7 years ago the world changed. 7 years ago the US came together under a banner of mourning. 7 years ago some said that God was to be trusted in times of trouble. 7 years ago some said that God was responsible. 7 years ago some asked where God was.

7 years ago I was sleeping when my mom came into my room and told me that the WTC had been hit by an airplane. I am not the type of person who responds well to important information while sleeping so I simply said “HUH???” and went back to sleep for another 20 minutes. It sounds insensitive, but it was real. I didn’t really understand the gravity of the situation when I finally awoke so I went to school, only to find my teacher telling us to go home and be with our families.

Being a Tuesday that the attack happened, we held the Rock that night. What a surreal experience; I don’t remember much about that night save for one vivid memory of looking out from the stage and seeing a group of kids dealing with more confusion and questions than many had ever had. As a part of this yet to be named generation who are just a tad to young to remember the fall of the Berlin wall and who though that the Gulf War was cool this was the first world event that any of us had really dealt with. 

The question then is, how to deal with tragedy on a global scale? That may have been the first world tragedy fro my generation but it was not the last, in fact, it seems as though it was the first of many. The Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina were just around the corner, not to mention the War on Terror that began as a result of the attacks. There is genocide in Darfur, Sudan, bombings in Georgia, earthquakes in China, oppression in India and Tibet, and the slave trade is one of the most vibrant and growing businesses in the world.

So what do we do with global tragedy? Everything we can. As Christians we have an obligation to care for the homeless and oppressed in response to all that God has done for us, and as Americans, we have been given much. How can we sit and satisfied with our cushy little nerf lives that we have? Is this what God has called us to? Are we called to make money just to spend it on worthless junk for ourselves or give it to those who really need? Are we called to hear of tragedy and say “that’s terrible… well see ya” or do something to further the Kingdom of God?

Let us be as Paul says in Philippians 2:

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This is our call as Christians, to pour ourselves out to death for the sake of all others to the glory of God the Father. This is how we reflect the image of God. Let us live within our glorious purpose, for “whether we live or die we are the Lord’s” (Rom 14:8). When my life comes to an end I want to be able to say that I lived for the glory of our Lord, doing everything in the name of Jesus.

By way of conclusion, I have little left to say. The last day was a mixed bag of craziness that has left me with only so much processing ability. 

The last seminar I attended was  called “training up the next generation” in which I encountered some great ideas for getting our young people more involved in the music ministry. It was a little outside of my focus, but there was, and is, still a lot to be learned from it.

Sadly, we had to once again leave the final session early. This will be the last time, Lord willing. It was, however, satisfying to end the conference with a wonderful time of singing, in which the worship band added a choir composed of conference attendees. The orchestration was superb and supporting of the lyrics without being distracting. We left as Bob got up to give his sermon entitled “Living Life with the Psalmist”. Thankfully we missed the whole thing, rather than leaving midway through, and it will be available for download very soon. Here are a few sites with information and resources related to the conference:

http://www.worshipmatters.com/ This is Bob Kauflin’s blog site and has been a great resource for me

http://sovereigngraceministries.com/ You will find a wealth of free resources, including the conference messages here, free to download.

http://worshipgodconference.com/ The conference website.

Thanks for checking in, this conference has been a great experience. I am so grateful for getting the chance to go, and I am sure that this will not be the final post on this topic.

Grace and Peace

So we stayed at the church all day today and that means that I was not able to split today into part one and part two. What this means is that I have to synthesize all of the information from today and put it to words in a length that people will want to read.

Here goes.

The morning began with a worship set led by a young worship pastor and his team from Sovereign Fellowship Church in Pennsylvania. They were excellent in musicianship and theology, but ultimately human. The worship leader started a song in the wrong key and had to start over, after having realized that playing a F# over a G is not conducive to corporate worship (or much of anything else). He was humble about the whole thing and started the song over, but only after Bob Kauflin got up to use this as a demonstration of the Spirit’s power in our worship services even when we do not maintain the elusive “flow” that worship leaders crave. It was a great reminder that God is sovereign over our chord changes, and that we must take our mistakes lightly and God seriously.

