The Gift of Faith

Church Music Innovation

2012-02-06T14:44:00.000-08:00

According to Stan Endicott (the Purpose Driven choir conductor), 50 years from now, all church music will sound like Coldplay. This is most certainly wrong and presumptuous. Imagine Billy Graham saying back in the 60's that 50 years from then, all church music would sound like George Beverly Shea. A church sounding then like what's popular today will most certainly be far behind the curve.

The fastest route to cultural relevance is historical connectedness. According to C. S. Lewis, the more up to date a book is, the sooner it goes out of date. The same could be said of music; the truly classic will endure, and the trendy will be replace by the next flavor of the month. As one who plans and leads in congregational singing, I would like the majority of my emphasis to lie on the former. "A Mighty Fortress" will most certainly outlast "Lord I Lift Your Name on High." Some might argue it already has.

Does anybody notice that a significantly unique new genre of music hasn't been invented in 15 years? I'm sure there's some small niche or scholarly "progress" I'm overlooking in the field of "new music," but I'm talking about the repertoire of the general public. 75 years ago society stood on the brink of an unparalleled proliferation of musical styles, catalyzed by developments in music technology and the ensuing instrumentation. But for the moment, it seems to have settled. Here's hoping that the lull will drive us back in time as we search for aural inspiration.

So what will church music look like in 50 years? If you are a high church episcopalian, it will probably look remarkably similar to the way its been for the last 400 years. If you're a low-church evangelical, one can only hope it becomes less cliche, mundane, and driven by a secular industry. I think there's something to be said for a surge of upcoming innovation through bizarre combination of instruments. Michael Gungor is just the tip of the iceberg for this, and a resurgence of folk style music in many Reformed churches may be the predecessor (that got some of us to take out our mandolins and dust them off).

In closing, here's a stab in the dark: Expect to see some of this in Christian ritual before the mid-century mark!

A Different Way to Do Variety

2012-02-02T18:50:00.000-08:00

At Our Savior Lutheran Church, we have been implementing some interesting musical innovations. Well, developments really. It's not necessarily new to us so much as it is the next step down the road. And it is, to the best of my knowledge, fairly unique in the protestant world. We are celebrating our worship services in different styles. Four different styles, to be exact, ranging from super high traditional to very modern to just plain weird. This actually sounds very run of the mill for evangelicalism, so here's the catch: Instead of doing different services on the same day, each in different styles, so that attendees can choose their preference, we do all of our services (only two) the exact same, and rotate the musical style by week.

I know that confessional Lutheran high-church types may object to the use of modern music on principle, but I will go to bat every day of the week for content and substance over container and style. The fact is, that our contemporary services are still very Lutheran. In fact, they follow the Divine service liturgy pretty strictly. To give you a brief overview of what this looks like, here is the blurb I inserted in our last newsletter to explain the upcoming eclecticism:

The Music Forecast Greetings, all! I hope everyone had a joyful and relaxing Christmas season. As we welcome the new year, we have some exciting developments in the music ministry. Our Savior Lutheran Church has always been an artistically and musically diverse congregation, which is healthy and should be celebrated! I would like to pursue the further development of greater variety while as we learn to perform these styles more skillfully. To this end, I have formulated four separate service styles which we intend to implement with alternating frequency through the coming season. Many churches approach the diversity of style by separating the different services of the weekend according to the music. But at Our Savior we feel that this could potentially create a needless separation in the congregation. Aside from the slight implicit endorsement of a consumerist approach to religion, this could also fail to demonstrate that the gospel has more power to unite us than our preferences do to divide us. So we will continue to employ stylistic variations on separate weekends, with both services being identical. I want to encourage us all to keep in mind the verse from Philippians 2 where Paul says “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” and Ephesians 5, “...giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Not all of these services will be our favorite. I want to encourage us all to be willing to give others a chance to celebrate the faith with music to which they are more accustomed as an act of love and service to our spiritual family. Perhaps through mutual submission we can even come to a greater understanding and appreciation of diverse worship traditions. Ultimately, it is my hope that the musical portions of our services will simultaneously display our unity and diversity in Christ as we worship him with one heart and one voice.
The Vintage service: This service will demonstrate classic and historic Lutheran liturgy, featuring the choir singing with the organ and chanted portions of the liturgy. It lean the most heavily on the hymnal and also include anthems performed by the choir. Aficionados of modern sounds might consider this one the “old” or “boring” service, but remember that when we are worshiping this way we share with Christians from the last several hundred years who worshiped with the same song.
The Progressive service: This service is thus named for its style, not necessarily its theology. It will feature the praise band and endeavor to use the most cutting edge sounds in church music. Traditionalists might consider this the “loud” service, or feel that it is geared a bit toward the younger crowd. Remember, though, that it is important for us all to worship together. As a dear octogenarian once said to me, “I don’t care for this music, but I’ll sing standing on my head if it gets the kids to worship!” Expect to be encouraged by high energy, electric instruments, new sounds, and modern re-workings of classic praises.
The Capella service: A Cappella music is sung by vocalists without instrumental accompaniment. In this service, we will feature the choir singing with the praise team, making it Capella instead of A Capella. [This etymology is actually incorrect, but let’s not bother too much with the facts!] This service will feature the most “blended” of sounds and allow the choir to explore much more contemporary repertoire. There may even be hints of urban/gospel in the mix! Look for contemporary Christian classics, new praise songs, and perhaps creative new adaptions of some liturgical songs. The style will appeal most to those comfortable with a “middle of the road” approach to music in worship.
The Eclectic service: You might consider this the “weird” service. It has at its core the German Mass composed by Martin Luther and included in the Lutheran Service Book as Divine Service 5. This is also know as the “chorale mass” because most of the sung parts of the liturgy are replaced with hymn versions, such as “All Gory Be to God on High” or “We All Believe in One True God.” The interesting aspect of this service will be the avant garde assortment of instruments. The emphasis will be on using only acoustic instruments, which may lend the genre to fall between folk and quasi-bluegrass with a hint of Taize. At the very least, this will be unique.

Now, let me be as clear as possible: The ONLY variation between these services is the musical style, the content stays the same. All of them follow the historic structure of Christian worship: Gathering, Proclaiming, Responding, Receiving, and Sending. All of them even include the ordinary of the mass, most of the time (the Progressive service will occasionally substitute a song about God's holiness for the Sanctus, etc...). All these services contain the full lectionary readings, weekly communion, the Lord's prayer, and the Creed (which we often sing in many, many different ways), and all the traditional elements from the historic liturgy in their traditional sequence. What we are able to do through all this is incorporate untold variety. A church with different service styles on the same day is limited to usually recent American music. Even the traditional services usually don't go to far back in history beyond the old gospel songs. We literally are able to implement music from all 20 centuries of Christendom in our various styles, and all services pull from the same song repertoire (our "Progressive" version of "Of the Father's Love Begotten" is a real contender, let me tell you :P). We can easily incorporate music from other cultures and it won't seem out of place. Variety is exploited for maximum benefit.

I suppose I can save much of the how and the why for another post, but this is the adventure that is my life. Between this and keeping up with teaching responsibilities, is it any wonder I don't blog that often?

Going of the [lectionary] rails on a crazy [celebration] train

2012-02-01T08:20:00.000-08:00

This week, our church is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the school it founded, Our Savior New American School. To highlight the event, our worship service will use scripture readings not taken from the normal lectionary cycle. This brings up one of the advantages of lectionary teaching: Flexibility. Low church opponents of following a pericopal system of reading, such as the Revised Common Lectionary, often object on the grounds of its strictness. They might say, if I follow this cycle, I am legalistically bound to whatever it says and have no freedom to address specific concerns in the church body. However, as our church demonstrates, this is completely untrue. The lectionary cycle does not put the preaching ministry in a straightjacket, but it liberates it. It frees the church from being subjected to whatever special revelation the pastor had after last night's proverbial bad pizza by focusing the attention on Christ, his life and work, and looking at this in its entirety throughout the year. At the same time, few protestant churches are legally bound to this cycle. Most who make good use of it are also free to make full exception from it whenever necessary. So at Our Savior, we lean on it as a beneficial, edifying tool for Christo-centricity in worship, while holding it with an open hand, free to deviate as occasion may lead.

All that to say, this week our Psalm is taken from the first eight verses of chapter 78, instead of from the cycle recommendation. I had a brief devotional to share at choir rehearsal last night concerning the significance of what this Psalm says in relation to Christian education. Here it is:

Psalm 78: This passage instructs us concerning the value of us instructing the generation that follows us in the ways of the Lord. What are we teaching them? How do we teach them? We are commanded to not hide the things of the Lord, but teach our children. This is God’s ordained method of the faith being handed down. This is our tradition. Essentially, that is what a tradition is: The manner in which you continually hand down the faith to successive generations. We do this so that they can, as verse seven says, set their hope on God. Singing is a part of our tradition, so consider the role of our song in directing people where to set their hope. Our song ought to inspire hope in God. Music can even have the ability to melt stubborn hearts. Consider the far reaching spiritual aspect of how we sing. In terms of the war that is happening in the spiritual realm, when we sing we are fighting against the spiritual forces of evil. Our faith is something we live (instead of live your life and share your faith, live your faith and share your life), and it is something we sing. What we sing simultaneously expresses and forms our identity. The deeds of the Lord are indeed glorious and worthy of being sung. If we find, when it comes together for singing, that we do not feel the song in our hearts, consider that we have possibly become stubborn, in that we have forgotten how much God gives to us. Take a moment to meditate on the goodness of God and the graciousness of his gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. Meditate on these and allow them to be the impetus that stirs within your heart a song. Our song, however, ought not be constantly happy. If we can learn anything from the Psalms, it is the appropriateness of expressing our lament to the Lord, should that be all that we can offer to Him in honesty. This is what it means to set our hope in God, and through doing this, we will not forget his works but keep his commandments. The generations yet unborn are counting on us, so let us remember, with rejoicing, the wonders the Lord has done.

