I read this great quote this afternoon by John Piper:
"The preacher does not need to forsake the centrality of God, nor does he need the support of any music but the music of his own soul. When the preacher's own soul exults and sings and worships over the truth that he preaches he makes his own music, and the hearts of the people are engaged with the value of his God."
John Piper says,
"...when you are in corporate worship, Worship! There is a difference between communion with God and commenting on communion with God.
Don’t tweet while having sex. Don’t tweet while praying with the dying. Don’t tweet when your wife is telling you about the kids. There’s a season for everything. Multitasking only makes sense when none of the tasks requires heart-engaged, loving attention."
For this Pentecost Sunday, I've written a new arrangement of Spirit of the Living God. The hardest part was figuring out what to do with that old timey raised II chord the author threw in at "Mold me". There's no way around that if you stay true to the melody, which I think is important to my church. As far as style goes, I may play it fingerstyle or with a gritty strum. We'll see. Either way, I love the hymn and am glad we still sing it. Enjoy. (Be sure to click on it for better resolution.)
Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race. And with this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we set out to share it with the world.
Thanks to Harold Best, Carl "Chip" Stam, and Mike Cosper for these round table discussions.
In this first discussion, they talk about congregational singing. You’ll see Best, Stam and Cosper discussing:
Mike Cosper, Harold Best, Chip Stam - Worship Discussion 1 from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.
In this video you’ll see Best, Stam and Cosper discussing:
Cosper, Best and Stam -- session two from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.
Cosper, Best and Stam - session three on worship from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.
Cosper, Best and Stam - Session Four from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.
Cosper, Best and Stam - Episode Five from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.
Cosper, Best and Stam -- episode six from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.
Cosper, Best, Stam: Episode Seven from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.
Cosper, Stam and Best - session eight from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.
Atheist messages have hit public transport in the third largest city in the US. Adverts proclaiming, "In the beginning, man created God," have been posted on 25 Chicago buses.
The slogan "espouses the idea that man created God as well as all religions, and encourages public and critical examination of the merits of religious belief," according to Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign.
"In my opinion, this is a great message to put out there," said Reba Boyd Wooden, executive director of Center for Inquiry, an organisation that promotes secularism. "Too many people think that you have to be religious to be a moral person. They don't know they have a choice. They think that it is a given that there is a God, that everyone believes there is a God, and if you don't believe in God you are a bad person. We secular humanists know that is not true."
The ads in South Bend state "You can be good without God."
(HT: Christian Post)
One blaring problem I see with this is that you cannot even define "good" without God, the author and source of all goodness. We have diluted the word beyond meaning because we have no standard for it, and use it often so flippantly. Even if we settle for the watered down modern understanding for goodness, still, Jesus never says "Be good"; he said to be perfect (Matthew 5:48). With that in mind, what if the bus ads said "You can be perfect without God"? Now that would be worth finding out. Because that is what God is after. And there is no way to him without it. I agree with the Center for Inquiry, too many people do think you have to be religious to be moral. But morality is not the issue, perfect morality is; perfect goodness is the issue. Ask someone if they are a good person, and they'll probably have some qualified positive response. But ask them if they are perfect, and they'll tell you what is absolutely true: "No one is perfect" (cf. Romans 3:10-12).
So that's my beef with the ads. And so that's why I'm trusting Jesus for my goodness and perfection, for "...if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:17-21)"
Go to Pandora to listen and see Dave Matthews Band work at the first album after the death of friend and band mate LeRoi Moore (YouTube tribute below).
I read these wonderful, soul-satisfying words, and wanted to share them with you. May God refresh in you a sense of his great goodness as you reflect on the power of the cross of Christ. Thanks to Chip Stam's Worship Quote of the Week, based out of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's School of Church Music and Worship in Louisville, Kentucky for a really helpful resource!
