Pure

Worship used to be pure for me. I remember when I first attended the Barn, I would get lost in worship. It could never be long enough. I felt that worship was a sacred place where I (and also we) could do no wrong. I loved it because I felt that I transcended my normally unfocused, mixed life, to a place where I was pure. Like white marble, without any marking. Like gold, clear as transparent glass.

Over the years, that has changed. Depressions that I endured altered that somewhat. Joining worship team certainly did that. One disappointment that I faced when I first joined worship team was that these beautiful, meaningful songs could be treated lightly and irreverently by the people who sang and played them. I know now that this was part of their learning process, and that they meant no dishonor to the Lord in their playfulness, but it was a big shock for me.

Later, I spent years on worship team when I wanted to escape church at the earliest possibility. When I knew that if anyone suggested that I shouldn't be there that I would leave the team in a heartbeat. When I would force myself to not look at the clock until we had done two songs because I didn't want to look up and see that we were only five minutes into worship. When evening worship would take so much out of me that I would feel horrible afterward. When people would say "wasn't worship great?" and I would have no clue that it had been any different than usual. During those times, I forced myself to lead worship, and act as if I felt what I sang. I sang in faith.

Those were hard times, but they taught me some things. I think that they have made my worship more sure, because I have learned to lead worship whether I feel like it or not. Leading worship is work, and like other work it can be fulfilling or it can be difficult. The important thing is to get the work done. And worship is a good and honorable work.

Despite the good things that I now see coming from this time, the hard times have still left a mark on my worship. It is no longer the pure place it once was for me. Because worship is no longer just a place of joy for me but has all of this other history to it, it is not as pure as it once was.

So what is pure? Oddly enough, Scripture has been feeling pure to me. I say "oddly enough" because Scripture used to be the place I avoided because there I was condemned by how bad a Christian I was. I don't know when the change occurred, but lately, and particularly when I have been worshiping and my spirit is open, Scripture has been a balm and a marvel. I can feel the richness, the beauty of it. It feels like it is pure.

Because Scripture deals with both God and man, some Scripture feels more pure than others. I don't mean that some Scripture is better or worse on some absolute scale because it talks about man's sins. I mean that some portions of Scripture stand out more as being filled with that sweet goodness of God, and when I read it with my spirit, I feel like I am in that place of focus and purity that pushes out everything that is lesser.

Last Thursday we sang Revelation Song at our kinship group. Afterward, with my spirit all opened up, I read Revelation 4, where many of the words of the song come from.

I read it in the NIV, but here it is in The Message. Go ahead and read it; it's short. I'll wait.

Oh my Lord, my Lord! High and lifted up!

This Scripture is pure and full of rightness. This chapter is all about the exaltation and unassailable sovereignty of God. You don't get anywhere near the throne of God - or this Scripture - with thoughts of rebellion or dishonor or deception. He is King, He rules, and the most amazing creatures ever made worship Him all the time. And He is so spectacularly beautiful, so shockingly splendid that if we were to be suddenly in His presence, any pretension of independence that we might imagine we could have before His throne would be swept away. We would quickly be on our faces in adulation and worship, and glad of every second that we could spend like that.

Can I find superlatives enough for Him? Can I say enough to lift up His name?

Saturday

Yay, rain! We need it.

I tried to see if I could duplicate Thursday's feat. Alas, with the temperature near 75 and 95% humidity, I could not (or, I chose not, because I felt that I was pushing myself too much).

Temporary setback. I'll get there again.

2.6 mi - 30 min - 5.2 mph.

Thursday morning

I have an 8am appointment this morning, so I was out jogging while it was still dark today. Bright, fingernail moon. It was clearly morning by the time I finished today, but it felt kind of cool to go out while it was still dark.

Today was a red-letter day. For the first time since I started jogging at the beginning of July, I went the whole distance jogging; I didn't drop down into a walk the whole time. This has been one of my goals all along, but I'm kind of amazed that this was even possible for me. God made our bodies good, didn't he? Even in middle age.

3.0 miles - 35 min - 5.1 mph.

This seems to be turning into my workout blog, which I didn't want to happen. I have some ideas for other posts that I am working on, I promise. But I appreciate your encouragement, which is why I wanted to share this success with you.