Psalm 111

2012-01-25T07:59:00.000-08:00

Here's continuing with some brief thoughts on the lectionary Psalm for the week. This is not meant to be a complete exegetical exposition, but a light devotional reflection. I don't really cite the text a whole lot, so these thoughts might make a bit more sense if you take the time to read through the Psalm first. It's a good habit to be in the Psalms regularly, and if you can only read one a week, I recommend the lectionary Psalm. Reading it every day is a good way to prepare one's heart for worship on the weekend. Here's this weeks devotional for Psalm 111 as given to the Our Savior Lutheran Church choir durring rehearsal last night.

Praise the Lord! This sentiment is simultaneously a command and a declaration. It both admonishes one to be about the business of saying something good about the Lord, while implicitly underscoring His inherent worthiness of said saying. The rest of the Psalm is devoted to these two purposes. It supports the command to praise with reasons why He is worthy. By giving these reasons, the Psalm IS praising God by explaining the wonderful deeds He has done. This models for us the directionality of worship: It is directed both at God, to honor Him for his goodness, and directed at each other, as we exhort one another to praising by reminding of why God is worthy. When we come together to worship, we rehearse for our edification and for God’s glory the things He has done, which reveal to us how good he is. Yet there is more to this than a litany of facts: The Psalm itself is an acrostic, which reveals to us the intentionally artistic manner in which the goodness of God is communicated. Here God is instructing us through demonstration to use the best means at our disposal to express His praise beautifully. This is why we practice to make our music the best it can be. Music communicates that which cannot be put into words yet cannot remain unsaid. In addition to this example of artistry, we find a further example of communication: Remembrance. When we come to worship, our emotions are stirred towards love and adoration of the savior not necessarily through aural manipulation, but through a recounting of God’s good works. Let us consider how we can stir up one another towards love and good works. The way we do this is by pointing to the cross, the highest theme of all song, where we see in its purest essence all love and goodness given by God to us. Colossians 3:16 - Let the words of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. Our song, then, simultaneously teaches our church while stirring up thankfulness.

A Brief Lectionary Psalm Devotional

2012-01-17T20:50:00.000-08:00

Well, I have officially survived my first Christmas season as a liturgical music director. I am exhausted, and quite frustrated at my lack of ability to spend more time writing. But here's hoping at a bit more consistency. I'll be taking a break from my "why I converted" series to intersperse it with briefer articles that I can write more quickly.

Every week at choir rehearsal we start by getting our focus oriented spiritually. We look at the Psalm for the upcoming Sunday, read it together, talk about its meaning, and then sing it. We've been experimenting with metrical psalmody because its a highly flexible format. We will likely soon begin chanting as well, to bring a little more tradition to our high-church services.

So each week, I write a brief devotional bringing out a little insight to focus our attention as we practice singing. Maybe I'll post them consistently every week. Here is this week's meditation on Psalm 62:

The last verse ends with a theological challenge: You will render to a man according to his work. This is, ultimately, bad news. I don’t want to be rendered to according to my work, because I am a sinner worthy of eternal damnation. To rightly understand this, however, I think three points are necessary: First, the Psalmist is not necessarily talking about sins against God, but the sins of men against one another. Secondly, by asserting trust in God DESPITE the delay of justice in temporal matters, he is asserting that God ultimately is good and just. We have all noticed how often the wicked prosper. These are the situations where it is difficult to trust in God when we don’t quite see His justice or our vindication realized presently. This psalm serves as a tool to build up our trust in God. By praying it, we are comforted and encouraged to trust in God when life doesn’t make sense. Lastly, this psalm, like all of them, can be rightly understood as the prayer of Christ. Christ is rendered to according to His work, and wicked men are rendered to according to theirs. The good news is, as those baptized into Christ, we are no longer rendered to for the wickedness of our deeds, but we receive freely, as a gift, the rendering that Christ deserves. That is ultimately why we can trust in God: He would not ever render unto Christ the final judgement the wicked deserve, and so as baptized believers we can have confidence in eternal blessings. This serves to demonstrate that God is both supremely just AND merciful, with both these attributes being infinite. Therefore we rejoice as those who are recipients of His mercy. This is the rock that we cling to: God is good.

Thankfully Lutheran

2011-11-25T15:42:00.001-08:00

Well, as a sort of belated commentary on the season, I'd like to chronicle an important step in our journey. Last Sunday, we were accepted as members of our congregation. That means it's official: Belonging to the formal membership of an Lutheran congregation means were are fully Lutheran now, and it's about time.

Church membership is something I have felt somewhat strongly about over the last few years, especially being raised in a tradition that didn't practice it, and working for a church that had the most meaningless application of it. The last church we were in didn't even have the proverbial list that people's name went on after you join the church. Our directory, full of "members," included people who didn't come twice a year, never formally joined the church, or even made a profession of faith for that matter, and even some who had actually moved on and were attending other congregations! When one new person who had been coming for a while expressed a desire to join, it went like this. The pastor, while making announcements, said, "oh and by the way, [this person] would like to join the church. Come on up here! Do you believe in Jesus Christ and have you been baptized? Yes? Is there anybody here who has any reason why she should not be a member? All in favor? Welcome to our family! "

She sat down after a total of 30 seconds and some brief applause. What the point of those questions were, I may never know. Was it actually possible that somebody was going to say, in the middle of a Sunday service, "Absolutely not! I think she should not be admitted to our ranks."? It was such an empty formality. Nothing changed afterward. She was not taught what we believe, given any permissions or benefits, or expected to participate in the life of the congregation in specific, tangible ways. It was pretty much just, oh, she wants to be in? Ok, everyone good with that? Great! You're in. Completely meaningless, waste of time.

Michael Horton, the host of highly recommended radio program "The White Horse Inn," is known for lamenting this decline of the practice of membership. He says that often, a kid can be born into a church that won't baptize him, go through the Sunday School program, attend youth group, go to Christian camps, accept Jesus as his savior, go off to college (even a Christian one!) where he participates in some form of campus fellowship or ministry, and finally graduate and go off into the world without ever having belonged to a church. My question is this: What stands between this person and their two most likely paths: Loosing interest in faith communities as an unnecessary component of the "personal relationship with Jesus," and becoming a religious consumer with little to no congregational loyalty beyond what the growth experts and marketing consultants call "branding?" Nothing. We have not taught our youth that formally committing oneself to a specific assembly of our faith family is a vital component to the life of faith. Do we even believe that? Is the church tangential to the Christian life? I'm afraid we treat it that way. It's just a side-show, designed to aid and assist those who so desire. The church has essentially been reduced to the level of para-church, and I blame the CEO's masquerading as Pastors who leverage branding strategies to exploit the consumerist mentality of their "customers."

All that to say, that I am 100% guilty of all of the above. I am 27 years old, and for the first time in my life, I belong to a congregation, formally. The blame does not rest fully with myself or any specific churches with which I have been associated in the past. I believe the problem is systemic to Evangelicalism at large. I grew up in the Calvary Chapel who doesn't practice formal membership, but simply counts you "in" if you attend regularly. I went to a Southern Baptist college where we had Chapel 3 times a week. I'm not gonna lie, I slept in on many a Sunday, sometimes catching evening services at the mega-church that ran our college. They did have formal membership there, which I was strongly encouraged to pursue when I began my internship. I never followed through with it, I couldn't stomach the four boring classes required which explained to me what the church believed. I rightly assumed I would learn nothing from them, since the church was quite generically evangelical, with slight dispensational leanings. Later that year I moved on to another internship, graduated, and worked for two more Southern Baptist churches as a worship leader and youth pastor. One church gave me a formal installation during a morning service and may have actually had a membership roster. But for what was it used, nobody knew.

I am a concrete example of what Michael Horton preaches against. After listening to his teaching for the past few years, I became convinced of the importance of this issue. My then current church refused to consider the issue, as it would be too "legalistic." In my opinion, they were legalistically anti-formal membership, as if somehow informality was the Christ-instituted means for association.

As members of our new church, we are held accountable to worship, serve, and give. We have a Pastor who gives us the Sacraments services of the church, including marriage, funerals, and baptizing our children. We have elders who pray for us and are there to give us encouragement and guidance. We have buy-in, and ownership of the church, its tradition, its organization, leaders, and other members. We have officially declared that this dysfunctional group of spiritual misfits trying to be disciples is OUR family, with whom we will identify, grow, serve, argue, fight, and learn to forgive, for better or worse. Our status in the Church Catholic is not dependent on our remaining here, but as long as we are here, we have publicly committed to express our faith through doing life together with this rag-tag group of imperfect saints.