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In these days before Holy Week, our attention is drawn to the Bible's teaching about sacrifice and love: "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:10). Today's WORSHIP QUOTE helps us remember that Jesus "set his face toward Jerusalem," the place of the ultimate sacrifice. Pastor-author Alistair Begg writes about the importance of understanding that great sacrifice as "substitution": Jesus died in my place.
THE GREAT SUBSTITUTION
Jesus is our high priest, but what kind of priest is this who becomes the sacrifice? Priests OFFER sacrifices—but this priest IS the sacrifice. The priest lays himself on the altar.
You see, Jesus died for sin—but not for his own sin. He had no sin. He was in every sense MADE SIN for us. He became all of our rebellion, all of our lying, all of our cheating, all of our adultery, all of our filth, all of our ugliness. He became all of that on the cross. Otherwise, how could God crucify his Son? . . .
Without substitution the death of Jesus is unintelligible. Unless what we have here is what is being describe in 2 Corinthians 5:21, that he was MADE SIN for us—not that he was made A SINNER for us—but MADE SIN for us, then how else do you explain it? What possible justification could God have for crucifying the innocent unless in substitution he became all that we are in our sin and rebellion in order that, in the mastery and mystery of his grace, in him we might become the very righteousness of God?
And when I think that God, his Son not sparing,
Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in,
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.
He goes to the garbage heap for all my garbage. He goes to the cross for all my rebellion, for all my filthy thoughts, all my selfish preoccupation, all my self-aggrandizement.
Bearing shame and scoffing rude
In my place condemned he stood.
There is no story in all of human history like this. There is no notion in all religions of the world that comes close to touching this. This is imponderable, mysterious, majestic, glorious. This is all about God and the wonder of his grace.
As Jesus face this awesome prospect, he brings his disciples close and says, "My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death."
When the lights come on for the disciples after the resurrection, they realize that in the cross Jesus was substituting himself for us, changing places with us, taking the guilt of our sin to himself, accepting divine judgment that is justly and rightly against us.
In the cross God does two things, which would be otherwise impossible.
First, he pardons those who believe in Christ. Although they have sinned and deserve only condemnation, he pardons sinners. How can a just God pardon sinners? Only because all of our sin was transferred to Christ. This lays the ax at the roots of every religious person's endeavors to make himself acceptable to God by trying harder, attending more, praying more intensely—as if by some mechanism, we might be able to tip the scales in our favor.
God pardons sinners even though they have sinned and sinned and deserve only condemnation. And if he didn't, we would be forever excluded from his presence.
Second, he displays and satisfies his perfect, holy justice by executing the punishment our sins deserve. Without this God would not be true to himself.
Here's the gospel in a phrase. Because Christ died for us, those who trust in him may know that their guilt has been pardoned once and for all.
What will we have to say before the bar of God's judgment? Only one thing. Christ died in my place. That's the gospel.
—Alistair Begg, from "Jesus Our Substitute" a sermon preached at Parkside Church, Chagrin Falls, Ohio, July 13, 2003; as collected and adapted by Nancy Guthrie in JESUS, KEEP ME NEAR THE CROSS: EXPERIENCING THE PASSION AND POWER OF EASTER. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2009, pp. 23-25. ISBN 978-1-4335-0181-4. This volume includes chapters by many authors: Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, Francis Schaeffer, and a host of others both living and dead. Highly recommended. See www.crossway.org/product/9781433501814.
This will be a great weekend for the Breedlove household.
Today, Abby wraps up her 1st grade year in elementary school.
Yay! Go Abby!
Secondly, I graduate from Reformed Theological Seminary tonight with my Masters in Biblical
Studies.
The pursuit of this degree has been long and arduous. But I'm done! (Well, actually I still have to take a comprehensive English Bible exam. But I "walk" tonight.)
And finally, Suzanne and I celebrate our 11th anniversary tomorrow night!
I am a blessed man. Soli Deo Gloria!
2 parts Arm and Hammer washing soda
2 parts Borax laundry booster
1 part Fels-Naptha soap
I've been making my own soap now with this formula for a couple of months. It saves money and actually cleans better than regular detergent (no more stains under the t-shirt armpits, guys!).
