Worship Weblog
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Report from National Worship Leader Conference
Report from Paul Ryan at the National Worship Leader Conference in Austin, Texas:
Tonight began the inaugural National Worship Leader Conference sponsored by Worship Leader magazine. This is a four evening, three day event in Austin, Texas, with plenary speakers, practical workshops, and many, many opportunities to worship together in song and prayer.
Events • Leadership • Music • Worshipping Communities • (1) Comments • Permalink
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Report on visit with John Bell of the Iona Community
Report from Bethany Vrieland:
On Thursday, July 12, around 75 people gathered at First Presbyterian Church in Schoolcraft, Michigan, from Cadillac to Jackson to Kalamazoo in the Presbytery of Southern West Michigan, to spend a day with Iona Community leader John Bell. This program, which was part of a Worship Renewal Grant from CICW, was the result of much prayer and preparation, and the whole day was very effective, powerful, and smooth.
John Bell came to Schoolcraft by way of Indianapolis (and Ireland!), and it was nothing short of a miracle that he came to be in a small town, in a small Presbyterian church, in Western Michigan. John Bell, who is internationally known for his teaching and work on congregational song, has written many hymns that are used around the world today, and he makes many trips a year to teach his ideas, methods, and songs. He came to Schoolcraft to lead a day-long workshop on congregational song, which was followed in the evening by a “Big Sing”.
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Gerardo Marti Speaks to Grant Participants
On Wednesday, July 18th, 20 grant recipients had the opportunity to sit down to a meal with Gerardo Marti, sociologist and author of A Mosaic of Believers, a study of a successfully multi-ethnic church which Marti was a member of for a time in Los Angeles, and hear and discuss the new material that Marti has been studying for his upcoming book.
Prayers for Chip Stam, and Reflections on ‘the Graciousness of Uncertainty’
Our earnest prayers are with our dear friend Chip Stam, director of the Institute for Christian Worship at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and frequent Symposium presenter.
Chip’s latest Worship Quote of the Week is a timely reflection on “The Graciousness of Uncertainty,” and includes a prayer for a complete diagnosis and eventual treatment of a major bone marrow disorder that he has contracted. Chip ends with this verse from “In Christ Alone,” which now takes on new resonance:
No guilt in life, no fear in death:
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
GR Press coverage of congregations study
At the CSR blog: a description of CSR’s Kent County Congregations Study, and a link to recent GR Press coverage.
Update: Calvin College press release on the students involved in this research
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Christian History on martyrdom in the early church
The early church’s theology of martyrdom was born not in synods or councils, but in sunlit, blood-drenched coliseums and catacombs, dark and still as death. The word martyr means “witness” and is used as such throughout the New Testament. However, as the Roman Empire became increasingly hostile toward Christianity, the distinctions between witnessing and suffering became blurred and finally nonexistent.
In the second century, then, martyr became a technical term for a person who had died for Christ, while confessor was defined as one who proclaimed Christ’s lordship at trial but did not suffer the death penalty. A passage from Eusebius describes the survivors of the persecution in Lyons (in 177 in what is today France): “They were also so zealous in their imitation of Christ … that, though they had attained honor, and had borne witness, not once or twice, but many times—having been brought back to prison from the wild beasts, covered with burns and scars and wounds—yet they did not proclaim themselves martyrs, nor did they suffer us to address them by this name. If any one of us, in letter or conversation, spoke of them as martyrs, they rebuked him sharply.… And they reminded us of the martyrs who had already departed, and said, ‘They are already martyrs whom Christ has deemed worthy to be taken up in their confession, having sealed their testimony by their departure; but we are lowly and humble confessors.’ “
Related Resource
Letters from Ignatius en route to his martyrdom, c. 35-107 A.D., from the CCEL
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Theolog on ‘Creative Dislocation’
Christians often practice a little-known spiritual discipline called “creative dislocation” without realizing it: we engage in creative dislocation by going on a spiritual retreat or on a mission trip into a foreign environment—the inner city or a third-world country—where the usual markers of our lives are taken from us, and we’re subject to someone else’s way of doing things. When we’re dislocated, we begin seeing in fresh ways. We look for the familiar in the unfamiliar, and we see what is familiar to us in new ways. If we’re paying attention, we see the presence of God in new ways. ...
Perhaps we should think of vacation as more than a setting away from it all, more than some down time. We might be more likely to find rest for our weary souls by practicing the discipline of creative dislocation.
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BuildingChurchLeaders on preaching in a series
From BuildingChurchLeaders.com
Think in series. Preaching a series allows you to go into greater depth in the text, and spending several weeks on one theme allows the teaching to be absorbed more thoroughly. I recently finished a six-month series on the book of Acts, and it was wonderful to be immersed in the early church. I think one mistake preachers often make is to cycle through material too fast. Just saying something once doesn’t mean it will sink in.
Doing a series also gives you momentum. It makes your research more efficient, and spares you the Monday morning question of “What am I going to teach on next week?” It also helps give you balance, teaching through the whole counsel of God. Those things happen more readily when you plan your series in advance.
I usually try to think in terms of four-month cycles.
Related Resources
Planning Ahead: Preparing Your Worship Calendar
Planning a Summer Sermon Series from the Center for Excellence in Preaching
Planning Ahead: A Six-Month Calendar from the Center for Excellence in Preaching
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Image on EnVision
EnVision Church
In a day when many feel compelled to go outside the church to find beauty, EnVision Church actively works to bring art into sacred spaces. An online resource provided by The Georgetown Center for Liturgy, EnVision Church offers a broad and thoughtful spectrum of art specifically created for sacred spaces. Resources for integrating art and liturgy can be few and far between, especially those with an eye toward excellence and beauty, so it’s refreshing to find a website as thoughtfully constructed and comprehensive as EnVision. Drawing largely on Catholic tradition, its mission is to strike up a forum for anyone interested in learning how to create a worship space that enriches the life of a specific community according to its needs. The site covers everything from the practical issues (effective acoustics, art commissions gone wrong) to seasonal challenges, such as preparing a space for the season of Advent. It also looks at creative examples of installations, architecture, even needlework, for inspiration. With articles reflecting on the interplay between the arts and liturgical tradition, images of worship spaces from six continents, a list of upcoming religious art events and announcements, and a library of glossaries, bibliographies, and church documents, EnVision demonstrates a deep appreciation for worship—seasonal, environmental, and sacramental. As a new site, EnVision is open to suggestions, discussion, and contributions, but even in its infancy already offers a wide array of insight into Catholic aesthetics and worship as it seeks to “generate a community of people whose interests, talents, creativity, and collaborative spirit will bring about a deeper and richer worship life for the Church.”
To go to the EnVision Church website, click here.
Friday, July 06, 2007
Teaching Hymnology ‘07
Reports from Bethany (Meyer) Vrieland on the Teaching Hymnology seminar held last week at Calvin College:
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Catapult on ‘In Sickness’
Catapult’s latest theme issue is on In Sickness, and includes a sermon by Stan Mast on Psalm 103 entitled “And Heals All Your Diseases.” Catapult’s introduction to the issue:
Often, the question of why bad things happen to good people is prompted by illness. A physical force we cannot control conspires against a body to interfere with daily activities and life plans. Every day, people find ways to manage these forces, if not heal completely—and every day, bodies surrender to death. On our attempts to negotiate times of physical and mental illness in ourselves andd others.
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Books & Culture report on CIVA conference
It was fitting that CIVA should make “Transforming Spaces: Virtu(e) and the Virtual” the theme of its 2007 conference, held last [month] at Messiah College in western Pennsylvania. Earl Tai spoke about distributive justice in the context of the “built and designed space.” Ena Heller gave a short history of MOBIA (the Museum of Biblical Art in America), a history attentive both to MOBIA’s location in Manhattan and to the cultural space it seeks to occupy. Ken Myers, in two lectures that bookended the conference, emphasized the contrast between an incarnational faith and a gnostic desire to escape from the body and its limitations—a temptation, Myers suggested, that keeps cropping up in new forms. Allan Wexler, who describes himself as an architect in an artist’s body, rang the changes on familiar spaces—the spaces of tables and chairs, ceilings and walls—with a mad deft witty virtuosity that made the world strange.
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Ancient Prayer of Confession
Have mercy upon us, most gracious and merciful God and Father, through your Son our Lord Jesus Christ. Grant to us and increase in us thy Holy Spirit.
- prayer of confession from the early church, as translated from the Greek and quoted in The Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship, Hughes Oliphant Old, p. 228
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Thursday, July 05, 2007
Image on ‘Sacred and Profane’ in Southern Art
Sacred and Profane: Voice and Vision in Southern Self-Taught Art
Edited by Carol Crown and Charles Russell
The essays in Sacred and Profane: Voice and Vision in Southern Self-Taught Art examine several artists from the last century whose vision has been shaped by the geography, religious imagination, and racial and economic struggles of the American south. Because self-taught art tends to be deeply personal, it would be difficult to make any generalizations about the works featured here: from the chewing gum sculptures, handmade dolls, yard ornaments, and knick knack arrangements of Nellie Mae Rowe, to the “sermons in paint” by the Rev. Howard Finster, to the decorated shoes, chairs, and household objects of George Andrews. Each work is imbued with the private fascinations and idiosyncrasies of the artist—many of whom create out of a sense of divine calling, including the musician-evangelist Anderson Johnson, whose Faith Mission chapel in Newport News, Virginia is covered in his portraits of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and, of course, Jesus. Others are inspired with equal conviction to shape something meaningful out of the more ordinary, even profane, stuff of their world. Most of the works collected in this book (and there are nearly 100 illustrations) combine something of both, balancing what the editors call “the simultaneous demands of the sacred and the profane dimensions of existence.” If they share anything in common, the self-taught artists featured in Sacred and Profane possess a measure of creative improvisation that enables them to seize anything from found objects to Bible verses and appropriate them to their own unique artistic vision.
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Hearts & Minds BookNotes on new books
Byron Borger on new books at his excellent Hearts & Minds BookNotes blog:
So many great new books in the shop, and I am behind it telling you about them. I’ll dispense with the stories and meandering commentary and get right to it.
The Dawkins Delusion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath (IVP) $16 Science journalist Dr. Timothy Johnson notes its “rigorous logic and exquisite fairness…” Michael Ruse says, “The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist, and the McGrath’s show why.”
The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives Ravi Zacharias (Zondervan) $18.99 I believe it was Ravi who I first heard lecture against the meaninglessness of Dawkins’ view. Here, he shows that the threads of our lives are intentionally arranged. John Ortberg writes, “Zacharias never met a question he didn’t like. Here he explores life’s deepest questions in a tapestry that is personal, winsome, and clear.” Mark Buchanan says that “Ravi brings a keen mind, a tender heart, and a deft touch to the task…”
Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Mark D. Roberts (Crossway) $12.99 Scot McKnight’s blurb is helpful: “What F.F. Bruce did for my generation of students, Mark Roberts has done for the current generation. Any student who asks me if our Gospels are reliable will be given this book, and then I’ll buy another copy for the next student!” It has been called “brilliant” and “quite simply the best effort I have ever read by a serious scholar to communicate what scholars know about the Gospels…”
continued…
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