We're assuming they're imperfect spiritual misfits because they're human. We're too new to know it personally, and the real challenges begin once we truly get to know each other. The good news is, most members of this church have long tenure, many of over 20 years. People here know how to disagree and still love each other. Our family is really a microcosm of our denomination at large. You the pietistic purpose-driven crowd, the "bronze age" traditionalists, moderate middle-of-the-road group, and the ones who truly own their Lutheran confessions and traditions (the group I fall in). Yet these groups are not at war with one another, and have demonstrated a spirit of willingness to compromise and give each group a little leeway.

So for thanksgiving this year, I am predominantly thankful for these things. First, my wife and I have finally found a tradition to call home, Missouri-Synod Lutheranism. Second, we have found a family to belong to, and they are delightful. Third, I have full time employment, doing music only and not youth-ministry, in this down economy. Fourth, I have the one job in the whole country where I get to do everything I wanted. Think about this; How many positions are there in America where a guy can teach music (choir) at the secondary level, direct a traditional, liturgical choir, become an organist and grow in that ability, while still directing praise bands that make the hymns sound like the Rolling Stones? I don't know if there's another position out there like this one. It's a lot to keep up with, I'll admit, but the work is so fulfilling. I didn't apply to any other jobs near this far east. But when I read the job description, I thought, "how ideal would that be?" It was nothing less than a move of God that brought me here: My resume was sacked because "organist" wasn't on it, and they called somebody else first. That person turned it down, and somehow the committee decided to ring my number.

I know it's not God's job to provide us all with "our best life now," or the highest fulfillment in this life, but I know that where we are at now is His gift to us, and we are enjoying it supremely. God is good, and we are thankful.

The benefits of Weekly Communion, reasons 9-20

2011-11-14T07:16:00.000-08:00

We left off on reason 8. Just a brief recap: Weekly communion helps keep worship Christ centered, guarantees the gospel message gets through, is the historic worship practice of the church, gives a tangible picture of the gospel, serves as a safeguard against the circus, keeps peripheral emphasizes from displacing core doctrines, sets worship apart as specifically Christian, and shows that we come to worship in order to receive. Continuing on down the list:

9. It demonstrates to believers what is important. This goes back to emphasis: Whatever is done consistently week in and week out demonstrates priority. What happens in your church every sunday? Do you hear cheesy jokes? Flashy media clips? Loud, hip, and trendy music? How often are all these, which have nothing whatsoever to do with being a Christian, much more prominent in our life of worship than proclaiming the death of Christ? Lord have mercy.

10. It demonstrates that we worship as a united family, not individuals seeking self-expression. We all share from one cup and one bread. We all receive equally and are received equally into God's family. This is an act of worship that is intrinsically corporate. While singing, thanks to the charismatic revival, has become an individual act where we connect with God alone in our chair and tune everyone else out, communion is something that we consciously and deliberately all do together as a group.

11. It levels the playing field - no super pietism is possible. There is no status around the table: all receive equally, and we all come to God as beggars. Just as God's law is an equal opportunity condemner, so receiving his grace shows us that we are all the same family, united in one faith and one baptism. Nobody gets an extra cracker for being more pious. This is especially a good counter to charismatic worship music. In most churches, there is that one lady near the front with her hands raised who just can not stand still during the singing. Or some dude in the back whose excessive exuberance barely escapes catastrophe. We excuse the eccentricity by saying they are just being expressive in their worship. But are they? Can we really see into their hearts? Do we know they aren't just putting on a show of pious performance? While we certainly ought not to judge, we should remember Jesus frequently referred to the public worship of the Pharisees as hypocritical: doing their acts of devotion in public to be seen by men. I'm not saying we shouldn't be expressive, but worshiping God is not ultimately about the expression of self; it's about the reflection of Christ. And of all things, boisterous and obnoxious enthusiasm while muttering mindless mantras posing as song lyrics isn't the first thing that comes to mind when pondering Christ like character. Communion is an act of worship that doesn't leave room for this.

12. It gives God room to work amidst all our technology and plans. Too many worship services seem like they are planned with the goal of impacting people. Powerful music and emotionally charged motivational speakers combine with tear jerking videos designed to coerce a decision to commit, whether or not the audience is sufficiently equipped to follow through with their newly inspired good intentions. God couldn't possibly work through boring sermons or bad music now, could he? While I am all for making the music as good as possible, nothing can be done to improve communion. You just take it and eat it. If anyone is edified in the process, its not due at all to our brilliance in execution. We couldn't possibly take the credit for how God ministers to people through this.

13. It unites us with believers around the world and throughout time. This is the one act of worship that has been consistently in use through all traditions and all centuries. The prayers have varied and changed. The sermons have been improvised, well studied, or simply read out of a book. The liturgy has been Latin, set in stone, and completely reinvented. All Christians sing, pray, and hear God's word read and taught in worship, but the modes and manners are so diverse, it is practically impossible for a Russian Orthodox to worship with a Brazilian Pentecostal. However, they can share a table (issues of closed communion aside).

14. It lifts the focus off of what we are doing for God. I just can't stand all these songs that talk about how much we're worshiping God and we just want to live for Him, we want to know/see/hear/touch him more… Its all about what we are doing for God! This combines well with moralistic preaching to create emotional exhaustion. When we come to church and don't feel like worshiping God, if the focus is on what we're doing, quite often one is tempted to go through the motions with no enthusiasm because there is nothing inside to give. Good news! Jesus came in order for God to give to us! In the Lord's Supper, we see that God is generous, and delights in dispensing mercy to those who so desire. What a relief! Even if I've had a bad week and don't feel like chanting the mediocre melodies while lifting my hands and making a scene, God still loves me just the same and still offers me the same grace and forgiveness because of the death of Jesus. Proclaim that good news if you say nothing else! Say it over, and over, and over again. We're here to celebrate what God for us 2000 years ago, NOT how we plan on trying to repay Him for it.

15. It keeps the sermon from dominating the service. Many preachers preach shorter when they know there is this additional element to the service, so that people aren't let out too late (that would be the biggest crime in the industry!). This is, in my opinion, an improvement. I am wholeheartedly against the 45+ minute sermons. I've yet to hear one that couldn't have been said in much less (and I've heard tons). Long sermons pose as reverence to God's word, giving the preaching of it prime importance. Baloney. The most "exegetical, verse by verse, expository" lecturers are not going in deeper for spending more time. They are just giving more of their opinion, or their personality, or lame jokes. Or telling irrelevant sentimental stories that they stole from a book and pretend happened to them. 25 minutes or less. Anything more is a waste of time. You're respecting your own ego, not God's word. The deepest sermons I have ever heard have been brief. I repeat: long sermons are not out of respect to God's word. The MacArthur types often spend all that time teaching on just half a verse! Really? You got all that meaning out of a few words? I think it is more likely that the verse is being used as a springboard to jump onto another agenda. Read more scripture, and preach shorter. If we really respect God's Word, we would give it more air time and ourselves less. The sermon isn't God's word.

16. It bridges the gap between the intellect and the emotions. Some churches are really into the intellectual side of worship: You are expected to take notes through the lengthy lecture, and contemplate on the meaning of the doctrine you are singing. Others major on emotion: Theological finer points are too dry and stuffy, we just want to love Jesus and express our love for Him! This group spends more time singing, with exuberance. Neither extreme is healthy. Communion gives an opportunity for emotional worshipers to THINK about what God has done, and for the thinkers it provides a moment of introspective contemplation, where we examine what AFFECT God's self giving has on us.

17. It helps us find peace and rest in the finished work of Christ. When God's law is emphasized over his grace, it can begin to feel like we go to church to receive marching orders. Being under this repeatedly over time creates unrest, anxiety, and frustration. We can never do enough for the kingdom of God. Good news! Jesus doesn't need your help! He can build his Kingdom here on earth with or without your help. When he said "It is finished," he really meant it. Not that there isn't plenty of work to be done, but when we remember what Christ did accomplish on the cross, it puts in perspective the feeble gifts we have to offer him and assures us that His truth will prevail despite our failure to live it out.

18. It nourishes us spiritually. Regardless of what you believe about the nature of the bread and wine. If you believe they are only memorial devices, actually transformed into flesh and blood, or anything in between. If the former, it is at the very least mentally beneficial to reflect on Calvary. If the latter, the more Jesus you can get inside of you, the better. If in between, like most reformation traditions, we believe that through the elements God actually nourishes us with his grace, creating and sustaining faith in us. Why should we starver ourselves spiritually? If God's grace is freely given to us, let us feast on it!

19. It reminds us of why we are there in the first place. Our worship is not something done to earn God's favor. It is a response to the favor he has freely given us. Jesus is the reason we live, and we love him because he died for us. Take that away, and the church is reduced to a social club. Indeed, on a functional level, many churches have become exactly that. Frequent celebration of communion can help fight that syndrome by keeping foremost the reason the Church even exists.