The speaker for the morning was Christian Counselor and Author David Powlison, who is one of the most Biblically insightful people I have ever encountered. The title of his message was “Enduring Trials with the Psalmist”, in which, he brought our attention to the fact that when Jesus said that the Psalms were about Himself, He was, in part, identifying with all of the sufferings and hardships that are found there. This means that whenever the Psalms talk about suffering, Jesus experienced that very thing so that we could identify with him, and when the Psalmist asks of God “Why have you forsaken me?” Jesus bore those words to the full so that we would not have to experience God’s perfect wrath. He led us through Psalm 28, reminding worship leaders to remember the “minor key” topics of suffering and trials, as well as to embrace the rich complexity of human emotions within the corporate context.

I was able to attend two great seminars today. The first of which was entitled “growing your team for the glory of God”. In this seminar we were challenged from the book of Philippians to model, teach, require and honor three things with our teams: Humility, Servanthood, and a Passion for the Savior. This was such an encouragement as well as a great challenge to develop these things in not only my team, but myself as well. This was a sure highlight of the whole week.

The second seminar was one entitled “Pursuing and Embracing Spontaneity in Corporate Worship”. This was very helpful in outlining some foundational principles for being led by the Spirit in a Biblical and responsible way. Biblical because they emphasized the need for sound Doctrine when evaluating any spontaneous element in a worship service, and responsible because they, likewise, stressed the fact that God honors our careful planning and laziness is not the same as faith that God will move.

If you ever find yourself at Il Biscotti Italian restaurant, don’t eat the salmon. It’s terrible.

It is going to be extremely hard to describe tonight’s main session. The night was titled “Praising God with the Psalmist but there was no formal sermon, instead there was a combination of corporate singing and principles by which we are to evaluate our worship experience. The principles or questions were:

What do we do with our bodies?

Here we explored the different ways that the Psalms describe our outward expressions such as bowing down, lifting hands, dancing and shouting. It was not done rigidly, like “okay everybody time for the raise your hands songs.” instead we were encouraged to sacrifice our comfort to explore the ways that we are encouraged to worship God physically in scripture.

What do we do with our minds?

We must engage our minds in the truths of scripture as we sing, if not we are simply going through the motions, which God hates. This time included a call and response in which Bob would sing the sections of Psalm 100 and we would the respond to these words with our own song to God. It was amazing and effective in drawing our attention to God and His saving work in our lives

What do we do with our trials?

We then explored the theme of trials within the Psalms and how we must recognize these realities and cast our cares upon the Lord. We also, as a group, took part in prayers for healing over those with chronic physical afflictions. This a little odd for me, but I spent the time reflecting on God’s promise to heal, in this life or the next, and I trust that He answered these prayers in His steadfast love.

What do we do with evil?

We were joined once again by David Powlison during this section to explain to us the nature of “imprecatory Psalms” (or Psalms that in which the writer asks the Lord to destroy evil and those who practice it). He taught us how to engage these Psalms with a right attitude, and with the understanding that God will destroy all evil in the day of Judgement. May that day come swiftly.

As a side note, during my time in the word this evening I was moved to tears in John 16:21 when Jesus says this:

When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

God brought me to think of all those who have not seen the light of day because of the evil of the selfish pride that is carried out in abortion. He gave me a chance to pray for the destruction of all evil and the return of His Son quickly.

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

Revelation 22:20

May He come quickly!

the wrap up approaches

Grace and Peace

Tonight we were treated to a song set of nearly an hour and a half, and I have to admit that it wore on me at times. Then I was reminded that we used to do much longer music sets (than we do now) at the Rock and that I am no longer accustomed to singing 7+ songs in a row. I spent much of the time in prayer asking God to soften my heart and He answered during the sermon in which Mark Dever, of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in DC, challenged us to glorify Christ with the Psalmist (the title of the message). In this sermon he did not, as you might expect, draw a sweeping line through the pages of the Psalms displaying the glory of Christ, but showed us the importance of finding Christ in the Psalms and gave us ways in which to meditate on the Psalms in such a way that Christ will be revealed. He gave a few examples from well known Christological prophecies within the Psalms (Psalms 22, 78, and 110), but then he drew our attention to Psalm 1, which is not quoted in the New Testament by our Lord or any one else, and showed us the merit of making accurate and sound connections between the tone and content of the Psalm, and the ways in which these are fulfilled for us in Christ. I can’t wait to study the Psalms with this mindset and see deeper into the unsearchable riches of God in Christ.

Also, we ended with “In Christ Alone” which is the “best” way to end any service. And by “best” I mean… the best.

