The "Messiah" by George Frederic Handel!

Handel's "Messiah" is one of the most amazing pieces of music I've ever heard, and talk about worshipping God through music - I don't think I've ever heard (or will ever hear) any composition of music so full of incredible Gospel truth as the "Messiah." Listening to a work of art like this can really inspire our hearts toward an attitude of worship, and is especially rich to do during the Christmas season when we try to focus even more intently on God's redemptive plan.

So go here to listen to a full recording of the "Messiah" on NPR's website. Just click the "Listen" link, and let it rip.

Preparing for Sunday, 11-21-10

Another Sunday is almost upon us, and we have good things in store. Music rehearsal went really well last night, and I’m thoroughly excited about the set. The team will be playing 3 songs this Sunday morning, and our kids’ choir will be adding a 4th. Pastor John will be preaching on Titus 2:11-15, on the character of a Christian that God has saved in and through the Gospel. Our worship set will be as follows:

• Forever: Our call to worship for the morning. A great song of praise to God for His faithfulness in how He loves us. The verses repeat the phrase, “His love endures forever,” which echoes psalms that are repetitious in how they praise God for certain attributes.
• Mighty to Save: This is our transition song from thinking about the sovereign faithfulness of God, to thoughts of the Gospel. Our Savior is a sovereign Savior, Who is mighty to save, and will save His people. Verse 2 of the song is a plea for God to “fill our lives” with His presence and the control of His Spirit, which connects to the subject of Titus 2 (appropriate Christian conduct).
• The Power of the Cross: After offering, we’ll lead through this song, which is a close reflection on the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The song moves systematically, partly as a narrative, through what Christ has accomplished for us. One of my favorite lines comes from verse 4, saying, “Oh to see my name written in the wounds, for through Your suffering I am free! Death is crushed to death; life is mine to live, won through Your selfless love!”

A note on The Power of the Cross: In our corporate worship week-to-week, we need to keep finding our way again and again into the Gospel. This means thinking about the Gospel, remembering what God has done in our own lives to save us, thinking about what He has saved us from, and what He has saved us to. God tells us in the book of Titus, over and over, that as Christians we need to be all about good works. But do our good works save us? Absolutely not! God has saved us completely by His grace, through Jesus (everything this song talks about), and because of that God desires us to do good works. So as we hear preaching about living correctly, having lives filled with good works, we need to understand that all of this happens only because Christ died, and lives on our behalf. Praise God!

See you Sunday!

Great Article from "Biola Magazine"

Marshall Walter gave me this article to read from "Biola Magazine," about current worship music in churches needing to have, as the subtitle of the article states, "a dose of doctrine and imagination." The article is part critique, and part encouragement for churches and church music leaders/teams, to choose thoughtful, biblical music for their corporate worship meetings. I found it very encouraging.

Here are a few quotes from the article I thought were especially good:

"If we are praying or singing things together as a congregation that are shallow or disconnected, we are not succeeding in forming Christians to be the people of God," says [Andrew] Braine, who believes worship pastors should be intentional about choosing songs and leading a service that is deep, meaningful and every bit as truth-filled as the pastor's sermon.

[W]orship music shouldn't pander to the audience or assume they can't handle complexity or depth in worship.

[W]orship should be less about making us feel good and more about fundamentally changing who we are as the people of God.

"Ultimately, we need to turn our eyes to God and away from ourselves, adds [Dan] Radmacher. There are a lot of songs about my response to God in worship, but songs that focus on Him should be our bread and butter. 2 Corinthians 3 says that if we gaze on God's glory we change; not if we focus on ourselves."

Preparing for Sunday, 11-14-10

It’s Saturday night, and I’m at home, thinking about church tomorrow morning. I’m relaxed at the moment, but I’m sure I’ll have the usual “jitters” when my alarm goes off at 5:40 AM. By jitters, I mean the mixture of excitement and anxiety that usually comes along with everything we all have to think through for a Sunday morning church service.

But it’s all good. I’m looking forward to church tomorrow, because I get to be with my family, and “charge up” for the week ahead. I’m reminded of Hebrews 10:23-25, which says,

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Emphasis added)

For the writer of Hebrews, meeting together as the gathered local church is serious business. I want to think like this about church, and fight to never waste a Sunday by missing out on the joy of meeting together as the family of God. Lets strive to see Sunday as a time when we get to “hold fast” to truth together, to encourage one another and “stir up one another to love and good works.” Again, the writer of Hebrews is serious about church, and tells us that the health of our souls depends on meeting together.

