Rhythm

Sometimes the message might be when there is no message.

It is a shame Protestants, especially Evangelicals, give little thought to the liturgical seasons. The reality is that advent is four weeks of anticipation. A little four-week metaphor on longing for what has not yet happened. And, yes, it does not end with Christmas. But, for nearly 80% of the world's believers, it does not end there.

Epiphany, associated with the visit of the magi, as well as the baptism of the adult Jesus in the Jordan River by John, is on January 6. In the Orthodox tradition, Christmas falls on our calendar date January 7. But, even those are not the end.

World Without End: Unpacking a Perplexing Lyric

Try as I might, it's hard not to be a teacher.  So, with apologies for giving way to the pedantic, I'd like to help explain a perplexing phrase used by many churches in one of the oldest praise songs still is wide use today.

While some evangelicals may not know it, a large number of believers regularly sing a doxology called the Gloria Patri:

Glory be to the Father,

 And to the Son,

And to the Holy Ghost.

 As it was in the beginning,

Is now and ever shall be,

World without end. 

Amen.  Amen.

(Traditional musical setting by Cynthia Clawson)

The problem comes from the second to the last line.

When Worship Leaders Worship: A Call for Comments

Over the next several months I will be involved in conversations with several local worship leaders (whether called worship pastors or ministers or whatever).  A part of the conversation will be to dialogue about our worship needs.  Is the worship they lead on Sundays enough?  If they were able to go to a worship service they had not planned as nothing other than one of the worshipers, what kinds of things would they hope to find in that service?

The Problem with Praise

Amanda was pretty excited to find out her husband, Jack, was reading the new bestselling book in marriage enrichment, A Praise Centered Marriage.  It wasn't that their relationship was bad or anything.  It just wasn't always as good as Amanda had hoped it would be.

Her hopes seemed to all come true  when, that next Tuesday evening, Jack looked at her across the dinner table and said, "You are wonderful.  You are simply the best.  I love everything about you. You fill my life with joy."

What more could a woman want out of a marriage?  At least, that's what Amanda thought six months ago when the process started that would eventually ruin their marriage. 

Meditations on the Typewriter

  Like some ancient creature that does not know it
is long extinct, the typewriter plods along.  Once
 the cutting edge of technology, the MacBook Pro of
 some past age, it stands now only as a curiosity -
 a relic of forgotten years.

 Yet, when animated by human flesh and muscle, the
keys still miraculously snap shapes on to blank pages -
Preserving thought and idea for some future mind not
yet born to read and ponder.

 All the trinkets of the now, with their bright pro-
mise of a better world, have not deepened the mind or
 made tender the human heart… although now our rage
and violence can be communicated at light speed to
 thousands of others who live vicariously through light
emitting diodes.

 But still, somewhere, hands guide ink over paper or
push keys that force metal forms over inky ribbons.  Words,
at times, need to be slowed . . . backspaced . . .
 corrected . . . easing out in a trickle, not a flood.

Slow us down, O Lord.  To write and read and live deeply
may be better than to live quickly.  Too many words may
 be worse than none at all.

 May the value of words not be measured by volume, but
 by their depth.

-Tom Lawson

Resistez

Sixty-nine years ago today...

The small speaker crackled with static, and then they heard it.  “Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne blessent mon coeur D'une langueur Monotone.”  The poem by Paul Verlaine was well known.  Many listening had learned it in childhood.  The melancholy words spoke of the long slow weeping of autumn’s violins. 

This time the words held sensus plenior (fuller meaning).  This time they were announcing, somewhere out there in the darkness, ships were plowing their way through the waters of the English Channel  – among them a thousand Higgins boats – the landing craft that would bring soldiers of the Allied Expeditionary Force onto the beaches of Normandy, beginning the liberation of France. 

Dancing in Church

Around the year 1900, Plymouth Brethren missionary Dan Crawford asked a Congolese woman why she got up and started dancing in church,  "Oh! it is only the praise getting out at the toes."

Dancing is a form of art that you do.  And I mean that in an absolute sense.  You dance.  You become the art.  It is not something you do to someone or something else.  People can play a piano, beat a drum, paint a canvas, lead a choir, carve a statue, or write a praise song.  But, for people to dance you do not have to have a piano or a drum or a canvas or pen and paper.  You just need willing and able to move your own body.

Banning Prostitution in the Church

A man once mistook me for a hooker.  I know what you're thinking.  No, I was not dressed in drag and I was as surprised and ultimately pretty offended by the mistake.  Perhaps more surprisingly, it all happened over the telephone.

The Solicitation

There I was, peacefully sitting in my office grading exams when the phone rang.  The man introduced himself.  He was an elder at a rather large and very well-known church.  The conversation began with small talk but quickly got around to the exchange of money for services.

Disappointing Church

I am part of a disappointing church.

They weren't a disappointing church at first. They were once welcoming, warm, loving, spiritual, worshipful, and generally fun to be around. That was then. This is now. Now they are a disappointing church. I've had time for a good long look behind the scenes, and some of what's there just isn't very pretty.

The Theory of Relativity

"Lord, listen, if you won't make me skinny, then just make all my friends fatter than me."

We see ourselves through the lens of relativity. Relatively speaking, we are people of faith. Relatively speaking, we are active in church. Relatively speaking, we like to study the Bible. Relatively speaking, we are pretty much the kind of Christian that the Christian people around us pretty much think is the kind of Christian a Christian person pretty much ought to be.

The Future of Today's Christianity by Galli and Crouch

The current issue of Christianity Today (online or paper edition) has an article well worth digging out and reading in its entirety.  Here's a excerpt:

Telling Victoria Secrets

Is there a untapped connection between retailers like Victoria's Secrets and evangelism?  I'll let you decide.  Before I start, here's a promise: the story below is entirely true.