Labels: worship

"As worship leaders, we have the important and terrifying task of placing words of prayer on people's lips. It happens every time we choose a song and write a prayer. We also have the holy task of being stewards of god's Word. Our choices of Scripture and themes for worship represent a degree of control over people's spiritual diets, over how they feed on the bread of life. For holy tasks such as these, the church needs more than craftspeople, coordinators, and performers, and none with the hubris to be spiritual engineers. The church needs pastoral people to plan and lead its worship."

"Fire!" breathed Heaven, at the speed of Light
Declaring day, destroying night
Dark struck back with apple’s snake bite
Now swords of fire to guard Eden’s delight

"Fire!" breathed Heaven, cut covenant right
While Abram dreamed of Egypt’s blight
As unconsumed a bush burned bright
Became Firey guide faith’s pillar of sight

"Fire!" breathed Heaven, shew Gideon’s might
Clay pots trumpeting, torch wielding fright
Fire on mountain won Elijah’s fight
Chariot aflame gave Heavenly flight

"Fire!" breathed Heaven, signed inbreaking Light
King chasing star pursued like a kite
In swaddling clothes his mother wrapped tight
Blazing Son of God Satan’s kryptonite

"Fire!" breathed Heaven, on torches of spite
Dark’s final blow, death’s cruciform smite
Candle snuffed out in sepulcher’s plight
Light of World swallowed by tomb’s appetite

"Fire!" breathed Heaven, said Angel in white
Jesus is Risen! A new record height
High Court decision reverses snake’s bite
History’s future demands a re-write

"Fire!" breathed Heaven, Disciples contrite
Amid falling flames of power and might
Unlearned men suddenly erudite
Religious scholars forever uptight

John David Walt, Jr.
Pentecost 2004

Come, Creator Spirit,
visit the minds of those who are yours;
fill with heavenly grace
the hearts that you have made.

You who are named the Paraclete,
gift of God most high,
living fountain, fire, love
and anointing for the soul.

You are sevenfold in your gifts,
you are finger of God's right hand,
you, the Father's solemn promise
putting words upon our lips.

Kindle a light in our senses,
pour love into our hearts,
infirmities of this body of ours
overcoming with strength secure.

The enemy drive from us away,
peace then give without delay;
with you as guide to lead the way
we avoid all cause of harm.

Grant we may know the Father through you,
and come to know the Son as well,
and may we always cling in faith
to you, the Spirit of them both.

Amen.

Labels: Come Holy Spirit, passion year, practicing the story

The music business aspect of Christian music (labels, radio, touring, etc.) will continue to follow the pattern of the world, especially as long as baby-boomers and Gen-X people are in charge. The pattern is an increasingly unsuccessful business model run by people trapped in a system intent on slow, incremental change in the face of monumental cultural shifts.

The music business, Christian and otherwise, has been a wealth-creation mechanism for a small, elite group of executives, songwriters, producers and artists. Those days are over. Still, the old guard won’t go peaceably. They’ll fight for control to the end. When they finally exit, the new music business will be underway.

Nevertheless, the majors (EMI CMG, Provident, Word) are not going out of business anytime soon. They will function as the genre’s archivists and primary copyright holders for music publishing and sound recordings. Unfortunately, the majority of the recordings created over the last 35+ years were “youth targeted” mainstream music knock-offs at their conception and designed to get past a host of gatekeepers with agendas other than the promotion of good music. This will prove to be a significant future problem. All the companies will continue to downsize as the cumulative catalog devalues over time. Ultimately, there may be only one company left to steward the music of the “ccm” era. That company will be Bill Hearn’s to lead if he wants it.

Christian music as a genre has always been a music you move on from. Young Christian baby-boomers and Gen-X once in love with the music abandoned it in adulthood and have not returned. As a result, legacy artist catalogs (ranging from Larry Norman to Amy Grant to dcTalk and beyond) do not and will not have the staying power of their mainstream counterparts such as The Beatles, The Eagles, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Celine Dion, James Taylor, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and U2. All these artists, and a hundred others, remain popular and economically viable today. Sadly, the pattern does not hold true for what was contemporary Christian music.

Trevin Wax: For all of the right focus on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, many evangelical Christians see the resurrection as some sort of ‘after-thought’ to what happened at Calvary. You have done much to correct this with works such as The Resurrection of the Son of God. But the ascension of Christ is perhaps even more neglected than his resurrection. The Western Church is preparing to celebrate the Ascension, an oft-neglected Christian holy day. Why is the Ascension so important and what would you recommend pastors do to increase the celebration of this monumental event?

N.T. Wright: If I could mention another new book, Acts for Everyone, which just came out, has (of course) material on the Ascension. When I was writing that book this time last year, I was very excited about the Ascension. I had done some things in connection with the Ascension for Surprised by Hope, but I hadn’t worked through it exegetically in the way I did with Acts for Everyone.

I think the problem that we have had comes from the wrong conception of heaven. Once you start to think of heaven, not as a place miles up in the sky, but as God’s dimension of reality which intersects with ours (but in a strange way that is to us unpredictable and uncontrollable), certainly then you realize that for Jesus to go into the heavenly dimension, is not for him to go up as a spaceman miles up into space somewhere, and not for him to be distant or absent now. It is for him to be present, but in the mode in which heaven is present to us. That is, it’s just through an invisible screen, but present and real.

The key thing to realize, as in the Old Testament, in Daniel, for example, is that heaven is the control room for what happens on earth. I think I do say this in Surprised by Hope actually. Heaven is basically where earth is run from. And it’s because we haven’t taken seriously the language of Matthew 28, where Jesus says, “All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth,” that we haven’t thought of it like that. We’ve thought of it like, He’s gone away, leaving us to run things. No. He is in heaven. He is in charge. He is the Lord. That’s true right now. Now, how his lordship works out is then through the work of the church. But he is the Lord and is present with and through his church, as we are doing what we are called to do.

To celebrate that at the Ascension is huge. It’s radical. It’s very, very important. I’m looking forward to Ascension Day. I love it. It’s a wonderful feast!

Trevin Wax: So, the Ascension is also pointing us to waiting for the day when the invisible screen is gone?

N.T. Wright: Of course. The Ascension properly allows us to understand the Second Coming. Again, it isn’t a matter of Jesus as a spaceman flying downwards. It’s the screen being removed and his reappearing. When I was working on the lectures that turned into Surprised by Hope, I realized that so many of the key passages speak of “his appearing,” not merely “his coming.” And “coming” is a good way to express the truth, because it appears he is now absent and so then if he appears to us, then it is as though he has come and has arrived. But the Second Coming is more like an unveiling or appearing.