BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Musical worship must be manly...

How do you get men to sing in worship? And I mean really sing.

Sing of God's judgment. Of His justice triumphing over wicked men...

The world music of Alan Lomax...

At the height of the sixties civil rights movement, Alan Lomax put on a concert in Central Park. He was trying to close the distance between blacks of the south and white sympathizers in the northeast. One year later, in 1966, Lomaz recorded the Newport Folk Festival. But here are clips from Lomaz's recording of the earlier Central Park Concert. Check out numbers 43, 45, 48, and 50 by the Georgia Sea Island Singers from St. Simon Island. Then go exploring. By the end of February, Lomax's life work should all be up and ready. (TB)

Drab homes give birth to art idolatry...

(NOTE FROM TIM BAYLY: A large part of this post has been removed. A young man objected that I was replacing one idolatry with my own more sophisticated one, and I thought it best to pull the post rather than allow readers to concluding that I am promoting idolatry.)

Here's an interesting explanation of the worship of artists spreading through the PCA by way of Covenant, MNA, and Redeemer clones. George Bernard Shaw points out that this worship has its origin in artless homes and childhoods...

Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength...

Psalm 29 awakens the slothful and sentimental postmodern soul. Have you read it recently?

Good Shepherd Band: I wait for the Lord...

This tune written by Phil Moyer to serve the text of Psalm 130. (TB)

ClearNote Bloomington Choir: Ride On, King Jesus!

Phil Moyer directs the choir of ClearNote Church, Bloomington last Lord's Day singing "Ride On, King Jesus!" (TB)

Good Shepherd Band: Unseal my eyes...

Good Shepherd Band does Horatius Bonar's "Unseal My Eyes." If I were a pastor, I'd invite Good Shepherd Band to my church so my people could see how the Sons of Asaph led the Israelites. I never cease thanking God for these men... (TB)

Listen to my inspiration...

 01 Wake Up Sleeper

With me, as you start your work today listen to the title track from Good Shepherd Band's latest EP, Wake Up Sleeper. Then move on to the next cut, Where Are the Persecuted:

02 Where Are the Persecuted_

I'll say this: it's impossible for me to separate the work I do from the strength God gives me for that work through the music and worship leadership of these men. Think of our pastors preaching sermons written with this music playing as we read, study, pray, and write our sermons. God bless you, sons of Asaph!

And by the way, here's my own fav...

03 Hiding Place

Finally, this old, old one...

04 Rock of Ages

I lied. Sitting here listening as I write, this one to end on:

06 The Son of God Goes Forth to War

And that progression's what I write my sermons to... (TB)

The death of an eighteen-year-old brother...

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust, Perhaps there is hope. Let him give his cheek to the smiter, Let him be filled with reproach. For the Lord will not reject forever, For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness. (Lamentations 3:25-32)

(NOTE: Since posting this a few hours ago, I've made a couple corrections and added some text at the end.) Back in 1964, my brother, Joe, went off to Swarthmore on a (rare) full ride National Merit Scholarship. He was a philosophy major, ran on the Cross Country team, and loved the Lord. He planned to go on for a Ph.D. and serve in foreign missions.

Meanwhile Dad...

Like a weaned child...

A Song of Ascents, of David. O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.

O Israel, hope in the LORD From this time forth and forever. - Psalms 131

Last night in an elders meeting with a couple suffering a troubled marriage, we were reminding the couple that God's goodness calls us out of our romantic idolatry of our husband (or wife) by shoving our nose in the truth of his sin. And ours...

Seeing our husband's sin exposes our own sin, also, as the Holy Spirit leads us away from worshipping man to love and adore God Alone.

The discipline is difficult. And if we are tempted to reject it and continue to hold our idolatry precious, it is the love of our Heavenly Father to intensify it until we unstiffen our necks. In that context we told of the warning Thomas Watson gives in The Ten Commandments that God sometimes disiplines a father's idolatry of his child by taking that child's life. This is God's love.

Masculine worship: pounding guitars and lots of D minor?

Here's a post sampling the sort of music here being discussed. Check it out, then read this discussion. Or the other way around.

