Christmas carols – an excuse to play fast and loose with theology?

This is taken from a discussion on the worship central forum on Christmas carols:

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A simple definition of worship that I often use is “praising God for who He is and what He’s done”, therefore a ‘worship song’ should praise God for who He is and/or what He’s done.

“O come all ye faithful” works because it is praises God for who He is (O come let us adore Hime, Christ the Lord) and “Once in Royal David’s City” works because it praises what He’s done by retelling the story (He came down to earth from heaven, Who is God and Lord of all…).

Some are less clear, you could argue that carols like “While Shepherds watched their flocks by night” are not worship songs as they are not addressed to God however the converse argument could be made as they are clearly telling of what He’s done. Some Carols have some dodgy history in them but are still strong worship songs, e.g. “In the bleak midwinter” (it really wasn’t snowing!), the last verse of which is one of the most powerful challenges of any Christmas carol.

Some carols, like “Good king Wenceslas” could more accurately be described as folk songs, telling a nice story with a fuzzy ‘be good to the poor’ moral at the end. I would avoid using these as worship songs..

Of course some are just bad songs (I would include “Away in a manger” in this category!), regardless of their historical or theological accuracy a bad song is a bad song!

In the end a worship song should point people towards God and enable them to praise Him for who He is and what He’s done.

Proverbs 3:11-12 sermon

Proverbs 3:11-12 sermon

Words to the wise: Remain

All Saints Wellington, November 15^th 2009

 

Readings

• Proverbs 3:11-12 (p.607)
• Hebrews 12:7-11 (p.1145)

 

Overview of series

• 1-2: Remember – the wise never lose touch with God
• 3-4: Respond – the wise are characterised by love and faithfulness
• 5-6: Rely – the wise fully rely on God for direction
• 7-8: Revere – the wise are humbly obedient
• 9-10: Receive – the wise give generously to God in all aspects of their lives
• 11-12: Remain – the wise remain faithful and submit to God in testing times

 

Introduction

• Word association game – discipline

 

Why does God discipline us?

• Why do parents discipline their Children?
  • To teach them that something is dangerous/wrong
    • e.g. slap wrist when they try to run into the road
    • e.g. Cutting child’s allowance for lying about where they were last night
• Discipline is not the same as judgement
  • point of judgement is to punish the ‘crime’
  • Point of discipline is to build up the individual, strengthen them for the future
    • Judgement comes at the end when there is nothing you can do
    • discipline comes each step of the way
• To accept discipline requires trust
  • Must believe that God/the parent is acting in your best interest
  • Discipline is often painful/hard, doesn’t always seem beneficial at the time
  • Proverbs 3:11-12 (p. 607)
• We are being transformed into Christ’s likeness
  • God loves us too much to let us stay as we are

 

 

 

How do we know when God is disciplining us?

• He speaks to us through scripture
  • bible passage might stand out to us and make us realise what we’ve done
• He speaks to us through other people
  e.g. David + Nathan – 2 Samuel 12 (p.301)
• He speaks to us through the consequences of our actions
  • e.g. As a result of our selfishness someone else gets hurt and that makes us realise we were selfish

 

• Any examples?
• Any other ways?

 

How do we/should we respond?

• Good example: David and Nathan – 2 Samuel 12 (p.301)
  • David sins (Bathsheba)
  • Nathan comes with message from God
  • David admits his guilt (v.13)
  • He repents (Psalm 51)
  • He turns back to God
• Bad example: Nebuchadnezzar – Daniel 4 (p.843)
  • Nebuchadnezzar has a big kingdom
  • he get proud
  • God rebukes him and tells him to renounce his sins and be kind to the oppressed
  • He refuses and becomes more proud
  • God turns him into an ox!!
  • extreme example but it is a good story – watch out!

 

Conclusion

• The wise remain faithful and submit to God in testing times.
• They welcome His parenting because they know that he can see the bigger picture
• The God we know from the bible and from experience is a God who want the best for his children
• It is a slow and often painful process but we must trust God and let him work in us

 

Response

• Video – River God (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihIkPXTpmjw)

Memories and melodies tracklist

I’ve worked out the tracklist for my new album, recording is underway and I;m hoping to have it done by the new year.

Here is the track list with links to the words.

1: A faith worth sharing

2: The Old Violin

3: Kingdom of Heaven

4: Joseph’s tale

5: The simple disciple

6: Remember me

7: ??? Easter song ???

8: Remember the time

9: Fine

10: The cross of Christ

11: Three

12: Noah (bonus track)

The eagle eyed among you may have noticed the question marks on track 7, this is because I haven’t actually written the song yet! I will have soon though!

