My new love is the privilege – and I don’t say that lightly – of ordering public worship for the church startup I presently serve. I have fallen in love with thinking through a liturgy each week.

A sort of secret weapon for me in this work is a book that a friend gave me. It’s a reprint of the hymnbook used in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, pastored by Charles Spurgeon in the mid to late nineteenth century. One reason this has become such a great resource is that it not only includes the texts of forgotten hymns, but also arrangements of psalms. I like us to sing some form of a psalm each week, if feasible (and more often than not, it’s feasible).

About two weeks ago, I thought it would be good to include an arrangement of the hundredth psalm. The secret weapon offered several versions, and as I read through them, one of the versions stopped me dead in my tracks. Here is the first stanza:Read more

Globalization is great news for some, but devastating for others. The upside is weighted toward owners, investors, customers. Technology makes globalization possible if not ubiquitous. And the church world is not immune to its presence. A couple of months ago I was attending a leadership conference via satellite – a remarkably helpful technological innovation for training – yet, odd at the same time. One of the speakers, a Pastor of a very large church, told the story of an encounter with a pastor in Africa. The African pastor introduced himself to the speaker and told him a rather moving story about downloading the speaker’s weekly sermons at a postal office that he would then preach to his African congregation the following Sunday. The crowd was moved.

Technologies allow us to “do” and “be” the church differently, but in the midst of innovation I hope we are thinking about the things that get lost in translation.  I am not against technology. I am thoroughly accommodated to technology as a way of life. I can’t imagine a home without high-speed service of some sort. I even post on a blog. But I wonder if a globalized sermon is a good thing.

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While in Milan, Augustine sees a happy, drunk beggar and remarks to his friends about the beggar’s sad state. But then Augustine begins to compare his own misery of trying to gain joy through fame from his knowledge and speeches, and realizes the beggar has it better. The key question, Augustine realizes, is where, or from Whom, one seeks joy.

From Augustine’s Confessions, Book 6, chapter 9-10. (italics are mine).

9. I was still eagerly aspiring to honors, money, and matrimony; and You did mock me. In pursuit of these ambitions I endured the most bitter hardships, in which You were being the more gracious the less You would allow anything that was not You to grow sweet to me. Look into my heart, O Lord, whose prompting it is that I should recall all this, and confess it to You. Now let my soul cleave to You, now that You have freed her from that fast-sticking glue of death.

….How wretched I was at that time, and how You did deal with me so as to make me aware of my wretchedness, I recall from the incident of the day on which I was preparing to recite a panegyric on the Emperor. In it I was to deliver many a lie, and the lying was to be applauded by those who knew I was lying. My heart was agitated with this sense of guilt and it seethed with the fever of my uneasiness.

For, while walking along one of the streets of Milan, I saw a poor beggar -- with what I believe was a full belly -- joking and hilarious. And I sighed and spoke to the friends around me of the many sorrows that flowed from our madness, because in spite of all our exertions -- such as those I was then laboring in, dragging the burden of my unhappiness under the spur of ambition, and, by dragging it, increasing it at the same time -- still and all we aimed only to attain that very happiness which this beggar had reached before us; and there was a grim chance that we should never attain it!Read more

Rachel Yoo, a review of the Austin City Limits Music Festival

What do you get when you combine over 120 bands with more than 60,000 music fans to play 33 hours of music in 3 days in 105 degree weather?

The ACL Music Festival is a place where the hipsters don’t mind rocking with the yuppies and where your palate for music matters more than your age. It’s a place where color doesn’t matter; it’s whether you’ve heard of the band and know their unique story. Despite the dust clouds and feeling like you are being cooked for a Texan bbq, the festival is a well-orchestrated and family-friendly event. There’s a local springs to cool off with a swim and professionals are hired to translate lyrics into sign language for many of the bands.