Monday morning

Back to work today. Yay! No one has yet shown up at my cubicle holding a box, so I guess that I am still employed. God is good!

3.0 miles - 37 minutes - 4.9 mph.

I am really sore today from Saturday's and this morning's jogs, so I may need to take an extra day to recover.

Anxiously awaiting Oct 1

I am so looking forward to October 1st, 2008. I ought to be counting off the days on the calendar (but I'm too lazy to). But I will be so happy when that wonderful day arrives. Maybe I will treat myself to an ice cream treat, or to the alcoholic beverage (consumed in a safe and responsible manner) of my choice.

What happens on this wonderful, wonderful day? Is it an anniversary? A birthday?

No. It is the day on which I no longer have to hear about how the General Motors company will offer me their wonderfully generous employee discount on their typically overpriced new cars. Said offer expires on September 30th. This information has been pumped to into my brain through several media outlets ever since the Olympics.

In other words, on October 1 I no longer need to worry about seeing this commercial again:



I guess this is an indication that I am watching too much TV if something bothers me this much.

Dark Humor

3.0 mi - 37 min - 4.9 mph

After working out with barbells today and then going for a jog, I imagined the following conversation:

"Man, my muscles are sore."
"Why, what have you been doing?"
"Oh, I took up jogging."
"Really. Why did you do that?"
"Because I hate myself."

...not, you know, "I hate how I look and I want to change" or "I hate how I feel and I want to get more fit." No, it's kind of a conclusion based on the evidence: "I must hate myself to make myself feel this amount of discomfort on a regular basis."

Kidding! Hate's a strong word and I don't like to use it a lot, and I don't want to alarm my wife by using it regarding myself, so let me just assure you, Gentle Reader, that I am Just Kidding.

Before and After

I wanted a picture of Hawk Mountain for my desktop, but I didn't want all the people in the picture. So I used the free Paint.NET to remove the people from the picture.

Here is the picture before editing:


And here is the picture after:


I think this turned out pretty well. I had fun with this project!

Today we went to Lums Pond to play disc ("frisbee") golf. We had a great time. My son had the lowest score, and while I could tell he was pleased, he didn't gloat or abuse anyone else, including his sister. I did the next best, I think, though I may have tied with my daughter. My darling wife has a tough time with frisbee physics, but she didn't seem upset. We cheered each other on, helped each other out, were generous with each other. My son even called "do over" for my wife at one point when she had a particularly bad tee shot. We just had a good time with each other.

Afterwards we went to Applebees, where I was kind of quiet as I imagined a story where a time traveler from the future shows up on Mars and shows himself to one of the Mars explorer's cameras, warning Earth of his pending arrival. then I thought about him coming to Earth with all kinds of cool technologies to help people. I was thinking "How would he be received? Would this ultimately be a blessing, or a curse? Would this benefit only the rich, or everyone?"

So that was a lot of my day.

Back from Hawk Mountain

We just got back from a few days of family vacation in Pennsylvania. We spent a few days camping and seeing some sights. Our main goal was to visit Hawk Mountain, so named for all of the raptors that swing by there in the fall on their migration south. A mild hike up the mountain from the visitor's center yielded this spectacular view. We did get to see a lot of raptors - mostly turkey buzzards, but at one point we got to see through binoculars a "kettle," or rotating column, of several dozen birds as they caught thermals several miles from the mountain. Quite an impressive sight. Views like these just lead me to spontaneously start praising the amazing Maker, and cause me to thank Him for allowing me to experience such sights.

We also stopped by French Creek State Park. The picture is of Hopewell Lake.

We had a good time together. My wonderful kids seemed to enjoy the slow pace of our vacation, away from the computer and any console games. We "camped" in a cabin; it had real beds and a futon, electric, a refrigerator and a heater. This seems like cheating compared to our earlier tent camping experiences years ago, but we all agreed that we enjoyed this experience better. In the spirit of camping, though, we did cook two meals a day over a fire. They were great meals, planned (but not all executed by) my darling wife. She asked that each family member take main responsibility for building one fire and cooking the meal. She let me make chicken soup one night, which was pretty straightforward - I was glad for that! My darling kids took responsibility for their meals (my son made great hamburgers), helped set up and tear down camp, did dishes when asked, and just generally contributed to a great time.

