As many of you know, God is calling me away from Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church to take up new residence and leadership alongside the rest of the pastoral team down at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I begin my post on February 10. I’m excited about this call, but leaving a church that my family and I love will be hard, and I want to help Cherry Creek as best as I can. In my remaining, precious … Read More
The Missing Piece in Debates about Physical Expression in Worship
Lunette with Orante. From early Christian fresco, second half of the third century. Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, Italy. Photo credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY. Yesterday in worship, I encouraged our congregation to respond to the preaching of the Word of God by engaging in a physical act on the final verse of our closing hymn, “Jesus, with Thy Church Abide.” I reminded them that early Christian art (shown here) depicts at least some Christian worshipers praying in nearly the opposite physical manner that we do—eyes open, body standing, heads lifted, and hands raised. (I found the above depiction on the cover of the outstanding work, Walking Where Jesus Walked: Worship in Fourth Century Jerusalem, by Lester Ruth, Carrie Steenwyk, and John Witvliet.) So, on the final verse, we all raised our hands together, 300-strong, and sang:
May she holy triumphs win
Overflow the hosts of sin
Gather all the nations in
We beseech Thee, hear us
Hail to a Great New Album: Indelible Grace VI
“My heart is stirred by a noble theme” is my best one-shot phrase to describe the experience of hearing (and hearing again) Indelible Grace’s latest offering to the Church, Joy Beyond the Sorrow: Indelible Grace VI. The impressive production choices and continued growth of the artists in the IG coalition alongside unapologetically gospel-drenched hymn lyrics make this album a feast for the ears, mind, heart, and soul. As a worship leader in a local context, I can say that, per … Read More
Is Christ-Centered Worship Anti-Trinitarian?
An Irish Trinitarian Shamrock Cross I was recently blessed to lead a breakout session at the Doxology & Theology Conference in Frisco, TX, on “The Worship Leader and the Trinity.” If you’d like to grab my notes for that, go here. In some of my closest worship leader circles, where the cross is lifted high and the gospel is seen as the shaping paradigm for the Christian life, much is made of the concept of “Christ-centered worship”—worship that focuses on … Read More
What Having a Worship-Oriented Sense of Time Does to You
James K. A. Smith, in Desiring the Kingdom, exposes how many of the structures of culture have a shaping effect on us, whether we know it or not. We American Christians are most often used to processing the “negative influences of the world” through the grid of content, rather than form. We rightly point out that the graphic depictions in movies (violence, sex, etc.) and the lyrics of songs–the content–have the ability to orient our souls toward depraved things. But … Read More