20. It shapes our image of God over time. Is your understanding of God one who demands? Is he never happy or satisfied? A distant authority figure that can never be pleased? While it is easy to recognize these descriptions as technically incorrect, what do your emotions say? When we are constantly coming to worship to give our singing, give our money, give our attention to the sermon, give our time in volunteer service, etc… over time we begin to psychologically associate God with the draining of our resources. If we come to worship to be filled and receive from God grace, healing, forgiveness, and life, it becomes much more natural to love Him. Repetition, repetition, repetition! Emphasis determines priority! God is good! He is generous, and he loves to give forgiveness of sins and everlasting life.

I leave you with this quote from Isaiah: "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." Oh yes please. Let us not make excuses, but take every opportunity to feast on God's grace, even if only symbolically.

The benefits of Weekly Communion, reasons 1-8 of 20.

2011-11-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

Ok, I am back from my temporary hiatus in writing. The last two months have been a whirlwind as I settle into and adjust to my new position as Music Director and Teacher at Our Savior Lutheran Church and School. I've had hardly a day off in two months, and am just now settling down into a remote sense of balance, with the guiding help of the assistant Pastor and elder board.

So now to continue my exposition on why I chose to convert to Lutheranism, reason 2: weekly communion. In my last post, I described the tradition and theology from where I had come. In the next one, I will address specifically the Lutheran theology of the Lord's supper. For this post, the purpose is to explore the benefits of weekly communion.

To start off, I'd like to address some of the many reasons why people do not celebrate communion more frequently. First off, there are those who say that doing it more seldom gives it deeper significance, and if they do it too much it will loose its meaning. The only strange thing is, nobody will ever apply this principle to anything else in life. We still kiss our spouses every day and say that we love them. We still attempt to have meals as families. We say the pledge of allegiance before school and sing the national anthem before ball games. We make sure to catch our favorite weekly TV show, enjoy our favorite recreational activity, or even partake in a regular spiritual discipline such as daily time in prayer. Somehow, all these things manage to retain their meaning throughout repetition, even growing deeper and more significant as time passes. But not the Lord's supper? Hogwash. Repetition does not reduce meaning. You can mindlessly coast through anything on its first repeat, even if done annually. Meaning isn't added by seldomness, but by attentiveness.

Excuse number two: Who is going to take the time to prepare the elements? Believe it or not, I've been part of churches who might have celebrated communion more had someone stepped forth and offered to handle the preparation. I vote this one the lamest: God became man and died on the cross for our sins, but it is asking too much to pour welches into thimbles? Good grief.

This one takes the cake for strangeness. A dear friend of mine holds the extreme minority position that, since Jesus said, "As often as you drink of it, do this in remembrance of me," and it was during the passover, he was referring only to the passover meal. Therefore, "as often as you drink" clearly shows that God intends for us to celebrate once a year, like the passover. But ultimately, this goes back to the first excuse: Somehow this annual celebration is supposed to be deeper and more meaningful since it is neglected the rest of the year. I have an idea for an annual celebration: How about Easter? Christmas? For pete's sake, Ash Wednesday! Jesus also said that when we partake of the bread and wine, we proclaim His death until He returns. Should the proclamation of the death of Christ be restricted to an annual event? If the Church doesn't proclaim this every time it assembles, what on earth is left that is worth proclaiming?

Now I shall go into the many benefits of celebrating weekly.

1. It helps keep the worship Christ centered. Could there possibly be a more Christ centered action of worship? Good teaching, good songwriting/selection, good liturgy, and good prayers can all point to and focus on Christ. But they can also do a host of other things as well. Communion, on the other hand, can only possibly point to one thing. It is a great way to highlight the importance of Christs death for sinners, since it is the cornerstone of our faith.

2. It guarantees the message gets through even when the sermon doesn't. So many churches preach moralistic sermons. Christianity is an extremely moral religion, but Christian morality is based on God's law. We had this in spades before Christ even came, but it is not good news. In fact, it is more often bad news as it reveals how much we fall short. But if a moralistic, sentimental, or practical self-help sermon is followed by communion, at least the death of Christ is remembered. When the sermon reveals only our failures, the sacrament reveals God's provision of grace.

3. It is the historic worship practice of the church in all centuries. In the Catholic Church, if there is no communion, there wasn't worship. This is the case for all Orthodox believers as well. Up until the time of the Protestant Reformation, mass was worship. Many protestant churches retained this practice. There is something to be said for that fact that saints in every century have endorsed this practice as a beneficial tradition. I'm not saying the majority must be right, but consider the possibility that there is a reason for this historical consensus.

4. It gives a picture of the gospel, providing an avenue for communication that is otherwise overlooked. Churches today are obsessed with communication creativity. We get our message out through every avenue possible: social media networking and advertising, mailers and visitation, etc… When gathered for worship, we present our truths through songs, sermons, and technologically enhanced visual media. How on earth did the Apostles communicate truth without a projector? But consider that these means all relate to two senses only: Sight and sound. These are important, since faith comes by hearing. However, taste and touch are brought into play with the Lord's supper, giving us a concrete picture that we can feel, and that can really get inside of us.

5. It serves as a safeguard against the circus. It's no secret that evangelicals major on irreverence. Motorcycle stunts, AC/DC covers, and magic tricks for some reason all seem like legitimate Biblical expressions of adoration to a holy God. However, that jarring contrast that would be obvious in serving common after a stand-up comedy routine posing as a devotional talk might just be strong enough to discourage the eccentric combination. Usually communion is the one that looses out, but if increased in frequency, it may help us recover a sense of reverence in worship since it just doesn't go with juggling monkeys. Or snakes.

6. It helps keep another emphasis from displacing core beliefs. Too often its not what a church says on paper that matters in term of belief. Most evangelical churches have the same generic vanilla statement of faith anyways, yet there is such wide divergence in teaching style. The reason is emphasis. You can have orthodox theology, but if all your teaching is how to have a successful marriage, career, and wonderful children, then it wouldn't really make a difference if you even believed in the Trinity! What is consistently given the most time in a worship service shows what is truly important. Are we coming together to focus on ourselves, or to worship a crucified Savior? Celebrating communion weekly helps us give consistent time and emphasis to Jesus no matter what the style of worship.

7. It sets the worship service apart as Christian. The bread and wine are universally recognized symbols of the Christian faith. Some liturgical, emergent, or pentecostal worship styles can just be outright strange. I was at an Armenian Apostolic service with Arabic chanting that seemed, at least from a cultural standpoint, more Muslim than Christian. It probably wouldn't have if I knew the language, but once the bread and wine were brought out, there was no confusion possible. This ritual is a distinguishing identifier of who we are as followers of Jesus.

8. It shows that Christians come to worship in order to receive. The difference between Christianity and all religions is that in other religions, man works to attain to the divine. In our faith, God reaches out to us and does all the work. We are simply passive recipients of his grace, and receiving the Lord's Supper gives a clear picture of this.

Ok, I got 12 more reasons coming in the next post. Enough for now. Thanks for reading!

Reason 2a: Weekly Communion (and a more meaningful understanding)

2011-09-23T08:14:00.001-07:00

This post will likely take three installments. First, I will deal with some of the difficulties which drove me away from a Baptist view of the Lord's Supper. Than I will talk about the benefits and value of weekly communion. Lastly, I will discuss a Lutheran theology of the Lord's Supper and why I was finally convinced of the "real presence." [that we can have a weekly encounter with Christ through something other than a subjective emotional experience.]

I will endeavor to avoid misrepresenting the Baptist view. That will not be too difficult, since it is the view I used to hold.

For the purposes of this essay, the term "Baptist" will broad enough to encompass all generic evangelicals, including EV Free, Charismatic, Bible and community churches, Calvary Chapels, Vineyards, etc… All these churches have a practically identical theology of the Lord's supper [or lack thereof] and at least fall under the same historical category of Zwinglianism. Now, to their credit, Baptist have a rich theology of the Lord's supper, as successors of the teaching of Swiss reformer Zwingli. Some outstanding writing on the Baptist view can be read by authors Dr. Timothy George (including a brief article on internetmonk.com) and Dr. Russel Moore, in the book "4 views on the Lord's Supper." The view taught by historically aware theologians like these are the epitome of everything right in Baptist theology. If all Baptists thought as deeply and with the same priority about the Lord's supper as these examples, there would be much more fraternity between them and the rest of the Christian universe. (Dr. George is particularly ecumenical in his work and teaching.)

Instead… I will go into a detailed description of the Baptist teaching as the vast majority of participants experience it on the ground level. I highly encourage you to check out those authors, they leave me nothing left to say about the "good side" of Zwinglianism. Instead, I will focus on my experience as part of this tradition and expose what I consider to be the weak underbelly of this line of theological thought.

When teaching on this tradition, most Baptists will spend considerably more time explaining what the Lord's supper is NOT than describing what it actually is. 400 years after the reformation we are still beating the drum of "The Catholics are silly and superstitious, and we are so much more enlightened and intelligent than they are!" We get the point: Everyone knows you think that. I've heard more Baptist teaching on what Catholics believe about the supper and how wrong it is than I've heard Baptists actually defining their own view. It's almost as if we've defined our stance on this by being the complete opposite of "them," which is usually a bad way to do theology.

Traditionally, Baptists believe what is called "memorialism," that the Lord's supper is done in remembrance of Christ's death, and for the purpose of remembering. Catholics teach transubstantiation, that the bread and wine actually transform into the body and blood of Christ. Baptist are so determined to convince you how wrong that is that their teaching has been nicknamed "the Doctrine of Divine Absence." Its just a memory device, you do not actually receive anything other than bread and wine.