The last picture is of some random beautiful scenery, as taken by my daughter as we sped by. I just love being in such places, where there are trees, and hills, and old buildings. It calms my soul.

Christophany or Theophany

Refer to this post.

Well, the poll has been closed for over two weeks, so I ought to talk about it. The question was: Who or what was the theophanic angel in the Old Testament?

With ten votes, the results are as follows:

Christophany	2 (20%)
Theophany	7 (70%)
Mistaken identity (they thought it was God but it was just an angel)	0 (0%)
Angel was an emissary or envoy for God	7 (70%)
Something else	1 (10%)

So it looks like the poll bears out my own opinion: that it really was a theophany (God appearing as an angel), or it was the angel acting as an envoy for God with all the attendant rights and powers that we, in our democratic society, don't really understand.

Funny that the poll should end up matching my own expectations. Wonder how that happened. ;-)

Review: Jim and Casper go to Church

Summary: Jim Henderson, a Christian and former Pentacostal minister, and Matt Casper, an atheist, visit some of the largest and best-known Evangelical churches in America, and also some churches of other flavors. Much of the book is given over to their recounting their experiences at these churches, and of how Casper reacted to what was done in the church. You can find the Amazon description here.

For the most part, Jim allows Casper to speak. He allows Casper to relate and criticize what he has seen and experience without trying to interpret or "spin" it for Casper. Here are some of the criticisms that Casper levels against the churches he visited:

1. The church spends too much time and money on a professional production on Sunday.
2. The church treats the things that it does on a Sunday morning - lifting hands in worship, talking about physical healing- with too much familiarity for someone who has never experienced them before.
   
3. The church spends too much of its Sunday meeting on feelings and belief and not enough on talking about what they do to aid their community.
   
4. The church is given to celebrity worship.
   
5. Most churches lack a "call to action."
6. The church should be more racially integrated.
7. Too much of what happens on Sunday seems scripted and false.
8. Most people in church lack the courtesy to greet strangers.
9. Most of what the church does on a Sunday doesn't seem to have much to do with what Jesus taught.
   

Throughout the book, Jim injected little parenthetical sections about "defending the space." His basic message in these sections seemed to be that Christians should defend a space where they can talk to atheists on equal terms, instead of defending the faith to them. Basically, defending the space entails respecting people and their beliefs enough to listen to them and not be anxious to point out where they are wrong.

I mostly didn't enjoy this book. However, I don't like most Christian nonfiction books, so it is in good company. I find that a great majority of Christian nonfiction books spend their time telling the reader or, worse, the church at large what they are doing wrong. I dislike such books because I criticize myself frequently, and I find it too easy to accept the criticism of strangers. Reading such books often leads me to a sense of hopelessness and despair. This book in particular led to feel like what I've been doing in church for the last twenty-five years has been in vain.

(If you know of good Christian books that don't take this tact, please, let me know. Note that I've never really connected with Max Lucado.)

As I began reading the book, I had the suspicion that Jim had an agenda - that he had particular things that he wanted to say to the Christian church, certain criticisms that he wanted to bring, and that he felt that he had an ally in Casper who would lend weight to his criticisms. As I went through the book I began to wonder why Casper or any atheist should determine how we run church. Isn't our Sunday meeting for believers? Why should a nonbeliever determine how we do things? I got my answer at the end of the book: Casper evaluated Sunday morning meetings because those are the ones that are advertised, and those are the meetings that we are encouraged to bring "our unsaved friends" to. As long as this is the case, Jim asserts, it is reasonable to have a nonbeliever come and evaluate the Sunday morning meeting.

I finished this book about a week ago, and so my irritation with it has diminished somewhat and I have been able to gain a little perspective. There are things that I desire in church that Jim and Casper would appreciate - for example, greater simplicity in our Sunday meeting. I thought that their idea of joining with nonbelievers in existing service projects, rather than starting our own, an intriguing idea.

However, what I am left with overall is the sense that we try to put too much on Sunday morning. We try to make it both a believer's meeting and a meeting sensitive to the needs of seekers and outsiders. These two goals seem to be in conflict. I think that it is very important to preserve a whole-church believer's meeting, and I can't realistically see this happening outside of Sunday morning. I don't think that it is right to steal from the church for the sake of some potential outsiders, because the church needs to be strengthened so that it can help outsiders.