More tomorrow.

Grace and Peace

So, this is part one of two for the day two highlights:

The speaker for this morning was Thabiti Anyabwile from First Baptist, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands (tough deal huh?). The title of his sermon was “Expressing Emotions With the Psalmist”, in which he presented an exposition of Psalm 73 (my psalm for this morning by coincidence or providence). The punch line was that man-centered emotions produce self-pity, jealousy, and bitterness, but when we turn to the presence of the Lord and glory in Christ Jesus our emotions will be turned toward God by the truth of who He is. Consequently, when we lament the downfall of the wicked, rather than envy their temporary success, God uses us to reach the perishing and draw them toward Himself as well. Even if we are in the midst of hard times, our whole being can change simply by drawing our attention and affections toward God without our outward circumstances changing at all. What a great reminder for us to keep focused on Christ to experience true joy through all situations. He gave great practical points for worship leaders to employ in the congregation.

We have already had some great conversations as a team and we are looking to have more over dinner. It seems as though this conference was the right thing for all of us; God’s great providence is has definitely shaped our time thus far.

We also attended two seminars. The first, which we all attended, was led by Bob Kauflin where he broke down his definition of a worship leader as found in his book, Worship Matters. It was great to see him passionately define this task based on Biblical principles even after I have read the book, but I was most excited for the others to benefit from his wisdom on this subject and they received it very well. The second seminar I attended was entitled “writing songs people will want to sing”. I have had a burden to write songs for our congregation and this seminar gave some great a insight into writing songs that not only serve the local church, but the church universal through means of publishing and recording. 

I have already been blessed tremendously and I am thankful that there is so much more to come.

So this is my attempt at a “live blog” of the Worship God 08 Conference put on by Bob Kauflin of Sovereign Grace Ministries and Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

I had very few preconceived notions about this conference so the whole experience so far has been a little hard to process. The group is great, I am blessed to have been ale to bring three of the most active members of the music ministry and my prayer for them is that they would each be blessed by God through this event. This has already begun, to the praise of His glorious grace to us!

Here are the highlights thus far:

The tone is very laid back and, because this was the first session, we had an extended announcement time which was both funny and reverent, and did not take away from our ability to respond to God.

The corporate worship time was amazingly passionate. I come from a more reserved background and, though I do not have much trouble expressing emotion in worship, I was amazed at the way in which the group (of 1600) embodied the heart of the song “Undignified” while singing about the person and work of our Lord, rather than about how they are going to worship. I can’t wait to be with all of them tomorrow as we sing of our Savior’s great love and grace once again.

The speaker was Craig Cabaniss, the senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Frisco, Texas, and he spoke on Knowing God withe the Psalmist (Rediscovering the Psalms is the theme of the conference). His text was Psalm 33, a passage which I have studied recently, and it was a wonderful exposition, both clear and passionate. What struck me most was verse three which says “sing a new song”, he explained that, though we do not always sing new songs, songs become new, or freshly deep and rich, when we plum the depths of God and experience His mercies made new every morning. 

What a blessing to be here. There will be lots more to come.

Grace and Peace

   “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

-  John 4:23-24

This is where I have been for the last few weeks. Coming to grips with what this phrase means and how it applies to my life, personally and pastorally. It seems to me that “in spirit and truth” has been one of those Christian phrases that sounds poetic and therefore has been used by many without proper explanation of the implications it makes on our lives as Christians. So I have decided to take a few moments to unpack these two words, “spirit” and “truth”, so that we may all benefit from a better understanding of true Biblical worship.

Conveniently, each word has two main usages, or two “sides”. lets call them “outward” and “inward”

Spirit:

the outward side of this word may be rather obvious, the Holy Spirit. Though some commentators deny this side and focus on the inward alone (which we will get to shortly), I would submit that this is valid view to hold of this word in it’s context simply because, without the Holy Spirit there is no Biblical worship. He is the one who first convicts of the sin of unbelief in our hearts (John 16:8-9) and causes us to believe the truth. He is also the One by whom true worship takes place (Phil 3:3)

The inward side is the one on which many commentators rest their case. By inward I mean our own spirit. This does not refer to some mystical bit of yoga nonsense, but rather to our whole being, that which makes us who we are. This can be more clearly defined as heart, soul, mind, and strength. Every part of us is to be engaged in worship to our God. We don’t simply think worshipful thoughts, though they may be true, we express them with passion and emotion and physical expression. In the same way we don’t allow ourselves to be caught up in worship with our emotions alone, instead, we ground our emotions in what we know to be true so that we do not succumb to emotionalism, or emotion worship. We direct every bit of ourselves toward God.