The lineup this year included eight stages that served bands ranging from hippie jam bands like Widespread Panic to emerging local artists like Grupo Fantasma, with the ever-so-popular band Coldplay headlining on the final night. With so many options, it was a difficult exercise to prioritize the bands I wanted to see. In the end, I chose twelve full shows, and squeezed in a few songs of at least five others that are not mentioned. I’m still de-toxing from the over-saturation of non-stop live music, so I have to limit myself to my recommended MUST-SEE artists.

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Michael Spencer, the "Internet Monk," and ringmaster of the raucous,  stimulating and always entertaining Boars Head Tavern, has written a review of Common Grounds (here).Read more

This is one of my favorite passages from Augustine’s Confessions. Augustine tells the story of his good friend, Alypius, who had gone to Rome ahead of Augustine. Alypius had detested the gladiatorial games and had refused to attend the spectacles.

This segment fascinates me because Augustine shows how idols can entrance us bit at a time, and he shows what full-on, all consuming worship looks like, even if the object of worship is an idol. At the end, Augustine shows us God’s grace, which is powerful, tender and able to rescue us from our sin and despair.

From Augustine’s Confessions, Book 6, chapter 8.

He [Alypius] had gone on to Rome before me to study law--which was the worldly way which his parents were forever urging him to pursue--and there he was carried away again with an incredible passion for the gladiatorial shows.

For, although he had been utterly opposed to such spectacles and detested them, one day he met by chance a company of his acquaintances and fellow students returning from dinner; and, with a friendly violence, they drew him, resisting and objecting vehemently, into the amphitheater, on a day of those cruel and murderous shows. He protested to them: “Though you drag my body to that place and set me down there, you cannot force me to give my mind or lend my eyes to these shows. Thus I will be absent while present, and so overcome both you and them.”

When they heard this, they dragged him on in, probably interested to see whether he could do as he said. When they got to the arena, and had taken what seats they could get, the whole place became a tumult of inhuman frenzy. But Alypius kept his eyes closed and forbade his mind to roam abroad after such wickedness. Would that he had shut his ears also!Read more

Legendary Southern folk singer Kate Campbell returns to Charlottesville on October 5 at the Gravity Lounge (details here).

On her last visit Kate inspired the "Lost in Translation" post (here), which in turn led to a stimulating discussion with Greg Thompson, Greg Hewlett and others. Read more

Bill Wilder has an interesting post about the Temple in John's Gospel, and the relationship of the Temple to the person of Jesus.Read more

    What is grace? The standard definition of g-r-a-c-e, God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense is accurate. Because of Christ’s death on the cross, all the love, security and joy you could ever imagine are yours for the taking, no strings attached. But I think Bono’s description of grace in a song by that title is the more intriguing definition: he says that grace “travels outside of karma.”  

 Karma is you get what you deserve. Grace is you get far far better than you deserve.

  Karma is what goes round comes round. If you’ve done something bad and wrong, it will come back to haunt you. Grace is what goes round is gone forever, covered by the blood of Christ on the cross.

 Karma – also known theologically and biblically as “the law” is how the whole world operates; we are its helpless prisoners. But grace comes from the outside, it travels outside of karma, it comes from and only comes from the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

I don’t enjoy it when people talk about “purity.” When they say “purity” I think of my own impurity and my failure to be pure. I don’t really need someone else pointing out my lack of purity because I’m already aware of it. I live with myself, so I know all the secrets others don’t know and think all the thoughts others never hear. When I hear someone talking about purity it just picks at the wound that I’ve already picked open.

Perhaps you feel the same way. If you do, that doesn’t change the fact that most of us construct strategies to deal with feeling like this—to cover, disguise, hide, deny, or distract ourselves and others from our impurity.  Our strategies make sense. I don’t want others knowing where I’m a pitiful failure, so I find ways to come off as “living the success Christian life,” or as “making progress in my spiritual journey,” or “growing in holiness” or whatever we call it.

But I think Jesus offers an alternative. Last week the priest at my church end his sermon by saying this line: “God sees you as perfect.” The reason he could say that is because Jesus transforms impurity into perfection. Ofcourse, the question remains—How can God see me a perfect when I’m not really perfect?