Mar 10
brettMiscellaneous, Wednesday morning worship
The discussion this morning started with the question, “Is worship a subset of obedience or is obedience a subset of worship?” Jeff, Ryan, and I looked for verses in support of either side of the equation. One one side, there are numerous verses where God commands us to worship him (see Neh. 12:45, Deut. 6:13, Matt. 4:10), implying that worship is a subset of obedience. However, Scripture also indicates that we are created to worship (Isa. 43:7), that worship is not simply an outward act (John 4:24), and that obedience to God’s laws must also be accompanied with the appropriate heart attitude (Isa. 29:13, Matt. 15:7-9), all of which carry some implication that worship may be necessary for obedience to happen.
At the end of it all, I would conclude that, as Ryan said, the above question is not the right question to ask. Obedience to God’s commands and our inward love and heart attitude toward God are inextricably linked. Obedience that is simply outward is not pleasing to God. Worship (aka heartfelt love) of God is not pleasing to God if it does not lead to some form of obedience to His commands (Amos 5:21-24, Isa. 1:10-17). Obedience is worship AND worship is obedience.
The second half of our discussion then turned back to our definition (once again). Should we then just include obedience in our definition so it would read, “giving preeminence to someone/something through obedience, adoration, sacrifice, and reverence”?
This is where Webster’s Dictionary really helped us out. What does it actually mean to “define” something? According to Webster, define is defined as
to determine or identify the essential qualities or meaning of.
What does “essential” or “essence” mean?
The permanent as contrasted with the accidental element of being OR the individual, real, or ultimate nature of a thing especially as opposed to its existence.
So, when you try to define something, you need to, as much as possible, boil it down to its most basic, ultimate nature. In the second half of our definition of worship, we believe we have mistakenly included things that are not basic and ultimate. The idea of “giving preeminence” is basic and ultimate; how we do this (i.e. through obedience, adoration, sacrifice, reverence, or whatever) is what Webster would call “accidental” or in relation to worship’s “existence.” These things are how worship exists, how it is carried out, elements of worship, but are not necessary in every case for worship to occur.
So, at this point, we are again honing our definition to just say,
Worship is giving preeminence to someone/something.
If you have thoughts or suggestions about this, please let me know. This is all still in process!
The discussion this morning started with the question, “Is worship a subset of obedience or is obedience a subset of worship?” Jeff, Ryan, and I looked for verses in support of either side of the equation. One one side, there are numerous verses where God commands us to worship him (see Neh. 12:45, Deut. 6:13, Matt. 4:10), implying that worship is a subset of obedience. However, Scripture also indicates that we are created to worship (Isa. 43:7), that worship is not simply an outward act (John 4:24), and that obedience to God’s laws must also be accompanied with the appropriate heart attitude (Isa. 29:13, Matt. 15:7-9), all of which carry some implication that worship may be necessary for obedience to happen.
At the end of it all, I would conclude that, as Ryan said, the above question is not the right question to ask. Obedience to God’s commands and our inward love and heart attitude toward God are inextricably linked. Obedience that is simply outward is not pleasing to God. Worship (aka heartfelt love) of God is not pleasing to God if it does not lead to some form of obedience to His commands (Amos 5:21-24, Isa. 1:10-17). Obedience is worship AND worship is obedience.
The second half of our discussion then turned back to our definition (once again). Should we then just include obedience in our definition so it would read, “giving preeminence to someone/something through obedience, adoration, sacrifice, and reverence”?
This is where Webster’s Dictionary really helped us out. What does it actually mean to “define” something? According to Webster, define is defined as “to determine or identify the essential qualities or meaning of.” What does “essential” or “essence” mean? “The permanent as contrasted with the accidental element of being” or “the individual, real, or ultimate nature of a thing especially as opposed to its existence.”