What I think we should do is provide a separate meeting for seekers and outsiders. As part of this meeting, they can be instructed in what we do on Sunday and why we do it. If they decide to attend the Sunday meeting, the seeker's meeting could be a place where they return to ask questions or argue issues.

I'm not sure how well this idea would fly, or whether seekers would skip the main meeting in favor of this explanatory one. However, I think that it makes sense to not force seekers to only learn about our church through a believer's meeting that they may find confusing or strange.

How NOT to annoy your support person

Head on over to BlueBearr to read the post How not to annoy your support person.

Monday morning

2.5 mi - 30 min - 5 mph.

Doing church

Church obviously means different things to different people. To some, it is where you worship God. To others, it might be where you get refreshed, where you find fellowship, where you find sanctuary, or where you get equipped to meet the world and properly follow God.

Church is all of these things. But I think that the base characteristic of church is that it is where the people of God stick together. This idea may seem a little laughable or guaranteed to bring frustration in our mobile, independently-minded society. A lot of people seem to treat church like supermarkets: they say "If I don't like the prices here, I'll just go to the supermarket down the street."

But I really see no escape from the idea that doing church means being unified, despite our culture. Jesus, in his so-called High Priestly Prayer in John chapter 17, prayed that we believers may be one. This was His heart as He faced crucifixion. In First Corinthians chapter 12 Paul explains at length that we are one body, whether we recognize it or not. In Ephesians 5 he says that we are Christ's body, whom He gave Himself up for. Notice, Paul doesn't say that He loved individuals and gave Himself up for individuals, but that Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for the church. Not to say that Christ cares nothing for individuals, but that this was His heart, to sacrifice Himself for the church.

In so many other letters in the New Testament, attention is given to how to live together, how to be at peace with one another, how to hold the body together. Now, in the previous Scriptures I mentioned the writers are talking about the Church of all believers (the Church Universal), but in the specific instructions in the epistles it is clear that it is the local fellowship that is the subject. The heart of Jesus and the Apostles is that believers should stick together.

However, even though it seems to me to be obvious that unity is what Jesus wants, it isn't easy. Unity requires love, it requires commitment, it requires forgiveness in great measure. In other words, unity is directly opposed to the consequences of sin, which scatters and isolates us. And we know that we are still dealing with our fallen natures, which sometimes lash out to hurt and other times hear hurtful things where they are not intended.

I have seen many, many people break fellowship over things big and small. Now, I know that the Spirit does move people on, and I believe that He can direct people to leave their present fellowship and join with another. But to leave in pain and anger, to sever the body, to leave relationships in tatters and to no longer acknowledge that your brothers and sisters in Christ are in fact your family - well, that just hurts the Spirit.

I have had the opportunity these past two weeks to be peripherally involved in a circumstance where some believers have struggled to maintain fellowship. At a glance it looked like it might have been merely a misunderstanding, but there was the potential for it to end in hurt, anger and discouragement. Through love, humility, and some brave choices it appears at this point that some confusion has been cleared up, some affirmation has occurred, some forgiveness has been extended, and the bond of fellowship has been restored.

Though I was not directly involved in this circumstance at all, I feel like I worked hard on healing this rift. Usually I endeavor to respect people's privacy, but I feel like this time I pushed beyond my comfort zone in order to lobby for unity. I also prayed about this circumstance a lot. I write this not to pat myself on the back, but to say that I am becoming convinced that the cause of unity is more important than a lot of things that we consider our right. The word to me was that we should not just going to roll over this time. It is worth it to get a bit into people's faces and push for unity. It is worth it to risk someone's anger at us in order to mend fellowship.

This is what "doing church" means to me - working to maintain and deepen unity amongst believers. It is a wonderful work and it brings me a lot of joy to see that our tendency to separate and scatter can be overcome.

