Recently in Following Jesus Category

Tuesday my heart broke. I haven't had a broken heart many times in my life, so I try to pay attention to when it happens. The bible teaches that God is close to the brokenhearted, and so I figure that when my heart breaks, God has something that he wants to do with me.

In our regular Tuesday morning staff meeting, we had some guests. The folks from International Crisis Aid came to talk with us about the international sex trafficking industry and their plans to open a safe house here in St Louis for victims of sex trafficking here in the US. As I listened to the stories of extreme evil. I began to feel my chest tighten up and my emotions overwhelmed with anger, disgust, sorrow, and despair. I thought of the girls. Trapped. Violated. De-humanized. I thought of the men who had become so enslaved to their sin that they willingly executed such evil upon children. The darkness became so overwhelming that I felt like I was being crushed.

The gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God exists to heal and restore. But often the first step to healing and restoration is to be broken. I never know if I like songs about being broken. The "brokenness is what I long for" kind of stuff. Isn't the whole point to be restored? I've had enough with being broken; I want to be fixed. But, the heartbreak I experienced this week was a powerful force of healing. It drove me back to the gospel to claim the blood of Jesus as my refuge and my strength, and to cry out boldly to God for justice for these lost children.

Here's the interview, you should definitely read it. I think they did a great job of representing my dad's vision for worship at NCF-Chatt. Thank you byFaith and Robert J. Tamasy for highlighting the ministries of New City Fellowship churches.

I will say that a consistent misinterpretation of NCF is to say that we are about contextualization. This is a half-truth. Contextualization is to say, "We are in a [random culture] neighborhood and so we have [random culture] style worship." There's nothing wrong with contextualization, but it's not the complete vision. We believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is by nature a reconciling force. Our new identity in Christ makes us peace-makers across racial, cultural, economic, and generational lines. So our multi-cultural sound is more than just smart marketing, some attempt to reach a demographic group by being relevant. It's an intentional demonstration of love with the goal of establishing God's kingdom. The result is that we are not trying to make people comfortable in church; instead our goal is open up ourselves to being uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to sacrifice my stylistic preferences in order to be in fellowship with someone who is different than me. When Jesus called us to take up our cross, he didn't have comfort in mind. When Paul encouraged us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, he didn't have comfort in mind.

Worship should be uncomfortable because it means that we see God in all his holiness and then we see ourselves in all our mess. The response should be like Isaiah, "I am a man of unclean lips!" Grace is what brings us joy in God's presence, but grace is also what makes us uncomfortable with the mess in the world around us. If we don't leave church feeling uncomfortable with the status quot (meaning the fallen world around us which is characterized by division, racism, oppression, injustice, etc.) then maybe we haven't encountered Holiness, repentance and Grace in a very real way. Randy Nabors was right to say that Christian worship should be defined by joy. We have every reason to rejoice in the Lord. But Randy would add that our Christian joy is always a force that drives us out into the world to be peace-makers and reconcilers.

Sorry, I don't mean to preach so much. I honestly loved the article! Thanks again ByFaith!

There's a great song written by Martha Munizzi called "Because of Who you Are" that we sang last weekend. The premise of the song is that the Lord deserves worship because he is defined by his holiness, goodness, providence, etc. and is therefore worthy of our praise. So some days, I don't feel like worshiping him, but it doesn't matter because he is still worthy of worship. I don't have to wait for the feeling to strike; in fact, I am commanded to worship the Lord regardless because of who he is. The great thing is that when we begin to ascribe the Lord his characteristics then we can't help but feel the desire to worship fill us up.

There's another side of the coin. We can also go beyond worshiping because of who God is to worshiping because of who he has made me to become. I read this in 1 Corinthians this weekend:

"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

Don't worry; it gets better...

"And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." - 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

The list of wicked people is in reality a good representation of a lot of us in the church. In fact, I still cave in to many of the sins described. A lot of days, I feel like a wicked, wicked man who has no place in the kingdom of God. But, the promise that Paul gives in verse 11 is that these wicked labels were what we once were, not what we currently are. Knowing that he's writing to the Corinthians helps, because there's no doubt that they were not holy-rollers at the time that this was written. So the finished work (washed, sanctified, justified) of Jesus has changed me from a Sinner into a Son who still struggles with sin. I am no longer defined by my sin, I am defined by my justification in Jesus. Praise be to God.

So we worship (on Sunday and in our whole lives) because of who God is and because of who he has made us to be.