So tomorrow Pastor Jordan will be bringing the preaching of the Word, from Titus 2:9,10, about slaves (workers), worshiping God through their work. He’ll be focusing on the Gospel as the key element that enables such worship to take place.

We’ll be singing of the greatness and goodness of God with Indescribable and Blessed Be Your Name, and leading into the sermon with the hymn Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken, which is an amazing song about Gospel-driven Christian living.

See you tomorrow!

Reflecting on Sunday morning (yesterday), 11-7-10:

Well as it happens, the Sunday after I tell everyone on the music team about the blog, I don't get a chance to post about Sunday morning before Sunday comes. Irony eh?

Reflecting is good, however, so I'm taking this opportunity to reflect back on corporate worship yesterday morning.

• We started things off with Our God, a "call-to-worship" style of up-tempo praise song. This is a newer song we've introduced recently, and yesterday was the 3rd time we've sung it together on a Sunday morning.

• After song #1, Pastor John brought the preaching of the Word, focusing on Titus 2:6-8 and the character and ambitions of a godly young man. One of John's points that I thought was excellent, and that I need reminders of all the time, was that our "good works" that God commands and expects from His children, happen because we are children of God. We do not earn our salvation by doing good works, but do good works because God has saved us and given us His Spirit!

• After preaching we responded in song, with How Great is Our God, a joyful exultation in our great God, Who is both Lord of the universe, and our gracious Savior.

• We continued our corporate worship with a baby dedication of Phil and Christy Twitchell's little girl Madeline.

• After the baby dedication and a few announcements, we sang 2 more songs together: How Marvelous, and new song called There Will Be A Day. The purpose of these two songs was to bring our focus more closely onto the Gospel, and the connection between the two is the hope of one day being with Christ, our Savior, free from sin and death.

Overall, I think the flip-flopped order of service went well, although we may tweak a few things in the future to make said "flip-flopping" as effective as possible. Good morning of worship together though, through preaching, singing and fellowship.

There Will Be A Day is one of my favorite new songs, and I heard a lot of encouraging feedback about the clear, biblical lyrics, etc. We will play it again in a couple weeks, but for now either go here to listen to the song, or go to iTunes and download it. It's worth your .99 cents!

The power of music in "Alice Dancing Under the Gallows"

Watch this trailer for "Alice Dancing Under the Gallows."

This short film is a trailer for a documentary coming out next year. It's about Alice Herz-Sommer, the oldest Holocaust survivor in the world. What looks to add an extra intriguing element to the film, is its focus on music - Alice is an amazing pianist, and speaks quite a bit (even in the trailer) about the power of music. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to seeing this film.

Here are some things I found exceptionally compelling in the trailer, and bear with me to see the connection to church music:

1. Alice's thoughts about Beethoven. He has always been my favorite composer, and Alice expresses my own reasons why, in ways I don't think I could have. She says that Beethoven's music is so much more than melody - there's so much fullness in it that goes deeper than simple melody.

2. Alice's genuine love for people. Alice comments that she loves people: that she loves getting to know people, and loves hearing about people's lives. This was convicting for me - how much to I genuinely just love getting involved in the lives of people?

3. Alice's comment that music is god (with which I disagree). She says that music can give a person hope, can transport them away from a hopeless circumstance, can give life to a soul. However, I do agree with some of this - music is powerful, and I believe God created music to affect and stir our souls in some of these ways. Overall, what Alice says is a testament to how powerful music can be; though music is not a god in any sense of the word, God created it to powerfully stir our affections for Him. All truth is God's truth, and truth is true, even when communicated by an unbeliever; and I see some very true things being said here about music.

4. The role that music played in the lives of those in the Nazi concentration camps. One of Alice's friends (a fellow Holocaust survivor) comments that in their hopeful attitude, that music fed, they were "dancing under the gallows." Music gave joy to them in the midst of the hopelessness, which leads me to think about the singing of a church.

How many times have we attended church on Sunday, but have felt completely discouraged by things going on in life? We come and hear about the joys of knowing God and being saved from our sins, but often still feel discouraged? Sometimes it's hard to reconcile that conflict in our hearts, at least for me. We want to sing about having joy, and hear it preached about, and actually feel some of that joy!

When we sing as the redeemed body of Christ, music can help us do that. Our affections can be stirred with the hopeful truths of Scripture, and our hearts and minds can unite as we joyfully praise and worship our Savior through song. This is also why the songs we sing in church should be full of specific, Biblical lyrics.