Baptism: The Elephant in the Room

      Baptism.  It is the elephant in the room – something everyone thinks about and no one talks about.  In major works on Christian worship, however, baptism is one of the topics covered.  So, I guess I need to talk about the elephant.

      Let’s be honest.  For many people, it is the first thing they search out to read in a church's "What We Believe" statement. 

Great Sermon on the Beatitudes

No apologies in linking you to to Stephen's (yes, one of sons) excellent blog.  I'm doing you a favor, if you don't already read it.  Specifically, you need to check out his sermon, "Practice Resurrection."  Here is proof that preaching can be both deep and dynamic.  There is an audio version or you can read the text version.

http://stephenlawson.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/sermon-practice-resurrection-with-audio/

Sermon: Practice Resurrection (with audio)

08FridayJun 2012

Posted by stephen in Homilies, Scripture

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Here is a sermon I preached at my church back in November. You can download and listen to the audio file here.

Practice Resurrection
Sermon for Hopwood Christian Church, November 6th 2011 All Saint’s (observed)
Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake...

http://stephenlawson.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/sermon-practice-resurrection-with-audio/  

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The Christian Leader's Secret Fear

We know what it means to be servant-leaders.  We must be willing to serve.  We demonstrate this week after week in our churches.  We will do whatever needs to be done.  This is not what we fear.

We will, and in fact we sometimes do, wash other people's feet.  Washing feet is not our real fear.  Washing feet is kinda cool.  It's a Jesus-thing.  Serving others, even when not easy, is what we always expected the ministry to be about.

Having someone else wash our feet is a bigger challenge.  It is awkward.  We feel self-conscious.  But, we know we need to be an example.  People will watch us and learn.  This is not what we truly fear.

Ballad of the Geezers' Revenge

It was a typical Sunday.  So typical no one suspected it would mark the beginning of the last great battle of the worship wars.  Then, out of nowhere, the Loyal Daughters class struck.  

Oops: Singing the Wrong Lyrics

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.  Praise Him all creatures here me low.

Okay, technically that’s not exactly how the lyrics go.  But, hearing it as a child, that’s what I thought it said.  In fact, since I thought I knew the words, I kept singing it that way.  No one around me noticed.  It wasn’t until some point in college that I happened to actually look down and read “all creatures here below.”  

Oops.

But, when we learn something first by hearing it instead of reading it, of course we hear whatever we think we hear.  This is especially true if you grow up in church.

The results can be interesting...

Pavlov's Smiling Dog

Walk into a church on Sunday morning and what do you see?  A whole lot of smiling people.  Pretty exciting, huh?  All those smiles and no one high on drugs (OK, might be safer to say as far as we know there's no one high on drugs).  Smiling is good.  The act of smiling has been shown, in some circumstances, to actually lift people's spirits.  I would just like to point out that smiling is not our normal look.

Do We Worship One God?

Second post in the series: Binitarian Worship

In the first post (posted on May 28) on this multi-post topic, Binitarian Worship, I related the fact that neither the Bible nor the early church provides an example of believers addressing (praying to, speaking to, singing to) the Holy Spirit.  In this second post, I want to explore and emphasize the implications of Trinitarian monotheism.  As we will see, the question of praying to the Spirit is intertwined with how we are thinking about the nature of God.         

        It is one God and only one God we gather to worship.

        “Here, O Israel, the Lord our God: the Lord is One God.” (Dt 6:4)

        “I am the Lord and there is no other.  Besides me there is no God. (Is 45:5)

        “For there is one God.” (1 Tm 2:5)

        However we ultimately define what we mean by Father, Son, and Spirit we must begin with this essential and unchangeable affirmation:  It is one God we worship.  The one God who is God.  It is to this God and no other that we direct our praise and prayer.  Get this wrong, or even get is just partly wrong, and we have utterly lost our way.

Musical Communion

Many years ago, I was involved in my doctoral studies at Abilene (Texas) Christianity University.  ACU is associated with the churches of the Stone-Campbell Movement that do not use musical instruments in worship.

Most of Sunday worship was familiar.  The order was typical.  The music was generally well known.  Since the churches of Christ had a great emphasis on vocal harmony, it would not be remotely accurate to describe the services as unmusical.  Some outsiders have labeled them as the people who don't use music in worship.  That is so untrue.  They are only the group that do not use instruments to accompany their music in worship.

The most obvious change that struck me as unexpected and awkward was the Lord's Supper.

The Truth about Seeker Worship

     In worship we are not the seekers. 

     The first question ever asked by Yahweh God was a question about seeking.  When the Man and the Woman heard, along with the soft rustling of the evening breeze, the sound of God, they cowered in fear and fled to hide themselves.  One might question the wisdom of this.  The guilty do not think why they hide. They just hide.

     “Where are you?”

     Maybe this means God did not know where they were hiding.  Maybe they could just out last Him, after all.  I mean, how long would God really look for them? 

Of the Clean and Unclean Instruments...

Behold, these are the laws of the clean and unclean instruments.

Write them on thy cue cards and post them on the tops of thy instruments.  Talk about them in the sound check and in the time thou dost tear down thy stuff and depart unto thy dwellings.

Sneaking into Worship

Once, I was one of the sneakers.  Maybe the old folks didn't know we were there, but we were. 

A long time ago, back in the revolutionary 1970s, my co-conspirators and I would sometimes sneak away from the dignified worship services of our own tradition.  We weren’t abandoning the faith.  But, we had to sneak anyway.  I mean, what would people think?  We were going to visit, shhh -- please don’t say this too loudly, a Charismatic worship service.

Preaching in Black and White

This post is about a mystery and what I found that solved it.

Here’s how it began…
In my first year in college, I went with several other students to visit the worship service of an African-American church.  This was my first experience with traditional black worship and one of those amazing moments that fostered my lifelong passion to explore the many forms and styles of Christian worship throughout history.