’m currently sitting in my hotel room in Grapevine, Texas after a busy weekend.  After beginning the day on Saturday with the wedding of two good friends, I drove up here to the Metroplex so that I can attend a conference on Monday and Tuesday.  As part of my trip, I visited several churches in the D/FW area to get an idea of what their worship services look like.  Within a span of 24 hours I attended 4 services.  Here are some reflections while they are fresh in my mind. Read more »

lenn Lucke at Common Grounds posted a link today to a wonderful and challenging article by Sally Morgenthaler. She is the author of Worship Evangelism but has since changed her tune…

ast Saturday night, I found myself in downtown Orlando for a free street concert by the Gin Blossoms just outside of City Hall. The concert was great. The band sounded just like we were back in their heyday of the mid ’90s. (The Gin Blossoms broke up in the late ’90s, reunited in 2004 and released their first new album in a decade last year.) I didn’t know any of their new songs but I found myself singing along enthusiastically with the old hits that they played. Boy, did they have a lot of hits. Allison Road, Until I Fall Away, Follow You Down, ‘Til I Hear it From You, Found Out About You and, of course, Hey Jealousy, among others.

Tomorrow we can drive around this town
and let the cops chase us around.
The past is gone and something might be found to take its place.
Hey Jealousy…

Picking up their first album, New Miserable Experience, from a used CD bin in 1998 was one of the best purchases I ever made. I’ve listened to and enjoyed that album for almost a decade now. It’s no wonder that I could sing the songs word for word at the concert, though I probably haven’t listened to the album for at least 12 months.

What does this have to do with the Westminster Shorter Catechism? I’ll acknowledge that it’s a tenuous bridge at best from a ’90s rock/pop band to a statement of theology from the 17th century.

I spent Saturday afternoon importing musical settings of the catechism into my computer. At my seminary, we are required to pass a catechism test before we graduate. There are 35 questions that we are required to know verbatim. I’m using a set of CDs to help me memorize my 35 questions. After the concert, I was hit again with what a powerful medium music is for memorization. I removed all of my “normal” music from my iPod and only take the catechism songs to the gym with me. I plan on listening to nothing but the Shorter Catechism as I work out. While I’ll readily admit that the melodies are nowhere near as catchy as the Gin Blossoms and the instrumentation is simple, I’m hoping that the sheer amount of time I spend listening to these settings of the catechism will help implant the words into my mind.

As I listened to the songs today, for the first time, I was struck again by the beauty and completeness of the answers of the catechism. We have a tremendous blessing in the catechism to see the fundamentals of our faith boiled down to questions and answers. I hope that my catechism listening will do more than help me pass my test but will help to shape me in the truth of the Scriptures.

his Little Babe, a victorious poem for Christmas morning, by Robert Southwell.

This little Babe so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak, unarmed wise,
The gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field,
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows made of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns cold and need,
And feeble flesh his warrior’s steed.

His camp is pitched in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall;
The crib his trench, hay stalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus as sure his foe to wound,
The Angels’ trumps alarum sound.

My soul with Christ join thou in fight,
Stick to the tents that he hath pight;
Within his crib is surest ward,
This little Babe will be thy guard;
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from the heavenly boy.

Here is a recording of a setting of the poem by Benjamin Britten.

recently used an iTunes gift certificate (thanks to my sister for my birthday present) to purchase a recently released collection of music for Advent. It’s a great album and contains a wonderful performance of what might now be my favorite Advent hymn (but I’ll write on that in a few weeks).

Immediately following an instrumental setting of “Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light” (the quartet of oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon was a nice choice), the strings come in with the famous first notes of “And the Glory of the Lord” from Handel’s Messiah. This, in and of itself, is not a surprising thing. It is not an odd thing to hear this piece sung during Advent programs. However, this time the stirring words that first appear in the basses rang clearer than I think I’ve ever experienced them before. Most of us know this much of the text:

And the glory, the glory of the Lord
Shall be reveal-ed
And all flesh shall see it together

But we miss the crux of the song. How do we know that we will see the glory of the Lord?

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it!

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. In Advent, we don’t only celebrate that Christ came but also that his coming represents the fulfillment of what the Lord had spoken. The promises that the Lord makes are good and true and will come to fruition. What he has said is trustworthy. He came the first time, just as he said, and he will come again, just as he said.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it!

My English teachers from my past would be shocked to read the following admission: I like essays. And now to properly nuance that statement: I like reading other people’s essays. Much like short stories, I find essays valuable to read because they often deal with issues in much more concise ways than entire volumes. Also, reading an essay allows me to feel like I can read material in managable chunks, rather than try to read an in-depth analysis and feel guilty that I can only sit through 40-45 pages before I become completely bored with the subject matter.

