Some great thoughts on corporate worship by Greg Gilbert.

It's always seemed to me that Satan must take a peculiar pride in the tactic of taking music---which God intended to be a beautiful means of worship to Him---and turning it into a line of division and battle among His people.

[I]t fills my heart with joy (no kidding!) that the success or failure of our music on Sunday mornings depends on whether our congregation shows up ready to sing. It's amazing, really. When we as a church show up prepared to engage in the service, excited to worship Christ and hear from his Word, our music succeeds in a big way---the voices fill up our sanctuary like a flood, and it's beautiful to hear.

Greg Gilbert

Preparing for Sunday, 8/21/11

It's good to be home. Jenny and I took the kids on vacation to New Hampshire to visit Jenny's family, and I had the chance to fly down for a few days to the Worship God Conference in Gaithersburg, Maryland. It was a pretty awesome time. Stay tuned for a post reflecting on the conference!

This Sunday, Pastor John will preach from John 17:1-5, the beginning of a 3 week series through Jesus' high Priestly prayer. This will also wrap up our summer preaching series on "Jesus' School of Prayer." This week, John will focus in on the glory of Christ, and his prayer for the Father to glorify Himself through the shed blood of Jesus. And to restore Christ's own glory, that He had before when He was with the Father. Good theology coming this Sunday!

Our songs will focus in on the redeeming work of Jesus, and the glory and surpassing value of knowing Him. Here they are:

1. Forever
2. The Glories of Calvary
3. The Wonderful Cross
4. Before the Throne of God Above
5. My Jesus, I Love Thee (1st Verse)

I want to highlight "Before the Throne of God Above" really quick. We've sung this before in our church, but this song is so rich we need to meditate on the lyrics. If you spend some time soaking in the lyrics to this song, you will have some food for serious joy in Christ, and serious ammunition against your sin, and against the Devil.

I especially love the 2nd verse, that says "When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within/Upward I look and see Him there, Who made an end of all my sin!" By knowing the Gospel well, and knowing what it really means to be born-again and rooted in Jesus, we have the cure for a thousand sorrows. Jesus has completely paid for our sin; it is finished, and we have no more guilt or judgment to bear.

Here are all the lyrics to "Before the Throne:"

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace,
One in Himself I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Savior and my God!

Another quote for the pondering!

"Corporate worship in the church is not music driven, it’s theology driven."

~ C.J. Mahaney

And I would argue that it MUST be. If it's not, it's worthless. The music has to serve the message being preached in our churches. Our music must be clear, Biblically sound, and Gospel-saturated.

Worship

I regularly need reminders like this. May our Sunday gatherings be the outflow of lives worshiping God day-in and day-out.

“True worship isn’t best shown by the comfortable corporate confessions on Sunday, but by your choices of submission Monday through Saturday.”

Paul Tripp

The next 2 weeks at Grace: PART 1

Hey everybody,
the next 2 weeks Tim Plaster, and Eric Walter will be leading music for main service. They've both graciously and joyfully stepped up to take over while Jenny and I and the kids are out of town in NH.

Jenny and I will be leading music for her family's church, Faith Fellowship in Concord, NH for the weeks we're gone. We're really looking forward to that - it's always a joy to be with this other church body. We're close with several of the families here, and it's fun to be a part of another group of Christians that feel like family for a couple of weeks. I'll also be attending the Worship God conference in Maryland while we're here on the East coast, so you can pray for both of those things: our time with the church back here, and for Jenny and the kids while I'm away for a few nights at the conference.

Make sure you're preparing your heart for corporate worship this Sunday - be there ready to sing together as the Body of Christ, and to listen to preaching together. Pastor John will preach from Luke 22:39-46, on "Prayer and Pain," continuing our Summer sermon series on what Christ taught us about prayer. Read the passage, and check out the song links below to prepare for Sunday mornin'.

Songs:
1. Hosanna (Praise is Rising)
2. What a Friend We Have in Jesus
3. Holy Holy Holy
4. Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken
5. Christ is Risen

Music Recommendations!

Hey friends,

I'm trying to write a post every few months or so, recommending an album or two that are current, and that are really good stuff for the Church to be listening to. Basically, this is a "new worship music" showcase, with new music that you may or may not have heard about yet. I'm trying hard to stay up on who's writing really good, new music for the Church to sing, and hopefully you can benefit from this!

Here are a couple new albums that I'm really enjoying, and why. These come highly recommended, both for the lyrics and musicality. You can click on the titles of the albums for links to buy em' on iTunes.

1. "A Sweet and Bitter Providence" by The Joy Eternal.

This record, both in title and content, was inspired by John Piper's book, A Sweet and Bitter Providence. The 6 songs on this short EP follow the same theme, of rejoicing in God's infinitely good purposes in all that He does (even in the painful things).

Something the songs deal with, and that comes inspired very much by Piper, is that although sometimes life is very difficult and full of pain and difficulty, God does nothing by accident and is working gloriously good things out of everything bad and evil. That's some heavy theology to work through, and these songs are a great attempt, and help at doing that. Ultimately, this is an album full of really good, weighty praise. The music is very contemporary though not too "rocked-out;" the arrangements are intricate and beautiful.

2. "10,000 Reasons" by Matt Redman

This record just came out a couple of weeks ago, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. We just introduced the title track in church yesterday by the way!

Overall, this is probably the most God and Christ-exalting stuff I've heard from Redman yet. He's obviously growing in his theology and love of Scripture, which is reflected in his songwriting. The album is more full of great truths about God and Christ, rather than about us, which is the more spiritually healthy way to go, and definitely the most helpful kind of songs for a church to sing.

This album was recorded totally live, which is pretty cool (though it was definitely polished up and mastered in the editing process). The whole feel of the recording is pretty awesome, start to finish. It's rare these days to find a full-length "worship" album, that's so great pretty much the whole way through.

There are a couple of disclaimers though:

1) There are a few places where Redman's lyrics make vows to God, along the lines of "I will never stop believing in You," etc. This is dangerous territory to get into if you're writing songs for congregational singing. A church has to recognize that on any given Sunday, and even among the regular attenders, there are a fair number of unbelievers present; we should stay away from making people sing promises that they can't keep, or sing things about themselves that aren't true. That's why worship music that sings accurate truths about God are always the best way to go - the lyrics are always true, and can be brought to bear on believers and unbelievers alike.

2) In the song "Where Would We Be," talking about all that Christ has accomplished for Christians in his sacrificial, atoning death, the song says, "Jesus, You heard our cry." I'm not sure exactly what Redman was going for with this lyric, but it could mean a couple of things. First, if it means that human kind gave up a general cry of anguish for its fallen state, then yes, this lyric is true. However, if it means that we cried out to God for a way to be saved and He came through for us, this is only true if we understand that on our own, in our natural sinful state, we did not love God, and wanted nothing to do with Him (John 3:16-21). In salvation, God softens and prepares our hearts by His Spirit, and causes us to be born again; and if we cry out to God for forgiveness from our sins, it's because God has already been at work in our hearts (John 3:21; 2 Cor. 4:6). This isn't an unbiblical lyric, necessarily, but we just have to be careful that we know what we're actually saying when we sing.

Hope this is helpful. Get the music, and enjoy the listening!

Here's to good music, written by the Church, for the Church!