Cell phone jammers and worship jammers

I have recently been considering the issue of so-called "vertical worship"—the concept that when we worship God in church, we are to have a one-on-one relationship and communication with God. This trendy concept completely abandons the historical "corporate worship" tradition. Yes, we are to have and cherish our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We are to be grateful to God the Father for His providence and for preparing a way to overcome our sins and the damage our sins caused. We are to seek the personal guidance of the Holy Spirit. But when we come together for fellowship with the saints, we are to worship corporately. This means keeping in mind the worship of those around us. We should seek to help our brothers and sisters in Christ to worship God along with us.

An article about cell phone jamming technology brought this consideration to the forefront of my mind. Here is a quote from that article:

“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University.

I think Mr. Katz has hit the nail squarely on the head. And the problem is seen well within the walls of the church.

Just as the inconsiderate cell phone users chatter away in their one-on-one conversations with whomever, many well-meaning Christians chatter away with God in their one-on-One vertical worship, completely disregarding and totally disrespecting the gathered saints around them.

Cell phone chattering is quite annoying, but is not usually too much of a problem. It can be more of a problem when someone is trying to give a speech and the people in the audience continue to pursue their one-on-one conversations through their cell phones. But when the speaker decides to pursue a personal one-on-one conversation in the middle of his speech, the problem has gone way over the line. This video shows such an example:

What does this have to do with worship?

The goal of the worship leader should be to help those in the congregation worship God together in an organized manner—singing as one. When our worship leaders decide that they want to pursue their personal one-on-one vertical relationship with God by using the music that they personally find worshipful in spite of the fact that there are many people in the congregation who prefer to speak to God in a different genre, Guliani's gaffe has entered the church.

The Church, becoming more like the world

In this regard, the Church is way ahead of the world in showing disrespect to each other and in valuing ourselves more highly than anyone else. It is the duty of church leaders to provide an opportunity for everyone to be corporately involved in the music of the church. This must take into account the tastes and musical traditions of the saints. As they are led by the Holy Spirit, they will also desire the benefit of those around them—thus, they will not force their own musical desires on everyone else. But rather, everyone will be presented with something that helps them to worship God and everyone will be introduced to cross-cultural worship (different genres of music or presentation style) as well. This is the entire basis for congregational church government and for the biblical concept of freedom of conscience.

When we force our favorite musical genres on others, we set them up to be just as selfish as we are. Eventually we end up with what has been called "the Worship Wars."

It's a sad state of affairs for present-day evangelicalism. May God forgive us for our selfishness.

Sound thoughts, solid advice

You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims.
—Harriet Woods

Follow an old path and you find the expected. Blaze a new trail and you have an adventure.

Be still and know that I am God
—Psalm 36:10

And we were told it was just a "tissue blob"

Which of these two would you choose to murder?

This story tells us about a fetus who refused to die when the doctors attempted multiple abortions. Those "tissue blobs" can really be survivalists at times—obviously a source of great frustration to those who refuse to admit that abortion is murder.

We cannot try to undo what God has done. It is just as important regarding the sanctity of every human life as it is regarding marriage.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
—Psalm 139:13

The Preacher

From Steve Camp's blog.

Make him a minister of the Word. Fling him into his office. Tear the ‘Office’ sign from the door, and nail on the sign, ‘Study.’ Take him off the mailing list. Lock him up with his books and his typewriter and his Bible. Slam him down on his knees before texts and broken hearts and flick of lives of a superficial flock and a holy God.

Force him to be the one man in our surfeited communities who knows about God. Throw him into the ring to box with God until he learns how short his arms are. Engage him to wrestle with God all the night through. And let him come out only when he’s bruised and beaten into being a blessing.

Set a time clock on him that will imprison him with thought and writing about God for forty hours a week. Shut his mouth forever spouting remarks, and stop his tongue forever tripping lightly over every nonessential. Require him to have something to say before he dares break the silence. Bend his knees in the lonesome valley.

Fire him from the PTA. and cancel his country club membership. Burn his eyes with weary study. Wreck his emotional poise with worry for God. And make him exchange his pious stance for a humble walk with God and man. Make him spend and be spent for the glory of God. Rip out his telephone. Burn up his ecclesiastical success sheets. Defuse his glad hand.

Put water in his gas tank. Give him a Bible and tie him to the pulpit. And make him preach the Word of the Living God!

Test him. Quiz him. Examine him. Humiliate him for his ignorance of things divine. Shame him for his good comprehension of finances, batting averages, and political in-fighting. Laugh at his frustrated effort to play psychiatrist. Form a choir and raise a chant and haunt him with it night and day-‘Sir, we would see Jesus.’

When at long last he dares assay the pulpit, ask him if he has a word from God. If he does not, then dismiss him. Tell him you can read the morning paper, and digest the television commentaries, and think through the day’s superficial problems, and manage the community’s weary drives, and bless the sordid baked potatoes and green beans, ad infinitum, batter than he can.

Command him not to come back until he’s read and reread, written and rewritten, until he can stand up, worn and forlorn, and say, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’

Break him across the board of his ill-gotten popularity. Smack him hard with his own prestige. Corner him with questions about God. Cover him with demands for celestial wisdom. And give him no escape until he’s back against the wall of the Word.

And sit down before him and listen to the only word he has left-God’s Word. Let him be totally ignorant of the downstreet gossip, but give him a chapter and order him to walk around it, camp on it, sup with it, and come at last to speak it backward and forward, until all he says about it rings with the truth of eternity.

And when he’s burned out by the flaming Word, when he’s consumed at last by the fiery grace blazing through him, and when he’s privileged to translate the truth of God to man, finally transferred from earth to heaven, then bear him away gently and blow a muted trumpet and lay him down softly. Place a two-edged sword on his coffin, and raise the tomb triumphant. For he was a brave soldier of the Word. And ere he died, he had become a spokesman for his God.

