Opening Sentences When I say that worship is ‘about God and for us’, I mean that the worship of God is intended to form us, individually and corporately, into the nature and character of Christ. The modern worship movement has twisted this to say that worship is “about us and for God” as if there is anything we can give to God that he, in any sense, needs. As a correlative, the worship becomes ‘about us’ in the sense that,... Read more

When I was a good little Southern Baptist kid, which was not that long ago, we had “Ministers of Music” and “Music Directors.” At some point between then and now, the contemporary worship movement ushered in nearly universal use of a new title: “Worship Leader.” Recently, I’ve noticed the title being called into question, which I think is a very good thing. Most of the criticism can be boiled down to one foundational problem, and it has to do with... Read more

Prelude The increasing speed of TV is a great contributor to the loss of imagination since the mind has no time to recover from the constant bombardment. How does this affect our ability to meditate on God in the necessary silences of worship? Are we able to deal with the ambiguities of God that force our minds to go beyond what is readily apparent? The loss of imagination is also related to some of the twaddle (Kierkegaard’s word) that characterizes... Read more

I’m Jonathan, and I write about worship in the church. Except today, although I tied the title in as best I could. I’ve been trying to write a post about worship for a week now, but with opening day coming up, well, I can’t seem to think about anything else. Of course, football is now the biggest game in America, not because it’s better, but because as our collective attention span, hunger for violence, and constant need for over-stimulation has increased,... Read more

Call to Save Worship This is a portion of a comment I received from an ELCA pastor on my post, “Dear Traditional Worshipers:” Jesus made it very clear in the great commission what the church is to be about. Go everywhere and make disciples, baptize and teach. Throughout his ministry Jesus was constantly battling with any religious custom or “tradition” that kept people away from God. He physically touched the ritually impure, broke the sacred Sabbath laws, threw over the... Read more

Lord of love, This is not a good day. It is a terrible day. A violent day. A tragic day. You came to seek and save and serve, and we betrayed you, we convicted you, and we made you a cross. But on this day, you showed the full extent of your love for us. A love that abounds far beyond our guilt and shame. A love that breaks the curse of sin and death. A love that shows us... Read more

Greeting Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. (HEBREWS 12:1 b–2) Hymn No. 168: At the Name of Jesus At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, every tongue confess him King... Read more

Ye dwellers in darkness With sin blinded eyes, The Light of the world is Jesus! Go, wash, at His bidding, And light will arise. The Light of the world is Jesus! – Philip P. Bliss, 1875 Greeting It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ— if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified... Read more

I suspect most rich Christians, filled as we are with the anxiety about our wealth, try to do something for the poor before we have listened to their story. Of course, listening, being with and working with the poor are not mutually exclusive activities, but I fear we often want to help the poor without getting to know who the poor may be. I suspect we do so, not from some ideology against the poor, but rather I suspect we... Read more

The year is 1980. High school dropout rates are epidemic. I’ve got a solution I think will work. Let’s make school fun so that maybe we can reach these kids that are leaving and never coming back. These kids are just bored. It’s our fault, really. Let’s stop requiring that they learn anything they don’t want to learn. Let’s put one of those weird Taco Bell/KFC combos in the cafeteria. Yes, they might get fat, but at least they’ll be... Read more