Here's an e-mail exchange between our Pastor for Music and Worship, Jody Killingsworth, and another church musician outside our church. The subject is men leading worship.

Yes, some readers are sceptical of the entire enterprise. The effeminacy of androgyny has taken over our culture whole-hog, leaving even the vows of wedding ceremonies neutered. Tragically, otherwise Biblical churches think and act as if men and women are interchangeable in everything but the Sunday morning pulpit and Thursday evening session meeting. Here, though, we'll assume the worthiness of the work under discussion and leave those unconvinced to argue over it somewhere else.

So, assuming men--not women--should lead the corporate worship of the church; and also that those men should lead from their manliness; what are the steps to be taken? (The e-mail has been redacted to protect the guilty.) (TB)

Dear Jody,

What are the essential elements of "masculine worship?"

"Blessed is the nation whose god is the Lord..."

It is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate (in which) they ought especially to maintain piety, justice, and peace, according to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth...

Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; or, in the least, interfere in matters of faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord…

- Westminster Confession of Faith 23.2,3

But it often happens that the magistrate is negligent, nay, sometimes himself requires to be chastised; as was the case with the Emperor Theodosius. Moreover, the same thing may be said regarding the whole ministry of the word. Now, therefore, according to that view, let pastors cease to censure manifest iniquities, let them cease to chide, accuse, and rebuke. For there are Christian magistrates who ought to correct these things by the laws and the sword. But as the magistrate ought to purge the Church of offences by corporal punishment and coercion, so the minister ought, in his turn, to assist the magistrate in diminishing the number of offenders. Thus they ought to combine their efforts, the one being not an impediment but a help to the other.

- John Calvin, Institutes; 4:11:3

Observing radical two kingdom men in their atomistic machinations of this and that, only precisely there but absolutely not then or now, leads me to say that one of their gravest problems is that man is, by nature, given to worship. He was made for this.

If he will not bow to his Creator, he won't stop bowing; instead, he'll bow to idols. Scripture says "Blessed is the nation whose god is the Lord," and the understood alternative is not the enlightened nation that has adopted an official no-god-at-all called "separation of church and state." If a nation does not have God as their god, they are in thrall to demons. And their subjection is not only as individuals, but corporately as families, cities, states, and nation.

There is the nation whose god is the Lord and there is the nation whose god is an idol of demons--those are the only two possibilities. Man was made to worship. He can't help himself.

Thus while R2K men are scurrying around trying to shore up the separation of church and state that they hope will provide us a few more years of peace, our presidents--both Democrats and Republicans--never stop constructing the temples and altars of Molech. And this is only to cite one example, albeit the bloodiest and most pathetic one...

Humility in deeds, not words alone....

It's important to remember that pride is made clear by both word and deed and not by words alone in assessing pride and humility. 

Neglecting this truth leads to false accusations. In Numbers 16, Korah, Dathan and Abiram lead a rebellion against Moses and Aaron saying, "You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” 

They accuse Moses of lording it over the people by speaking for God. Moses "angrily" defends himself before God by saying, "Do not regard their offering! I have not taken a single donkey from them, nor have I done harm to any of them." His defense lies in his deeds. He is not proud simply because he speaks for God. He has done them no harm, nor has he profited from them in any way.

Campus Crusade's Jesus Idol...

Atop Campus Crusade's Jesus Film web site are several paragraphs of boiler-plate Evangelical Jesus-marketing shtick:

Every eight seconds, somewhere in the world, another person indicates a decision to follow Christ after watching the "JESUS" film.

Every eight seconds... that's 10,800 people per day, 324,000 per month and more than 3.8 million per year! That’s like the population of the entire city of Pittsburgh, PA coming to Christ every 28 ¼ days. And yet, if you are like many people, you may have never even heard of it.

Called by some “one of the best-kept secrets in Christian missions,” a number of mission experts have acclaimed the film as one of the greatest evangelistic tools of all time. Since 1979 the “JESUS” film has been viewed by several billon people all across the globe, and has resulted in more than 200 million men, women and children indicating decisions to follow Jesus. In addition, through hundreds of partners an estimated 10+ million decisions have been made as the film "JESUS" is used extensively by the Body of Christ worldwide. (emphasis in the original)

A few points of arithmetic regarding these bodacious claims before reflecting on what such claims reveal....