So, when you try to define something, you need to, as much as possible, boil it down to its most basic, ultimate nature. In the second half of our definition of worship, we believe we have mistakenly included things that are not basic and ultimate. The idea of “giving preeminence” is basic and ultimate; how we do this (i.e. through obedience, adoration, sacrifice, reverence, or whatever) is what Webster would call “accidental” or in relation to worship’s “existence.” These things are how worship exists, how it is carried out, elements of worship, but are not necessary in every case for worship to occur.
So, at this point, we are again honing our definition to just say, “Worship is giving preeminence to someone/something.”
If you have thoughts or suggestions about this, please let me know. This is all still in process!
Mar 06
bradMusic, Reviews carlos whittaker, ragamuffin soul
If you’re not reading Carlos Whittaker’s site Ragamuffin Soul, you’re missing out on some great discussion, as well as insight on leading God’s people in worship, both on and off the stage. Carlos is far from a perfect, and admits it freely; it’s refreshing to read the words and thoughts of someone who humbly acknowledges his own struggles, vices, and sin.
But anyway… Carlos has been working on an album of original material. While it’s not out yet, he put out a three song EP earlier this year. I bought it from iTunes immediately, of course, and started listening to it right away. The short version of this review: it’s excellent.
The EP opens with “Rain It Down”, an upbeat worship song calling upon God to rain down His healing waters upon us. One of the reviews on iTunes described the sound of this song as U2 being led by Chris Tomlin, and that’s not entirely inaccurate. It’s a great song that really moves, and that should be easily singable by your congregation:
There’s nothing like Your healing water
Pour it out on Your sons and daughters
Our eyes are lifted high
We are here and we are waiting
Flood our hearts ‘til they’re overflowing
Our hands are lifted high
Carlos follows that song with “Jesus Saves”, which features a line that blows me away: “I am the sum of the failing and of grace.” Wow. What a great way to summarize that we are the products of our own personal histories and God’s grace on us. This is another upbeat song with shades of Tomlin and Bono. It, too, features a memorable and simple melody that should lend itself well to congregational worship:
Your innocence has covered my shame
Your love has spoken me by name
And I have victory over the grave
You overcame
The EP ends with “We Will Worship You”, my personal favorite of the bunch. This one is the slowest of the three, but probably the most powerful. I’ve already introduced this song to my congregation, both the Saturday night and Sunday morning crowds. It was a big hit, and I think the credit for that goes to its powerful lyrics. I could write volumes about this song, but instead, I’ll just let the chorus speak for itself:
Save us from these comforts
Break us of our need for the familiar
Spare us any joy that’s not of You
And we will worship You
Yeah, we will worship You
The three songs on the EP are great, and they left me anxious to hear the full album that’s on its way. And as a bonus, Carlos has generously made the chord sheets available on his website in PDF format for free (click here to access them). Carlos Whittaker – EP is available at iTunes and Amazon.
5/5 stars.
Mar 04
bradArticles
So yeah, I think it was time to spruce things up a bit around here. New theme, upgraded WordPress, loosened up the restrictions on comments, added some spiffy plugins. All kinds of cool stuff. 
Mar 03
brettWednesday morning worship
On Wednesday mornings, Jeff Hoenshell & Ryan Smoker (two great worship leaders from my church) and I meet with the intention of discussing worship in the New Testament. Our hope and intent is to keep meeting until we get the whole way through the Bible, but at the rate we’re going, we’ll be meeting until 2110!
My plan was to write a blog post every week summarizing our discussion, but this will finally be the first post. It’s ok, though, because we have only discussed up through Matthew 4 to this point. Not because there is so much in the first 4 chapters about worship, but because we’ve really been wrestling a lot with the definition of worship that we would like to use.
Our overarching definition of worship is “giving preeminence to someone/something through adoration, sacrifice, and reverence.” This has been a labor to come up with, but we feel it really encompasses all (or at least most) of the elements we have debated including (e.g. response, glory, obedience, etc.).
We’ve also broken the definition out into a number of sub-categories:
- False Worship: giving preeminence to someone/something over/above its inherent worth or value
- True Worship: giving preeminence to the God of the Bible.