2.5 - 31 - 4.8

The Final Song

In my mind there is the idea of a Final Song. I've had this a-Scriptural idea for a long time, mostly without even recognizing that this is how I felt. I even wrote a short story about it in college. It is the idea that at the end of time all of God's People will gather and will together sing together a song of worship to the Lamb on the throne of God. There could be dancing. The song will last forever, or least for a very long time. The Lord will be honored and lifted up and exalted and we will feel the bliss that we have all experienced in awesome worship. Forever!*

Through the years I have identified various songs that could be sung in this way. On the end of a Petra album they sang a chorus to Jesus that had wailing guitars in the background that they repeated and repeated and then just faded away. I can't remember what song it is, but at the time it sounded like a good candidate. Holy Holy Holy (maybe this song?) was also one of those. A lot of the old Jewish choruses that we would sing were also like that. God of all Glory by Jeremy Riddle is a modern one that works, too. Our God is an Awesome God by Rich Mullins sounded like it would work, though I'm not sure about the verses. Maybe we just put it on Brother Rich to keep coming up with snappy history lessons about God and we can antiphone "Our God is an Awesome God" until we get back to the chorus.

OK, I know antiphone isn't a word, but doesn't it sound like it ought to be the verb form of antiphony?

Anyway, this concept came to mind again because Revelation Song, mentioned in my earlier post, is a definite candidate for the Final Song. So get used to it, you'll be singing it forever.*

What do you think of the Final Song idea? Do you have any candidates for songs?

* or at least for a very long time.

It's dark

I set my alarm for 5:30 this morning, because I had to take the girl to the farm this morning. If you don't know, we are leasing a horse for my daughter to ride. Part of our payment is to have my daughter do feeding of all the horses three mornings a week; she also gets riding lessons after she is done feeding. I had to get her there by 8 am, so I got up at 5:45 and was outside warming up by 6am.

I tried something new today: I tried to jog the whole time and to not walk at all. I got through the first mile, but I ended up walking three times during the 2 ½ miles. I was surprised to see that I was a little behind pace on the first mile - 11 ½ minutes, versus the 10 ½ to 10 minutes that I have been hitting.

At 6am, it's pretty dark outside. It lightened up fairly quickly, and it was clearly day when I came in at 6:45. Even so, I felt bad for all the kids who were outside waiting for their school buses at 6:20 am.

I remember waiting for the school bus as a kid. I remember especially the year that the U.S. observed daylight savings time all year long, in order to conserve energy. I remember being at the bus stop when it was still clearly night, and the school buses using their headlights not as daytime running lights but because it was so dark. Now, that seems like a recipe for disaster - kids walking on the street and in front of a bus in the dark, dozens of kids riding a bus when it is night and the only responsible adult can't see anything that is going on.

After I dropped off the girl, on the farm just outside of Chesapeake City, I stopped on the road and rolled down the windows. I heard birds, and many, many crickets. It was so peaceful. I wanted to just sit there and listen and feel the peace all day. But I had to get to work.

2.5 mi - 33 min - 4.5 mph

Visiting the cousins

I often have this idea that I would like to "visit the cousins," meaning visit other churches. For a long time I felt that there was no church but The One True Church of NCF ^TM, so why would I visit another? Over the years, though, I have come to realize that there are different bodies and different expressions for different people, and there is a lot to learn and enjoy from these other expressions. Then, there was the period of time a few years ago when I was on worship team every Sunday, and had such difficulty struggling to my own church that the last thing I wanted to do was spend the effort to go to another one. I sometimes visit churches while on vacation out of town, but I have often been disappointed with the experience. I don't have a problem with traditional, hymn-based worship, but I do have a problem with it being perfunctory and merely something to break up the time between the weekly confession and the sermon. So, I haven't really visited many churches recently.

Well, last week I drove past Pike Creek Bible Church, and saw that they had an 8:30 service. Perfect - I can visit this place early, then go to the Barn, I thought. So that is what I and my bride did yesterday.

First, this place is beautiful. They meet in a pretty building nestled back against a woods of mature trees. I think that the woods belongs to the state park, because I saw a group of bicyclists in the parking lot that looked like they were ready to start a ride on the trail.

In the parking lot we were greeted by a kindly older gentleman who wondered to us if he had ever met us before. He hadn't, so we introduced ourselves. He cheerily escorted us to his wife inside, who seemed to be the "official" greeter. Later, midway through worship they had a time of greeting, and several people made the effort to shake our hands and say hi to us. We felt very welcome.

