prayerbookproject

video podcast for worship team training

This past summer I led worship for a retreat at Laity Lodge, just outside of Kerrville, TX. Branon Dempsey was attending the retreat and interviewed me for his Worship Team Training video podcast. We spent the majority of our time talking about multi-generational worship and you can view the videos at the following links. Thanks to Branon for putting this together! There are some other interviews there, including one with Scotty Smith, that are definitely worth checking out.

WTT Video Podcast, part 1

WTT Video Podcast, part 2

live at peace

Rod Wilson, president of Regent College, spoke for chapel yesterday morning on Romans 12:18. In my struggle to find good songs to sing I decided to write one myself. This short verse is a sermon in itself: "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."

After working in a church for the past almost nine years I know that unity in the Christian community often wavers between minor 2nds and perfect 5ths. This short song contains 7 minor 2nds and 5 perfect 5ths (in some cases these are really inverted perfect 4ths, but you get the idea). It is important when singing this two-part song to keep singing all the way to the end or you may end up with some serious dissonance.

The theology of Karl Barth was bouncing through my head as I wrote this reminding me that "all theology is eschatological." It is important that we keep looking ahead...wait for the Lord...for it is only in Christ that we will find peace and true community.

arts chapel

The first two weeks of the Summer Session at Regent College are now over. During most chapels (which happen every day during the summer) there is a speaker, but yesterday we did something different and had an arts chapel. We brought together different art forms into a time of worship and ended up with a kind of global lectio divina based around Matthew 14:25-33. A lot of what you see below was written by Regent students. It is a good place to be.

Between Darkness and Light by Mary McCleary

Mateo 14:25-33 (Matthew 14:25-33 in Spanish)

God Bless This Tiny Boat by Leunig (from a great little book of prayers and cartoons called When I Talk To You: A Cartoonist talks to God)

God bless this tiny little boat
And me who travels in it
It stays afloat for years and years
And sinks within a minute

And so the soul in which we sail
Unknown by years of thinking,
Is deeply felt and understood
The minute that it's sinking.

For Dear Life by Carol Aust

At The Edge (short story) by Aften W.

Make Me Whole (song) by Magdalene Lim


Walking On Water by Rudolph Bostic

New Years Eve (poems) by Rudi Krause

マタイ 14:25-33 (Matthew 14:25-33 in Japanese)

O The Deep, Deep Love Of Jesus


Get Out Of The Boat by Wayne Forte

Simon Being Purified by Sarah Chestnut

“But seeing the wind, he became afraid,
and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying,
‘Lord, save me!’” (Matthew 14:30)

I am no stranger to the snapping waves
and I have seen the waters fall settled,
smooth as a roadway and crusted to salt
crunching beneath my feet along the shore.

But never have I known the waves as flames
bent on razing my strength to smoke. Every
step burned like fire, and all those tossed waves
offering me up by my slow tread toward you.

But the wind.  The wind!  Your wind-whipped face
beyond the swelling waves, shadowed by smoke
to disappearance and this small, lit path
evaporating in the rising heat.

The scorching chill licked the cry from my throat—
save me you did, lifting me soaked, scalded
to the bone, damning the doubt that threatened
to drink me down to the depths.   

I sat in the boat and wept.
The stilled sea steaming out all my so-called faith:
burned to a nub, one small coal left to sputter
as you climbed aboard to steer the rudder. 

Matthew 14:25-33

Silent Prayer

Excerpt from Four Quartets: The Dry Salvages by T.S. Eliot

Where is there an end of it, the soundless wailing,
The silent withering of autumn flowers
Dropping their petals and remaining motionless;
Where is there and end to the drifting wreckage,
The prayer of the bone on the beach, the unprayable
Prayer at the calamitous annunciation?

    There is no end, but addition: the trailing
Consequence of further days and hours,
While emotion takes to itself the emotionless
Years of living among the breakage
Of what was believed in as the most reliable—
And therefore the fittest for renunciation.

