Worship Weblog
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Fleming Rutledge: “Advent begins in the dark”
Advent teaches us to delay Christmas in order to experience it truly when it finally comes. Advent is designed to show that the meaning of Christmas is diminished to the vanishing point if we are not willing to take a fearless inventory of the darkness. ...
The authentically hopeful Christmas spirit has not looked away from the darkness, but straight into it. The true and victorious Christmas spirit does not look away from death, but directly at it. Otherwise, the message is cheap and false. Instead of pointing to someone else’s sin, we confess our own. “In our sins we have been a long time” [Isaiah 64]. Advent begins in the dark.
- Fleming Rutledge, “Advent Begins in the Dark,” from The Bible and the New York Times
Lectionary readings for the first Sunday of Advent: “the day is near”
The Old Testament and Epistle readings from the lectionary for this Sunday—the first Sunday of the new church year.
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord!- from Isaiah 2
Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
- from Romans 13
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Volunteer at Symposium 2008!
We’re serving hot chocolate (with marshmellows!) outside our office today to passersby who may be interested in volunteering at Symposium. Even if you can’t come to our office today, we’d love to have you volunteer!
Titles of Psalms 42-89
From John Goldingay’s new volume of commentary on the Psalms:
Psalms 42–43: Coping with Separation from God’s Presence 19
Psalm 44: Coping with Defeat 35
Psalm 45: The True King and True Queen 52
Psalm 46: Trust and Stop 64
Psalm 47: God Has Begun to Reign 74
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Milton Quarterly review of ‘Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature’
Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature - Hannibal Hamlin
Beth Quitslund
Milton Quarterly 40 (3), 250-251.
In his informative and wide-ranging survey of literary Psalms and Psalm translation in early modern England, Hannibal Hamlin makes two related arguments. The first is that “the translation, or ‘Englishing,’ of the biblical Psalms substantially shaped the culture of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England” (1). At face value, this is a very large historiographic bite to chew, and in fact, Psalm Culture is interested primarily (although not exclusively) with the specifically literary uses of the Psalms in English. The second contention is that many metrical psalm paraphrases are complex works of literary art, and thus deserve the kinds of critical analysis and respect that we give to the “original” lyrics of the period.
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Model for worship and culture
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Event from grant recipient: Baptist Worship Identity Project and Symposium
Upcoming event from grant recipient Union University in Jackson, Tennessee:
Update: We grieve with the staff and students at Union University who experienced severe and devastating damage as the result of a tornado on February 5. The conference planned for February 14 to 16 was canceled. Please join us in praying for the Union University community as they rebuild and heal in the months ahead. (Related news release and more news from Union.)
Tim McCarthy on worship leadership in Christian higher education
Note from Symposium presenter Tim McCarthy:
“This site includes: My MA major paper, on the Role of Chapel in Christian Higher Education (I’ll be presenting on this at the Symposium in January), a paper I did as part of a trip to Calvin College, North Park University, and Trinity International University, observing and analyzing their student leadership training programs, my own draft training program, and a paper on diversity.”
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007
WTS website redesign
at www.wts.edu: (more info)
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“God Has Gone Up With Shouts of Joy” - song for Christ the King week
In staff meeting today we sang “God Has Gone Up With Shouts of Joy” (Sing #154), which, we noted, was written for Ascension Day but ably fits the days following Christ the King Sunday, the climax of the Christian year:
God has gone up with shouts of joy!
Christ claims the throne of glory:
immortal Word in mortal flesh
to share with God our story
of humans lost to death and sin
who ache to be invited in
to Love’s eternal blessing.
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Monday, November 26, 2007
George Thompson, Jr. on the “inner-directed conventional church”
An excerpt of George B. Thompson Jr.‘s “Church on the Edge of Somewhere: Ministry, Marginality, and the Future,” from Alban Weekly:
The life of an inner-directed conventional church offers stability, status, and affirmation, especially to its long-time members. They are more interested in what they think of themselves than of what their community thinks of them. Indeed, as the years go by, inner-directed conventional churches might hold a perception of their place in the community that is very different from reality. Deep down, the congregation believes that “we have what we want” and “we are content to be who we are.” Beyond commenting to visitors that “we are warm and friendly,” members of these churches say little out loud about what is important to the congregation. Their budget typically includes mission projects locally and beyond, but a newcomer to the church might feel that these are token gestures. In inner-directed conventionality, a church’s energy and concentration clearly is on itself (however it defines itself) rather than upon the needs of persons and groups in difficult circumstances. Their efforts to interact with people in need are often brief and ill-considered. We can speculate that the culture of inner-directed conventionality makes it awkward and nervous for a church that is content with itself to wrestle deeply with segments of its world for which contentment is elusive.
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Christian History on “Happy Advent?”
From Christian History and Biography:
The time before Christmas hasn’t always been a celebration. Like the Lenten season before Easter, Advent was once a solemn preparation for Christmas. Actually, not Christmas exactly. Originally it was a season preparing for Epiphany, January 6—which commemorates not Jesus’ birth, but his adoration by the Magi (in the West) or his baptism in the Jordan River (in the East). Some people claim Advent was first celebrated by the apostle Peter, but the exact starting date of the season has been lost to history. Whenever it started, Advent originally was a time of fasting and self-reflection.
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Serving Two Masters? Christian Smith on American giving
From Terry Mattingly’s syndicated religion column:
The bumper sticker said: “Don’t let my car fool you. My treasure is in heaven.” This echoed the Bible passage in which Jesus urged believers to, “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. ... For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
This sticker’s creator probably intended it to be displayed on the battered bumper of a maintenance-challenged car, noted sociologist Christian Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and
Society at the University of Notre Dame. Thus, the sticker suggests that the driver knows his car is a wreck, but that he has “other commitments and priorities” that matter more.But Smith was puzzled when he saw this sticker on a $42,000 SUV parked at a bank.
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Tuesday, November 20, 2007
“Awake, My Soul”: New Documentary on Sacred Harp
Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp
In Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp, filmmakers Matt and Erica Hinton put a camera where no camera has gone before: in the old fashioned rural churches of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi where young and old gather to sing Sacred Harp, an a cappella hymn-singing tradition with roots in post-Puritan New England. Sacred Harp was, the filmmakers contend, America’s first music, and though it all but disappeared with the changing trends in American music over the last century and a half, it was ultimately preserved—not by the academies and institutions, “but instead by unschooled rural southerners who sang it not for an audience, but for one another and for God.” Combining history, archival images, interviews, and candid recordings, Awake, My Soul chronicles the intriguing story behind this much-loved musical tradition.
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Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Mark Noll on ‘song, culture, divine bounty, and issues of harmonization’
Mark Noll, in the latest issue of Books&Culture:
What explains the power of song so powerfully to shape, anchor, encourage, disturb, unite, divide, and distract Christian communities?
It is a much better question than can be answered in a brief essay on what the churches must learn and unlearn in order to be agents of God in the world. Yet at least part of the answer is that singing is a deeply rooted expression of culture. Becoming self-conscious about culture and why, as illustrated by Christian experience of song, reactions to cultural expressions are so powerful has become imperative. With people, goods, and communications both electronic and print now flying around the globe at unprecedented speeds, and—more important—with almost all Christian communities daily confronting ever-expanding instances of cross-cultural commingling, the church’s effectiveness as the herald of salvation and the hands of Christ for service in the world depends, now more than ever, on self-conscious attention to cultural differences.
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