Truth:

The outward side of truth can be described best as “what we know to be true about God”. We worship a god who takes seriously the way in which His people respond to Him, and if we do not know to whom we are responding, our worship is at best misguided, and at worst, idolatrous. The simplest description I can think of is to worship God for all of who He is. We do not shy away from those parts that are hardest to understand. On the contrary, if we have a problem with the wrath of God, we study it, meditate on it, and find out what is true while continuing to ask God to change our hearts to accept Him fully. A right view of God comes from remembering the balance of His attributes: His Wrath and His Love, His Justice and His Mercy, The Conquering King and the Humble Servant…

The inward side of truth is to be sincere in our worship. This means that we are to worship truthfully, without deceit or show. The litmus test for the inward side of truth is who and how you worship in secret, not who and how you appear to worship in the congregation. We must be genuinely affected by the Truth of who God is to produce genuine expressions of worship. If this is not true than we lie to ourselves and those around us.

So what does this mean for us?

It means that in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are to sincerely and passionately worship the Lord our God for all that He is, with everything that we are and in everything we do.

Well, technically, last night was not the first time I have delivered a sermon, but it was the first time I had ever spoken outside the context of worship and music, as well as the first time I had ever given a sermon for adults in our main sanctuary. It was my second time over-all, regardless of the context.

If you don’t know, we had our annual 30 hour, all-church fast on Monday and Tuesday, the culmination of which being an all church Break-Fast and worship service. I was volunteered to speak two weeks prior and was not exactly thrilled at this. I thoroughly enjoy my comfort zone and am not normally itching to step outside of it, but I know that comes from a lack of boldness and subsequent lack of faith. So instead of arguing and passing it off, I decided to trust that God had ordained for me to be stretched in this way and I got to work on the preparations.

I am humbled and honored to say that I owe much of the direction and flow of the message to my wife. After racking my brain for what seemed like eternity, she suggested that I speak on what it means to hunger and thirst after God. She has the spiritual gift of seeing the right answer for every situation (I don’t know what passage talks about that gift though). So I spent a good amount of time looking for the perfect concise passage to use. Unfortunately, that “perfect passage” is Psalm 63 which Jere is going through at the Rock right now, so that was out. Being thoroughly discouraged in not having a passage I branched out and decided that maybe I should speak on the importance of relying on God. That’s when I was led to remember Isaiah 55: 1-2 which says:

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who no money, come, buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk, without money and without price. Why do you spend your money on that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and Delight yourselves in rich food. (ESV)

As I began to study and unpack this text I was overwhelmed by how much content was coming to the surface and how many different ways this text could be taught from. I soon realized that this could have easily been an hour long message or two hour-long messages. Needless to say, I was in over my head. I had taken in so much information in such a short time that I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Again, my wife was there to help me package my craziness into a presentable formula and point me in the right direction (I love how God continues to show me why He put me and Jess together). The rest of the prep time was spent boiling the message down to the bare essentials, namely, that God’s greatest desire for us is that we would find everlasting joy and satisfaction in Him, and that to do this He was pleased to crush His Son under the weight of all our sin so that He could then stand and make intercession on our behalf. 

As I got up to speak I could feel my heart beating in my throat, but I wasn’t nervous, at least not in the ordinary sense. I wasn’t (completely) worried about what people were going to think of me; I was much more concerned about what everyone would think about God when I was finished. Would I do Him justice? Would I clearly present His Word? Would the Gospel be made clear? I realized that my part in last night was so small that it didn’t matter what people thought about me. If I presented a false Gospel or an unclear message about how God relates to us, I would have to answer for that. And that thought was much more scary than whether or not I had my pants zipped up or if I was engaging or boring. 

One of the greatest comforts through all my preparation and presentation was that God was teaching me exactly what He was using me to teach everyone else, that reliance on Him is the only way to live. If I were relying on my own power to deliver a message about the importance of turning away from the world’s influence and relying on God, I might as well have just done a 25 minute stand-up act (which would not have been funny). It is humbling to present God’s word. So humbling.

