http://www.psalmsandhymns.com Psalms, Hymns and Christian Worship Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:35:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Today marks our one-year anniversary. In honor of that wonderful day, and in honor of my wife, here is a hymn by Henry Baker especially appropriate for weddings. How welcome was the call, And sweet the festal lay, When Jesus deigned in Cana’s hall To bless the marriage day! And happy was the bride, And ... http://www.psalmsandhymns.com/2008/08/18/how-welcome-was-the-call/ If hype is unproductive, like I've been arguing, what do we replace it with? If I'm really convinced that most of our marketing and posturing adds unnecessary offense to our churches rather than make them more welcoming, how do we counter that? I don't think I have all ... http://www.psalmsandhymns.com/2008/08/13/hype-a-remedy/ Remember in high school when you would be approached by a girl and presented with this scenario: So, I ended up going over to Tommy's house last night and hanging out with him. Yes, I know he's got a girlfriend. Anyway, we watched a movie and toward the end, ... http://www.psalmsandhymns.com/2008/08/11/hype-your-cheatin-heart/ When I was first learning to write in elementary school, I remember learning about parts of speech. There were nouns - persons, places, things or ideas; verbs - action words; and adjectives - words that describe. Adjectives were the parts of language that made everything more vivid; you ... http://www.psalmsandhymns.com/2008/08/07/hype-getting-our-adjectives-under-control/ When he was in Houston last spring, Fred Harrell made a comment about church marketing that has stuck with me. Advertising doesn't work. None of that stuff really works anymore. Secular people see it as nothing more than hype. The quote has haunted me because it intersects with where I ... http://www.psalmsandhymns.com/2008/07/29/prologue-to-a-new-theme-hype/ I would imagine that everyone who knows the biblical reference where "Psalms and Hymns" comes from asks the same question. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with ... http://www.psalmsandhymns.com/2008/07/28/why-psalms-and-hymns-and-not-the-third-category/ Michael Spencer (whom I quoted last week in my sermon) has brought to my attention an article that's come out of the Australian Anglican church. See The Slow Death of Congregational Singing and Michael's riff on that article, Riffs: The Briefing on “The Slow Death of Congregational Singing.” Here's a ... http://www.psalmsandhymns.com/2008/07/14/slow-death/ Mark Galli writes concerning the physicality of liturgical worship: The liturgy does not point us to "the Christ spirit," "the ground of all being," "the Universe," or any other amorphous, abstract spiritual entity. Instead it points us to the one who did not think Pure Spirit a thing to be ... http://www.psalmsandhymns.com/2008/07/08/galli-on-physicality/ Here is the text of the newest song I've written, a setting of Isaac Watts' hymn "Arise, my soul, my joyful powers." Arise, my soul, my joyful powers, And triumph in my God; Awake, my voice, and loud proclaim His glorious grace abroad. He raised me from the deeps of sin, The gates of gaping hell, And ... http://www.psalmsandhymns.com/2008/06/26/arise-my-soul-awake-my-voice/ From C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity: A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else ... http://www.psalmsandhymns.com/2008/06/16/poached-egg-or-the-devil/