I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about I, wanna talk about Number One...

Listen to the first minute or two and it's so clear what this video and at least two of these men are about. You'd have to be highly educated to miss it. Then the last minute or two, it surfaces again. As that patriarch of all things Evangelical, the late Vernon Grounds, said some years back, Evangelicals worship "the bitch goddess of success." Followers of Jesus Christ should have nothing to do with multi-site video venues.

And by the way, Mark Dever pulled in his horns after being whupped by the two alpha-males going two-on-one on him with fangs bared. Try to imagine the good doctor, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, agreeing to be part of this exchange. I apologize for posting it, but some things have to be seen if they're going to be properly condemned. (TB, w/thanks)

Multiple Sites: Yea or Nay? Dever, Driscoll, and MacDonald Vote from Ben Peays on Vimeo.

A festival of hirelings and wolves...

The Economist reports on the June 23-26 Wild Goose Festival that "explicitly pitched its appeal to artists and musicians, nonconformists, post-Christians, non-Christians, disaffected evangelicals and a liberal evangelical subset known as the 'emergent' church." Held in eastern North Carolina a couple weeks ago, here's the Economist's description...

Redeemer's bondage to cosmopolitan conceit...

“Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name..." - Genesis 11:4

...if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment... - 2 Peter 2:6-9

We make it a habit to say less than we know when we oppose ministries and their leaders here on Baylyblog. We don't want to overreach. This has been true of our criticisms of Redeemer Presbyterian Church and her pastor, especially.

Back in the early nineties we first started recommending Redeemer to souls moving to New York City, and by now we have close to two decades of listening to those men and women who have become a part of Redeemer's congregations.

Our second thoughts about Redeemer started seventeen years ago...

Canned preacher, live musicians...

Driscoll is a popular pastor in the Pacific Northwest. He heads a group of multisite churches that regularly draw 10,000 parishioners a week across 10 locations. He preaches live at one location, and his sermons are sent out by video to the other locations the following week, when the services are held with live music...

Driscoll said the sermon this week will be pre-taped, in part so he can attend a baseball tournament his son is playing in. The message, he said, comes from the Gospel of Luke and is about Zacchaeus, a crooked tax collector who found redemption...

If the preacher's a digital image, why "live music?"

A year ago, Taylor and I were at a large church in Evansville, Indiana, where the preacher only showed up for the later services and used video to feed the early service flock. During the sermon, the large digital image hanging from the ceiling in front of us asked those present to raise their hands if...

ClearNote Church Bloomington's worship this past Lord's Day...

Hallelujah Chorus from ClearNote Church on Vimeo.

When we say we think our musical prayers in worship should be in the vulgar tongue led by instruments and with tunes and rhythyms someone walking in off the street would be familiar with, it's inevitable that our readers will comment by waxing somnolent about the absolute superiority of pianos and organs and old tunes and singing four part harmony.

As if this were foreign to us--something we'd never considered.

Well, each Easter Sunday we end the service by handing out sheet music to all those present who...

A prayer for the salvation of all men...

ClearNote Church of Bloomington holds both an evening service on Maundy Thursday and a noon service on Good Friday. Here's one of the prayers from our Good Friday service. Jody Killingsworth compiled it from historic sources and I post it here because I found it struck themes missing from our prayers in worship, and very necessary. I'm guessing this will be true of others, also.

* * *

O MERCIFUL God, You have made all men, and You hate nothing that You have made, nor do you desire the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live. Have mercy therefore, we pray, on all who reject the Gospel—on Pagans, and Atheists; on Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists; on Arians and Roman Catholics, and on all who, in their pride, like to make much of their own ability.

Knowing, Father, that You resist the proud but give grace to the humble, we ask that You...

Count the hours you spend each week on sports, and be honest...

(Tim) "The sociologist Ahmet Talimciler, the author of a book on Turkish soccer fanaticism, recently asked fifteen hundred Turkish fans how important their team was to them. For sixty-two per cent of respondents, the team came 'only after family and nation'; for a full thirty per cent, it was 'more important than anything else' in life.'" ("Letter from Turkey: View from the Stands," The New Yorker, March 7, 2011; p. 60.)

