For the Beauty of the Earth: Essentials Blue, Final Project

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

“For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies…”[1]

I have been thinking about this hymn since reading the identically titled chapter in N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian. I most associate the song with the scene when it is sung in Little Women (a favorite childhood book and movie of mine), and I’ve had the song stuck in my head for the past few weeks.

One of our readings talked about singing a new song to the Lord, and how this could mean writing something original or re-envisioning an old  hymn in a new way. I find the lyrics to this hymn still beautiful and powerful after nearly 150 years. Despite its brokenness, our world is full of beauty and wonderment. As despair looms large over our society, I want to recall the blessings, to remember just some of the reasons why God is, in fact, worthy of “our hymn of grateful praise.”

Below is a (very) rough live recording of Folliott S. Pierpoint’s classic hymn reinvigorated with my own new melody. A chord sheet with lyrics is included as well.

For the Beauty of the Earth

Gifts from Scattered Tributaries: Essentials Blue, Week Four

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

One of the images N. T. Wright uses to describe the church is “the single great river formed from tens of thousands of scattered tributaries.” [1] As I read this, I thought of the gifts of worship I have received through some of these “scattered tributaries” I’ve had the privilege of experiencing.

I grew up with a worship style that would be challenging for many in the Vineyard movement of which I am now a part: that is, a cappella or non-instrumental worship. While I am thankful for the opportunity to use my musicianship and lead worship from my guitar, I am also exceedingly grateful for the gift of growing up with a cappella worship.

Worshiping with voices as the only instruments has provided me with some practical and spiritual understanding that I’m not sure I would otherwise have.

One benefit of a cappella worship was the ear for tune I developed from an early age. As a result, I can easily find harmonies and love blending my voice with others. Singing together in different harmonies and registers, with different parts and timbres is incredibly unifying. The human voice is the only instrument that is unique to each of us, and I have learned to celebrate the beauty of joining these myriad instruments together in song.

Because of my upbringing in non-instrumental worship, I can also confidently worship anywhere, with or without a guitar or a piano. I have fond memories of being at camp, walking arm in arm with my friends and just singing to the Lord. We were free to lift up the song in our hearts, and we were not dependent on a band to set the key or timing. One of us could start any song of praise, and the rest of us could freely and easily join together in spontaneous worship.

I do believe instruments are important add another layer to worship, and I know that instrumental worship is accessible in our culture. I also know that having a guitar or piano allows many voices to sing with strength and confidence.

As far as my personal preference goes, I cannot say at this point that I prefer one of these worship styles over the other. I think both are valid, and I see unique strengths in each. I would love to incorporate more a cappella worship into my present tradition, especially for the spontaneity it affords. I miss the freedom of being able to begin a song at the Spirit’s leading in a situation where a guitar might not be available (in a prayer meeting, for example). I do hope I can bring some of my foundation into my current community—gifts from “scattered tributary” to another.

1. N.T. Wright, “Simply Christian” (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), p. 201.

A Christian Worldview: Essentials Blue, Week Four

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

As part of my reflection on theology, I have composed a brief summary of a foundational Christian worldview. Based on my study, faith, and understanding, here is an attempt to answer some of the questions of theology (Who is God? Who are we and why are we here? What happened to the world, and what is God going to do about it?) in simple terms:

God is love and love expressed. He is eternal, unchanging, active, living, near and yet mysterious.

He is Creator: he loves to create and continues to do so. He is King: he reigns in just, responsible, protective sovereignty. He is Trinity, a communal being in and of himself, engaged in and desiring relationship. He is Saviour, capable of and desiring to restore, reclaim, and redeem all that is broken and lost. [1]

We are his creation, his image-bearers, sub-creators, and storytellers [2] who long for justice, who admire beauty, who thrive in relationship and whither in isolation, spiritual beings who search for meaning and purpose. [3] We think and feel and remember and dream as we experience the world that is, the world that was, and the world that will be.

Out of love, God gave us the gift of choice and free will, and we chose not to trust. We bought the lie that he did not have our best interest in mind, and we missed the opportunity for perfect communion with him. We settled for less than his perfect plan, and in doing so we invited separation, pain, death and brokenness into the world.

In his grace, God our Saviour immediately began staging a rescue operation. Through the sacrifice of resurrected Jesus, we have access to salvation, not only for eternity, but for us to connect with God and experience his kingdom here and now.

