Podcast Review

Inside Worship

This excellently-produced podcast comes out monthly from Vineyard Music, and runs 20-30 minutes. The podcast features an interview each month with a worship leader, focusing specifically on one particular song and how it was written, the inspiration behind it, etc ...

The target audience of the podcast is other worship leaders -- chord charts are provided for each featured song. And though I do not fit that criteria, I am always intrigued by the insights that the songwriters express about their music.

St. Augustine on ...... some modern preachers?

More than 1500 years ago, Augustine preached a sermon on "negligent shepherds"
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The negligent shepherd fails to say to the believer: My son, come to the service of God. stand fast in fear and in righteousness, and prepare your soul for temptation. A shepherd who does say this strengthens the one who is weak and makes him strong. Such a believer will then not hope for the prosperity of this world. For if he has been taught to hope for worldly gain, he will be corrupted by prosperity. When adversity comes, he will be wounded or perhaps destroyed.

The builder who builds in such manner is not building the believer on a rock but upon sand. But the rock was Christ. Christians must imitate Christ’s sufferings, not set their hearts on pleasures. He who is weak will be strengthened when told: “Yes, expect the temptations of this world, but the Lord will deliver you from them all if your heart has not abandoned him. For it was to strengthen your heart that he came to suffer and die, came to be spit upon and crowned with thorns, came to be accused of shameful things, yes, came to be fastened to the wood of the cross. All these things he did for you, and you did nothing. He did them not for himself, but for you”.

But what sort of shepherds are they who for fear of giving offense not only fail to prepare the sheep for the temptations that threaten, but even promise them worldly happiness? God himself made no such promise to this world. On the contrary, God foretold hardship upon hardship in this world until the end of time. And you want the Christian to be exempt from these troubles? Precisely because he is a Christian, he is destined to suffer more in this world.

For the Apostle says: All who desire to live a holy life in Christ will suffer persecution. But you, shepherd, seek what is yours and not what is Christ’s, you disregard what the Apostle says: All who want to live a holy life in Christ will suffer persecution. You say instead: “If you live a holy life in Christ, all good things will be yours in abundance. If you do not have children, you will embrace and nourish all men, and none of them shall die”. Is this the way you build up the believer? Take note of what you are doing and where you are placing him. You have built him on sand. The rains will come, the river will overflow and rush in, the winds will blow, and the elements will dash against that house of yours. It will fall, and its ruin will be great.

Book Review

Sticky Church, by Larry Osborne.

Osborne, lead pastor at San Diego's North Coast Church, accurately diagnoses a problem facing many churches today -- the wide open "back door." To Osborne, the key to church life is not bringing as many people as possible into the church, but keeping them in the church. He wanted North Coast to be more "sticky."

The solution that they implemented, to strong results, was sermon-based small groups. The church previously had small groups, but re-orienting them to be a discussion of the prior week's sermon increased commitment to the groups and to the church. Basing small groups on the sermon made entering existing small groups easier for new attendees. From an educational standpoint, reiterating a message in a different form a few days later should increase comprehension and retention of the lesson.

I can see how this idea could be effective, but I've left the book unconvinced that they are the best answer for every church with a wide "back door." But to the extent that pastors and church leaders consider the unique characteristics of their church, Osborne's book presents a tool worth considering.

N.T. Wright on Liturgy

There is nothing wrong with having a form of words composed by somebody else. Indeed, there is probably something wrong if you don’t. Some Christians, some of the time, can sustain a life of prayer entirely out of their own internal resources, just as there are hardy mountaineers (I have met one) who can walk the Scottish highlands in their bare feet. But most of us need boots, not because we don’t want to do the walking ourselves, but because we do.

This plea, it will be obvious, is aimed in one particular direction: the growing number of Christians in many countries who, without knowing it, is absorbing an element of late modern culture … as if it were Christianity itself. To them I want to say: there is nothing wrong, nothing sub-Christian, nothing to do with “works-righteousness”, about using words, set forms, prayers, and sequences, written by other people in other centuries.

Indeed, the idea that I must always find my own words, that I must generate my own devotion from scratch every morning, that unless I think of new words I must be spiritually lazy or deficient – that has the all-too-familiar sign of human pride, of “doing it my own way”, or yes, works-righteousness.

Good liturgy can, should be, a sign and means of grace, an occasion of humility (accepting that someone else has said, better than I can, what I deeply want to express) and gratitude.

The Glory of Solitude

Paul Tillich, as quoted in Marcia Ford's Traditions of the Ancients:

"Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone."

August Reading List

51. Mounting Fears (ua), by Stuart Woods
52. Generation Dead (hc), by Dan Waters
53. 52 (ua), by Greg Cox
54. Traditions of the Ancients (pb), by Marcia Ford
55. Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of the American Church (hc), by Matthew Avery Sutton
56. Magician's Gambit (ua), by David Eddings
57 What Would MacGyver Do? (ua), by Brendan Vaughan, editor

Book Review

Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America, by Matthew Avery Sutton.

One thing that biographers must avoid is taking a side in presenting their subject, falling into either of the equally troubling traps of defending or criticizing. Professor Sutton avoids these temptations, and has produced an intriguing look at the equally intriguing evangelist, who dominated the cultural landscape in the USA during the first half of the twentieth century.

Despite the 50 pages of endnotes that give this work the appearance of being an academic tone, this is in fact an accessible and readable work. Sutton covers the high points of Sister Aimee's biography -- farm girl, missionary, widow, founding the Foursquare denomination, the still-mysterious kidnapping, the quick marriage and divorce, her social activism -- and puts these events in the context of a post-Darwinian America, where traditional Christianity was on the ropes.

Sutton portrays McPherson's many contradicions with keen insight. His fair and balanced work portays a woman who constantly defied gender norms and religious expectations, while advocating a biblically-based and culturally-engaged evangelicalism.

Anselm on the Prayer Closet

Good advice from a man who lived more than 9 centuries ago:

"Enter into the inner chamber of your mind. Shut out all things save God and whatever may aid you in seeking God; and having barred the door of your chamber, seek Him."

Looking Back

This passage, from Marcia Ford's Traditions of the Ancients, resonates strongly with me in terms of my interest in the Ancient/Future practices of the church.
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"We're so sure of what it means to be Christian - how we're supposed to behave and how we're supposed to worship - that we rarely venture out of our spiritual comfort zones. The beauty of the early church, by contrast, lies in the very fact that there was no comfort zone, no carefully crafted formula for living out the Christian life.

No one had come along yet to tell believers that they should "dress nice" for the 11:00 a.m. service on Sunday. In fact, no one bothered to tell the desert dwellers that they should bathe once in a while; it would have done no good, because they considered bathing to be sinfully self-centered.

No one had told them yet that they needed to schedule a daily quiet time and spend fifteen minutes each morning at their devotions, nor had they been told that they should create an ongoing praryer list. For many, the whole of their interior life was their "quiet time," and they saw every moment of their lives as their devotional time as unceasing praryer to God."

Seven Petitions to the Holy Cross

An ancient Anglo-Saxon prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ,
For the sake of Thy holy Cross, be with me to shield me. Amen.
By the memory of Thy blessed Cross, be within me to strengthen me. Amen.
For Thy holy Cross, be ever round me to protect me. Amen.
For Thy glorious Cross, go before me to direct my steps. Amen.
For Thy adorable Cross, come Thou after me to guard me. Amen.
For Thy Cross, worthy of all praise, overshadow me to bless me. Amen.
For Thy noble Cross, be Thou in me to lead me to Thy kingdom. Amen.