I almost begin to wonder if holding to memorialism itself is what causes this wrong emphasis of defining the sacrament in negative terms. As much as Baptist teach about the Catholic view, I have, to this day, yet to hear a single one of them describe it correctly. Their disdain has always been based on misunderstanding and false caricature. I even heard Dr. MacArthur give an abysmally prejudiced presentation on this. A man of his scholarly standards owes it to his opponents to represent their view from a more informed stance. Dr. MacArthur surely has the resources to learn the true Catholic teaching, yet he refuses to consult it. As such, the highest end of Baptist preaching on this doctrine has been to strengthen division in the body of Christ.

Whats worse is, when, in an effort to distinguish itself from other views, Baptist preach the sacrament as simply a memorial exercise, it becomes merely an intellectual device. Once this happens, how are the bread and wine even necessary whatsoever? If the purpose is simply to remember the death of Christ, how are bread and wine even important for that? Why can't I simply meditate on the event and dispense with the snack? The answer: you can, if you believe that. "God said to use bread and wine," isn't compelling enough if we are going to insist that He commanded it for no reason.

The other fruit of the "doctrine of divine absence" is the practice of complete neglect. Since the elements themselves have been relegated to superfluous peripherals, the ceremony has become of marginal importance. Case in point, how often do Baptists typically celebrate communion? In many churches, it is once or twice a year. I certainly hope the death of Christ is at least preached more often than that! In one Baptist church I worked for, we actually went two years without celebrating on a Sunday, once. There was a midweek celebration one time. After repeatedly suggesting it, we finally began practicing it again. Two years! I hear many evangelical megachurches have even completely abandoned it altogether.

Well, what's the problem with that? If these churches are still preaching the death of Christ, than surely the people are still meditating on the death of Christ without the ritual, right? Well, lets see… Is the emphasis of your average generic evangelical church "Christ crucified for sinners," or, "practical steps to life a fulfilling life?" I know these are two extremes, but my experience with hundreds of churches says that the second is by far a more accurate and prevalent stereotype. Do you doubt this? Ever heard the Bible called "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth?" For pete's sake, God's message to us has been turned into a to-do list! Its all about what we can do rather than what Christ has done.

When you teach that the Lord's supper is only a memory device, it is natural and logical to de-emphasize its practice, if not abandon it altogether. When the Lord's supper goes by the wayside, so does, often, the preaching of the gospel itself. Worship services become focused on self rather than the One who was perfectly selfless.

Another disturbing fact is that this teaching has NO historical precedent before Zwingli. Nowhere in church history has this understanding of scripture ever been taught before the 16th century. Were the first 1500 years of Christianity completely wrong on this topic? I doubt it. I've learned that whenever a preacher comes across with a new doctrine and claims he is finally the one who figured out where the church has been wrong all along, he's selling something. Guarantee.

Lastly, Baptist teachers, for all their emphasis on exegetical teaching, play very fast and loose with the text of scripture when it comes to the words of institution. When reading Jesus' words "This is my body" and "this is my blood" in the gospel account, it is common for a Baptist teacher to just re word it, as he is reading from scripture!!!! to say, "This represents…" For pete's sake, when it comes to this issue, can we not at least save the interpretation for after the reading of God's word? The word is "IS," not "represents." The word "represents" is read into the text; it is not what the text clearly says. This is aside from the fact that their is absolutely no grammatical, contextual, or etymological reason whatsoever to suggest that "is" is more accurately rendered or understood as "represents."

Like I said earlier, I used to hold this view. For years, I assumed that surely Jesus meant "represents." I couldn't ever figure out why he didn't just say what he really meant the whole time. But then I came to realize why I saw the words that way: I had underlying rationalistic epistemological presuppositions that refused to allow me to see it any other way, reality or not. My rational intellect kept shouting: It can NOT possibly be one thing AND something else at the same time! It's logically impossible!" …well, I guess so much for the hypostatic union. You see, the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper is rooted in the doctrine of the incarnation. Jesus Christ became 100 percent God and 100 percent man, and feeds us with his own body and blood through the simplest of physical means, with the ultimate goal of finally reconciling us fully to God.

This just in. I heart an Issues Etc… podcast on this topic where they brought up another interesting point: If communion is a memorial exercise, than its truly about what we are doing: remembering, meditating. Sure its remembering and meditating on what Christ did, but in the actual celebration, we are the ones doing it. That puts the focus back on self. In the Lutheran doctrine, God is the one who is working and we do nothing but receive. However, that will have to wait for another post.

Next up, I will discuss the value of weekly celebration, regardless of understanding...

First Time Liturgist

2011-09-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

In the last week or two I have had a lot of firsts. First staff meeting, first class ever taught, first chanted liturgy ever accompanied on the organ, first service ever played on the organ...

About two weeks ago, I led in singing for my first service at Our Savior. It was a mid-week service, and I designed the liturgy. Pastor gave me the freedom to build it from the ground up. Seeing as how we just survived "hurricane" Irene, we decided to focus the service on giving thanks for protection and declaring our trust. The music was sung out of the hymnal and accompanied by guitar, bass, and djembe. Durring communion, we sang more contemporary music with the lyrics projected on the screens. I feel it came off very well, I was happy with the results, and the response I received was good. Music aside (love doing hymns on guitar!), I am fairly proud of my first liturgy, so I thought I'd post it here. Perhaps someone out there can use it. LSB stands for "Lutheran Service Book," which is the current hymnbook for our denomination (LCMS) and an outstanding compilation of sacred song and prayer. I am especially proud of the litany, which I composed.

SERVICE OF GIVING THANKS AND DECLARING TRUST

Wednesday, August 31st, 7:00 p.m.

Pre-Service Music: Instrumental

Opening Song: Eternal Father, Strong to Save, LSB 717 (w/ opt. navy stanzas 2 & 3)

Call to Worship: Psalm 121, read responsively, LSB

Hymn: O God Our Help in Ages Past, LSB 733

Hymn: Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me, LSB 761

Reading: Psalm 107: 1-3, 23-32

Sermon Hymn: Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me, LSB 715

Sermon: Pastor Stelzer - “Jesus in the midst of Life’s Storms” - Luke 8:22-25

Response: Psalm 46: unison reading, LSB

Fellowship Cards, Announcements, and Offering

Offertory Hymn: The King of Love My Shepherd Is, LSB 709

Thanksgiving Litany: “We give thanks to the Lord in prayer, inviting you to respond together saying, ‘We give you thanks,’ after you hear, ‘Lord, for these mercies.’”

-For being merciful to us while nature expressed its wrath and protecting us from injury and death...

-For the wisdom and technology which gave us ample warning and adequate time to do what we could to prepare...

-For your guiding hand which causes the destructive forces of nature to have their limits and ends...

-For the well trained and diligent disaster relief workers who are sent to bring us aid...

-For the additional time we were provided to spend with loved ones as we battened down the hatches...

-For giving to all the strength to work toward recovery and restoration of communities...

-For your comfort given to those who lost homes, possessions, health, and family...

-For hearts in which you have used catastrophe to bring about repentance and faith...

-For the opportunity given to your church to be a witness in the midst of trials and suffering...

-For the hope which you give that causes us to rise above trials and suffering...

Communion:

Prayer of Thanksgiving

Words of Institution

The Lord’s Prayer

Distribution Songs:

You Are My Hiding Place

Mighty To Save

Shout to the Lord

Everlasting God

Post Communion Collect:

Benediction: E: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. A: Thanks be to God.

Recessional Song: God Bless Our Native Land LSB 965

Postlude: Instrumental

Reasons 1b: Law and Gospel continued...

2011-09-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

Enter Law and Gospel. This is a method pioneered by Martin Luther, and systematized by later Lutheran theologians, most notably C. F. W. Walther. In a book of lectures by Walther, he sets forth the basic tenants of his method in several theses, the first of which are:

1: The doctrinal contents of the entire Holy Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testament, are made up of two doctrines differing fundamentally from each other, viz., the Law and the Gospel.
2: Only he is an orthodox teacher who not only presents all the articles of faith in accordance with Scripture, but also rightly distinguishes from each other the Law and the Gospel.
3: Rightly distinguishing the Law and the Gospel is the most difficult and highest art of Christians in general and of theologians in particular. It is taught only by the Holy Spirit in the school of experience.
4: The true knowledge of the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is not only a glorious light, affording the correct understanding of the entire Holy Scriptures, but without this knowledge Scripture is and remains a sealed book.

So all of scripture is Law or Gospel. The question then becomes, what is the law, and what is the gospel? For the purposes of this hermeneutic, some brief categorical descriptions would include:

Law: What God demands from us, Gospel: What God gives to us. Law: Our duty towards God and our neighbor, Gospel: Jesus Christ crucified for sinners.

That last one is crucial: "Gospel" is quickly becoming a junk drawer word due to "innovators" trying to bring a fresh perspective to a competitive free market religious culture. But at its core, the good new is that Jesus died for you, because you were a sinner.

How is this used in interpreting scripture?