"Important fantasies we can escape to..."

(Tim) With sincere apologies to all the wee ones and their mothers, I think Disneyworld is too similar to hip preachers with full-service video venues to take the children for a visit. Really, do you want Disney's moral and spiritual authority to accrue to our Evangelical/Emergent theme parks?

Taryn Simon is a photographer...

Wheaton's Rob Bell and Bilezikian's Bill Hybels; and a warning against idolatry...

(Tim: For days now, I've received more recommendations of this video clip than I can count. Thanks to all of you. In a little while I'll post more on it, but first this. NOTE: This post has been changed to correct my error in saying Pastor Bill Hybels went to Wheaton College. His mentor has been now-retired Wheaton Bible Prof. Gilbert Bilezikian, but that relationship began when Bilezikian was teaching at Trinity College--not Wheaton.)

On MSNBC, Martin Bashir does the nasty job the elders of Mars Hill Church apparently can't summon the courage or insight for. He takes Pastor Rob Bell by the scruff of the neck and peels his adverbs off his verbs and nouns long enough to expose the deceptions that make him so much money. Bell's nothing more than a peddler of emotive words and idolatrous images, but many are fooled. His toxins go down smoothly and Baylyblog's warned readers against this hireling time after time.

Pastor Bell's the product of Wheaton College. Take a look at the job Wheaton didn't. Or maybe did?

When I first entered the ministry, there was another gifted prophet prophesying against the parts of historic Christian faith he judged old and in the way. His name was Bill Hybels and he studied under Gilbert Bilezikian at Trinity College (now Trinity International University) just prior to Bilezikian moving to Wheaton's Bible Department. Christianity Today fawned over Pastor Hybels, too, and my church mailbox was filled with offers to "Rev. Timothy Bayly" promising if I sent my money to one of Pastor Hybels' corporate enterprises, some of his churchly success might rub off on my ministry. Then maybe I could afford a similar campus, staff, hairdo, glasses, and jet. Think of it--my own private jet! Then I could pick up and minister internationally. Maybe even galactically!

Good Shepherd Band releases EP of ClearNote Church's worship music...

(Tim) Here's a recording of a small part of the music ClearNote Church uses for our Lord's Day worship. The EP was just released a couple days ago. Give it a listen.

(Note to downloaders: check your email's spam folder if you do not receive a download code immediately)

 

False dichotomies and contemporary worship music....

(Tim: this from our worship minister and music director, Jody Killingsworth) Defenders of traditional worship consistently present a false dichotomy. Observing that CCM is lyrically and theologically impoverished, they conclude that this must somehow be the fault of the music. As if popular style and lyrical drivel are somehow intrinsically connected. Bring in the drums and guitars, they say, and inevitably you'll have us singing 30-minute versions of “Shine Jesus, Shine” every Sunday.

I’m sympathetic, of course, because CCM really is the mountain of emotive garbage they say it is, and there are precious few positive examples to point to. But this isn’t the fault of the rock n’ roll genre, per se. Rather, it highlights the failure on the part of godly pastors and elders to lead musicians to think...

Classic rock and manly zeal....

"...it's indie or classic rock that moves our spirit."

(Tim) You all know ClearNote Church is filled with classical musicians but we worship mostly under the leadership of amplified instruments. This EP just released by our worship musicians gives you a good feel for how we're led. What distinguishes our worship leaders is that they use instrumentation and tunes and rhythms that are familiar to those who attend. We're not asked to go back into genres of previous centuries when we sing God's praises and pray.

Then too, we believe our music should be characterized by masculine zeal. The congregation should have men pushing us to express our joy and firm commitment and worship for the majesty and glory of God. Faint spirits and cold hearts are challenged when singing God's praises, here.

So you'll notice how well-matched the music and instrumentation and beat are to our goal. If you were to worship with us one Lord's Day morning, you'd notice this is how we pray and preach, also--we don't give people space for unbelief and ambivalence...

Leading worship, I: singing praises...

Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come before Him; Worship the LORD in holy array. (1 Chronicles 16:28-29)

(Tim) Young men reading the stuff published on worship today would be quite justified in fearing that worship is very, very complicated and only the people who buy lots of books and read lots of articles and think very deeply about this matter could possibly design and lead a worship service that does what it's supposed to do. Why, simply the debates over what the Regulative Principle prohibits and requires are endless! What's a poor boy to do?

In the interest of cutting through some of the verbiage and helping Reformed pastors who want to follow the early Reformers in worship as they follow them in preaching God's Word, here are a few reforms which take their cue from Geneva.

1. The main method of restoring congregational participation within Reformed worship was to call congregants to sing. Thus the music had to be (and was) quite simple. Under Calvin, the congregation sang only the melody; it was plainsong with no parts. Certain men of our time debate endlessly over whether popular tunes known outside the church were used during early Protestant worship. Both sides have their scholars, but my recommendation is that you not waste time on the argument. Leave it alone.

Following the Geneva pattern of repudiating the high style of the idolatrous Roman Mass and cultivating a simplicity that would encourage the common man to join in the singing, we ourselves should repudiate high classical style that communicates our most-excellent taste while masquerading as being all about reverence for God...

One additional thought....

(David) Dear Christ the Word family,

If I can add one thought to Pastor Andrew's excellent sermon preparing us for our future in our new building...

Andrew is right in leading us to remember that worship is always directed in two directions: in praise of God and as rejoinder to the sins of the world. Gideon's altar built on the site of and with materials from the altar of Baal is just one biblical illustration of this principle.

Living in a culture whose besetting sins are sexual and a day in which sexual anarchy has invaded the Church requires that the character of our worship be unapologetically masculine in its fundamental principle. Worship of God the Father begins with fathers, not limp-wristed, narcissistic, self-doubting androgynes. And federal heads leading in worship will drive worship in a masculine direction.

Lord's Day weddings, classical composers and musicians, and worship...

(Tim) Thirty-some years ago in one of his "Out of My Mind" columns, Dad proposed that, given the attack upon the marriage institution across our culture, Christians make a clear break with the world when we give and receive marriage vows; and that the first step in making such a break might be to place Christian marriages back on the Lord's Day as was the practice of the Puritans and early Reformers.

Following Dad's recommendation, both Christ the Word and Church of the Good Shepherd have witnessed couples taking their vows on the Lord's Day and it's a practice I commend. The first couple to do so at one of our churches...

Advertising Sorcery

(Tim: a series on beliefs about spirit beings in Zambian culture by David Wegener) 

Editors note: Here is a lightly edited version of an advertisement for a Traditional Healer (taken off a tree) in our neighborhood. This doctor knows his clientele and the items he mentions are typical reasons why people come to see him. I'm still not totally sure what #9 means.

Witchdoctors in Zambian Culture

(Tim: a series on beliefs about spirit beings in Zambian culture by David Wegener) 

** Editors Note: Readers in the US may not understand just how prevalent these beliefs are in African culture. Witchdoctors, or "Traditional Healers", are regularly consulted by Africans both inside and outside of the church. In other words, this report from David doesn't represent anything exotic where he lives. Rather, it's "business as usual". **

I’ve been teaching class on Spirit Beings this fall at our theological college. As one of their assignments, I asked the students to interview a witchdoctor and ask him a set of questions. They also interviewed a local pastor and asked him the same set of questions and then they were to evaluate the answers of both from Scripture and write things up in a paper.

In the city, for the city...

(Tim) This past week, I was in Chicago overnight and took a pic of this sign in front of Broadway United Methodist Church a couple blocks from Wrigley Field in the Lakeview neighborhood. Note the usual word 'Worship' accompanying Sunday times is missing; also the women pastors; and then the suitable author and quote.

Blokey blokes and church music...

(Tim, w/thanks to Brian A.) Here's a clip of a Matt Redman interview where he addresses men and the music of worship. Good stuff. Note his comment about the church being over-mothered and under-fathered...

Social class or the Gospel: pick only one (part 2)...

(Tim) Most responses under the recent post, "Social class or the Gospel: pick only one...," have gone off on tangents, tilting at windmills. Some have been helpful, though--including some who have disagreed with the post. I want to promote the discussion back to the main page, so here are three short contributions.

