Sycamore

Ever wanted to go behind the scenes with people who have devoted their lives to providing God’s people with solid worship music?  Here’s “ten notable ideas” from the last National Worship Leader’s Conference, in a seminar led by Kieth Getty (who wrote In Christ Alone).  It’s got a lot of musical shop-talk in it, but it’s amazing how even bits of advice on writing worship music can remind you of the reasons why we worship:

1.  The primary form we use is the story form. The gospel is primarily story. How do you take people who want 4-line worship songs and get them to sing 32 lines? By structuring the song as a story.

2.  It is important to look at things that are harrowing and that don’t necessarily make us feel happy. The central core of the Christian faith is not something that makes us happy. We need to acknowledge our need for a redeemer. The reason we worship is that we meet God through the central story of the cross.

3.  We need lament. But if you want to write lament, remember that a successful lament resolves. Not into a happily-ever-after ending, but like the psalms of lament, by ultimately acknowledging that God is God.

4.  To write strong melodies remember that folk melody has to be passed on orally (aurally). I try to write songs that can be sung with no written music. I imitate Irish folk melody, with a great deal of contour, of rise and fall.

5.  Use pastors and theologians as resources for your writing. But keep company with them. Don’t just ask them to fix your text here or there when you’re done with it.

6.  Trinitarian worship safeguards us from so many problems our worship can get into: either an overly stern view of god or a casual view of god. Both can lead to problems in our lives.

7.  Martin Luther is one of ten people from history I would want to have coffee with. I have looked at a lot of Luther’s hymns and emulated him. First, Luther had a high view of redemption. He also believed we live our lives in the midst of spiritual warfare. Thirdly, he had a high view of the church and a high vision of the church.

8.  The congregation is the choir and it is merely the privilege of those of us who are musically gifted to help them sing.

9.  Lyrics and great writing are the same thing. Lyricism is poetry. If your write lyrics, read as much poetry as you can. Lyricists are people who love words and do crossword puzzles.

10.  Growing up, I never listened to pop music as a child. I was steeped in church music. That could be a blessing because everything I write can be sung by a congregation.

(HT: JT)

Most of us have wondered why we should pray if God already knows what’s going to happen.  Most of us have also found ourselves not praying because we know God already knows what’s going to happen.  Sometimes the answers we get to questions like these sound a lot like, “Just pray anyways.”  Here, Don Carson takes a few minutes to treat the question well, and give us some important perspective:

(HT: Thabiti)

Jerry Bridges is really good at what he does: writing about important things very clearly.  I’m slowly reading through one of his classics, Trusting God, and I came across this gem of a quote.  Thought I’d pass it on as I slowly head back into some consistency on this blog.

“Trusting God in the midst of our pain and heartache means that we accept it from Him.  There is a vast difference between acceptance and either resignation or submission.  We can resign ourselves to a difficult situation, simply because we see no other alternative.  Many people do that all the time.  Or we can submit to the sovereignty of God in our circumstances with a certain amount of reluctance.  But to truly accept our pain and heartache has the connotation of willingness.  An attitude of acceptance says that we trust God, that He loves us, and knows what is best for us.

Acceptance does not mean that we do not pray for physical healing, or for the conception and birth of a little one to our marriage.  We should indeed pray for those things, but we should pray in a trusting way.  We should realize that, though God can do all things, for infinitely wise and loving reasons, He may not do that which we pray that He will do.  How do we know how long to pray?  As long as we can pray trustingly, with an attitude of acceptance of His will, we should pray as long as the desire remains.”

I find myself drifting towards resignation or the bad kind of submission very often—probably every day.  And there are plenty of times that I have a hard time knowing (a) how to pray with faith that God can do all things and at the same time (b) mean it when I say “thy will be done.”  I’ll go back and forth between the two, and feel a twinge of guilt because I feel like I’m always neglecting one of them.  The idea that I can “pray trustingly, with an attitude of acceptance of His will” but still keep on praying “as long as the desire remains,” is really a blessing to me.  I hope it is to you as well.

Makes me happy every time.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. -Deuteronomy 5:8

“Israelites were not to make any image of Yahweh in the form of anything in creation.  For what reason was the faith of Yahweh to be imageless? …Yahweh is the living God, and any carved statue is necessarily lifeless.  Something that can do nothing is no image of the God who can do all things.  the only legitimate image of God, therefore, is the image God created in his own likeness—the living, thinking, working, speaking breathing, relating human being (not even a human statue will do, but only the living person)”  (Christopher Wright, Deuteronomy, NIBC, 70-71).

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. -Colossians 1:15-20

Throwback to a simpler time.

And turn up the speakers.  Best use of auto-tune ever.

I’m getting paper cuts from all the page turning I have to do to translate Deuteronomy 5-6, 9-10, and 28-29 for a class next week.  The professor said something about having “rust on the gears.”  Mine look like one of those submarines that sank in a world war and can only be seen by tiny diving robots with mounted cameras.

Sometimes you read the Old Testament and see a lot of repetition, and wonder why it’s there.  Among many good theological reasons, I’m pretty sure God put in repetition so that Hebrew students would be able to recognize a repeated phrase just before the translation work caused them to lose it and end up in one of those padded rooms.

Maybe a slight exaggeration, but regardless, I’m working on Hebrew for a while.  So posts will be limited.

Thanks for your understanding.
-The Management

I particularly appreciate the piano work: