Worship Weblog
Friday, August 25, 2006
Asia Trip ‘06 Update 4
Reports from CICW’s Asia trip from Bert Polman ...
Our CICW team is now in Singapore, on the last part of our 3-week journey to south-east Asia, and I finally get to read almost 200 emails! God has shown us some beautiful parts of his creation, what God is doing among the rich and poor of this region of the world in building the church of Christ, and we’ve certainly also seen some of the agony in which many people here barely survive ... Things have gone well at our conferences and conversations in Manilla and Jakarta. The conference in Singapore begins Friday evening and winds up by suppertime on Saturday, just prior to our flight home very early Sunday morning! We’re healthy, no lost luggage, and just periodically totally tired! See you next week!
... and Kent Hendricks:
We’ve arrived in Singapore. I’ve had limited internet access for the past two weeks ... If you’re checking this from the Philippines or Indonesia, thanks for all your hospitality. Words cannot express our thanks. ...
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Asia Trip ‘06 Update 3
Report from CICW’s Asia trip via Shelly Veenstra:
The week in Jakarta has come to an end and the beginning of the next and last leg of the journey has begun. I got a call from Kent this afternoon saying that the group had made it safely to Singapore. Thank God for his protection and provision in every corner of the world! ...
Roanoke Times coverage of grant recipient
Article in the Roanoke Times on Worship Renewal Grant recipient Luther Memorial Lutheran Church:
…
Rev. Gary Schroeder was immediately open to the idea of finding a way to enhance the worship.
“We didn’t seem to have any answers as to what to change or how to change it,” he said. “So, this possibility of studying worship and using some grant money to bring in speakers and learn more about what’s going on out there in the contemporary scene seemed just like a godsend, really.”
But something came to Schroeder and Quesenberry’s attention before an official proposal was delivered.
“We realized that other churches in the area were probably struggling with some of the same things we were—how to make worship relevant to the members that were already coming, and how to reach the unchurched that are in our community,” Quesenberry said.
So Luther Memorial didn’t go in alone.
MRC web redesign
The Ministry Resource Center also has a new look:
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CCEL web redesign
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library--a treasure trove of historical theological sources--has a new look:
Related Article
CT’s David Neff on the usefulness of CCEL
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Friday, August 18, 2006
Asia Trip ‘06 Update 2
Report and prayer requests from CICW’s Asia trip via Shelly Veenstra:
Kent and the group (Anne, Emily, Bert and wife Bette, John, Jay and wife Michelle) had a wonderful and safe time in Manila, Philippines. It was rough at first adjusting to the 12 hour difference and then, on top of that, putting in 12-14 hour days every day, never having a dull moment. They met many wonderful people and cultivated friendships with them, making it difficult to say good-bye; however, their experiences in Makati really opened their eyes to the extreme poverty that exists in various parts of our world. Here is a portion of an email I received from Kent on August 15th ...
Thursday, August 17, 2006
New International Commentary digital references
Using the NICOT and NICNT via Google Books:
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Monday, August 14, 2006
Report from Asia Trip ‘06
Report from CICW’s Asia trip by Kent Hendricks:
… We arrived at our condo-tel, as they are called. I am staying with Anne and Jon in a three bedroom, two bathroom suite. We are on the 38th floor of a tall building, and from our balcony we can see city lights to the horizon and watch planes line up to land at the airport, which is also not far. Immediately across the street is a mecca of America - a Burger King, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Chile’s, and an entire mall filled with franchises and pop music identical to the ones I’ve been used to my whole life. I have a feeling that I won’t be spending as much time in eclectic cafes as I’d hope.
Tomorrow morning we’re meeting with the rest of our group - Jay and Michelle, Bert and Bette, and Emily - at the Union Church of Manila, which will be our geographical locus for the next several days. We’ll spend tomorrow morning at the church and have lunch with the pastoral staff. Tomorrow afternoon we’ll be at the Asian Institute of Liturgy and Music. All three groups - UCM, AILM, and CICW - are collaborating together to proliferate acronymn use. And have a worship symposium on Friday and Saturday, which is the real reason I’m in Manila. In addition to all of that, we’re meeting with Rev. Tomas Maddela, who is the Dean of St. Andrew’s Seminary. ...