The first is by my brother, David; the second by our church's worship pastor, Jody Killingsworth; and the third by your faithful scribe...

When in New York...

(Tim) What must a preacher in New York know in order to appeal to his listeners? How should he contextualize his worship services and sermons so they're on-pitch for Gothamites?

A recent article in The New York Times featured an interview with Sting. Knighting him their "Renaissance man," the Times caught up with him in his "sumptuous Central Park West duplex" where he was taking a break from his "Symphonicities" tour.

Referring to his nineteenth century aluminum double bass over by the piano, Sting indicated he plays it regularly: "one little piece of Purcell every day and that's it." Referring to a pair of chess sets on a coffee table, Sting reported he'd played grandmaster Gary Kasporov: "Of course he beat me every time. But you know, he can't sing."

The article concluded with Sting giving this sketch of New Yorkers...

Social class or the Gospel: pick only one (part 1)...

(Tim: This article originally appeared in ClearNote Fellowship's newsletter. If you'd like to be added to our mailing list, please send us an e-mail.)

Each time we sat under the ministry of our much-loved Iain Murray at the old Banner of Truth conferences, the Bayly brothers could predict at some point during the Q & A sessions Murray would strike a plaintive note, asking, “Why is there no evangelism in Reformed churches?” After a while, we realized it wasn’t a question, but a lament.

No one ever suggested he was wrong. The question brought on a guilty silence.

But if Reformed congregations don’t have new births, why aren’t our churches dying? Some pollsters even say the Reformed slice of the conservative Christian pie is growing. Doesn’t this prove Reformed men have changed their priorities and are giving themselves to evangelism--that we're all missional, today?

Sadly not. Our converts have simply moved up the social register. To keep our pews filled, we depend upon men and women raised in Christian homes getting their graduate degree and trading in their parents’ Arminian church for a more respectable Reformed congregation...

So many ways not to worship God....

(David) It's easy not to worship God. I can read a blog rather than the Bible. I can go to a soccer meet rather than a worship service. But tragic as such gross rejection of worship is, there is an easier and more insidious way for the Christian to refuse to worship God.

It's a far deeper and more soul-searing rejection of worship to read the Bible and only find within it what we want to find, to attend and invest ourselves in corporate worship only when that worship is precisely aligned with our personal likes and dislikes.

In the Reformed world this kind of refusal to worship is often cloaked by a deep-voiced intonation of the "requirements of the Regulative Principle of Worship." 

Patriotism, the last refuge of pastors...

(David) A brother wrote suggesting Baylyblog explain that it's not good for congregations to recite the Pledge of Allegiance during Lord's Day corporate worship. So, here goes...

It's not good for congregations to recite the Pledge of Allegiance during Lord's Day corporate worship.

There now, that's done. Anyone have a bulletin documenting the Pledge in an order of worship? Some of the spirituality of the church guys might like a copy--particularly if it's a Presbyterian congregation. Send it to me and I'll post it. But please make it a digital copy.

Finally, for extra credit, which commandment(s) would such a pledge violate?

An act of Nature...

(Tim, w/thanks to Michael) If John wasn't allowed to speak of the hand of God that honed in on Lutheran sodomy politics, I wonder what we're allowed to say about lightning striking this graven image that has long been a fixture visible to I-75 commuters passing Cincy's Solid Rock Church?

Well, by an act of Nature, it burned last night. But not to worry: church officials told the press the graven image will be rebuilt.

If judgment is no act of God, but only an act of Nature, it's quite a relief since Nature never calls us to repentance. Or, should I say, Nature only calls us to repent of things like a carbon footprint that's bigger than it ought to be.

Christianity and Yoga...

(Tim:This from ClearNote Blog, by Joseph Bayly) Is it possible to worship God while practicing Yoga? This is a very practical question since Yoga is quite popular in America today with Christians practicing in ever-increasing numbers. Many brothers and sisters in Christ might think I'm asking, “Is it possible to worship God while exercising," making the assumption that Yoga is simply an exercise regime. It is not.