We can now respond to his pursuit of us and experience his kingdom, which is not just a future event but a current reality in the “overlapping, interlocking” spheres of heaven and earth. The arrival of God’s kingdom was ushered in by Jesus’ action “to bring heaven to earth and join them together forever, to bring God’s future into the present and make it stick there.” [4]

We now have the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, and we now (in our bodies and as the body of the church) have become the Temple, an intersection of heaven and earth. [5]

God calls us to be part of his new creation and agents of his new creation [6], and he gives us aid to accomplish this, beginning with his living Spirit. His saving plan also includes his word, the Bible, a gift to “sustain and direct” us [7], and the Body of Christ as made manifest through the church, “the means of his action in and for the world.” [8]

We are living as people of light in a darkened, sleeping world.

We will experience death, but we will also have the assurance of “life after death” (to be with Christ) and ultimately “life after ‘life after death,’ ” bodily resurrection in God’s new heaven and new earth. [9] All that is broken and cut off and separated will be restored, renewed, reunited and recreated. We will once again live with God as he desired and intended.

In the meantime, we respond in worship. We are “penciling the sketches for the masterpiece that God will one day call us to help him paint” [10], and we are “practicing, in the present, the tunes we shall sing in God’s new world.” [11]

1. Dan Wilt, “The Nature of God” (Essentials Blue Online Course video).

2. Dan Wilt, “Essentials in Worship Theology: The Nature of the Human Being” (Essentials Blue Online Course e-book).

3. N.T. Wright, “Simply Christian” (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), p. 51.

4. Wright, p. 102.

5. Wright, p. 132.

6. Wright, p. 236.

7. Wright, p. 190

8. Wright, p. 201

9. Wright, p. 222.

10. Wright, p. 218.

11. Wright, p. 206.

In Need of a Bailout: Essentials Blue, Week Two

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

For years, much of America hummed along in self-sufficient comfort. We didn’t need to have money to spend it. We didn’t have to wait for our dream house or our dinner. We didn’t need help and we certainly didn’t need rescuing…

…but then markets start plunging and banks start failing and bills start coming and jobs start disappearing…

Suddenly we wake up and realize that things are not okay. Our industries need saving, our jobs need saving, our homes need saving. We need saving.

This week I’ve been contemplating the idea of God as Saviour. His nature as our Rescuer has not been very popular in our self-sufficient, individualistic society. Like two-year-olds asserting our independence, we’ve cried that we can do it ourselves! Now we are realizing that we’ve made mistakes, we have messed things up, and something must be done to fix things.

In the coming weeks (months? years?), I suspect our broken hearts may become more receptive to the notion of God as Saviour. The church has an opportunity to reintroduce the Saviour of the world to hearts and minds that may begin to recognize a need for something (Someone) outside of themselves.

I often feel my need for God more deeply when I am in pain. I am especially comforted to know that God is not simply looking on, but he is with me in my trouble. I see God so differently when I realize that he not only suffered for me, but he suffers with me. He seeks us, and he longs to reconcile us to himself. [1]

In my personal quest to see God as Saviour, I face two areas of resistance. First, I must ask if I need saving from anything, and I must decide that the answer is yes. Second, I must ask what this saving will cost me.

I’ve often struggled with the idea of grace as a free gift. Some part of me still thinks I must have work to do to earn this rescue, and I have sometimes assumed this was what God meant when he gave the Law in the Torah. N. T. Wright counters with this:

When God frees you from slavery, said the Torah, this is how you must behave, not to earn his favor (as though you could put God in your moral debt), but to express your gratitude, your loyalty, and your determination to live by the covenant because of which God rescued you in the first place. [2]

So good works are not payment requested (or demanded) because of his salvation. Not only that, but trying to use good works to buy grace is a little like trying to use a pile of rocks to buy a car. The currency just doesn’t work.

Despite all this, God not only wants to save us, but it is in his power to do so. God is capable of saving us not because he is merely a better, more perfect version of us. Though we are made in his image, he is something else entirely. “He is his own category…That is why we can’t expect to mount a ladder of arguments from our world and end up in his, any more than we might expect to mount a ladder of moral achievement and end up making ourselves good enough to stand in his presence.” [3]

With this truth fresh in my mind, I will humbly and boldly approach the throne of God. I know I’m in trouble, and I know I can’t buy my way out. I suspect I may not be alone in this realization.

1. Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology: The Nature of God (New Brunswick: The Institute of Contemporary & Emerging Worship Studies, 2008), Essentials Blue Worship Theology Online Course Video.

2. N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), p. 82.

3. Wright, p. 67.

The Problem of Justice: Essentials Blue, Week One

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

“Theology shows itself over time, in the way we live, the way we relate, the way we communicate and in the way we worship…Our theology shows up, often when we least expect it…” [1]

Months before I began this course on worship theology, my own theology (some of the good, lots of the bad) started showing up unexpectedly. My responses to painful circumstances have made me realize many of the lies I believe. I know they are lies, but they have deep roots. They are unbecoming and yet somehow comfortable, like my old ripped jeans or my bad habits.

I could just go on living with my bad theology. It wouldn’t be ideal, and it would surely be frustrating, but it also wouldn’t be difficult. Problem is, I’m teaching theology—the good, the bad, the downright untrue—whether I intend to or not.

When I lead worship, when I draw a picture, when I have a conversation, I am teaching theology. I am communicating (consciously or unconsciously) what I believe to be true about God, about humanity, and about the world in which we live. [2] I may have learned to cope with my own bad theology, but I know I don’t want to transfer these burdens onto anyone else.

In his book Simply Christian, N. T. Wright lays a framework for theology by discussing four “echoes of a voice” that point “beyond our landscape of contemporary culture and out into the unknown.” [3] He lists these “echoes” as our longing for justice, our thirst for spirituality, our desire for relationship, and our attraction to beauty. [4] Of these four, I am most energized by a cry for justice.

I see a God of justice and His followers’ appeals to this part of His character throughout scripture (Psalm 94:1-2, Psalm 103:6, Isaiah 59, and Lamentations 3:55-66 to name a few).

Indignation and anger rise up in me when I see or experience injustice. When I see people wronged, even in works of fiction, my heart burns within me. I want to see things set right.

The problem is that I do not understand God’s justice. I often feel like the prodigal son’s older brother, like I’ve been working and working and not getting my due…or worse yet, I feel like I’m being mistreated while others are being blessed. But I, too, have run from God in my own way. I seem to want grace for myself, but I want “justice” for others. Wright says, “The line between justice and injustice…can’t be drawn between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ It runs right down through the middle of each one of us. ” [5] As Paul laments in Romans, “What I want to do I do not do…for what I do is not the good I want to do.” [6]

I feel like Mack, the protagonist in William Paul Young’s novel The Shack, who is called to an encounter with God after experiencing an unspeakably tragic loss. In his pain and questioning, Mack hears these words:

You really don’t understand yet. You try to make sense of the world in which you live based on a very small and incomplete picture of reality. It is like looking at a parade through the tiny knothole of hurt, pain, self-centeredness, and power, and believing you are on your own and insignificant. All of these contain powerful lies. You see pain and death as ultimate evils and God as the ultimate betrayer, or perhaps, at best, as fundamentally untrustworthy…you don’t think that I am good…[7]

This may, unfortunately, describe some of my own theology. But I know this is not the theology I want, and it is certainly not the theology I want to teach.

May God redeem me and my thirst for justice, and may He gently correct my bad theology so that when I lead worship, I will teach truth.

1. Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology: An Introduction (New Brunswick: The Institute of Contemporary & Emerging Worship Studies, 2008), Essentials Blue Worship Theology Online Course Text, p.3.

2. Wilt, p. 2.

3. N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), p. xi.

4. Wright, p. 51.

5. Wright, p. 6.

6. Romans 7: 15-19, The Holy Bible, New International Version (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1991).

7. William Paul Young, The Shack (Newbury Park, California: Windblown Media, 2007), p. 126.

We Come To Your Table: Essentials Red, Final Project

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

Over the past five weeks, my eyes have been opened by a study of worship history. Our survey of worship languages has strengthened my spiritual foundation and sparked ideas to bring new life and strength to my worship. One worship language of particular interest to me was that of sacred acts, specifically Baptism and Eucharist.

Eucharist (or Communion, or the Lord’s Supper) was always an important part of my spiritual heritage, and our study gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation for this “sign act.” I grew up in a church where weekly Communion was a central part of the service, and the church I currently attend is rediscovering the significance of returning weekly to the Lord’s table.