The simple disciple

Often when you read the gospels you can tell that the disciples really had no idea what Jesus was going on about! I wanted to write a song that picked up on this so here it is.

*  *  *  *  *

I remember them well, all the things that he’d tell us

As we sat around the campfire at night

All the cryptic stories about a kingdom of glory

And the battle between darkness and light

And though they always would be very good

Things were never quite what they seemed

And I wouldn’t have minded if I didn’t find it

So hard to see what they really mean.

The old violin

Lucie’s gran used to tell us the most hillarious stories, they would last forever because she would go off on tangents and end up telling us a completely different story before getting back to her original one.  One of our favourites was about when she was about 9 or 10 she used to have violin lessons, she was never very good because she didn’t practice and just wiggled her fingers around until she got the right notes. She used to go for lessons at someones house which had a dance studio on the floor above the music room.  She said that it was hard trying to play violin when there was a herd of young elephants dancing around above your head!

She died last year and when Lucie’s mum was sorting out the house she found the old violin that gran used to play.  it didn’t have any strings or tuning pegs or even a fingerboard, it was just a shell.  She asked if we could get it restored but we decided that it was not worth it so we have put it up on our wall instead!  Anyway when we got the violin I thought that the symbolism and story behind this would make a good song so I wrote one!

Musically it went through about a dozen variations before settling on this one, with a strong nod to the music of C.W.Stoneking.  Enjoy!

*  *  *  *  *

There in the corner, lying alone

battered and bruised, the violin’s bones

It sits there waiting for a tune to be played

But it’s lost it’s voice somewhere on the way

Memories of melodies echoing round

Of Beethoven and Mozart, such glorious sounds

Fingers caressing the long lost strings

on the battered remains of the old violin

Remember the time

The middle section of the album is a series of songs based on the life of Jesus.  This is the end of that section and it is based on Jesus’ “great commission”.  Often when we can’t see the way forward, looking back can give us hope as we can see what God has already done and we are reassured that he will be with us in the future.  This song is basically about that!

*  *  *  *  *

Remember the time when we stood on the shore

And I asked you to follow me

You laid down your nets, gave up all that you had

For nothing but promises

Remember me

This is a simple communion song

*  *  *  *  *

Remember me when I am gone

I know it’s hard but you must carry on

When you eat this bread and drink this wine

Do not forget these words of mine

The cross of Christ

I’ve always loved old hymnals, they are a treasure trove of amazing poetry and theology and are often very beautifull books as well.  This song is based on an old hymn by John Bowring that I found in one of my old hymnals, I reworked the words a bit and added a chorus but it’s essentially the same hymn.

*  *  *  *  *

In the cross of Christ I glory,

towering over all of time

Turns aside the fathers fury,

fills my heart with joy sublime

When life’s troubles overtake me,

hopes deceive and fears annoy

Never shall the cross forsake me,

see it glows with peace and joy

Three

I wrote this for Lucie’s 21st birthday but it took so long for me to get it so I was happy with it that she didn’t actually get to hear it until a few months later!  I played it during my speech at our wedding which got me lots of romantic brownie points!

*  *  *  *  *

Sometimes it seems as if my heart will crack

With the weight of these dreams that I’m trying to pack

For the journey that we’re setting out on

We’re going together

Noah

This is by far the oldest song on the album. I wrote it years ago for a youth led service at our old Church, you may have guessed that the service was about Noah!  We recorded it for the last album (just a glimpse) but for some reason I didn’t actually put it on the record.  Anyway it’s made it here, it’s just a fun song which brings back lots of good memories (the last 2 lines are written on our goddaughter’s bedroom wall)

*  *  *  *  *

Noah was a man who was faithful to God

He lived in the desert long ago

One day God said, “I’m going to flood the earth

And Noah I want you to build a boat”

So In the middle of the desert

In the middle of the desert

In the middle of the desert

Noah built a boat!

Kingdom of Heaven

I wrote this after reading “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell” by Susanna Clarke (one of my favourite books!).  There is loads of amazing imagery in the book about places where the land of Faerie touches England and sometimes you can see through into the other world.  I was captivated by this image and started thinking about the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus talks about and how actually sometimes it does seem like you could just reach out and touch another world so I wrote this song about that.

*  *  *  *  *

Sometimes the kingdom of Heaven feels so close

Like I could peel back the world and let it in

Sometimes the earth feels like a ghost

The light grows faint, the sky feels thin

Joseph’s tale

I wrote this for the Church Christmas party a couple of years ago, it’s one of my favourite songs that I’ve written.  This is one of those songs where you write the first verse with quite a cool but complicated rhyme scheme and then spend the rest of the song wishing you’d not bothered!

