Gravity and Grace by Makoto Fujimura 

I really enjoy reading Ragamuffin Soul blog, and yesterday morning he had a link to the blog of one of his friends, Anne Jackson.  She has a post up about hypocrisies in worship, which I found so interesting.  She talks about how church culture is okay with people singing and saying things in a worship service that their hearts and lifestyles are far from meaning, with the hope that saying and doing certain things during the service will draw their hearts toward God.  She asks, “how many times do we get this backwards?

step 1: get people to a weekend service.

step 2: encourage them to “feel” the song.

step 3: inspire their hearts to fully unite and engage with the father”

Anne points out that in these things, we do the very thing that God was so angry with Israel about (external signs of worship rather than worship from the heart). She has some really insightful thoughts on this issue…so much to consider. 

Ragamuffin Soul then posted a question to Anne’s blog post: What do you see the purpose of a church weekend gathering? 

This question got me thinking about my own view of corporate gatherings.  Studying Colossians 3:16 has been very formative for me on this topic, so I thought I might talk a little about it and what I think its implications are for the “weekend gatherings?”

Let me say first that I know I still have so much to learn in this area….so I would hate for this post to come across like I have everything figured out.  I know there are so many people that I respect greatly that have differing opinions on this topic. Having said that, here is my take on some of these issues:

Colossians 3:16:  “Let the word of Christ dwell richly inside you (plural), teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms hymns and spiritual song, with thankfulness in our hearts towards God.”Here are a few implications for corporate worship I would see from this verse:

1. Corporate gatherings should be framed around letting the Word of Christ dwell richly inside us….this should inform the teaching, singing and together time.

2. Colossians is a letter written to a church, not just to individual Christians, so we should desire that the richness of Christ permeate not just individuals, but also our gatherings as believers. This is how the Bible says unbelievers are shown the power and truthfulness of the gospel (I Cor. 14:23-25)

3. Our corporate gatherings should be marked by teaching and admonishing one another….not just being taught and admonished by a pastor/teacher/music leader.  (Even though I think the teaching from the pastor/teacher is very important, it’s not exclusively how believers should be taught/admonished.)

4. Along the same thought as point #3….I think we should be asking questions like, “Do the people at our corporate gathering have an opportunity to teach and admonish one another by the talking/singing/praying in proximity to one another?”  I think this question has some implications in the way we run sound, run lights, and do “production” for corporate gatherings. (Notice I said corporate gatherings and don’t think this necessarily applies for things like concerts….ect.)

5. Music plays a huge part in our teaching and admonishing during corporate gatherings. I would say that we should provide opportunities to do it with one another….not just with a really loud band that performs for the congregation.  I believe that the role of worship leaders should be to come alongside of the congregation in worship, not to create a “worship experience” for the congregation. (I think that we help people out when we sing “we”, “us” and “our” type songs in our corporate gatherings….not only “I” and “me” type songs.)

6. Our song selection is so important, because the gospel will dwell in people and help them remember gospel truths/promises in the coming weeks in proportion to the richness of the lyrics/music.  

7. Our times of corporate gatherings need to be framed around the gospel, and the gospel always leads to thankfulness in our hearts towards God. When we see depths of sin living inside us and the inability in us to be made right with God in and of ourselves, our response to the work of Jesus becomes overwhelming thankfulness. 

If any of you are still reading at this point, bless you…i’m sorry this is getting long.  I’d love to hear what you think about this topic.   Do you totally disagree?  Why?  Are there any books/talks/people that have helped shape the way you look at corporate worship? 

So I’ve put together some video clips from the making of Adore and Tremble. Its funny that most of the video clips that I took from that week are only about 30-or-so seconds long. I’m not sure why I took such short clips…..I guess I was pretty intimidated by all the great musicians. I think I was a bit more excited about documenting the moment than they were…..I was trying not to act like a seventh grader in the locker room with the varsity basketball team.

But it’s for your good now…..eh?

The first half of the video was taken in Paul Moak’s Studio, where we recorded drums, bass, electric, and keys. Other than Nathan, Paul was the one guy I was most familiar with before we recorded. He has played on so many great records…..and does this viby/delay-ie kind of sound so well. Ken Lewis, who is another guy who has played on tons of stuff played drums, and percussion. And Chris Donohue, who has also recorded on an amazing amount of projects, played bass. Everyone of the guys was so nice….it was a huge honor to have them play on these songs.