The purpose of Yoga is to enter an altered mental state where you realize the union between yourself and the Universal Spirit. In other words, you discover the secret of “true spirituality” in which the body doesn’t really matter. From its inception prior to the birth of Jesus until now, this has been the purpose of Yoga. To the Hindu, the physical world is merely an illusion, and Yoga is meant to help you forget the illusion.

 

Sannyasin Arumugaswami, managing editor of Hinduism Today is refreshingly honest: “...based as it is on Hindu Scripture and developed by Hindu sages... Yoga opens up new and more refined states of mind, and to understand them one needs to believe in and understand the Hindu way of looking at God. ... A Christian trying to adapt these practices will likely disrupt their own Christian beliefs.”

 

Everything you do in Yoga is designed to help you reach that altered state of mind... (to continue reading...)

The Sacred Swoon...

(Tim:This from ClearNote Blog, by Pastor Stephen Baker) There's a lot being said these days about the feminization of the Church. It’s an objective fact there are more women in churches than men. This cuts across all denominations, liberal and conservative, Protestant and Roman Catholic. Overwhelmingly, the Church has become the realm of women.

Some contemporary writers have noticed this trend and offered their remedies. Churches can attract men by using sports illustrations, preaching short sermons, showing clips from movies, perfecting the art of the man hug. All these solutions are shallow and superficial.

The key to getting men back to church is worship, but the evangelical Church has reduced worship to an emotional, feminine activity. Case in point: The Sacred Swoon. Here's another version. Go ahead, click on the links.

If you've been in an American Evangelical church for five seconds, you've seen this: eyes closed, head back, hands limply raised, body swaying… (to continue reading...)

Opening song, lights and big drums...

(Tim, w/thanks to Jake and Dan G.) By God's grace, neither my wife nor I have ever been in such a service. All the years Willow Creek was riding the crest of DuPage County's wave of population and money growth, Mary Lee and I avoided the place like the plague. (We both grew up in DuPage County.)

So watching this clip, I asked a couple men from our congregation last night whether there really are churches like this one?

They promised there were and I have to take their word for it.

Worship in the olde, but also the vulgar, tongue...

(Tim, w/thanks to Lucas and our CGS musicians) Every church should celebrate Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday--and particularly Good Friday--if they're to be allowed to celebrate Easter. And a corollary: no believer should be permitted into Easter morning worship unless he's first been in attendance at a Good Friday service. But of course, who's making any rules in Protestantism, today?

Anyhow, yesterday we held our noon Good Friday service and, on the spur of the moment, I decided to record some of our worship liturgy on my iPhone to share with you. First, from Bach's St. Matthew's Passion, "Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben:"

For love

For love my Savior is now dying,

Of sin and guilt He knows not.

So eternal desolation

And the sinner's righteous doom

Shall not rest upon my spirit.

If the video above isn't working, try this link.

We speak of worship and music often, here and on the ClearNote blog, and many of our readers are uncomfortable with our commitment to musical worship that's in the vulgar tongue. So I thought I'd provide a taste of what it looks and sounds like, admittedly on a more unplugged day in our congregational life...

Worship wars, part I: Sure, I must fight if I would reign...

(Tim: This from our Worship Director, Jody Killingsworth, over on ClearNote Blog)

Lo, by the sons of hell he dies;

But as he hangs ‘twixt earth and skies,
He gives their prince a fatal blow,
And triumphs o’er the powers below.

                    ~ Isaac Watts

The most frequent metaphor Scripture uses to describe daily Christian life is the metaphor of war... (read more)

Wolterstorff on the purpose of corporate worship...

(Tim) For years, I've appreciated Nicholas Wolterstorff for his rabble rousing in the cause of Christ. He's one of the gadflies of the church we should be thankful for. Here's Wolterstorff on the purpose of Lord's Day worship, from a lecture Wolterstorff gave some thirty years ago...

Are video recordings of famous men, used in corporate worship services, the true preaching of God's Word...

(Tim) This post was a comment by son Joseph under a previous post titled "Beware of Despising Preaching." I thought it should be a post of its own.

