Category Archive

(An exercise in random applied theology…) Over the course of my leadership at several churches, I have had to dig deep to help pastor people through both legitimate and illegitimate concerns surrounding their germophobia.  There are two places in the worship service where these concerns most consistently arise–greeting and Communion.  When many churches practice their “greeting time,” usually it involves shaking hands, sometimes holding hands, sometimes hugging.  In all these gestures, physical contact is made, and germs, bacteria, and viruses … Read More

Aslan sings Narnia into existenceIf I’m honest, I often feel like I fail more than I succeed at being both a worshiper and worship leader.  A lot of that has to do with the fact that I’ve got this ever-wandering heart that can manufacture sin and fashion an idol out of just about any raw material–including worship.   I’ve had many interesting conversations with people over the years that all give me the sense that we Christians tend to, either … Read More

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

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