There's always a twinge of guilt around featuring my own music. Am I just glorifying myself? Is this just a big advertisement for my CD and my agenda? I can recite to myself the reasons why it is better to allow the community of believers in a church to create their own unique expressions of worship, but it sometimes just feels like a justification for exploiting a captive audience. Of course, these feelings of guilt are just a lie. Would feelings of guilt that inhibit the creation and expression of new worship really be from the Holy Spirit? No, this is the guilt of the enemy who wants all expressions of worship to cease.

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone who has been at our church for several months. They were surprised that I was recording a CD. They asked if I wrote songs. They didn't recognize any songs that I had written from our worship services. After that conversation, I immediately consulted my records and found that I had not featured much of my own music over the past 6 months. One song a month was the average. So, I decided, in anticipation of the CD release, to schedule one song of mine every Sunday. I want my songs and the CD that I've spent so much time on to be a gift to the congregation of people who I lead in worship. If they don't recognize my songs then I have been failing to faithfully share the gift that God has equipped me with.

I believe that any artist (or any other labor) who does not faithfully practice and share their gift is being unfaithful to the Spirits work. The gifts we have been given are not for ourselves; they are gifts that are to be shared with our communities. So, to my community, New City Fellowship, I apologize for the way I have allowed false guilt to drive my gift into the dark.

This is a video that I picked up from AfriGadget about a West African community that turns plastic bags (a big litter problem) into Djembe drums. These are humans bearing God's image by becoming redeemers. What was lost, thrown away, and rejected is now being made into music. That's what Jesus did when he redeemed me.

"I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps." - Amos 5:21-23

What would make God so angry?

"You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine. For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts." - Amos 5:11-12

What kind of worship does God desire?

"But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" - Amos 5:24

For more about the worship that God hates (and what He desires instead) also check out these passages:
Isaiah 58,
Micah 6,
Psalm 51 (especially vs 14-17)
Matthew 21:12-13,
Mark 7:1-23
Luke 11:37-54
1 Corinthians 11:27-34,
James 2,
1 John 3:16-20,
Revelation 3:14-22,

I have to give a talk this summer to our summer ministry teams about reconciliation music. Here's the gist of what I think that I'll say.

Why reconciliation music?

John shared the High Priestly prayer of Jesus with us in his gospel. It includes a prayer for believers who will come after the apostles (that's us). Here's part of what Jesus prayed for:

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." -John 17:20-23

The unity of the believers reveals Jesus glory, His one-ness with the Father, The Father's love for us. As a display to the world that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, sent by the Father. So, we need to be unified as believers, and that unity includes every part of our lives including our worship music. When we have services and churches that splinter off from each other based on music preferences, are we truly unified? For some reason, music is a huge battleground for people. Here's a classic example:

At this point, I'll show the classic Bugs Bunny cartoon, "Long-Haired Hare" in which Bugs exacts revenge on the opera singer, Giovanni Jones. I hope to use the cartoon to illustrate the absurdity the "worship wars" in the church.

How do we pursue reconciliation music?
Let's look at John's first epistle to get an idea for what reconciliation requires.

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." -1 John 3:16-18

Jesus showed us how to reconcile: He laid down his life for us. He deliberately, intentionally, set his life aside to bring us close to himself. This is repeated by Paul in Philippians 2 which says that Jesus humbled himself to become a human like us in order to bring us back to himself. This is the glory and the miracle of the incarnation, that Jesus would deny himself to become a newborn and submit his life to the culture he was trying to be reconciled to. So we as believers, lay down our lives for each other.

So in terms of music, this means that I laid down my musical preferences to be reconciled to my brothers. I humble myself to be incarnated into a new culture in order to love with actions and in truth. I might have my idea about what is aesthetically good and bad about music, but I have to lay those aside in order to be able to love and understand another culture. Of course, this is a two-way street; my brother in Christ is called to do the same thing. Together we produce something new.

What is the product of reconciliation music?
We can get a idea of the product of reconciliation music from John again, but this time from his prophetic vision recorded in the book for Revelation.

"After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
"Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb." - Revelation 7:9-10

John looks at this multitude of people and sees diversity. This is significant because he also says that they are all dressed the same, in white robes. So we can infer that he must have been able to tell that they were different because the were praising in various languages in different styles of music. They were not just praising in English, with perfect counter-point, and pipe organ accompaniment. The worship of the Lamb will be a wonderful gumbo of music flavors. By practicing reconciliation music, we end up with a mix of different styles, languages, and expressions that create a new thing. This new thing becomes the culture of New City Fellowship that binds us together as a community. We produce new songs and new ideas that come out of the crucible of reconciliation. This is a picture of heaven that is manifested on earth. Many times the world looks at the segregated church and says, "that's a lie." But, when people see us fulfilling Jesus' prayer for us to be unified, they will be amazed and will see the glory of God revealed through our reconciliation music.