I hope to bring what I have learned through this experience to my music preparations. My responsibility is no less diminished when I stand up to lead others into the presence of our Holy God, and in some ways it is greater because of the nature of music. It is so subjective (people split churches over what style is the “best”) that I need to be incredible careful and thoughtful in the songs that are chosen and the truths that are presented within them. Are they clear? Are they accurate and faithful to the word of God? Do they present the full council of the Word? Are they deep enough? Are they too deep? Will I be saying anything? If so, what, why, and for how long? I thank God that He has made my responsibility more apparent to me and for growing me as a worshiper, music leader, and teacher. Why He wants me, I have yet to figure out.

In an effort to keep this post relatively short (I know how hard it is to read off a screen) I have decided that I will stick to my personal highlights from the conference. The hope is that those who accompanied me would do the same so that anyone who reads this will get a comprehensive overview of the conference.

First, I need to say that I am so grateful to our church family for funding this trip, and the leadership for allowing us to attend. I am continually blessed, and humbled, by the generosity of our church and thank God for His grace in bringing me to this body.

As the music guy, I feel obligated to start with corporate worship, which was led by Bob Kauflin, pastor of music and worship at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. In an effort to be as inclusive as possible, Bob decided to lead hymns from the piano, rather than pursue a more contemporary style. Personally, this was a great reminder that God doesn’t need a certain amount of musicians, or a particular style of music to reach the hearts of His people. The singing was passionate and Gospel centered, which is something of a rare combination, and the sound of 5500 men lifting up the name of the Lord together with one voice singing, “In Christ alone, my hope is found, He is my light my strength my song…” will stand as one of my most pleasant and beautiful memories for years to come.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent together as a group. It’s great to share an amazing experience like this with guys who are enjoyable to be around and who share the same passion for Jesus Christ. I am privileged to call them my friends. And though we were not complete as a team (John and Rod we definitely missed you, as you well know) it was a sweet time of fellowship and encouragement.

As far as the preaching is concerned, there are so many moments to share that it is a little overwhelming. All the speakers were, as C.J. Mahaney puts it, “World Class”, so obviously we heard some great Gospel centered preaching. The heart of the sermons can be summed up by something that John MacArthur said, “hard preaching makes soft people”, to which C.J. Mahaney added that “we have all been freshly softened.” If this is a little vague, let me explain it in this way: when one is presented with the Gospel in a passionate, loving, truthful, and theologically sound manner, it is impossible to come away unchanged and unmoved. It doesn’t matter if you are non-Christian or a 57-year veteran pastor, the message of the cross speaks into our hearts in a way that nothing else can, and when those presenting it are passionately and lovingly upholding the truth, even when it hurts (hard preaching) our old, dead self is beaten down to make way for our new self, alive in Christ, to be revived and refreshed (soft people). 

A favorite of mine during the week were the panel discussions, a time in which the speakers would sit and discuss the previous message and issues surrounding the subject of the cross. I was encouraged to see that these men, though “World Class”, were not afraid to be transparent with us about their struggles and weaknesses even in the midst of such a public setting; we were able to see them laughing, joking, crying, and relating to each other like they would if no one else was there. It was great to see first hand that these are ordinary men to whom God has given extraordinary tasks. 

The personal take away of the conference for me was this statement, “In our lives as Christians, we never ‘get over’ the cross”. There is no time in our lives where the Gospel message becomes old hat or basic doctrine that we have mastered. It is our center point, our anchor upon which our whole life rests. We always, always, always look to the cross. I will not soon forget that.

This past month four of our staff members (Don, Matty, Jere & Chris) attended the Together For the Gospel (T4G) conference held in Louisville, KY. It involved three days of worship and time around the Word with eight excellent speakers (J. Ligion Duncan, Thabiti Anyabwile, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Mark Dever, Albert Mohler, Jr., John Piper, and C. J. Mahaney) and one excellent worship leader, Bob Kauflin from Sovereign Grace Ministries.(http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Worship/BobKauflinBio.aspx).

I have asked each participant to give a short download and to share with us how the conference impacted their personal walk with God and the ministry that God has called them to here at CVFirst.

You can listen to all the sessions at www.t4g.org/resources/ or read Tim Challies summaries on his blog at www.challies.com.

So, let me encourage you to listen to the messages and to how God is working in our CVFirst staff.

Rod