Whenever I take the Lord’s Supper, I am reminded of the debt Christ paid for me. I have spent much of my life trying to punish myself for my sins (in the past, physically; still, unfortunately, in my thoughts and self-talk). The bread and wine are a reminder of my Saviour who took the punishment for me. I remember that it is already done. The debt is paid, and there is nothing left for me to do. I am free…wholly and freely forgiven.

This realization always gives me a sense of relief and gratitude, which is a decent starting point for worship. I am learning, though, that God wants more for me. He wants me to rejoice.

I have learned that for early Christians, Communion was a feast, a celebration of the resurrection. It was also a communal act that united Christians. The body of Christ (the church) came together in the sharing of the body of Christ (Communion).

I wanted to write a song for Communion that marked this united celebration. Here is a very rough recording of the results:

And here is PDF with lyrics and chords:

We Come To Your Table

Ephesians 1:5-7

Buried Treasure: Essentials Red, Week Five

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

I love treasure hunting. I could spend hours digging through baskets of silk scarves at a flea market to find the perfect new accessory. I will scroll unflinchingly through pages and pages of typefaces until I find exactly the font to communicate what I want to say. Sometimes I search with a mission—to find the perfect “something” to fulfill a purpose—and sometimes I just search. The pursuit itself is the reward, and I am inspired by the hunt.

Exploring worship history has proved a grand treasure hunt for me. I have discovered beautiful traditions, inspiring prayers, and broader ideas about what worship is. I have also uncovered sad moments where well-meaning people went very wrong, starting down dark paths from which we are still trying to extricate ourselves.

History, like everything bound by time, is ever-changing. As you read this reflection, history in its unceasing growth add minutes to its annals.

History also changes with interpretation. As cultures and contexts change, elements of history begin to look and sound different. We reshape the past by how we understand it.

In worship history, expressions change, contexts change, interpretations change, but the story remains the same: redemption.

As I learn how others have told the redemption story—as I discover hidden gems of history and decipher them through my uniquely-colored lenses—I am challenged to find my own voice, a new voice with which to “routinely tell the same same messages: forgiveness is possible, grace is irresistible, resurrection of the faithful is inevitable and new creation is just around the bend.” [1]

1. Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship History: A Worship History and Creativity Synthesis (New Brunswick: The Institute of Contemporary & Emerging Worship Studies, 2008), Essentials Red Online Course document.

Art as Reflection: Essentials Red, Week Four

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

I have always been an artist and a music-maker. From the time I could hold a pencil, I drew. From the time I could speak a word, I sang. When I was a child, I drew and sang freely and shamelessly. Of course I did not consider some of my art spiritual and some of my art secular. Even if I could have somehow understood such concepts, I would not have been able to categorize my creations. All were equally pure and honest, and trying to make such a distinction would have been futile.

But somewhere along the way, I started to fragment my life and my art. I started to throw certain songs, words, pictures, or ideas into the “Spiritual” bin, and the rest I discarded as “Secular.” In my mind, one set was more acceptable to God, and one set was more acceptable to my friends, and much of my creative freedom was gone.

I used this system of categorization not only with my own art, but also with the art of others. I discovered (a bit to my dismay at first) that I often preferred the “secular.”

I now realize I was looking for honesty and resonating with truth no matter where it came from, and it often came from individuals who were not followers of Christ.

I am also realizing that these categories are false. I don’t believe art is even capable of being “Christian” or “non-Christian.” As Madeline L’Engle says in Walking on Water,

Christian art? Art is art; painting is painting; music is music; a story is a story. If it’s bad art, it’s bad religion, no matter how pious the subject. If it’s good art—and there the questions start coming…[1]

So if art itself is not “Christian,” what is its place in the church? How does an artist fit into the body?

In Introduction to Christian Worship, James F. White describes liturgical art as that which “makes us aware of a presence, not an absence.”[2] He explains:

The prime function of liturgical art is to bring us to an awareness of the presence of the holy, to make visible that which cannot be seen by ordinary eyes. Liturgical art does not make God present, but it does bring God’s presence to our consciousness.[3]

We as artists then have a strong responsibility, but it is one that comes naturally to us, we who are created in the image of Creator God. We are like double-sided mirrors. We “reflect out and are reflected into,”[4] directly to our hearts and souls. We reflect the questions and hurts of our culture into the church, and we reflect the love of God through the church into a broken world. [5]

Our challenge as Christians who are artists is not to create “Christian art,” but to reflect with honesty, hope and faith.

1. Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (New York: North Point Press, 1995), 14.

2. James F. White, Introduction to Christian Worship, Third Edition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 104.