*  *  *  *  *

Hello, My name is Joe

I was a carpenter in Nazareth a long time ago

This is my story, it’s one that you might know.

You see Mary, my wife to be,

She got pregnant but the dad wasn’t me

So I planned to divorce her quietly

Fine

I wrote this song while on a retreat weekend at Laund Abbey for the Mission Shaped Ministry course.  I was sitting in the coach house with my guitar and just started playing, before I knew it I’d pretty much finished the song!  We’d just had a seminar on managing conflict and difficulties which is what shaped the theme I think.  It’s a fun song to play on guitar!

*  *  *  *  *

Lying in this place of fear

I wish that I could see you here

So I could see the look in your eyes

Then I’d know it would be alright

You’d hold me through the longest night

And tell me as you look in my eyes

A faith worth sharing

This was written for Soul Purpose, a local mission weekend which takes place in Shrewsbury on the May bank holiday weekend.  The theme a couple of years ago was “A Faith Worth Sharing” so I wrote a song for it! we never actually used it in the end but I like the song so it made the cut for the album.

*  *  *  *  *

We’ve got a message that the world needs to know

We’ve got a mission, Jesus told us to go

We’ve got a purpose from God above

To show justice, mercy and love

We’ve got the Father, ever showing us grace

We’ve got Jesus, who died in our place

We’ve got the Spirit, what more do we need?

We’re gonna take it to the streets!

Psalm 19 sermon

Psalm 19

St Catherine’s, Eyton – 23^rd August 2009

Intro

• Favourite Psalm (v.1-4 anyway!), amazing poetry – One of the most poetic psalms

• I’m in good company – CS Lewis’ favourite

  • “The greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the word”

• 3 distinct sections / voices – creation, law (Scripture), psalmist (David)

• Some questions about the unity of the 2 halves

  • The style changes dramatically after verse 7

  • The name for God changes from “El” (God, creator of all) to “YHWH” (the LORD, the eternal self existent God)

  • the likelihood is that the first part was a fragment from an old pagan hymn which was taken and extended by the Psalmist (David)

Voice 1 – Creation (v1-6)

• First voice is the voice of creation – declaring God’s glory

• The purpose of creation is to praise God, day after day, night after night

  • So many ’speaking’ words in this passage

  • The whole of creation – seen and unseen – is continually worshipping God and testifying to his majesty

  • Their words aren’t audible human words but everyone can understand them (v.3-4)

  • Can seem a strange concept but is similar to, e.g, Flashing blue lights on a vehicle – means “Get out of my way!” without having to use the words “get out of my way!

• v.4b–6 talks about the Sun – joy at praising God

• Every second, 700 billion tons of Hydrogen are burned up at 15,000,000°C, this has been happening for 4.6 billion years and will go on for another 5 billion years!

  • Every day it rises and sets, burning up over 60 quintillion (billion billion) tonnes of hydrogen in the process!

  • Nothing is hidden from it’s heat (come back to that later)

  • That is what God has asked it to do so it does it with joy

  • images of joy – bridegroom (Joel), strong man running (Usain Bolt)

• We can fall into the trap of thinking that the universe is there for us, it’s not! It is there for God

• Another trap is to think that creation itself is to be praised (old pagan hymn)

  • Creation is a sign to God, not God itself

• Creation only gives us general knowledge about the creator, for more specific details about Him and our response to Him we need to turn to his revelation, his word.

Voice 2 – Law (v7-11)

• The Psalmist’s thoughts now turn to the voice of the law with six parallel phrases describing 6 aspects of the Torah.

  • Law, Testimony, Precepts, Commandment, Fear, Ordinances

• Their virtues

  • Perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true, righteous, enduring forever

• And their benefits

  • Reviving the soul, making wise the simple, rejoicing the heart, enlightening the eyes

• Conclusion is that the word of the Lord is ‘more to be desired’ than wealth or sustenance, in keeping them there is great reward!

• Same trap as with creation – the Torah is a sign that points us to God, it is not God itself. It is to be desired but not worshipped.

  • The law “of the LORD” is perfect etc, it is only good because God has made it so.

Voice 3 – Psalmist (v12-14)

• Once the psalmist has reflected on the wonder of God’s creation and the wonders of the law his thoughts turn to himself

• After seeing God’s revelation through the creation and the law he realises his place as a “servant”, who belongs to and depends entirely upon the Lord, he has got his relationship with God very much in perspective!

  • he realises that the depth of his sin is even greater than he could ever know and that it is only by God’s grace that he could be called “blameless” and “innocent”.

  • The word for “hidden” faults is the same as the word in v6 – nothing is “hidden” from it’s heat, unique phrase to this psalm, a deliberate reminder of the fact that no sin is hidden from God.

