The Great I Am
We have used this song the last two Sundays and I can’t express the power of worship we’ve felt each time.
Apprentice2Jesus
Ramblings of a Confessing Pentecostal
Archive for the category “Worship”
The Privilege of Living Dead
As I am challenging myself with John Wesley’s work on entire sanctification, I am meeting incredible people who live out the heart of Wesley’s message on a daily basis. They are people I can’t even name on a website because of the sensitive work they do.
Their call is incredible. One organization challenging the Christian community with reaching the unreached in East Africa is called Live/Dead. You can learn more HERE.
This morning I am beginning a 30 day journey through their “Live/Dead” journal. The first challenge is to tithe my time to Jesus. To abide in Jesus is to spend extravagant time with him. It is to know him. That is prayer. That is reading the Word. That is listening to him. A tithe of my day! (I get exhausted just thinking about it.)
But the question is this: Is Jesus worth it?
When I am around incredible people like some of these friends who put together “Live/Dead,” I know the answer. They spend extravagant time with Jesus. And it is beautiful to see.
Sunday
Sometimes we may get asked about our excitement for Sunday. Sometimes I get asked about why I am excited for Sunday above other days, or excited for the Church on a Sunday when the other days are just as important. Others days are important. But the Lord’s Day is simply a highlight and Chittister’s quote sums it up quite nicely for me.
Even now, in a world gone computerized, gone glotalized, gone mad, Sunday mornings have a taste of otherness about them. For Christians, Sundays arrive like moments out of time, bringing, in their invisible mist, the sight of another way to be human. (Joan Chittister, The Liturgical Year)
In “Contrast” to the Other Hallelujah Chorus I Posted Below…
One of my favorite choirs… The heart set free!
Intentional, Confessional… Pentecostal
Is that even “legal?” 
Intentional. Pentecostals are known more for spontaneity than intentionality in worship. If it’s planned these days, it’s more pragmatism than thoughtful worship.
What I seek is intentional worship. Careful attention to the songs we sing, the Scripture we read, the education we give our children… all of it. As a Pentecostal pastor I am also looking at weekly communion. (Cue gasps.)
There is a rhythm of Kingdom life for the Church and I want to catch that rhythm. That takes intentional worship.
Confessional. We need to return to the basics. Last week (my first week back after a month long sabbatical) I had us read the Apostles’ Creed out loud in the service. We need to be reminded of the basics. We need to confess our faith and the ancient creeds help us formulate our confession. They did a good job back then. Why have we left it behind?
Pentecostal. It is simply out of my belief that the Spirit is still fully active today. We believe in the gifts of the Spirit and each believer can operate in those gifts as the Spirit gives them. We can pray for the sick and they can recover. We can see deliverance flow to those who are bound by oppression. We are empowered to be witnesses. I am intentionally Pentecostal.
As I have come through my sabbatical, and also my reading leading up to my sabbatical, those are three words that have captured my thinking. Intentional. Confessional. Pentecostal.
Quit Competing with the Entertainment Industry
Stanley Hauerwas on Liturgy.
Thoughts About “Icons”
Recent blog activity has been caught up in a discussion over the Manhattan Declaration. This is a statement coming from Catholics, Orthodox, and Evangelicals concerning three major points about our current culture in America. The debate is over whether this is just some right wing political move or it’s legitimate.
Some of the disagreement comes down to theology. How can an evangelical stand alongside a Catholic? Some objections (like from John MacArthur) raise up old lines of division that show the Body of Christ really has a hard time standing together for just about ANYTHING without an argument breaking out. (There’s a reason it’s called the “family” of God, I suppose.)
Some objections raised would be Catholics and Orthodox theology. Perhaps it’s also the veneration of saints and icons. There are fundamentalists and Evangelicals who have a serious problem with the saints and icons of the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
This stirred my thoughts. In my own sordid sense of humor, I would present the idea that while we don’t have “icons” in the sense of the Orthodox Church, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Reformed and other Protestants do have our own versions. We take the “high” road and say it’s not worship. But I would argue there are times we fall into celebrity cults in the Church.
It’s a serious issue I’ve seen raised since the days of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. Now, it’s even hit the Reformed movement. The likes of Mark Driscoll and others raise serious questions about our tendency to celebrate certain people. I am NOT saying Driscoll and others seek worship! I am saying we tend to set these guys up in places they do not belong.
I would offer (in a sense of humor kind of way) some of our Protestant “icons” through the centuries.
Luther
Calvin
Graham
Hinn
Driscoll
Piper
CEB