Only takes a couple of tablespoons per full load, so it lasts a while.
For discussion: Do you see any dangers in this? Is this "worship"? Do you think God can be pleased with this kind of activity in worship? The New Testament says God is looking for worshipers that worship in spirit and truth (John 4); that "acceptable" worship is that which is done with reverence and awe (Heb 12:28). Does this footage show such worship? How so? What role does culture play in this? How is being cultural different from being worldly in worship?
My sweet wife, and mother to our darling children, left this weekend for a rendezvous with her college girlfriends, while I was left at home to do everything the two-page, bullet point-laden set of instructions commanded me to do, looking me straight in the eyes from its lofty position, magnetized next to the door handle on our refrigerator. I look at all those instructions and deep down I know I have really one job: keep the kids alive. Anything more than that and I might be proven unsuccessful. Here are a couple of stories from today - both concerning Ben, my 2 yr old.
I took my Ben to Barnes and Noble to look at potential Mother's Day gifts. He was cool hanging out in the children's area where a cool train track sits with lots of toy trains to play with. We shopped and played for a little while. I got a gift. We left. Not a parental glitch.
Then we got outside and went to the van. Still cool. I opened the front passenger side door, and placed my bag in the seat. I noticed what looked like cigarette ashes. I brushed them out, wondering what in the world they could be. We don't smoke...but whatever.
Then I opened the side door for Ben to hop in. The door was really sluggish. I was having to push it to keep it going. Now, we don't have an automatic opener. We're old school and still have to do things - like open car doors - manually. I just thought the heavy rains lately might have had something to do with it...but whatever.
Finally, I picked up to place him in his car seat, but it was gone! I looked across the van to the other seat, and saw a booster where it should be, but it wasn't ours. I looked again in the front, and realized I was totally breaking in to someone else's Nissan Quest. I quickly strained to shut the sliding uncooperative sliding door, thinking someone is going to "catch" me. Strange how I felt totally guilty...like when you're on the internet, minding your own business, and some suggestive picture from an ad comes up (and in my business there is extra sensitivity towards this kind of thing).
Anyway, I picked Ben up, and moved down a few cars ... shew! There was our van.
I quickly pulled out the remote unlock from my keyring, pressed the unlock button twice (by this time we are standing directly in front of the van), and immediately our van's alarm goes off! Ben loses it. (And it scared me to death too!) I get him into his seat, and head to the driver's seat, thinking this will all be over soon.
Then I remembered, I left my bag in their front seat!
I had to go back over there, risk getting "caught", actually take something out of the van, and leave in mine. I was a nervous breakdown.
That is story one. Story two is quite endearing (and much shorter).
When we got home from our breaking and stealing escapade, it was lunch time. Ben said he was hungry, so I asked him, "For what?"
He responded, "Shin-shank".
"What buddy?", I replied.
"Shin-shank."
"What?"
"Buack-buack! Shin-shank!"
"Oh!, Chiken!!", I laughed.
It's been a great day to be a daddy.
"Greed was calculated by comparing average incomes with the total number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line. Envy was calculated using the total number of thefts - robbery, burglary, larceny and stolen cars. Wrath was calculated by comparing the total number of violent crimes - murder, assault and rape - reported to the FBI per capita. Lust was calculated by compiling the number of sexually transmitted diseases - HIV, AIDS, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea - reported per capita. Gluttony was calculated by counting the number of fast food restaurants per capita. Sloth was calculated by comparing expenditures on arts, entertainment and recreation with the rate of employment. And pride, lastly, is most important. The root of all sins, in this study, is the aggregate of all data. Vought and his Kansas colleagues combined all data from the six other sins and averaged it into an overview of all evil."
HT: First Things
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
-Bill Cosby
If you love coffee, and hate slavery and sex trafficking, buy some joe from this sto'.
MODERN DAY SLAVERY:
