Day Interrupted

For Essentials in Worship Theology Online Course with Dan Wilt

Have you ever been upset because your schedule didn't work out, only to find that God had an assignment for you that you would have missed if it had?

Today I went to get my car serviced only to find out that there was a about an hour wait. I was frustrated that I couldn't get right in but decided to run down the street to the car wash with the free vacuum and clean out the inside of my car (which was way beyond overdue).

When I got there, every slot was occupied but one. I pulled in only to find that the hose I had pulled up to wasn't working. I had to back up to the other hose which was directly across from a lady who was also cleaning out her car.

I started going through some accumulated clutter and came across a CD by a worship leader who had performed at the coffeehouse. I had gotten the CD for free and it was still unopened in my car.

Also in my car were a couple of "Kindness Cards" from a "random acts of kindness" campaign that my church had last November. We were challenged to do a random act of kindness for someone every day of the month. We were given these business cards to hand out with the act that points those we blessed to thank God and let them know He loves them.

The set up was complete. I was exactly where I was supposed to be and I had what I needed for the job God had for me to do - I just was completely unaware.

I wasn't paying any attention to the lady next to me until she started talking to me over the noise of the vacuum. I didn’t catch all the details, but she was upset saying she had prepaid $20 for her gas at the gas station next door but had forgotten to pump it. She went back when she realized it but the money had been used by someone else and was gone. She then said that she only had $8 to get her through the week.

Did I forget to mention that I had grabbed a $20 bill from my tip money on the dresser before leaving my house?

I began to realize that this is why I wasn’t able to get my car in right away. I was supposed to be at the car wash, next to this lady, in this moment.

I pulled the $20 bill out of my pocket, grabbed a kindness card, and picked up the CD. I put it all together and handed it to the woman.

Her name was Sandy and she broke into tears, hugged my neck repeatedly and thanked me. She was surprised and extremely grateful.

I used this simple act of kindness to point her to the One who loves her more than she can imagine and I believe heaven met earth in that moment.

I don’t have much to give. I barely make it paycheck to paycheck. What I do have, however, is all God’s, so what I gave her was His to give, not mine. Who knows what He will do with it. Look what He did with 5 loaves and 2 fish...

What happened today, brings me back to the conclusion of “Simply Christian” by NT Wright when He says that we are to be agents of the new creation that is to come, here in the now. We are to bring heaven to earth. We need to “take up our proper role,” he says, “our fully human role, as agents, heralds and stewards of the new day that is dawning.” (P. 237)

I hope Sandy had a taste of heaven today, and that she will listen to the One who pursues her and desires relationship with her. That she will come to know the One who will set the brokenness in her life to rights, and to know the One who came to her rescue.

e*b 2010 Week 4

For Essentials Blue Online Worship Training Course with Dan Wilt.

As Essentials Blue comes to a close, I have been asked to compile a Christian Worldview. What follows is where I landed...

In the beginning, God, in the most amazing creative expression, created. Eden stood in perfected beauty, yet God desired relationship with His creation. He made mankind who bore His image and His likeness and gave him the ability to articulate and reflect back to Himself the worship of all creation.

Man, however, chose to rebel and ultimately severed his relationship with his Creator. Sin and its consequences fell into the created order and God’s heart was deeply saddened.

All of time since has been marked by God’s relentless pursuit of man, to raise him up from his ‘bent’ position and bring him back into vertical communion with Himself (1). He calls to us through our desire for beauty and relationship, and through our longing for justice and spirituality (2).

God revealed Himself as the voice behind the echos through the person of Jesus. His rescue plan was not only enacted, but completed. Heaven met earth and “moved into the neighborhood” (3). No longer is man lost and without hope. No longer is heaven far away and distant. God is Creator, God is King over all, God is Trinity, God is Savior...and He is HERE!

God’s Kingdom has come. Heaven meets earth in every person in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. We are His Temple. It is our mission to be the hands and feet of the Kingdom to come, to be part of God’s new creation, to live as agents of the new creation here and now (4).

“It is time” as NT Wright says, “in the power of the Spirit, to take up our proper role, our fully human role, as agents, heralds and stewards of the new day that is dawning.” (5)

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

1.Leanne Payne, The Healing Presence (Grand Rapids: Hamewith Books, 1989, 1995) p. 59-60

NT Wright, “Simply Christian” Harper One, Grand Rapids, 2006, Part 1

John 1:14 (The Message)

NT Wright, “Simply Christian” Harper One, Grand Rapids, 2006 P. 236

Ibid. 237

e*b 2010 Week 3 Discussion Question and Answer

For: The Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

QUESTION:

Fully Human - What Does It Mean To Be A Human Being?

