Category: Worship
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Driscoll and a Broken Church
Mark Driscoll has been an Evangelical Superstar for the last several years with his polarizing take on human sexuality and specifically manhood. And while I don’t agree with much of what he says, the current struggles of the leadership of Mars Hill Churches in Seattle have reached national prominence with coverage in major papers like…
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The Evangelical Church’s Response to Gungor & Iraq and Why Both Are Connected
This past month conservative protestants have been strongly criticizing Gungor, but on the other hand Christians including Evangelicals, ave been clamouring for solidarity with those who are being driven out before the Islamic State (previously called ISIS). Criticism is nothing new, and neither is a desire to stand in solidarity with suffering Christians. However, the responses…
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Sanctification and light
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1.8 I think that complacency, a satisfaction with how we are today, is one of the things that is most antithetical to the gospel. Why? Because if the gospel is the message by which we…
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Be Thou My Vision
The Christian life is not an easy thing to do. It is fraught with danger and trial and it always has been. Indeed the Bible itself tells us that Christianity is not easy, as disciples of Christ we are instructed to take up a cross — a symbol of shame in the culture of the…
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Confession
The Anglican Book of Common Prayer has a prayer that I think is at once a powerful reminder of our sin and at the same time a reminder of the mercy and provision of God. I think that the original form of the prayer has a more meaning than the revisions currently in use, the…
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Worshiping in Spirit
St. John tells us “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” And I think a lot of us have more truth than spirit. Certainly, my bias is towards theologically dense hymns, but there are some traditions (those less within the stream of the historically White traditions of hymnary…
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Glory to God, Forever and Ever
Liturgy, the patterns of pubic worship in a church, is an interesting thing. For many Christians, especially evangelicals, the idea of a formalized mode of worship is an idea that is utterly foreign. Set prayer? Standing / sitting / kneeling in unison? Processions? Creeds? What are these things? Liturgy as a whole is just outside…
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Hymn: Abide With Me
If there is one song or hymn or piece that I want played at my funeral it would be this hymn. Where my last post, “The Church’s One Foundation,” is a hymn that reflects that which gives me comfort and meaning in this life. I am so often lost and lonely. I both love and…
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Hymn: The Church’s One Foundation
I am a person filled with doubts, especially in the summer where, as a university student, I have more time to think and reflect on what I believe and why. They are strong doubts, doubts that at times can almost make me cry in despair. I so desperately mirror the cry in Mark 9:24, “I…
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Hymn: This is My Father’s World
This is my Father’s world, truly it is. This hymn is by far my favorite of all hymns in that it reflects in totality how I view the world. What you may not know in reading this relatively anonymous blog post is that I am a student of science. I believe in reason; I believe…
Defined Faith 