Matthew 26:36-39, Acts 16:6-10, 1 Kings 3:5-14, Isaiah 6:1-8, Matthew 6:9-13
Within the Christian community this leads to a prominence of teaching on the will of God and how to know it. Russ Johnston draws upon his own wide experience to remark how this continues to be one of ...
Training a worship leader (or "liturgist") is a vital task within any faith community. As my friend and former Senior Pastor, Dr. Mark Roberts puts it, the worship leader or liturgist "...
The foundations of my Christian faith were laid in mid-20th century fundamentalist churches. For introducing me to Jesus, I am grateful. However, over the years I have had to cast aside and recover fr...
One Sunday morning in a more traditional worship service, a rather verbose minister stepped up to the pulpit and announced to the congregation, "I've been told that I'll be moving on to l...
What a small topic! And clearly one I am definitely not the best equipped to answer. But why don’t I share a few thoughts, hopefully, that can help shape a conversation about worship. A New Discover...
So, you’re staring at your laptop screen. It’s later at night than you’d like to admit. The Word document is blank and that vertical bar is flashing, daring you to write the first word. You need to st...
Leader: As Christ’s Church here on earth, we are invited to be a part of a bigger story, welcomed as members of a larger community, and called to a greater mission. In humble repentance we must ack...
Step back in time to when you weren’t leading worship, but to a time, whether as an adult or a child, when you arrived a few minutes early to church. Maybe you began to pray for God to help you focus ...
At work, I am more than just a nurse. I am the hands and feet of God. … I am trying to be family to them. Faith is giving me strength to do that. The congregational response to this young woman’s te...
Preaching Commentary Summary of the Text Songs of Ascent Psalm 133 is part of the Psalter’s collection of the Songs of Ascent, Psalms 120-134. The Songs of Ascent were sung by the throng of pilgri...
What is a Benediction? The word benediction comes from Latin and literally means “good word” ( bene [good] + dicere [to say, speak]). Put another way, a benediction is a blessing ...
I was told that our worship services should be designed with seekers in mind, and that unchurched people have neither the attention span nor the interest to give to the reading of Bible passages. The ...
Summary While we don’t think as much about it today, people throughout Biblical times were very interested in different kinds of spiritual creatures. Here in the book of Revelation, we see several de...
Preaching Commentary Confrontation Most pastors don’t care for confrontation. Maybe, that could be said for most people. There are the rare few of us who thrive on the tension and drama that comes ...
The best liturgies in use in Christian churches are ancient, well-worn compositions permeated with scriptural language skillfully deployed across a series of pastoral pronouncements, prayers, congrega...
There was much I could have said in that moment. I could have contrasted different philosophies of ministry, especially in relation to the seeker movement in our postmodern culture, and explained how ...
Romans 1:16, Colossians 4:5-6, Matthew 5:14-16, 1 Corinthians 4:10
I can remember that afternoon as if it were yesterday. I (Doug) was standing out in the middle of the green grass of the quad on campus, singing as loudly as I could. Twenty of my Christian friends an...
Participating in God’s glory-sharing life, then, happens in two contexts: scattered and gathered. Worship scattered is the Spirit-filled life of the Christian in the world, and worship gathered is the...
Summary of the Text Songs of Ascent Psalm 133 is part of the Psalter’s collection of the Songs of Ascent, Psalms 120-134. The Songs of Ascent were sung by the throng of pilgrims making their way to ...
My teenage son, Justin, had been invited to an area church by a friend. Since he had grown up as a PK (pastor’s kid) and had never been to a megachurch like this before, I wondered what impression it ...
Christian worship, we should recognize, is essentially a counterformation to those rival liturgies we are often immersed in, cultural practices that covertly capture our loves and longings, miscalibra...
Preaching Commentary Parakalō There are a lot of interesting words in this passage, including the second one. In the NIV, it says, “I urge...” In English, “urge” has some range. If I “urge you to r...
We must conclude that the Christian needs to hear but one call to worship and offer only one response. These come exactly coincident with new birth and, despite our wanderings and returns to the contr...
Preaching commentary Summary While we don’t think as much about it today, people throughout Biblical times were very interested in different kinds of spiritual creatures. Here in the book of Revela...
Good liturgy, whether formal or informal, ought never to be simply a corporate emoting session, however “Christian,” but a fresh and awed attempt to inhabit the great unceasing liturgy that is going o...
My friend Isaac Wardell, a pastor of worship and founder of Bifrost Arts, asks whether we think of gathered worship as being more like a concert hall or a banquet hall. If it’s a concert hall, we show...
Confrontation Most pastors don’t care for confrontation. Maybe, that could be said for most people. There are the rare few of us who thrive on the tension and drama that comes with a direct standoff,...
The Christian church sings. It is not a choral society. Its singing is not a concert. But from inner, material necessity it sings. Singing is the highest form of human expression....What we can and mu...
Ancient Lens What's the historical context? Context in Mark Recall the context. In chapter 11, Jesus entered Jerusalem to much acclaim and briefly entered the temple (vv. 1-11). The next day,...