3. White, 104.

4. Dan Wilt, Week 4: The Worship Languages of Art and Music (New Brunswick: The Institute of Contemporary & Emerging Worship Studies, 2008), Essentials Red Online Course video.

5. Wilt, Art and Music.

Reflecting on the Sacrament of Baptism: Essentials Red, Week Three

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

When I think about baptism, I remember three specific moments: my own baptism, the baptism that led to my decision, and the opportunity I had to baptize a friend. From each of these different vantage points, I experienced the sacrament (though I never would have used that word) of baptism in all its mystery. In each of these instances, I had a powerful, life-altering encounter with God, and I am beginning to understand why.

I was twelve years old when my father baptized me. I made the confession, “Jesus is Lord,” and I was immersed, baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Something happened when I went under that water, and when I came out dripping, washed, I felt alive. I looked out at the church, and I knew that was my family. I felt welcomed. I felt clean and whole.

I had made the decision a week or so earlier. I was at church camp, and I had witnessed the baptism of an older girl in the youth group. I didn’t know her well, but she had never seemed happy to me. But then she was baptized in the swimming pool, at night, and when she came out of the water, the clouds literally parted to reveal a glimmering full moon. She was radiant. She had a joy and peace about her that shocked me, and I started weeping.

I wept for hours. I wasn’t really sure why I was so moved, but I knew something had changed in her. She had experienced God, and she would never be the same. I wanted that change in me, that closeness with God.

I called and told my parents, and my dad and I studied after I got home to make sure I understood. That next Sunday he baptized me in front of the congregation.

A few years later, I had the opportunity to baptize a close friend of mine. She had made the same decision, and she wanted me to be a part of her baptism. To be a part of a gift that I had witnessed and then received affected me deeply.

Why was this?

White offers three reasons:

First, “God acts in the sacraments…Second, God acts in the sacraments in self giving…Third, through the sacraments, God’s self giving occurs as love made visible.” [1]

Sacraments, or “sign-acts”[2] are “intended to envision, engage and energize the Church to complete its mission in the world,”[3] and I am thankful that I have experienced this for myself.

1. James F. White, Introduction to Christian Worship, Third Edition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 196-197.

2. White, 175.

3. Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship History: The Language of Baptism.

Remembering Who We Are: Essentials Red, Week Two

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

“Remember who you are.”

My Granny often said these words to her children and grandchildren, and my parents said them to me as well. This simple directive became a sort of family creed and carried with it dozens of meanings. “Who you are” meant a unique individual and a part of this family, a beloved child of God, a person whose life had purpose, a person with freedom and responsibility.

As Christians, we desperately need to remember who we are.

James F. White writes:

Israel kept its identity by remembering. It remembered what God had done for God’s chosen people whose history made them unique…Survival, for Israel, meant the ability to remember God’s actions that had mad them a distinctive people. And for them, the best ways to remember were through instruction and prayer together.[1]

We have lost much of our sense of identity. We have forgotten.

When we meet people, our first question is often “What do you do?” By this we mean, “What is your vocation?” I often struggle to answer this question. I work a couple different part-time jobs, but how I earn money doesn’t actually say much about who I am.

Similarly, how we “do” church as Christians doesn’t say as much about us as we think it does. We seem to find much of our identity in our own denominational markers: the structure of our worship service, the building where we meet, the songs we sing, the clothes people wear, the coffee we serve, the events we have.

This is not who we are.

For the Jews, “survival came through remembering.” [2]

For us as Christians, the same holds true.

Within our myriad different churches and denominations, we need to reconnect with each other and with our common past through prayer and reading the scriptures. Our methods and translations may be different, but our core identity is the same because our God is the same, our lineage is the same, and our salvation is the same. We truly are bound by blood.

White says it well:

To communicate the corporate memories of the community of faith, its written records—the scriptures—need to be read again and again. The corporate memories contained in scripture give the Church its self-identity. Without the continual reiteration of these memories, the Church would simply be an amorphous conglomeration of people of goodwill but without any real identity. Through the reading and exposition of scripture, the Christian recovers and appropriates for his or her life the experiences of Israel and the early church…The Church’s survival depends on reinforcing these memories and hopes just as Israel’s did.[3]

Let us reclaim our identity and get to the work of remembering.

1. James F. White, Introduction to Christian Worship, Third Edition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 152.

2. White, 153.

3. White, 166.