Well, the best way to learn this is to read "Law and Gospel" by Walther, and allow him to give you point by point examples of how to rightly distinguish the two. The point is this: Without Christ crucified, there is no good news. If the death of Christ isn't given the last word, than all the sermon leaves you with is an obligation. This becomes problematic because even as disciples of Jesus we continue to sin (except John Wesley, of course!). Most evangelical sermons deliver what I like to call a "gospel sandwich." They preach the law to show you that you are a sinner, the preach the forgiveness purchased by Christ, but then once you have been offered freedom, they finish with a spiritual or practical to-do list. No matter how simple they try to make it, at least one of two rules will always apply: 1. It is impossible. At some point, you will fail to do what the preacher demands. 2: It is not enough. Could you succeed perfectly in following the suggestions of the preacher, you would still not have come anywhere close to removing sin in your life. Only Jesus can, by dying for you and nailing your sins to the cross. So leave it at that, and don't pile on guilt trips to repentant sinners, given them heavy burdens and calling it "sanctification" or "discipleship."

For a more specific example, look at the Ten Commandments. This passage of scripture, like all passages, contains simultaneously, in the same words, both the Law of God and the Gospel. How is this passage Law? It defines and summarizes our duties and obligations to God and neighbor. It gives us a brief exposition on what it means to love God with all your heart and soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, this passage teaches us that you are NOT loving your neighbor IF your are stealing from him. This, by the way, was actually gracious of God to let us know. A little "gospel preview" there. However, every one of us is, at some point, a thief. "But I've never stolen!" you tell yourself. Ah, but look at the New Testament: "Anyone, therefore, who knows the good he ought to do, and doesn't do it, sins." Ok… so even if you haven't taken something that belongs to your neighbor, if a neighbor has ever been in need and you have failed to supply him when you were able to, then you have taken from him what you were morally obligated to give. Or, using the "love your neighbor as yourself" line, you have failed to help him in the manner that you would have needed were you in his shoes. Unlawful withholding is stealing in the same way that unlawful taking is.

Therefore, far from serving as a practical tip for living in peace and harmony, the commandment truly reveals how we are, in and of ourselves, utterly incapable of it.

How on earth could this possibly be good news?

First of all, look at the sequence of the commandments. The first thing God says is, "I am the Lord YOUR God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt…" etc…

He doesn't say, do things and I will be your God, he says He IS your God period. God's acceptance of His people is not dependent on their ability to live righteously. What is it dependent on then? It is dependent on the ability of somebody else to live righteously, and that person is Jesus.

So the second way that this is good news is that it begins to paint a picture of Jesus for us. Jesus never stole from anybody, and he always gave to those in need as he was able, no matter what and with no exceptions. So what if Jesus is a nice guy? Well, first of all, if Jesus was a sinner, his death couldn't possibly save you. Secondly, knowing what Jesus is like is crucial because he is the visible image of the invisible God. Therefore he paints for us a picture of who God is. And the nature and character of God is the foundation of the gospel from the beginning: If Jesus loves all and does good to all, that means God does. And if the almighty, omnipotent, all powerful creator of the universe has this kind of benevolence and good will towards his creatures, this gives us hope no matter how screwed up and sinful we are.

Thirdly, this law does, through Jesus, give to us what it without Jesus demands from us. Without Jesus, the law demands we not sin and convicts us when we do. But with Jesus, whose sinless life is credited to us as a free gift, this law becomes promise that God fulfills in, with, and through us. (In, with, and through… remember that for later points on the "Why I became a Lutheran" series…) The commandment to not steal is fulfilled IN us when Christ, through the Holy Spirit, comes to live in us and fill us with His righteousness. It is fulfilled with us as, when tempted to steal, Christ is there with us fighting the battle of temptation for us. And the command is fulfilled through us as, through the power of the Holy Spirit and faith in Christ, we not only refrain from stealing, but become unexplainably generous and giving as Christ works to make us more like Himself: Eagerly desiring to give mercy to all.

When scripture is seen through this lens, everything becomes good news. Every demand God makes on us is seen through the completed work of Christ on the cross. But instead of nullifying the commandment and using the work of Christ to make the law unnecessary, what we end up with is incentive to obey the law, comfort for our many and obvious failing to obey the law, and strength and power to grow in grace as we are continually transformed more and more into a person that is like Christ and behaves like Christ more naturally.

The law and the gospel, by this method are both proclaimed in their fullness. The big challenge is to rightly distinguish the two. Calling one the other leads to the bondage of either legalism or license.

This is a way of understanding the Bible that challenges without demanding, directs without condemning, and glorifies what God has done for us instead of what we are doing for God.

Why I am a Lutheran, reason 1a

2011-08-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

I've discovered it will take a bit more than one post to elaborate on each of my 10 reasons for converting. Here is the first part of my first reason: The Law and Gospel hermeneutic.

Now concerning my reasons for converting to Lutheranism, the first is the Law and Gospel hermeneutic.

Briefly put, a hermeneutic is how you interpret the Bible. The "Law and Gospel" method of interpreting scripture turns the entirety of scripture into "good news," and makes so much sense that, after having learned it, it is actually difficult to listen to preachers who study without it because, in the end, they are often preaching nothing other than guilt and condemnation. Case in point: If the bulk of your sermon would necessarily be true whether or not Jesus Christ came and died, then you are probably preaching a message that is all law and devoid of gospel. The consequence of this is that the message becomes decisively un-Christ-ian, and could just as easily have been preached in a Jewish service (unless, of course, it used the New Testament).

So what is the Law and Gospel hermeneutic and how exactly does it differ from others? To illustrate its use I will compare it to the dominant hermeneutic used in the tradition I recently came out of: Southern Baptist. In Southern Baptist circles, as well as many others which emphasize things like Biblical inerrancy, family values, a strong intellectual approach to dogmatics, and a seminary educated pastorate (including many EV Free churches, evangelical Presbyterians, Bible church types, and to a much more simple extent the Calvary Chapel bunch), the dominant hermeneutic in use is called the historical-grammatical method. It is just what it sounds like: Analyzing the precise historical background of the writing as well as the grammatical structure of the sentences to determine both the exact literal meaning of the text plus its most likely intended meaning given its original audience. This method makes a lot of sense and therefore has strong appeal to those who care about sensibility (lamentably, not enough evangelicals).

The gist of the method is this: Hebrew and Greek are studied intensively. Sentences are literally diagrammed in their original languages so that absolute clarity is seen in the structure of the sentence. The result is that often this arrives at a very narrowly literal interpretation of practically everything. This method makes strong claims at being able to decipher the most exact meaning of every verse of the Bible, and it certainly makes an outstandingly thorough and diligent effort. Unfortunately, among the adherents to this technique there is such wide divergence of opinion over semi-crucial doctrines. Fortunately, that vast majority of proponents of this method deny none of the core doctrines of the faith, but there is strong diversity over issues of soteriology, ecclesiology, pneumatology, and eschatology. The problem with this divergence is that each exegete believes his conclusion to be THE clear teaching of scripture and that other opinions are necessarily wrong.

Another weakness (the most fatal one, imo) of this method is that it tends to be oblivious to biblical symbolism, to the point of explaining it away. Because of its extreme literalism, unless a passage explicitly defines its own imagery, users of this method will explain symbolism away by saying, "You might like to read that into the text, but the text doesn't say that anywhere."

The problem? This would disqualify that vast majority of scriptural interpretation that Jesus and the apostles did in the New Testament. Their exegesis would not pass the rules of this method.

The other major problem here is that the historical-grammattical method seems to boast almost complete objectivity, with literary "power-tools" strong enough to filter out any bias, tradition, or preformed theological conclusions. It might actually be able to do this, in a perfect world. But unfortunately, even the biggest names in exegetical study who rely on this method are inevitably flawed beyond the correction of this method. For example, John MacArthur, is a great expositor and teacher of the Bible. However, he holds to theology that is Baptistic on most counts. That means, that when Jesus says, "This is my body,", MacArthur would interpret it as, "This represents my body," because of the traditional Baptist view of the Lord's Supper. This is inconsistent, because there are no grammatical reasons to insert the word "represents" nor contextual indications. In fact, the only reason the passage gets interpreted this way at all, by anyone, is simply because of rationalistic epistemological presuppositions which subconsciously scream, "It HAS to be symbolism! Jesus couldn't possibly mean IS when he says IS, because that wouldn't make sense!" So in this case, reason circumvents the method. Because we could naturally think that if God became a man and spent some time teaching us "in person," everything he said would quite naturally make sense to us, right?

Enter Law and Gospel.

...continued in pt. 2

Why I am a Lutheran

2011-08-18T20:14:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. It's been a very long time since I last posted. I am going to attempt to resolve at least a weekly update from here on out.

For now, many of you may know that we have finally been liberated from being hostage to the Southern Baptist Convention. That's a dramatic way of saying I got a job with someone else.

As I told my friend who is a Presbyterian minister, "God in all his wisdom has sovereignly predestined my wife and I to become Lutherans."

