Make Love, Make War (a book review)

Brian Doerksen has written a variety of well-known contemporary worship songs and in Make Love, Make War: NOW Is the Time to Worship, he gives a “behind-the-scenes” look at 12 of the songs he has written or co-written over his music writing career.

As this book opens, it reminded me of a cross between a literature class and a personal memoir. Passages like

“Musically the chorus was anchored around the root note and chord to signify that the trisagion is at the center of it all. I then experimented until I found that the right melodic anchor for the action words of the verse was the F note – the fifth degree of scale”

may be informative but in no way drew me into the book's context of worship. The line-by-line analysis of word choices, while interesting, were also difficult because I was not familiar with all of the songs he includes. (Perhaps an accompanying CD would have been a helpful option.) It isn’t until later chapters that he transitions to the stories behind some of the songs, and through them begins to really reveal his heart about the role of worship in different aspects of church life and personal spiritual growth in a compelling manner.

Songwriters and worship leaders will find certain aspects of this book more applicable than others. The songwriting tips at the end of each chapter, or his reference to certain song formats that are not explained for the lay person will no doubt carry more impact for musicians. However, Doerksen still manages to touch on some of the key components of worship that apply to all, and may serve as a personal challenge to reconsider the role of worship in a Christ-like life.


Review copy provided by The B&B Media Group.

The Butterfly Circus (a Doorpost Film Project)

I cannot begin to explain how deeply this touched me. The film is 20 minutes and I encourage you to take time to watch it. What a message of hope and a reminder of the unique design God has given each of us.

The hedge

I was reading a couple nights ago and as so often happens, a single word really caught my attention:

Satan was talking to God about Job and Satan says this:

"Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?"

(Job 1:10)

I love the idea of God's hedge. I have a hedge around my yard that provides privacy, shelter, protection and beauty. God's hedge might look like mine, or it might look more like a bristling row of angelic warriors, ready to do battle. We don't know what that hedge is made of. But we can still know it's there.

There are times I count on the hedge. It's good to rest in God's protection. But as the story of Job continues, we also know that Job's faith didn't depend on the hedge. Even when it felt like God's protection has been stripped away, he didn't turn his back on God.

The questions of why God allows evil, or the problem of pain, or why "good" people suffer are questions people have struggled with for a very long time. But in those moments when it feels like we're not sure of God's presence, or that we're under attack, I hope that you too can find comfort in knowing that God still has his hedge around us and that nothing gets through without His consent.

Adiaphorism

I subscribe to A Word A Day and every day, Monday to Friday, a new word is delivered to my inbox. Some are exciting, some are obscure, some are fascinating. One of the words this week was

adiaphorism
(ad-ee-AF-uh-riz-uhm)

Meaning: Tolerance or indifference, especially in the matters of religion.

The editor's note added that "Adiaphorism is the idea that things not specifically prohibited by the Scriptures may be treated with indifference (i.e. they are permissible)."

Now I had never heard this word before but it struck me that I should have. Tolerance and indifference in religion are all too common these days. Some churches, in trying to find the line between cultural relevance and Biblical teaching seem to have decided that a spot of adiaphorism is the safest way to go. They like the definition of tolerance that says "leeway for variation from a standard." In a sense, tolerance has become indifference. (For an interesting discussion on tolerance, visit Wikipedia's page on toleration.)

The attitude becomes "let's cut ourselves a little slack, after all God is love." Or worse, it becomes "All roads lead to God." And so we can pick and choose the bits of religious habit or teaching that makes us comfortable or happy and simply ignore the rest.

Do you see a problem with that?

I'm afraid I do. God's word makes it clear that indifference is inadequate. And that He can't tolerate sin. I think we need to be wary of adiaphorism by getting more familiar with God Himself. Know His heart of love but study His holiness, too. Don't be as concerned with how much deviation from the standard you can have. Instead get to know The Standard by heart.

Secondhand Jesus (a book review)

Glenn Packiam, in Secondhand Jesus: Trading Rumors of God for a Firsthand Faith, joins a growing number of authors addressing “authentic” Christian faith, challenging people to look beyond the customs, habits or traditions of Christianity to the Holy God that wants to know and love each of us individually.

Beginning with a moment when his own foundation was shaken (Packiam refers to it as a “what the heck?” moment), Packiam combines his personal experience with the stories of the ark of the covenant to demonstrate how operating from a rumor of God - an assumption about His character or his role - plays out in real lives both modern and historical. It’s a unique weaving together that he eventually brings to a crux when he asks, “But what exactly does that look like? How does that work in the real world?”

Packiam’s style is a blend of scholarship, Biblical reference and personal experience. Some of the personal anecdotes were too far beyond my experience to be able to really connect with the challenges that spurred this journey for him, but with some thought I could usually find a comparable personal situation that related to the chapter's theme. I did find it interesting that in reading through the book, I could put it down at the end of a chapter and not be sure I’d grasped Packiam’s point, but then the concepts and examples he’d used would come readily to mind in conversation after conversation during the days that followed.

For many Christians this book would serve as a challenge to re-examine their Christianity and the role God is truly playing in their faith. For others, it may serve in the sense that an annual visit to the doctor does – a chance to double-check and make sure things are still on track. There are discussion questions at the end of each chapter to help with personal application or it could even be used as part of a small group study. Either way, Secondhand Jesus will be faith-changing if you take the time to think through the challenge Packiam presents.


Review copy provided by The B&B Media Group.

Too funny to pass up

I gotta tell you, I love this joke:

A priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says,

"What is this - some kind of joke?"

(Ba--dum- dum) Insert laugh track here ...

Those church words

There are words we toss around in Christian circles that are rich in both concept and meaning but sometimes for those outside those circles or just new to them, they can sound like so much jargon. Even to those of us that use them, they can become rather cliche. But with a little time and attention, those words express different aspects of the lavish love God has extended to us. For example, Paul writes:

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. (Romans 3:22-25a NIV, emphasis mine)

Here are some of my favorite ways to define a few of those words:

Righteousness - "Right standing" with God - we are "put right" with God

Justification - "Just as if I never sinned." - we are made right again before a holy and just God.

Grace - "God's riches at Christ's expense." - Christ's sacrifice paid the whole price to make us co-heirs with him, something we can neither earn or deserve. (see Romans 8:17)

Redemption - "bought back or claimed" - Just as you must redeem a gift certificate to claim the prize, God redeemed us and claims us as his own. There's ownership in redemption. We become God's own.

Atonement - "At-one-ment" - we are brought back to God's original plan of relationship through Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

Think about these words and let them amaze you with their story of God's extravagant love.