* * *

Let's start with a book of sermons by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. These are actual sermons that he preached and were recorded onto paper. You read one of them. Is it a real sermon? Yes. Did M.L. Jones preach it? Yes. Was it the proper preaching of the Word when he delivered the sermon? Yes. Did he preach it to you? No. Therefore, you have not been "under" the preaching of the Word. You have indeed read a written record of the proper preaching of the Word, and it is more than likely to be beneficial to you, but not in the way that you would be benefited had you been present in the congregation when he originally preached the sermon. And similarly, although it might have been infinitely better preaching, reading it is not going to benefit you as much as attending a real church where you are a member, submitted to the authority of the pastor preaching *to* you.

Now let's move to radio/mp3 sermons. The same thing can be said. You've heard an audio recording of a real sermon, but it wasn't preached to you. There is a big difference between the two. (I will ignore radio "sermons"  that are "preached" to a studio microphone instead of a congregation as they are not even preaching in my mind.)

Now what about public video recordings (as opposed to private video feeds, which I will address next)? Here I would make the same argument. Watching a recording of somebody preaching is not the same thing as them preaching to you. And yet there is a big difference between audio and video, isn't there? One difference is that video makes you *think* and *feel* that the person is addressing you directly, much more effectively than audio does. Why?

The "endlessly lovely" Ayn Rand...

(Tim, w/thanks to Phil M.) Apostasy is the greatest of all tragedies. When unrepented, it leaves a soul beyond the blood of Jesus Christ.

Yet even in apostasy, there are comedies that appear, providing us hope the tragedy may not be quite as tragic as it thinks itself. Take, for instance, this phrase from a recent announcement of conversion to atheism by a member of Indelible Grace, the PCA's house praise band. In his denial of the Faith, this man refers to "the endlessly lovely Ayn Rand."

The endlessly lovely Ayn Rand? Surely he jests...

A helpful pastoral discussion of headcoverings...

(Tim) We're now up to 85 or so comments under the post Because of the Angels, and those comments contain the only helpful discussion of headcoverings, and the visual cue they present within the corporate worship of the People of God of the submission of women, generally, to the authority of men, generally (Calvin's way of expressing it), that I've heard or read. So despite the length and (sometimes) heat of the discussion, I encourage everyone to go and read the comments.

Still, I must admit I've been wholly unsuccessful in getting anyone to read Calvin's doctrine of headcoverings, despite repeated attempts. So now, here is a compilation of Calvin's doctrine considerably shortened from what was put into the prior post. I do hope you'll all take the time to read this condensed version. There's really no substitude for Calvin's explanation of Scripture in any place, let alone one of the most controverted texts and themes in all of Scripture....

Tim Keller, my hero...

(Tim) Speaking of honor to whom honor is due, I was very pleased yesterday with Tim Keller's expressed distaste for video worship. In the piece that ran on the front page of USA Today yesterday (I guess that's how you say it?) concerning multi-site megachurches, he was profiled and several times given the opportunity to sign on to the world of video-worship-sermons inhabited by many, but most sadly our dear brothers John Piper and Mark Driscoll.

He demurred, and because of his demurral I'm proud to be PCA. Seriously.

Thank you, Tim Keller.

Now, if someone will just write a jeremiad against the corruption of the church and worship and pastoral care these idolatrous video screens are solidifying among us, I can die in peace.

* * *

And while I'm commending Tim Keller, here's a helpful article he did a couple days ago on the role doctrinal criticism has in our sanctification. It's a good read, pastoral and quite true.

Just one more savage wolf...

(Tim, w/thanks to David L.) What if a pastor were to take seriously the Apostle Paul's warning to the Ephesian elders:

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood?

What if he were to read the Apostle Paul's prediction concerning what was about to happen in the church of Ephesus and assume this is also happening in his church right now?

I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears. (Acts 20:28-31)

Would he test himself? Would he ask the Holy Spirit to reveal whether he himself is a hireling, or a good shepherd? Would he be on the alert? Would he look around for savage wolves? For false shepherds speaking perverse things in order to draw away disciples for themselves?

Would he wonder whether anyone in his own congregation could fairly describe his ministry as a "night and day" work of ceaselessly admonishing each of his sheep with tears?

Brothers, the church has always been under attack from both savage wolves and hirelings. And it's the failure of hirelings not to think about who the savage wolves are...