We've been provided full time work with a congregation of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and therefore we are finally able to settle in a tradition of reformation heritage. But just to be clear, we did choose the Lutheran tradition, and not just for occupational reasons. While it is true that we may have been able to get by with a congregation from the PCA or ACNA, confessional Lutheranism has had a distinct draw on my life in recent months. So here is the first in a series of posts on why I believe the Lutheran tradition is the best place for us, and the truest expression of the Christian faith consistent with the Biblical witness. For now, I will simply list the points. In the coming posts, I will elaborate on each of the reasons. They are:

1. The Law and Gospel hermeneutic.

2. Weekly communion. And a more meaningful theology than the memorialistic "doctrine of divine absence" which eats away at the reasons for even celebrating the Lord's supper. Is is is, if you know what I mean.

3. A more sacramental expression of Christian spirituality (as opposed to purely intellectual or pietistic).

4. A form of discipleship that involves catechism, or teaching people what they believe and why.

5. A spirituality that is rooted in the christian calendar, using the church year to integrate major themes of the Christian faith into an annual rhythm of life.

6. The use of creeds and confessions (Southern Baptist have them, most have no idea what they are or what they mean).

7. They tend to get the doctrine of Justification right at all costs. The good news is therefore always good, and not a to-do list.

8. Christ centered worship - Even non-Lutherans must admit that Lutherans typically do this better than every other Protestant tradition.

9. Outstanding musical heritage (J. S. Bach, St. Olaf).

10. A theology that welcomes the broken and failures, creating a community that that is a safe place for hurting and wounded sinners to find healing and forgiveness in the arms and death of Jesus.

Ok, so I elaborated just a tad on some of those points. But I will be expanding on each point once we get settled in and I have more time to write (soon!). Feel free to leave your reactions, but be warned, I will probably try to convert you. :P

Law and Gospel: Preaching to the Left and to the Right: Sermons that make you love your Savior

2010-07-03T23:12:00.000-07:00

Nobody preaches perfectly. Nobody has a perfect theology. Nobody understands God perfectly. This can be a source of frustration for those of us seeking truth. We long for fullness of understanding. Unfortunately, we have to live in that barbarous and torturous realm known as reality. Imperfect theology and flawed understandings of God. And when it comes to imperfect preaching, there is a trend I have noticed in America among most preachers: They tend to preach either to the left or the right of the gospel.

What do I mean by that? I am borrowing political language here, because it seems that "right" preaching churches usually end up politically right as well, and vice versa. The right and left in this illustration? Law and grace. Most preachers I have heard tend to err on emphasizing either one of these to the distortion of the other. Let's look at some examples.

Law preachers preach to the right. They preach the law of God as the definitive mark of the Christian living. We are Christian because we do this, and we don't do that. What WE DO makes us holy. Not only is this untrue, but it doesn't work either. As Robert Capon has said: “Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works.”

The law cannot impart eternal life. As I understand from scripture, the law brings one thing: death. And that is exactly the culture of right preaching churches: There is NO spiritual vitality. These tend to include legalist and fundamentalist churches. The KJV only crowd, bible belt Baptists, and even some more recent denominations like Calvary Chapel. The proclivity to the political right is extremely strong here. Pro-life, anti-gay marriage, intelligent design, and young earth creationism uber alles. Focus on the family and the right to bear arms.

Law sermons tend to make you feel bad about yourself. The tag line? "Jesus came and took the whoopin that you had comin, because you are just so rotten. So knock it off! Can't you see what you did to Him? Stop it already." The crucifixion of Jesus is the emphasized part of their gospel, often to the exclusion of His resurrection, ascension, and future coming.

Also in this category are many of these "fundamentalists 2.0" churches who teach the law with a smile. This is heard as: "We obey the Bible because it is helpful,” or, “Jesus loves you and [everybody else] has a wonderful plan for your life.” (“Wonderful” here potentially meaning getting eaten by lions.) These churches are apt to give you, as Pastor Tim says, "5 principles to help prevent hangnails." Our faith is all about giving you your best life now, a better marriage, perfect kids by Friday, and purpose for your life. Most of these churches could operate just fine if Jesus never even came! The ethos is that or moralistic therapeutic deism, and results from teaching the law of God by itself.

Even in Fundy 2.0 churches, after you have tried and failed to apply successfully all the "life principles" you have been learning, despair and resignation are the inevitable results. Your life will never be as fulfilling or holy as the people on the platform, and God isn’t pleased.

On the other end of the spectrum, however, we have churches who preach to the left. It is all about grace. These have slogans like "Open hearts, open minds, open wallets". They tend to be very socially active, and the singular thrust of their messages is: "God is love so let's spread a little Jesus around." Sounds pretty good right? Left preaching churches are typically in mainline denominations and progressive on gender issues. They are accepting of more people than just about anyone else, and they require very little of you. The message? Jesus came to give us love so that we can give more love to more people! Then he gave us his power to carry it out more effectively. *cue Beatles theme song: "All you need is love..." Indeed, loving is held as the essence of the Christian life. Good or thoughtful deeds are considered inherently Christian.

The problem with this? The reason we do not love isn't typically addressed: We are self centered, self exalting, God belittling sinners who are incapable of altruism. Jesus gives us His Spirit to love after we repent. But who wants to clean out all the skeletons in the closet of their life? It's much easier to give a hug and a bowl of soup. After all, Jesus wouldn't send anyone to Hell would he? He's too nice, like the fairies at Disneyland.

To their credit, these churches are known for compassion. They will stand up for anybody who needs it. They were the first to accept African Americans and women into their seminaries, and the first to ordain homosexuals. They shelter illegal immigrants and have the oldest buildings in urban areas. Their worship tends toward high church, and their denominations are constantly loosing churches who break off in groups seeking for a less progressive approach.

These communities tend to be more warm and welcoming, though they seldom have anybody under 50. They use the gender-neutral Bible translations that the Right leaning churches always rally against. Where as right-preaching churches tend to emphasize the crucifixion above all else, these churches could get by fine without much mention of it at all. Jesus was a good moral teacher and example. He opened His arms to the poorest of the poor, and so our purpose in life ought to be to eliminate poverty at all costs. They go on many crusades, but rarely for people's souls. “Thou shalt be politically correct” has been added to their ten commandments, I believe.

This category even includes the "liberalism 2.0" churches, such as "emerging" churches, were people paint pictures on the platform during the singing. The ethos seems to say, “Who cares what the church believed for 2000 years? They are obviously wrong. Let’s throw all their baggage out and finally be the first generation to actually get it right.”

Sermons in these churches tend to make you feel good about yourself and good about living. They make you want to go climb Mount Everest and join the peace core. They tend to focus on the life of Jesus more than the rest of scripture combined, emphasizing the ways he helped people. You leave these Churches feeling pretty confident that God has to love you just because He's so nice, and you're not that bad a person anyways. After all, you did volunteer at the soup kitchen last month, right? Surely that's got to count for something.

Now I have been blessed tremendously by outstanding preaching and teaching in both of these kinds of churches. I sometimes resent how these different approaches have drastically polarized the body of Christ. But I am convinced that there is a better way. We ought not to preach guilt and condemnation as a motivation to good works. Who has that ever really helped, anyways? Likewise, as fallible humans, we often need more than simply a little encouragement to stir ourselves up to love and good works. The answer is not found in either the law of God or the Grace of God, but in the right use of BOTH law and grace.

Law without grace spells doom for all, no matter how hard you try. Grace without law denies justice and lowers the greatness of God to the point that his involvement in our lives is marginally important. But if both are present and handled rightly, then the results should reflect the parable of Jesus in Luke 7:41-43:

“Then Jesus told him this story: ‘A man loaned money to two people -- 500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other. But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, cancelling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?’

Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.’

‘That’s right,’ Jesus said.”

The law reveals to us the magnitude of our debt. Grace reveals to us the even surpassing greatness of God’s forgiveness. When both are used in right relationship to each other, the result is not a message that makes you feel bad or good about yourself. Instead, we feel good about our Savior. The highest aim of good preaching, in my opinion, should be to stir up love for Jesus.

A message from the Youth Group

2010-05-27T23:26:00.001-07:00

Today I did something I don't normally do: When prepping for my youth lesson, instead of preparing an outline, I wrote the whole thing out. The delivery was lacking. It was obvious I was reading. When a friend of mine accused me of preaching a sermon purchased on the internet, I thought he was making a compliment, until he told me to try to get a refund.

Anyways, I thought I'd post it here since I went to the trouble of typing it out. It's based on Mark 6:45-52.

It seems that the gospel of Mark is always talking about storms. Jesus calms the storm in an earlier episode by rebuking the wind and waves. “Peace, be still!” he says, and then to us, his disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

You'd think that the disciples would have gotten it by now. Shouldn't they? I mean, can you imagine the things that they have seen by this point? Jesus just fed 10,000 people with lunch for 5. He has cast out demons, healed the lame, sick, the blind, amassed a huge congregation of followers, taught with authority, and he has even calmed the sea before! But the disciples, the passage says, were astounded when Jesus once again came to their rescue, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. You've got to wonder... How dense are these men? How do they just not get it? Can't they see that this man Jesus whom they follow has a connection with supernatural powers, that he is indeed divine, the Son of God on earth, who rules over the sea and the waves, the fish and the birds, and truly all creation? Do you ever wonder what on earth is going through their heads?

I do. However, when I think about it, it does call to mind a certain pattern of behavior. What we see the disciples doing in this story is called doubting. They doubted that Jesus could send them across the water and give them the assurance of a safe completion of their journey.