True worship also has 2 sub-categories:
- Corporate Worship: two or more people gathered in the same place/time with a united purpose of giving preeminence to the God of the Bible.
- Individual Worship: an individual giving preeminence to God.
We’ve set these definitions in place because we want to know exactly what worship is and isn’t as we read through the NT with the intent of gleaning principles by which to live and lead worship. Of course, the definitions are up for change as the Scriptures dictate, but we needed to start somewhere.
What do you think of the definitions? Too simple? Too complex? Let me know your thoughts.
Mar 03
bradDesign, Music
From Beyond Relevance:
Have you ever noticed that the average designer looks like they are in the band? Ever notice the odd coincidence that so many music people also dabble in design? Ever wonder why? Let me play a few chords of the common bond between music and design… When a musician begins learning, let’s say… guitar, he (or she) first learns how to play the notes, but then begins to learn on a higher level how different notes and sounds make up the songs that create his moods. He learns the chords that stir him up, wind him down, and make him wax melancholy.
This certainly rings true in my experience. The important question, then, I suppose, is how to apply this wisely to our worship services.
Brad
Feb 27
brettMiscellaneous
At NewSong Lancaster, we use a pretty old but beefy Dell Precision and EasyWorship for displaying our lyrics. I really like EasyWorship because it is just that, EASY, to train volunteers to use. This works well for us most of the time but we are looking to possibly upgrade in the near future. Soooo, I’ve been doing some reading this morning about the Mac vs. PC debate, as well as trying to sift through some of the MediaShout vs. ProPresenter issues for the purpose of discerning whether purchasing an iMac is the way to go.
If you have any experience in the Mac vs. PC issue for the purpose of displaying lyrics, or if you know anything about ProPresenter or MediaShout, it would be great to hear your opinion.
Feb 23
brettMiscellaneous
So I saw this on Twitter and thought it was a good idea. I’ll give it a shot each week. If you’d like, post your setlists each week as well. Check out the Sunday Setlists page to hear what many others are doing.
This week our theme was The Name of Jesus.
We did “Everything” by Tim Hughes as a prelude (which really had nothing to do with the theme).
First song after the announcements was “Lift Up The Name” by Josh Caterer from Harvest Bible Chapel in Chicago. It is a fun, upbeat call for people to glorify the name of Christ. It also includes some shouting at the end, which can be uncomfortable for some people, but it’s good get out of the comfort zone, right?
Second song was “Your Name” by Glenn Packiam & Paul Baloche. We did the Philips, Craig, & Dean version and started it with a Wurli sound on the keyboard, which was pretty cool. Also, during the “instrumental” part we had our singers recite some scripture verses that went along with each line of the chorus. Here’s how that went:
Your name is a strong and mighty tower (Prov. 18:10)
Your name is a shelter like no other (Psalm 5:11)
Your name let the nations sing it louder (Psalm 66:1-2)
Cause nothing has the power to save but Your name (Acts 4:12)
The last three songs we did as a medley: Jesus Your Name, Praise the Name of Jesus, and You are My All in All.
It was a decent set, a little choppy at spots, but definitely carried the theme well.
What did you do this week?
*Posted by Brett*
Feb 12
brettMiscellaneous
Hey all,
Got some good comments on the last James MacDonald video. Let me hear what you think about this one.
Jan 28
brettMiscellaneous
James MacDonald is a pastor I’ve grown to really appreciate over the last couple years. He was at our church for our 10th Anniversary and has a thriving ministry in Chicago at Harvest Bible Chapel. Check out what he says about songs they don’t sing at their church. I think it is helpful. We need to think this way when we choose songs and plan our services.
Dec 12
brettMiscellaneous
PraiseCharts.com has a great resource for those of us who play gitter. A free songbook with all the Christmas carols we would ever use with easy-to-play chords! Check it out…
http://www.praisecharts.com/christmascarols
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