Full of What?

“God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves.” —Dwight L. Moody

The Real World

“Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.” —G K Chesterton

President Bush's War on Terror?

Doug Wilson writes cogently about our national approach to the "war on terror." The entire article can be found at:

http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=3441

It's worth reading. Here's a quote from the article.

Perry2

"Try to imagine this if you can. It is a couple years after Pearl Harbor. We are technically at war with Japan. And yet, all over America, thousands of Japanese-Americans still show up at shrines in order to worship Tojo. Other American citizens standing by say something like, "What's with that?" and find themselves hustled into sensitivity classes for the celebration of diversity. And in this situation, Roosevelt tries to convince us that he is really serious about prosecuting the war on "surprise attacks against naval installations, although Japan rightly understood remains a deep friend of the United States." Yeah, right. Call me when you think it's serious."

Thoughts on Corporate worship

The following comments are taken from the blog of one of the top Christian composers alive today. He also is a member of the congregation where I, and my familoy, attend.

The link to his blog is:

http://kingsmeadow.com/wilburblog.html

Following are some of the controlling principles with regard to the leading of worship that should be helpful from the congregational perspective as well:

• The role of leading and facilitating worship is for the purpose of encouraging the congregation in worship, not to worship “at” them
• Arrangements and songs should be chosen that are ecclesiastically appropriate—what is appropriate in other venues may not be appropriate for corporate worship
• The criteria for what is ecclesiastically appropriate refe, music, the combination text and music, arrangements, and execution
• Worship should be accessible yet excellent
• As musicians, we should be growing in skill and depth—musically and theologically
• Craftsmanship is a biblical concept; originality is a humanist concept
• How we play and lead should be different than how we play and sing at a recital, coffeehouse, or concert
• God is the standard of beauty and excellence—our worship should seek after biblical excellence and objective beauty, goodness, and truth

More Thoughts on Worship
I still maintain that we often ask the wrong questions about issues of theology and worship. As a result, we create opposing categories which are not really in opposition because they both contain the same erroneous thinking. As such, I offer a critique of both modern and traditional worship with the caveat that despite the surface negativity, the affirmation of those things which are good and true and beauty about worship should be apparent.

Things I dislike about "Modern" Worship:
• Rejection of the past through chronological arrogance
• Effeminate music
• Lack of printed music to encourage part singing
• Being "worshipped at" instead of led in worship
• Instruments played in a secular, instead of Biblical, manner
• Disjointed images and truth conveyed in unbeautiful ways
• The following of cultural trends
• Lack of intentionality
• Lack of holy ruts
• Slave to tradition


Things I dislike about "Traditional" Worship:
• Acceptance of the past through chronological arrogance
• Stodgy music
• 1950's form of liturgy—three hymns and a sermon
• Empty traditionalism; focus on externals
• The discouraging of children in church
• Failure to be constantly reforming
• Formality for formalities sake
• Solemn and funereal communion
• Stuck in non-holy ruts
• Slave to tradition

Contentment: a duty owed

"A Christian should follow his occupation with contentment. Is your business here clogged with any difficulties and inconveniences? Contentment under those difficulties is no little part of your homage to that King who hath placed you where you are by His call." Cotton Mather (1663-1728)

Sowing and Reaping

What you do when you don’t have to, determines what you will be when you can no longer help it." Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

On Courage

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful until it became risky." C.S. Lewis

Where the Battle Rages

"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point." Martin Luther

Happy New Year

Dr. George Grant writes:

The celebration of the New Year did not occur on the first day of January after the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582—even then only in France, the northern Italian city states, Portugal, and in the Spanish nations of Castile and Aragon. The new calendar was not accepted until 1600 in Scotland and 1752 in England.

From the earliest days of the Roman imperial calendar the New Year was celebrated on March 25—which is why September, October, November, and December are derived from the Latin words septem (seven), octo (eight), novem (nine), and decem (ten).

Despite this, January 1 was still a special day. It was most often celebrated as a day of renewal—for vows, vision, and vocation. It was on this day that guild members took their annual pledge, that husbands and wives renewed their marriage promises, and that young believers reasserted their resolution to walk in the grace of the Lord’s great Epiphany.

When the new calendar was finally adopeted, these covenant renewals gained an even more celebratory significance. In Edinburgh beginning in the seventeenth century, revelers would gather at the Tron Church to watch the great clock tower mark their entrance into the new year—which was the inspiration behind the relatively recent Times Square ceremony in New York. But in Edinburgh, the purpose was not merely to have a grand excuse for a public party, but a way of celebrating the truth of Epiphany newness.