Lack of gravitas

[9/11] shone its own light on the Church and what we came to see was not a happy sight. For what has become conspicuous by its scarcity, and not least in the evangelical corner of it, is a spiritual gravitas, one which could match the depth of horrendous evil and address issues of such seriousness. Evangelicalism, now much absorbed by the arts and tricks of marketing, is simply not very serious anymore.
—David Wells, Above All Earthly Pow'rs: Christ in a Postmodern World. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2005, p. 4

When we stop twisting scripture to fit the mold that allows us to claim unscriptural things, we will be on a path toward improving the lacking gravitas that Dr. Wells is speaking of.

Maryland Renaissance Festival

Stilt Procession

Our family has a few traditions that we try to do every year. One of our favorites is the Maryland Renaissance Festival. My wife and I have attended the Maryland Renaissance Festival almost every year since shortly after we got married (22 years since we got married; 18 years for the Festival) and our son began attending the Festival with us as soon as he was old enough to enjoy it—I believe he was about 3 months old the first time we took him.

The Festival is one of the best places for photography that I have ever seen. The dappled light coming through the leaves on the trees that surround the Festival grounds is gorgeous.

Kim & David

The costumes are deeply colored and beautiful. The people are expressive in their revelry and actually enjoy having their pictures taken. And there are things happening at the Festival that you just don't see very often: jousting, people on stilts, wandering minstrels, puppeteers, steak-on-a-stake, and loads of other visual delights.

This year we went for two days. On the first day my wife and son both dressed as pirates. The second day my wife chose a noblewoman's outfit while my son decided to go as a pirate again—not the brightest choice since the day before we had spent the entire day at the Festival in temperatures pushing 100 degrees and his costume was providing evidence of that fact.

I'm not sure what makes us like the Festival as much as we do. It may be the fact that it's a family event and we are able to spend all our time, free from distractions, with each other. It may be that we get to dress up and pretend we're someone (someones?) other than ourselves. It may be that we enjoy the occasional relief of being a few hundred miles away from the pressures of daily life.

My son, the pirate

Whatever the reason—we love the Maryland Renaissance Festival. We even love it when it's so hot that the wool costumes are actually uncomfortable (imagine that!). This year's 90+ degree temperatures was not the reason that we chose to go in October instead of in August.

Flower seller

So next year, when you're planning your family outings, consider the Maryland Renaissance Festival—even if you don't live anywhere near Annapolis, Maryland.

Leave your laptop, your iPod, and your cell phone at home.

Grab the kids, jump in the car, drive to Maryland, and, as the sign over the front gate at the Maryland Renaissance Festival says, "Prepare thyself for merriment." You won't regret it.

Maryland Renaissance Festival Web Site

No sleight of hand

Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” And all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down. — Kings 18:30

The story of the challenge given by Elijah to the prophets of Baal has fascinated me since I was a child. I've wondered at times if some people who reject the veracity of the scriptures might say that the water Elijah poured on the altar was actually some petroleum product, thereby causing the resultant fire.

But today when I read this story in 1 Kings, I noticed the verse above.

Magician Johnny Fox

Last week my family and I went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival where we saw the magician and sword swallower, Johnny Fox. He's an amazing magician. We have also seen David Copperfield perform magic on multiple occasions. The common setup for public magic shows is for the performer to be on a stage with the audience seated at a distance from the performer. The audience is typically gathered together in one group rather than surrounding the performer. This allows the magician to perform various feats of visual deception (sleight of hand, misdirection, etc.).

But in the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal, Elijah asked the people (all of Israel) to "come near to me." In order to do this, the people had to gather around him. In order to see the spectacle (which it was), they must have pressed in on him. There was no chance for Elijah to perform sleight of hand or misdirection. These people saw exactly what happened and they knew it was of God.

What an amazing story!

Christians Acting unChristlike

50 Reasons
by John Piper

In my personal devotions, I have been reading John Piper's Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die. This outstanding book will edify and convict you if you are a Christian, and if you are not a Christian it will present to you what Christianity is truly about from the perspective of Jesus and his disciples, not from the American media or from well-meaning, but wrong-acting Christians.

Here's an excerpt that convicted me:

The Death of Christ and the Camps of Death

It is a tragedy that the story of Christ's death has produced anti-Semitism against Jews and crusading violence against Muslims. We Christians are ashamed of many of our ancestors who did not act in the spirit of Christ. No doubt there are traces of this plague in our own souls. But true Christianity—which is radically different from Western culture, and may not be found in many Christian churches—renounces the advance of religion by means of violence. "My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus said. "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting" (John 18:36). The way of the cross is the way of suffering. Christians are called to die, not kill, in order to show the world how they are loved by Christ.

True Christian love humbly and boldly commends Christ, no matter what it costs, to all peoples as the only saving way to God. Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). But let it be crystal-clear: To humiliate or scorn or despise or persecute with prideful putdowns or pogroms or crusades or concentration camps is not Christian. These were and are, very simply and horribly, disobedience to Jesus Christ. Unlike many of his so-called followers after him, he prayed from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).

John Piper wants you to hear the good news about Jesus Christ, so this book is available free of charge online at his Desiring God website. I encourage you to purchase the book from your local Christian bookstore to help support this ministry so they can continue to offer free books to those in need of Christ (that would be every person on the planet).

Wholesome habits of photographers

As a photographer, the following quote spoke to me. I think I'll take up this practice as well:

Photographer Helmut Newton:

"I always carry chains in the trunk of my car because you never know when you'll need them. You know, you go out in the streets in Paris and you might want to chain a model to a fence."

Karen - this one's for you