    There is the final addition, the failing
Pride or resentment at failing powers,
The unattached devotion which might pass for devotionless,
In a drifting boat with a slow leakage,
The silent listening to the undeniable
Clamour of the bell of the last annunciation.

Passing Of The Peace

worship @ the CIVA conference

Last week I had the privilege of leading worship for the CIVA Bienniel Conference at Bethel University in Minneapolis. The theme of the conference was the question of culture and speakers included Miroslav Volf, Mako Fujimura & Cam Anderson. This was my first time to a CIVA conference and I was blessed to meet so many gifted artists. This was a diverse bunch of believers so I drew from many different Christian traditions in order to plan worship.

Thursday Night
As so many had traveled from so far to be at the conference I decided to read the Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot. As artists we often deal with the in-between-places of the faith so I sang Here In Between, a hymn I wrote for Holy Saturday, as an introduction to our time together.

Friday Morning
Call to Worship - Psalm 126.
Jesus Calls Us Here To Meet Him (first 3 verses by John L. Bell)

Jesus calls us here to meet him
as, through word and song and prayer,
we affirm God’s promised presence
where his people live and care.
Praise the God who keeps his promise;
praise the Son who calls us friends;
praise the Spirit who, among us,
to our hopes and fears attends.

Jesus calls us to confess him
Word of Life and Lord of all,
sharer of our flesh and frailness
saving all who fail or fall.
Tell his holy human story;
tell his tales that all may hear;
tell the world that Christ in glory
came to earth to meet us here.

Jesus calls us to each other:
vastly different though we are;
race and colour, class and gender
neither limit nor debar.
Join the hand of friend and stranger;
join the hands of age and youth;
join the faithful and the doubter
in their common search for truth.

Leader: We bow before You and pray to You, O good and loving God.
ALL: Hear our supplication: cleanse our souls and bodies from every defilement of flesh and spirit, and grant that we may stand before Your holy altar without blame or condemnation. 
Leader: Grant also, O God, progress in life, faith, and spiritual discernment to the faithful who pray with us, so that they may always worship You with reverence and love, partake of Your Holy     Mysteries without blame or condemnation, and become worthy of Your heavenly kingdom.
ALL: And grant that always guarded by Your power we may give glory to You, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen. - from the Divine Liturgy
Wait For The Lord (Taize)
Reading – Genesis 11:1-9
Silent Prayer & Reflection (The Very Top by Jeremy Mangan)
This Is Our God (Tomlin)
In Christ Alone (Getty/Townend)
The Death of Death (Athanasius as translated by Scott Cairns)

Friday Night
I led a Compline service with Bobby Gross from the Book of Common Prayer with the music:
Irish Alleluia (Proulx)
Bless the Lord (Taize)
Gloria Patri (Eck)

Saturday Morning

Call to Worship – Colossians 1:15-20
In The Morning from Psalm 5 (Moss)
Come, Holy Spirit (Bell)
Reading – Exodus 14:21-31
Silent Prayer & Reflection(Light by Sandra Bowden)
Poor Wayfaring Stranger (Spiritual)
Exodus 15 (Moss)
A Prayer (Basil as translated by Scott Cairns)

Sunday Morning (Commissioning Service based on Psalm 145)

WORSHIP:  Acknowledging God’s Greatness

Invitation to enter the Lord’s presence
Silent Confession

8The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to  
   anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9The LORD is good to all, and his 
  compassion is over all that he has made.
1I will extol you, my God and King,
   and bless your name forever and ever.
2Every day I will bless you,
   and praise your name forever and ever.
3Great is the LORD, and greatly to be   
    praised; his greatness is unsearchable. 

