next post I will expound on #6 specifically, since that really is the theme of this entire blog. I’m also sure there are many other things we can add to this list. But, just looking at these few things should be enough to get someone excited about spending time in intentional praise and worship to God!