• He finishes with a prayer – v.14, which is all he can do!

Matthew 8:23-27

• Why did I choose the Matthew reading?

• This story contains all the elements of the psalm:

  • God’s power is clearly displayed in nature – the storm

  • God (Jesus) speaks specifically – “The commandment of the Lord is pure”

  • The disciples response is awe and wonder

Conclusion

• how do we respond?

  • 3 challenges for you (and for me!)

• 1 – How often do you let creation point you to God?

  • When you look up at the night sky do you think “wow the stars are amazing tonight” or “wow, God’s amazing tonight!

  • On top of a mountain – incredible view or incredible God?

  • See a flower – wonderful flower or wonderful God?

  • I know for certain that the stars, the mountains and the flowers are all “telling the glory of God!”

• 2 – How often do you ask God to revive your soul, give you wisdom, fill your heart with joy or enlighten your eyes, without turning to the scriptures where God has promised to do all of the above?

• 3 – When we’re amazed by the sheer number of stars in the sky and realise that the God who knows each one by name

  • Is the same God who chose to speak to us directly through the scriptures in order to draw us into a relationship with Him

  • And is the same God who sent his Son that we might be counted “blameless and innocent of great transgression (v.13)”,

  • what possible response could we ever have other than to bow down in awe and wonder and, with the psalmist, simply pray:

  • “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer”.

  • Amen!

Maundy Thursday

Here are some pictures from our Maundy Thursday service

Ode to a new notebook!

I have just bought a new notebook for writing songs etc., it’s just a cheap WH Smiths reporters notepad but it’s always exciting getting a new book, who knows what will be in it by the time I’ve filled it!

Anyway it seemed appropriate to use the first page to write a short poem to introduce the new book.  I watched a very interesting programme on William Wordsworth the other night so I thought I’d try my hand at writing a sonnet, enjoy!!

‘Ode to a new notebook’

“A new start, full of promise unfulfilled
Blank pages wait for thoughts as yet unheard
An empty canvas waiting to be filled
With memories, poems, songs and empty words
Great works of art will sit with nonsense here
But on these pages all will find a home
Words of faith and hope, of joy and fear
Some to share and some for me alone
A snapshot of a period of time
Will one day lie within this humble book
And when this space is filled with verse and rhyme
We will return to take a closer look
But now we wait in keen anticipation
And listen in to hear the next creation”

Creativity in Church

One of the things I hope to use this blog for is to jot down ideas as I have them which I will then hopefully develop in the future so if some of the things here don’t seem particularly thought through then that’s why!

I have been thinking about the place of creativity in church, partly prompted by reading an article on the Moot Website.  It struck me that, even in our most creative services very few people are actually being creative, most people in the congregation are just ‘consumers’ of the creativity.  there are very few opportunities in our services for members of the congregation to participate creatively.

One of the things I do as  Music Outreach Minister is conduct a fortnightly Windband for adults, we don’t do concerts, we don’t play anything particularly difficult, it’s just a chance for anyone to come along and have fun making music together.  One of the great things about this group is the variety of people and instruments we have, ranging from grandparents to college students, absolute beginners to experienced professionals, from tubas and trombones to flutes and 3 types of saxophone!

It struck me last night as we were practicing that this is a model of how Churches should be.  Everyone is welcome whatever their level of skill or experience, everyone’s contribution is important regardless of how ‘good’ it is, everyone has the opportunity to contribute their particular skills and gifts to the activity of the whole group, there are no spectators – everyone is involved. My role as ‘leader’ is just to bring it all together and encourage everyone to give their best, however that looks.

Too often in Church the majority of people are just spectators watching the leaders ‘perform’, the challenge here is how do we turn our churches into orchestras where everyone’s gifts, skills, experience and contribution comes together into a glorious symphony of praise to God? I don’t know the answer but I’m going to keep searching!

Maundy Thursday ideas

Here are some of the ideas I’m kiicking around for our Maundy Thursday service this Easter.

There are 3 parts to the Maundy Thursday service:
Foot Washing, Communion, The Gethsemane ‘Watch’.

The theme I’m heading towards is “Submission”, This is what stands out to me from Jesus’ behaviour throughout this night. this is played out in the 3 aspect of the story.

Foot Washing:
Jesus submits to the disciples and assumes the role of a servant to wash their feet

Communion:
“This is my body, broken for you”, “This is my blood poured out for you”, these are the ultimate statements of submission and sacrifice

The Gethsemane “Watch”:
“Not my will but yours”, Jesus ultimately submits his will to the Father’s, laying down his own desire and trusting his Father.

Those are the ideas, just have to shape it into a service now!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog!

This will be a place where I will put thoughts and ideas as well as resources, songs, pictures etc.