Though, to some extent, who can blame them? When Jesus does come walking on the water to cross the lake, he sees them straining on the oars and intends to pass them by! Can you believe that? Does Jesus have no pity? When somebody passes through storms of life, as is the popular analogy from these types of stories, it is easy for us to question two things: the ability of God to rescue us, and the goodness of God to make Him willing.

But for Peter's sake, these are the disciples! They knew GOD in ways that nobody ever has or ever will! How could they doubt?

And so the temptation for us is to take away from stories like this that the disciples are such flakes in their faith, and Jesus is so patient with them. And indeed God is. But we must be careful in how we pass judgment on characters from Biblical stories. Are we so absolutely certain that if we were in their circumstances, that we undeniably would have done better? I think any careful examination of our lives will reveal not only that do we not, but in the storms of our lives we fair at least as bad as the disciples as far as the strength of our own faith goes.

I would advise that we be weary of approaching stories in the Bible in this way. They are not necessarily there just to teach us a moral lesson, though moral lessons do abound in the pages of scripture. Just remember the ancient Israelites. They abandon God and plunge headlong into idolatry seemingly every other generation. They are incapable of worshiping God faithfully long enough for God to take a nap. If we place ourselves in judgment upon them and say, “Aha, look! This is what happens when you serve other gods! Their unfaithfulness is duly punished!”, we run the risk of saying inwardly to ourselves, as indeed I foolishly did out loud one evening over a dinner conversation, “It makes no sense why God would call such an inconsistent people to be his own. Why the Jews? They couldn't serve him for five days without turning aside to a golden calf or something other. Why didn't he call us? Or me? If I had lived back then, I would have been so much more faithful to follow the one true God.”

Oh how we deceive ourselves. Don't sit there and pretend you've never thought something like that. This is the end result of approaching a Bible story for moral lessons: A righteousness from self. Is that enough to carry you through the trials you face?

What then shall we do with this story? We see the disciples struggling with their faith, and yet, if we are honest, we see ourselves in their shoes, amidst our own storms of life, struggling the same, and fairing no better. Do we question the goodness of God, or his ability to save us? Does Jesus seem to be passing you by? Do our problems seem like they are just too big for Him to handle? But ah, here is the true lesson of the story. The lesson is not for you to have more faith! Indeed, you and I are not capable of having faith at all! The Bible says quite clearly in Ephesians that FAITH is not of yourself, it is the gift of God! So what are we to do when we are “straining at the oars” of life to seemingly no avail?

And it here that the disciples get it right. When Jesus was about to pass them by, they were afraid! And so they cried out. Yes, that whimpering, forlorn wail of helplessness when they had come to the end of themselves. That is where they get it right. In this we see in the disciples one singular emotion, that of fear. Before we truly cry out to God, we have to lay down our macho facade, this mask we wear, more to fool ourselves than anyone else, that says we are capable of handling the trials in our life. And we all have them, whether we know it or not. To live is to suffer. Even when you are on your own personal mountaintop, it is suffering when compared to the eternal bliss of what awaits us in the eternity with Christ. And even when the sea seems calm in our lives we still have torrents of sin and impure hearts to deal with beneath the surface. How much better to be in the storm that Jesus sends you into than the calm we create by ourselves?

The knowledge that Jesus has sent you into whatever turbulence you are experiencing ought to be enough to still our souls. But when we find like the disciples, that our faith is not sufficient to the trial, and we can admit our fear and inability to save ourselves, then can we like the father of the demon possessed child, cry out to God, “I do believe! Help my unbelief!”

And he does! When the two big questions hang over our shoulder like a giant elephant following us around, and we are paralyzed by our own lack of faith, we have only to remember. And that, my friends is the point of this story.

See the goodness and the greatness of God at work here. I grew up hearing “God is good, God is great.” I thought it was redundant. Isn’t “great” kind of another form of “goodest”? But I believe the phrase refers to the power of God, and his loving compassion. Though he sends his children through tests, he does care deeply for them. See how it says in the passage that he came towards them when he saw them struggling! Even now Jesus is coming towards you in your trials. He is seeking you in your pain. He speaks to us and says, “Take heart, it is I”. And He is indeed able to handle our trouble. By merely getting into the boat with His disciples the storm instantly ceases without even a word this time! He is indeed the master of the sea and the waves. The universe obeys his commands and bows to his will as he sovereignly rules over it.

Perhaps we ought to note the parallel between the time Jesus got into the boat, as a result of being cried out to, and the stillness of the sea. Indeed, for Jesus to be in your boat is to have calmness in our souls: To know Him as your savior who is all powerful and all good, is the essence of salvation itself, and faith is the boat through which we travel through that storm into peace. Do you desire more faith? Expect more storms to come as a blessing to teach you faith. Not that you have any ability to rise to the occasion. But as God allows us to see more clearly how incapable we are of saving ourselves, or even of managing our own lives decently well, we can cry out to Him. Out of His goodness and care for you He WILL come and get into the boat with you. And he will give you the faith you need to get through if you will just stop straining at the oars of life and just cry out to Him. All thanks and praise be to God who sees our suffering and comes to us across the impossible divide, walking on the water, to be our savior.

Your faith cannot save you. Jesus can.

Reflections on an Easter Hymn

2010-05-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

As the time of the Easter season draws to a close, I thought it appropriate to revisit a timeless Easter hymn. For those of you in our church at Mountain View, this is a song we used on Easter Sunday this year. It's title: This is the Threefold Truth.

This is the threefold truth
on which our faith depends;
and with this joyful cry
worship begins and ends:
Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!

On this we fix our minds
as, kneeling side by side,
we take the bread and wine
from him the Crucified:
Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!

By this we are upheld
when doubt and grief assails
our Christian fortitude,
and only grace avails:
Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!

This is the threefold truth
which, if we hold it fast,
changes the world and us
and brings us home at last.
Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!

Let's reflect for a moment on the refrain of that song (in italics). How fully does this capture our hope and message? How central is it to who we are as a redeemed people? This line, though beautifully put to music, is not original to this song. In many churches this is spoken by the congregation as part of the liturgy known as the "gospel acclamation." How many evangelicals, if approached on the street and asked to define the gospel, would include these three essentials in their response? I'm afraid, as shown on the White Horse Inn, most would launch right in to a man-centered definition that revolves around their own personal experience of conversion.

What is the significance of this gospel acclamation? I find it interesting to note how the truth is threefold. So is trinitarian God whom it reveals. I find that it captures the Good News in a way that no other 10 words can. In the death of Christ we find our forgiveness of sins and peace with God (justification). In His resurrection and life we are given new life, strength for today, and the power to do what is right (sanctification). And by his future coming we are given hope for tomorrow and the life eternal, which is bound up in an intimate knowledge of our Creator, as we are caught up into his presence (glorification).

The gospel is an ever-present reality. Notice how the gospel acclamation covers all time: past, present, future... A theme which you can find being marketed and exploited all over modern culture from contemporary new age spirituality to your local jeweler. However, this concept of the redemption of all time has unique origins in the Christian story of redemption through Christ. Even as early as the third or fourth century, we have the ancient Christian prayer that captures this theme. We know it today as the Gloria Patri:

"Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, amen."

This prayer serves as a reminder to us that all time and existence is for the glory of God. It finds its most common use as a refrain to Christian singing of the Psalms, in order to bring a trinitarian focus to inspired poems written prior to the full revelation of the Messiah.

Two interesting notes on the Gloria Patri: First of all, the traditional language version ends the second phrase of the prayer this way: "...as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end." World without end... a traditional English colloquialism found in the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. The song sung at my wedding, "Grow Old Along With Me" by Mary Chapin Carpenter, uses this line to express the eternity of love. This is an example of the Christian tradition influencing culture. Mostly today we see the opposite.

The second item of note about this prayer is the way that it anticipates one of the crucial doctrines of the Protestant reformation: Soli Deo Gloria. Simply put, all things exist for the glory of God. Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, as the Westminster catechism says. So in the Gloria Patri we see, as early as the fourth century, evidence of this timeless truth, which was rediscovered 1200 years later, being carried by the Christian tradition (it's highest aim, imo).

And indeed God is glorified through all time. He chooses to glorify Himself through even His enemies, sinners such as we were, as we get caught up in the life of the triune God through the threefold truth for all eternity. Let us not fall into a single dimensional understanding of grace that merely declares the good news of what Christ has done. It doesn't stop there: He is doing today, and he ever shall, world without end. To God be the glory, amen.

My Firstest Blog Post Ever!

2010-05-17T18:30:00.001-07:00

Hey everybody!

Thanks for stopping by!

Well I finally did it. I started my own blog. This is my little venture into the world of self-publishing where I will attempt to express and organize that tornado of thoughts that is churning in my brain.

I hope you will find some of this interesting. It is my hope that this venue will serve to sharpen my skills of writing and critical thinking, as well as provide a forum for stimulating conversation and some occasional humor.

So feel free to leave comments, explore the site, and check out some of the links. I've linked several sights I've found well worth the time to read, as well as a whole slew of ministries who serve as excellent resources for worship and music ministry.

Stay tuned for new material! I don't tend to suffer from an extreme excess of free time, and so there is no guarantee as to the frequency of my posting. We shall see where this goes!

+Miguel