In The Lord (Taize)

TESTIMONY:  Speaking of God’s Goodness

4One generation shall laud your works to another,
   and shall declare your mighty acts.
5On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
   and on your wondrous works, we will meditate.
6The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed,
   and we will declare your greatness.
7We shall celebrate the fame of your abundant goodness,
   and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

Brief words: How have you encountered God at this conference

OFFERING:  Giving Ourselves for God’s Glory

10All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD,
   and all your faithful shall bless you.
11They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom,
   and tell of your power,
12to make known to all people your* mighty deeds,
   and the glorious splendor of your* kingdom.
13Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
   and your dominion endures throughout all generations.

Personal Reflection: How will you respond to God as you leave this conference?

Collect:    Almighty God our heavenly Father, you declare your glory
and show forth your handiwork in the heavens and in the
earth: Deliver us in our various occupations from the service
of self alone, that we may do the work you give us to do in
truth and beauty and for the common good; for the sake of
him who came among us as one who serves, your Son Jesus
Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, forever and ever.  Amen.

Be Thou My Vision (Byrne/Hull)
       
BENEDICTION:  Departing in God’s Grace

21Our mouths will speak the praise of the LORD,
  and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever.

spiritual renewal

Artwork: Crucifix after the Master of the Blue Crucifix by Sandra Bowden

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. I know many Christians who subscribe to the church calendar and others who do not. I personally have found the rhythm of Advent, Lent and beyond to be extremely helpful in showing me the full picture of the gospel story. In other words, I think it is impossible for anyone to experience Easter without first experiencing Good Friday.

Our church is starting Lent off with an early morning (6:30 AM) prayer service and an evening (7:00 PM) contemplative prayer service (also called Selah Service) which my good friend, Dave Roberts, will be preaching for. We will also be hosting a Labyrinth, an interactive guided prayer walk, throughout all of Lent that I encourage you to walk/pray through. (Haley Ballast did most of the work on this and you should read her blog here.)

This coming weekend we will host our annual Spiritual Renewal Conference with guest speaker Rikk Watts from Regent College. The worship band for the event will be the same band (minus Mark Mohrlang plus Brian Oaks) that led worship for the Following Christ conference in Chicago. If you are in Seattle I strongly encourage you to attend this FREE event. The theme of the conference is Hope and I think the topic is both timely and relevant. Scott Erickson will be painting throughout the conference as well.

My prayer during Lent is that I/we would move beyond simply being admirers of Jesus Christ to followers of Jesus Christ (Kierkegaard). Following Jesus is certainly more difficult and risky than simply admiring Jesus; but then again, he didn't leave us with any other option...

He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." Mark 8:31-38

jubilee conference

This past weekend I had the honor and privilege of leading worship at the 2009 Jubilee Conference. I had the opportunity to work and lead with Josh Moyer - a great musician/songwriter/worship leader from Pittsburgh. Scott Calgaro, new friend and conference director, was at the Following Christ conference in Chicago and invited me to travel to Pittsburgh along with AnnaMaria Pasley Horn, Molly McCue and Judy Lee.

We had an amazing time worshiping in Pittsburgh with 2000+ college students from all over the country. Andy Crouch and Lauren Winner were two of the speakers involved. Dayton Castleman shared about his installation artwork at a PA penitentiary. And the list of contributors goes on and on. I am so thankful for the opportunity to make a lot of new friends (and to eat some great sushi).

To see more click HERE.

advent prayer

Come, Lord Jesus, come
Come, Lord Jesus, come
Come, Lord Jesus, come
And make it today if possible.

deep in the heart of TX

My wife Stephanie and I just got back from four days at the Laity Lodge in Texas. We had a wonderful time being with new and old friends. I had the opportunity to lead worship and give a concert with Slovakian cellist, Jozef Luptak. I also had the honor of meeting and working with Lloyd Ogilvie, Mark Roberts and Steven Purcell. The conference focused on reconciliation (the Reconciler, being reconciled, and the ministry of reconciliation). We are very much looking forward to going back.