The worship center (I think that is what they called the room) was a large room, wider than deep, which allowed the seating to be arranged so that everyone was fairly close to the stage. It was lit by electric chandeliers. Carpeted floor and nice cushy chairs. At the front of the room was a large window that looked out on the trees, which I much appreciated. They had an overhead projector and screen for the words of the songs, and for the speaker's PowerPoint presentation. They had roped off one section of chairs, and the rest of the chairs were fairly full. I think that there were at least 200 people in the room.

They started with worship. Most of the songs were familiar - one of them was How Great is Our God by Chris Tomlin. Worship was somewhat subdued - no lifting hands or spontaneous shouts here - but, for the worship team at least, heartfelt. I felt that I needed to be careful to not lift my hands during worship or get too demonstrative. I don't feel that it is right to challenge or distract other people in worship when I am not committed to the fellowship, but constraining myself this way wasn't too hard. My only real frustration concerning the worship is that they paused worship about every two songs with activities such as greeting each other, announcements, etc. I like worship to be in a block; I think it allows the worship to have continuity and sweep. They ended the worship time with a familiar hymn, which I got to belt out despite it being pitched too low for me.

The worship team was made up of a male leader who played acoustic guitar and sang, a keyboardist, a bass player, I think two electric guitars, two female backup singers, and a poor drummer completely enclosed in a transparent cage. I keyed in on one of the female singers - she looked like she was truly enjoying herself, and even lifted her hand at one point. The male lead was also all smiles and joyful, but he was out of my line of sight for most of the service due to the rather tall man who stood in front of me. The worship leader had an interesting doohickey on - it looked like he had a tube microphone over one ear, and an earpiece in the opposite ear. I didn't see any other type of monitor, and I didn't notice if the other singers had any. I thought that the sound was very good and well mixed. The worship leader shared about some very tough times that he has gone through this summer that showed that he has definitely been living his faith and not just singing about it. He seemed like a really nice guy, and I would have been glad to get together and spend some time with him.

I thought about Jess getting nice comments on her voice when she last went to church, and when we initially found seats (three-quarters of the way back in the middle) there was an empty row in front of us. Good, I thought, I don't have to think about singing for the person in front of me, which is a constant struggle of mine. Then midway through the service Mr. Tall - I actually know his real name, it was printed on his Bible - and his family took the seats in front of us. He didn't end up telling me that I sing like an angel, though. :-(

The church is apparently having a missions summer, so the teaching was by the leader of the Sunday Breakfast Mission in Wilmington. This men's shelter seems like it is doing a lot of good things. They shelter only men, but they serve meals to anyone and they have a thrift store and career counseling. They will soon be breaking ground on a center where homeless families can stay together. Currently, a homeless family that seeks shelter is broken up - the men stay in one shelter, the women and children in another, and any boys over 16 stay at a third place. The speaker also talked about addiction, and its similarity to sin in general. It was a good talk, if hard to hear in some places. Not, because, you know, the sound went off or anything, but because it dealt with hard things. Like the tragic story of the guy who ruined his life over crack cocaine - he was introduced to it at a party in Wilmington and subsequently went through all his money and possessions in pursuit of it. About a month later he ended up at the shelter with no money and no job.

After the service they have coffee and adult Sunday School. Unfortunately, we had to skip out to get to the Barn. According to their announcements and their web site, they also have many programs for discipleship and Bible Study during the week. In all, it looked like a very active fellowship.

During the service I looked at the worship leader and had the strange thought, "Wouldn't it be great if we were all the time the way we appear to be on Sunday - faithful, joyful, godly?" Then I thought that our hope is that one day we will be.

I will be going back to Pike Creek Bible Church - um, because I left my Bible there. And not just any Bible - my good study Bible. Bummer.

Monday morning

2.5 mi - 35 min - 4.3 mph

Saturday I jogged in the morning, then in the afternoon I worked on replacing the baseboards in the living room. When working on the baseboards I spend most of my time crawling around on the floor, for hours. I tend not to crawl around so much these days, so yesterday I was so sore that I resorted to taking ibuprofen (which I don't like to do).

This morning I was still sore, but I thought, what the heck, maybe jogging will loosen me up. However, after 1 3/4 miles, I could feel that something wasn't right. I just felt really bad when I was jogging. Since I have it as one of my present goals to not get injured, I ended up walking the rest of the way, hence the 35 minute time.