Thoughts on Life and Worship

http://www.ccli.com/WorshipCorner/Article.aspx?ContentId=b95b1a55-5375-48ac-83e2-684c628b96a7 This is a fun, yet provocative blog from worship teacher, Tom Kraeuter.  What do you think?

I’m a rich man! I still have a sizable mortgage. I have no pending inheritance to speak of. My retirement accounts, for my age, are pitiful. And no, I didn’t win the Lottery. (“You can’t win if you don’t play.”) What my wife, Diane, and I do have are two adult children who love us and even like us. They are more than just our children. They are our friends. Our daughter is married and has three children. We talk frequently about the deep issues of faith and family. We see our grandkids frequently and they are one of the joys of our life. I left an enviable position as a professor at a Christian university to be only seventy-five minutes away from them. I don’t regret it. I don’t talk as frequently with my son, but that’s kind of a guy-thing. When we do talk, which is usually at least once a week, we talk of faith and family, but especially about football and music. Occasionally, like this coming weekend, we get to make music together. That is a special joy and help for me since I...

Our church family is having a bit of a kerfuffle. Since this is a public forum, I won’t share the details. But it’s painful. It’s personal and it’s dangerous. No one likes it. This is not the first time I’ve been in a church family that was having conflict. Come to think of it, I can’t recall a church that I’ve ever been a part of that didn’t have inner conflict. Conflict is part of the landscape of human relationships. And the church, while it is infused with Divine life, is still human. On this side of eternity, we remain broken – in need of God’s grace and work in our collective life together. It’s the same for any family. There are many responses available to us when we enter into conflict. The first and, I must admit, easiest for me to immerse myself in is anger. It is an honest response, especially when one believes that injustice has been done or that the other party is somehow unrighteous. That has usually been my assessment of “the other side” when I’ve been deep in it. I...

I've spent the last few days reading a book on Huldrych Zwingli, one of the primary movers and shakers in the Protestant Reformation.  I'm doing research on major movements and events that have shaped modern Evangelical worship.  For my focus, it starts at the Reformation.  The more I read, the more I come to the conviction that, while necessary, the Reformation was also reactionary - an event/movement that happened in a particular time in history with particular cultural and intellectual currents swirling about.  That's always true for any historical happening.  Nothing occurs in a vacuum. We are less than ten years away from the 500th anniversary of the Reformation - if you count Luther's nailing of the ninety-five theses on the Wittenburg church door (1517) as the beginning.  Much was gained in the Reformation, but much was lost in over-reaction.  We should have the courage to take a critical look back as we approach this important milestone. One...

Advent, for me this year, was meaningful.   It was the first time in my life that I was really able to begin to grasp the tensions and promise of this traditional Church season.   I’ve blogged about it before.   Certainly, planning our church community’s worship around the Advent themes of hope, peace, joy and love was helpful to me.   My senior pastor grasped the themes as well as he presented his sermon series, “Advent Upheaval.”   Putting off Christmas carols, for the most part, until December 19th enhanced the meaning of the songs when we finally did sing them. (The power of delayed gratification.)   But perhaps the most profound impact on me was reading NT Wright’s The Challenge of Jesus . Wright is not a casual read.   Some of his books are a bit easier, such as Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope (I highly recommend both).   But The Challenge took a bit of thinking to process.   I don’t think I read a whole chapter in one...

Advent this year has been an enlightening journey for me. At FirstB we have tried to engage the season with real intention. Our sermon series is called Advent Upheaval – the theme about which I posted a few weeks ago. For the most part, we’ve avoided traditional Christmas carols. And yes, I’ve caught a little heat for it. We’ll evaluate our approach after the turn of the year. But I had an epiphany (small “e” – I know the big day is supposed to be January 6) last Sunday as we sang Isaac Watts’ classic Advent hymn, “Joy to the World.” I think I’ve sung that carol for fifty years and associated it directly with angels, shepherds, Mary and Joseph with the Holy Child in a manger stall in Bethlehem. Sure, there is some correlation. The Christ Event and all its implications is, after all, one big story. But Watts doesn’t mention any of those things in his text. I’ve just associated the carol with Christmas – well – because I always have, just like the rest of our Western culture. Even tho...

I wasn’t raised in a so called “liturgical” church. Lent and Advent are relatively new to me. But I have become increasingly attracted to elements of traditional worship, particularly the Church Year. The church that I serve as worship pastor has always observed Advent to some degree and I am looking forward to planning the worship services for the fast-approaching season. I hope I get it right. (Now which Sunday do we light the pink candle? And why is it pink? Or was that purple? ) Even among the staff and other worship planners here at my church, there is some confusion. I’m hoping to bring clarity and real meaning to the season. But I’m the first to confess that this is somewhat new to me. In my ignorance, I always thought that Advent was just a “traditional” way of celebrating the Christmas season...sort of a way of “putting Christ back into Christmas.” True. It does that. I also thought that it was a way of telling the complete story of Christmas. Yes. It does that, too. Bu...