In an unrelated note, I want to thank Michael Lyman for sending me the morning and evening meditations from Rev. William Mason (1719-1791). In the entry for this morning it reads, "Always remember thou art a King's son." In the quest to be holy as God is holy this is a great encouragement. Mason also writes that we need to be careful not to fall in love with an image of our own holiness and perfection. At the same time we must remember that "Every believer in Jesus is holy".  I hope you are as encouraged by these words as I am. And as a believer always remember that you are a child of the King.

the revealed and revealing mystery

The following is an excerpt from a Chapel Talk by Scott Cairns at Regent College in 2005.

I want to insist that the pursuit of art becomes worthless when it is pursued as a hobby…that the pursuit of art becomes worthless when it is pursued as evangelical apologia…and that the pursuit of art becomes worthless when it is understood as an expression of what you know.

I want to insist that the pursuit of art becomes vocation only when it is understood as a devotion to a medium of language or sound or pigment or clay or fabric, a devotion to a medium, a craft whose pursuit leads the artist into making something worthy of attention. And it means that we must not fear that our whole hearted pursuit of vocation will lead us away from our duty to God, to community.

On the contrary, whole hearted pursuit of vocation manifests a mature faith, genuinely trusting in the God who has called us. Whole hearted pursuit of vocation enables us concurrently to pursue fearlessly our duty to God and to community. So vocation comes to be understood less as a line of work and more as a mode of being, less as an expression of what is known and more as a way of knowing, less as something done to deliver a message to others and more as a way God reveals to us who we are, who He is, how we are connected.

I was not at Regent when Scott Cairns spoke there. I only heard it later courtesy of our digital age. (Download Scott Cairns' chapel talk from Regent Audio.) His focus was on vocation and prayer. The whole address is brilliant and worth way more than the 14 minutes it takes to listen to. I was caught off guard by the above excerpt. It is one thing to try and live out these words as an artist. It is another thing trying to live out these words as an artist in the church.

At this point I could go on about how I have personally struggled with vocation and pursuing art in a way worthy of the words above. And I could go on and on. My battle with art, vocation and the church has been raging for several years now. To be clear, this is not a battle with art or vocation or the church, it is a battle with the combination of the three. But I don't want to talk about that right now. Instead, I will switch gears and say something different about how we worship in the church.

What if we were to change around the wording a bit and read...

I want to insist that the worship of Christ becomes worthless when it is pursued as a hobby…that the worship of Christ becomes worthless when it is pursued as evangelical apologia…and that the worship of Christ becomes worthless when it is understood as an expression of what you know.

First, it is obvious we don't want our worship to be a hobby and it is not uncommon to talk about a lifestyle of worship. But how often does our worship really transcend the Sabbath. I think it is safe to say that any activity that is pursued for only a couple of hours during one day of the week could be considered a hobby.

Second, if our worship is solely about getting people in the doors then we're missing the point. Worship is for God. When we start adding our own agenda to the mix we're talking about idolatry. My boss/pastor/friend Bryan Burton loves to quote Karl Barth on this. And this is the paraphrase..."Anytime you say Jesus and _______, you're talking about an idol". This point needs further explanation which a blog post can't contain. Two books that speak into this are Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down by Marva Dawn and Worship Evangelism by Sally Morgenthaler.

Third, if our worship is only an expression of what we know then we're completely missing the point. God has many names, and one of those names has to be Mystery. We find the Mystery in the space between. In the gaps the story has left out in the telling. The bible is a gift to us, but it is not a simple black and white book. While it is most certainly truth and a witness to truth it is not the Final Word. For that we look to Jesus Christ, the Mystery I adore. To tie all of this together please read Seeker Unfriendly by Mark Galli (check out his blog). This article frames this conversation in the context of worship.

God is mystery. But the mystery has been, is being and will be revealed to us. And that leads me into worship!

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

Ephesians 1:3-10, TNIV (emphasis mine)

worship is submission

Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by his holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of imagination by his beauty; the opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose--and all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.

-William Temple