The last few shots on the video are from Nathan’s studio, where we tracked acoustic guitars, vocals, and B3, and did all the programming work. I plan on posting some more pictures from Nathan’s studio in Adore and Tremble post #3, which my creative media and editing teams (me) are currently working on.

From left to right, Nathan Nockels, Ken Lewis, Me, Chris Donohue and Paul Moak.

Did any of you see this? Thoughts?

I thought it would be cool to put up some pictures and video from the making of Adore and Tremble…..and maybe even talk about why we picked such a weird name. But before that I thought I would show you one of my favorite things about the Adore and Tremble Project. My one-of-a-kind Adore and Tremble tee shirt. My sister in law, who is one of the funniest people I know, made this shirt for me for the night of the release. What I tried to do with music, Natalie did with tee shirt design…..if anything says Adore and Tremble it’s obviously Tina the llama and the Liger from Napoleon Dynamite.

Last Friday morning I had the chance to grab coffee with Andrew Bryant. Andrew is an amazing photographer from the Raleigh area, who I’ve known of for a little while, but hadn’t had the chance to meet. So it was fun that we were able to carve out some time to hang out and talk about bands and artists that we’re both into and about how cool it is  to see Raleigh becoming a welcoming place for artists to live. We’re also thinking about working together on some stuff in the future.  It was an encouragement and challenge to me to see how he serves people through his art/work.  He’s got a great site where you can see his work and blog as well.  So go check it out when you have time.

Friday evening, Mike, James, Ben and I all traveled to Wendell to play at a coffee house type thing called First Friday. We haven’t ever played non-full band versions of the Adore and Tremble songs, so it was a lot of fun to try playing the songs in different ways.

From left to right, Mike, James, Me, Ben.

This picture cracks me up. I took it Saturday morning.  It’s the line that formed in front of the library on Saturday morning. A line to get into the library on Saturday? Really? I guess I shouldn’t laugh too hard…I was right there with them.Danielle and Bennett were out of town for the weekend, so I had time to go sit in the quiet study room at the library….I love the quiet study room. I didn’t hang out in the quiet study room that much before we had a baby, but now when I have the time, I love to go the quiet study room.

I also love the chairs in the quiet study room. Little bit of rock….little bit of groove in the seat. Very nice.

About a month ago I contacted Aaron Niequist, and asked him if he would consider reviewing my CD. Aaron is a really accomplished musician and worship leader. He has served at both Willow Creek Community Church (South Barrington, Il) , and Mars Hill Church (Grandville, MI) as a worship leader. He was kind enough to say some really nice things about the Adore and Tremble. You can read his post in the blog section of his website.

When you have time go check out his blog and look around at his other posts. He has a CD which came out yesterday. I can’t wait to listen to the whole thing….the clips I’ve heard on his website and myspace sound great. He’s written a bunch of corporate songs that have this really indie rock feel to them….i’m excited to see this type of sound invading corporate worship music. You can buy his CD at cdbaby.com.

Rebecca Schlieman, a friend of ours, and an incredibly talented photographer, took some pictures of me last night for some advertising we’re doing soon. Rebecca and her husband Joel were kind enough to keep shooting through the rain and all my blue steel mishaps.

When you have a chance go check out her blog here

I’ll post the final product when we get them.

Most of the students that come to PCM, are from the Raleigh area (NC State, Peace, Meredith, Wake Tech). UNC and Duke are both about a 25-30 minute drive from Providence. So when we do have students coming from that far away to be a part of PCM on Sunday mornings, we do our best to show them that we appreciate their commitment to us. Tonight that was in the form of music, Bible study, and chick-fil-a number 1 combos.

The UNC students from PCM have a discipleship group that meet Wednesdays on campus, at 5:30, and then they all go eat together at Lenoir Dining Hall. Dave, Chip and I were able to be a part of their group tonight, for the first time this year….and had a great time.

Have you gmail users seen this today? My friend Nick showed it to me this morning. Gmail is rolling out a new feature that will allow you to pre-date emails. Like, if you forgot to send something that was supposed to be to someone yesterday, you can pre-date the email, send it to them, and it will appear in their inbox as coming on the day it was due. The crazy thing, according to them, is that it will show up as a read item. The only catch is that you only get 10 a year. Itsn’t that funny?

So do you think its an April fools joke? Nick seems to think so. I think I would agree as well. What a great April fools joke to pull.