Living Water and Baptism
Ron on living water and baptism, from WorshipHelps: (more)
A couple weeks ago I baptized my nephew at his home church in Chicago. Per his parents’ request, we used freshly imported water from Lake Michigan. Let’s just say that we certainly followed the ancient advice to use “living” water. ...
I suggested that using water from this natural resource—so dominant and precious to us in the midwest—highlights the deep connection between the grace of God offered in baptism and the responsibility we gratefully take on as Christ’s disciples to care for the world in which that grace is manifest. It says something damning to us if the water in our backyard streams, or rivers, or lakes is so polluted that we cannot in good common sense bathe in it, or in good conscience call it “living” water. Perhaps my nephew Samuel will grow up, in service to Jesus, to be a biologist who concerns himself with the health of Lakes Michigan, Superior, Huron, Ontario, and Erie.
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The Interstate: Road away from worship
From Martin Marty’s Sightings:
Remembering the Sabbath
-- Martin E. Marty
8/14/06Sightings of religious issues in public life this week appeared along the highways and in the Jewish weekly The Forward (August 4). Columnist Jenna Weissman Joselit reminded readers that this is the fiftieth anniversary of the Interstate Highway System, a legacy of the Eisenhower era. As Joselit tells it, that system, and the vehicles that cruise on it, brought vast changes in Judaism.
The column illustrated a main theme favored by historians of religion. Changes that affect understandings of God, attendance at worship, and other aspects of religious life derive less from concordats and changed creeds than from subtle shifts in behavior. The wholesale and often uncritical embrace of popular culture in broad evangelicalism, the disappearance of long-term Catholic behavioral patterns, the political shifts and emergences and retreats of various church bodies would not appear in books on creeds, confessions, and councils. Yet the high-rise and the long weekend are bigger God-killers than Nietzsche ever was.
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More on ‘worship’ and ‘latreuo’
Follow-up to ’Worshipful Service,’ from Greek Thoughts:
This week we begin our study of latreuo (Strong’s #3000), a Greek verb expressing worship in the form of service. Latreuo, originally a secular Greek term, meant to work for hire or wages. Over time however, it came to be used to represent any type of service, be it physical labor or the performance of sacred service, whether in cultic practice or in priestly services related to the Jewish Tabernacle. Our study today focuses on the meaning of this word as it is used in the Old Testament Septuagint in order to lay a foundation for understanding its subsequent use in the New Testament.
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Friday, August 04, 2006
Report from ‘Writing as Christian Proclamation in Contemporary Contexts’: Week 2
Report from Week 2 of Writing as Christian Proclamation in Contemporary Contexts: The Truth’s Superb Surprise, led by Debra Rienstra of Calvin College, sponsored by CICW and hosted by Seminars in Christian Scholarship: (previous report)
Our second week took us from the richly textured work of Garret Keizer, Marilynne Robinson, and Vinita Wright to discussions of more informal and technology-driven forms of communication, including magazines, visual arts, and the Internet.
At the end of our last day, we went around and shared a word that represented a key area of reflection for us the past two weeks. Mine was “witness.” The very first two days of the seminar, when we talked about the increased blurring of spiritual memoir and apologetics, I seized on the word “witness” when it was offered as an umbrella over both. I’m no good at “witnessing” in the narrow evangelizing sense, but I’ve been challenged these past two weeks to witness in my writing and my life with even a fraction of the subtlety, beauty, wisdom, and hospitality of many of the voices we’ve encountered during the seminar.
We were all struck by the sense of community that formed early and intensely during these two weeks, more than we’ve experienced at other seminars and conferences. And we hatched a scheme to keep working, writing, and witnessing together; stay tuned!
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Thursday, August 03, 2006
Report from ‘Liturgy and Politics: Is the Church a Polis?’ Seminar
Report from Liturgy and Politics: Is the Church a Polis? Seminar by participant John Roth, at the Seminars banquet:
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August Banner articles on pastoral ministry
Two articles on pastoral ministry in the current issue of The Banner:
10 Tips For Pastors
by Bob DeMoor
An Impossible Dream? [on Team Ministry]
by Rev. Mike Abma, Rev. Peter Jonker
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Philip Jenkins excerpt on the Bible in the Global South
Excerpt in the Christian Century of Philip Jenkins’ forthcoming book, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (more earlier)
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