We're a quirky bunch, we human beings. In the whole of the created order (at least on planet earth) we uniquely bear the imago Dei, the image of God, expressing God's benevolent kingship in the world through governing, loving, stewarding, relating and tending to this world and one another.

Begin to define what it means to be human. In a sense, we're exploring who it is that we lead into worship. Use words, phrases and ideas from Simply Christian, and the vids and media in your piece. In other words, present a brief theological + anthropological (meaning "focused on humans) reflection that articulates what human beings are all about. Feel free to integrate ideas about the Garden, the Fall of humankind, etc., but you will spending more time on those ideas in the next weeks.

ANSWER:

We are a bunch of stumbling ragamuffins, prone to making mistakes and sin, however, even the most Godless still carry His image. That is why we can find God everywhere, even in what’s coming out of Hollywood and other “unsuspecting” places (1). We are drawn to the story because the echos speak, even when we don’t understand Who’s voice we are hearing.

We are creative beings, no matter how left-brained, or how stifled we may be. When we create, we bring glory to Father God. As we humans do with our own children’s creativity, He takes pleasure in what we create and hangs it on His refrigerator door. (2)

We carry His image as a reminder of His rule and reign. We are to steward the earth and care for it. We are to be carriers of His Shalom declaring that God is putting things to right. This brings the Kingdom to earth.

We are not meant to journey alone. We are called to live in “right-relatedness,” with each other (3). When we do, we demonstrate the Kingdom.

We are carriers of hope to a lost and dying world. Man is desperate to be part of something bigger than himself. It is our job to draw people toward their destiny. Just before he denied Him, Jesus called Peter “The Rock” on which He would build His church (4). Jesus was speaking to the man Peter would become. We reflect His image when we do the same.

Being fully human is not a bad thing, for it is not about embracing our fallenness, it is about embracing God’s image that lies inherently within.

1. Dan Wilt, Southeast Regional Worship Conference, Summer 2007

2. Manuel Luz, Imagine That: Discovering Your Unique Role as a Christian Artist, Moody Publishers, Chicago, 2009 p.37

3. Ed Gentry and Dan Wilt, Two Brothers on Righteousness, audio.

4. Matthew 16:18

e*b 2010 Week 2 Discussion Question and Answer

For: The Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

QUESTION:

Part A: How has your understanding of the theological phrase, the "Kingdom of God" been challenged/shaped by this section of Simply Christian?

Part B: What particular theological idea (within one of the four theological ideas on the Nature of God presented in Dan's material) do you believe has the most importance for the next 10-20 years of worship leadership? Why?

ANSWER:

This section of “Simply Christian” was incredibly stirring. The way NT Wright describes the story of Israel, and then the arrival, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus is powerful.

God’s Kingdom was totally backward to Jesus’ contemporaries. It introduced, “...what the true God was like, ... by loving one’s enemies, turning the other cheek, going the second mile (1). Jesus was God’s exclamation point on His rescue plan. Jesus was His answer to the echos that cry for beauty, justice, spirituality and relationship. Heaven met earth and they are joined forever.

I especially was challenged by the chapter dealing with the gift, ministry and “point” of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not just heaven on earth, the Spirit is heaven IN us who believe. Wright points out that, “Without God’s Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God’s Kingdom” (2).

I believe that the nature of God as Trinity is the most important idea for us as worship leaders. We live in an age where we have never been more connected technologically, yet never more isolated from each other. This world is filled with broken relationships and lonely people.

We need to communicate God’s heart and desire for relationship with us. We also need to love others unconditionally and give them a place to belong. The church often expects people to believe first, then belong. Kingdom thinking says otherwise: Let God draw man to Himself by loving them through us, the Temple, where heaven meets earth.

1. NT Wright, Simply Christian, Harper One, 2006, P. 101

2. Ibid. P. 122

e*b 2010 Week 1 Discussion Question and Answer

For: The Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

QUESTION:

Wright opens our course with ideas related to the four echoes of God in the world. Which of these echoes most deeply resonates with you as evidence of God's reality, and how does that particular echo reflect what you believe to be the biblically expressed personality of God?

From here, answer how the four 'echoes' relate to the theology and worldview represented in the worship songs that you have used/sung in the past year? (Seek to be positive in your answers, but also reflective - i.e. this question is meant to engage our theological thinking related to worship songs, not to create a song-bashing session).