I’ve been reading a collection of essays on Christian Worship by John D. Witvliet. Dr. Witvliet is the director of the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, MI. He is both a musician and a theologian and is able to wed the two disciplines in his writing. Here is a selection from the essay “Soul Food for the People of God” that is appropriate as we prepare for the Advent season:

Good music can also inoculate us from spiritual disease. Consider the prominent spiritual disease of sentimentality: religious experience as candy-coated happiness and bliss. If we feed our souls a steady diet of musical candy, we will have little spiritual protein to sustain us. This is no more true than at Christmas. Here is a time of year when broken and hurting and grieving people often hurt the most. And yet it is a time of year when we most often serve up rank sentimentality in our music. This can happen as easily with music sung by pop artists as with music sung by English choir boys. Even really good choirs often sing many songs that are lullabies to Jesus or that are about three ships sailing in or about unknown words such as fum or about swinging steeple bells or merry gentlemen not being dismayed — all of which prevent us from focusing on the incomprehensible paradox of the incarnation. When the incarnation does come through, when we do sing “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” (one of the most theologically profound of all carols) and actually attend to the meaning of the text, our souls are fed with the protein of deep spiritual life.

from “Soul Food for the People of God” in Worship Seeking Understanding by John D. Witvliet, p. 235

Walter C. Smith composed his great hymn “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” in 1876 as part of a collection entitled Hymns of Christ and the Christian Life.

Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, Thy great Name we praise.

The hymn, especially when sung to its traditional tune, St. Denio, is a triumphant song of the glory and transcendence of God Almighty. Thankfully, this theme of the glory and majesty of God is not one that has been relegated to history; modern hymn writers have also picked up on the idea. Many praise songs composed in the past few years have been written as celebrations of God’s majesty. One of the most popular of these in recent years has been “Indescribable” by Laura Story.

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You Know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untamable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God

I have sung this song in churches, in chapel services and on retreats and, for the most part, I like its statements of the matchless character of God. There’s only one word that gives me pause. Normally, this wouldn’t be a gigantic problem, but it is when that one word is the same as the title of the song: Indescribable.
(As a quick note, I am assuming that “Indescribable” has more lyrical thought put into it than Faith Hill’s “This Kiss”. That song, popular a few years ago, seemed to contain each and every 4-syllable word that the songwriter could think of. I do think that “Indescribable” is more thoughtfully written than simply being a collection of 4- and 5-syllable words in a 6/8 time signature.)
In one sense, it is true that God is indescribable in totality. If we could describe everything there is to describe about God, he would no longer be God. I am certain that the lyric was written in this sense. In fact, it is because of this perspective that I do not have a problem singing the song in worship; I am able to remind myself that no man has fully seen God and no mind has fully comprehended him.
In another sense, however, it is dangerous to assert that God is “indescribable”. God has certainly given us a vocabulary to describe him. We may not be able to describe him in his fullness, but he has given us the means that we may know him. We have been given the scriptures, he has come incarnate in the person of Jesus and those of us who believe have been given the witness of the Holy Spirit. If God was completely indescribable, we wouldn’t be able to sing all of the other affirmations of the song, lyrics describing him as the great creator, the all-powerful king, the all-knowing Lord. If God was completely indescribable, we couldn’t make the affirmations of “O Worship the King”: God is the ancient of days, our shield, maker, defender, redeemer and friend (to simply name a few). We cannot completely know God but we can know him as he desires to be known: through the scriptures, through prayer, through the person of Jesus, through the sacraments, through the Holy Spirit.

[Edit: Thanks to my friend Tim Sharpe who pointed out that Faith Hill sings "This Kiss", not Shania Twain. (Of course, not knowing who sings country songs out of Nashville probably gives me more credibility rather than less.)]

or one of my seminary courses, we were required to spend some time doing something to “nourish our artistic side”. I chose to spend time with Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Each student must present for 2 minutes on what they did for their project, as well as provide a list of resources for their classmates to study further. Because the printer at RTS is spotty (and that’s a kind word of description), I’ve provided the list here on the website.

Libretti, background information and lists of recordings:
www.bach-cantatas.com

Books for further information:
Pelikan, Bach Among the Theologians
Stapert, My Only Comfort: Death, Deliverance and Discipleship in the Music of Bach
(Stapert, a professor at Calvin College uses the Heidelberg Catechism and illustrates principles with the music of Bach.)

Recordings:
The Harmonia Mundi label produces excellent (though expensive) recordings. Their recording of the St. Matthew Passion conducted by Philippe Herreweghe includes a CD-ROM with background information, a full libretto and descriptions of each of the chorale tunes used in the piece.