Consider the second half of the question less in the light of "what songs am I doing that match these echoes," and more in the light of "how is the contemporary worship song body of work doing at giving voice to these echoes - the celebration of creation, the longing for justice, the magnetism of relationships and the hunger for spiritual reality."

ANSWER:

Justice calls loudest to me. We live in a fallen world that longs for things to be made right. There is so much that doesn’t make sense to our finite minds. The question, “Why” often looms heavy. “It’s not fair.”

Romans talks of creation being “pregnant” with expectancy for deliverance. (Romans 8:22-25, MSG) The echo calls out. It is not left unanswered, however, because God has chosen to reveal Himself, to engage in our world. We have, as Dan Wilt puts it in his eBook, Stumbling Into Mystery, Toward a Theology of Worship, a God who “suffers with, suffers for, suffers among.” (Pg. 4) We have a God who acts. (Pg. 6) We have, in the person of Jesus, the One who came to make things right.

I oversee worship for our Healing Prayer Ministry. Much of what I do is seek to put language on the heart cry of those who come for prayer. I sing over people of God’s faithfulness, goodness, beauty and love, and give voice to the fact that He is worthy to be worshipped simply because He is.

From the songs I’ve been exposed to, many express the cry for justice in the context of our human condition. Many seem to voice the beauty of His creation. I also believe our songs are doing well to express our hunger to know Him more and for Him to make Himself known (spiritual reality). Our relationship to God is covered well, however, I believe we need to better express the echo which calls for community with others.

Making Sense of the Voices

For: The Essentials Blue Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt

Week 1 has been completed. And oh, what a journey it has been. The material is so rich, so powerful, so transformational.

I woke up this morning with an 'epiphany'. It is starting to click. It is beginning to make sense. There is much I am learning. Some of what I am learning is just for me. Some of it is for me to share with others. All of it is permeating how I am approaching the class I am about to teach.

My synthesis of the "Aa-ha moment" is this:

In her book, "The Healing Presence", author Leanne Payne talks about man being created in the Garden in perfect vertical communion and relationship with God. When man fell, he became "bent". He became focused on himself, on creation and on his desire to be like God. All of time since has been God's pursuit of man to bring Him back into the vertical position, back in perfect relationship with Him. (1)

Man was created for Eden… in perfect beauty. In Eden was ultimate fairness and justice. In Eden, man had unobstructed relationship with God. In Eden was full and complete spirituality. But man chose poorly, seeking to go his own way. Creation's relationship with Creator was broken. Sin entered the world and all of the consequences followed. The space in our spirit that God longed to fill became a gaping, empty hole.

God pursues us through the 4 voices we have been pondering this first week.

God, Who is beauty, calls out to us through creation, "Look at Me. I am beauty that will never fade.

God, Who is justice, calls out to us from the unfair and brokenness around us to say, "Look at Me. I am putting things to rights."

God, Who is Trinity, calls to us through our desire for relationship, "Look at Me. I created you to have relationship with Me. I desire relationship with you."

God, Who is spirituality, calls to us through our longing for something more in this life, "Look at Me. I am Who you seek. I am What you need. I am the only fit for the hole inside that longs for something more. I am the 'something more'. I am everything."

…to be continued.

(1) Leanne Payne, The Healing Presence (Grand Rapids: Hamewith Books, 1989, 1995) p. 59-60

Overwhelmed and Challenged… by Essentials Blue

For: The Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

I have been on a journey into Blue. Essentials Blue, that is. I have been "Stumbling into Mystery" as Dan Wilt puts it with the title of his eBook. I am attempting to grasp that which cannot be contained in my finite brain.

My journey begins with the echos of voices that point beyond themselves. The "longing for justice, the quest for spirituality, the hunger for relationships and the delight in beauty". (NT Wright, Simply Christian, Introduction page x). Which of these voices cries loudest to me? How are the worship songs being used today doing in expressing these voices? What about the songs I'm using?

Thoughts surrounding the echos swirl in my head. Every time I think of a song, I now run it through the paces, so to speak, to see if, what and how it handles these voices. But then, that was the point.

Which voice gets the most credit? Which voice seems to be neglected or inadequately expressed? How do I interpret these voices in my own life?

Questions have been raised. Answers are illusive.

I know the pieces will fall into place as the course continues, but the issue for me is that I am only 1 week away from teaching a series of classes designed to identify, train and equip worship leaders for my church's cell group ministry as well as our healing prayer ministry.

How do I capture and communicate the essence of worship Theology, that which I have been swimming in for only a week, in a 90 minute class? It seemed easy enough - until I dove in.

Now, I'm going to go try and stare at the sun. (NT Wright, Simply Christian, Part 2)