On vacation for a bit

My family and I will be on vacation for a bit. I'll be back in 2 weeks. I'll post the services then. I read Psalm 150 this morning -- seems like a fitting way to begin a hiatus: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!"
Because of Mercy,
David Read More......

Sunday Setlist 6/28/09

MORNING
Sam Emadi preached Luke 18, the parable of two men praying. This was "Friend Sunday," and the gospel was preached clearly.


Walk-in
Psalm 62

Set
Crown him with many crowns
O my soul
Beneath the cross/getty
O Lord, you're beautiful

B/4 sermon
Knowing you, Jesus

EVENING
Pastor Joe preached John 17:20, Jesus's confidence and care for his church; Since we had a 'family meeting' scheduled (where the elders talk about church business/life), the other elements were truncated.

Walk-in
Praise be to Christ

Set
Glorious things of thee
God's purpose stands (tune: solid rock)
We are the body of Christ
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A Discussion on Worship and Music - in case you missed it

Go here. An 8-part video discussion among Harold Best, Chip Stam (SBTS) and Mike Cosper (Sojourn Church/Louisville) about our corporate singing! Read More......

Sunday Setlist 6/21/09

MORNING
PT preached on Paul's instruction to fathers (Eph 6, Col 3). Music theme: God our Father


WALK-IN
God himself is with us (with some Valley of Vision in there as well)

SET
Great is the Lord (Michael W. Smith)
Praise my soul, the King of heaven (ps 103)
Great is thy faithfulness
You are holy (prince of peace)
How deep the Father's love for us

B/4 SERMON
Always forgiven (sov grace)

EVENING
"The righteousness of God revealed in the gospel"
Romans 1:17/ PS preaching
Music theme: Our Redeemer's righteousness

WALK-IN SONG
Praise be to Christ (a setting of Col. 1:15f) (tune: ye banks & braes)

SET
I know whom I have believed (the new tune we've learned)
I will sing of my Redeemer (tune: hyfrydol)
I boast no more (tune: Lamb of God/T. Paris)
I will glory in my Redeemer (sov grace)

B/4 SERMON
The wonderful cross (Tomlin)
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Best gem -- another one

Consider this wisdom from Harold Best (see below).

"The best way to appreciate a kind of music you're not familiar with is to get the know the people that make it. Music doesn't drive my opinion of others. Getting to know others drives my opinion of their music." [from video series, #3] Read More......

Best gem

Justin Taylor writes this on his blog at Between Two Worlds.

"A mature Christian is easily edified."

Chip Stam cited those words by Harold Best in the first video I linked to earlier. Those words have been rolling around in my heart and mind for the past couple of days.

Easily edified.

Isn't that a wonderful goal--a sign of good mental health and genuine obedience of faith?

Read the rest here.... Read More......

A Discussion on Worship and Music

My friend, Mike Cunningham (music worship leader at Cornerstone Fellowship/Newburgh) sent me the link from the blog, "Between Two Worlds." It's an eight-part video series from Sojourn Church (and here) in Louisville. I'm posting it here, as well. May these three men help us all think more graciously and clearly.

In the videos below Pastor Mike Cosper talks with Dr. Harold Best and Dr. Carl ("Chip") Stam about worship practices, theology, and music.

(Cosper is the pastor of Worship Arts and the 930 Art Center at Sojourn Church in Louisville. Stam is associate professor in the School of Church Music and Worship at Southern, the founding director of the Institute for Christian Worship, and minister of worship at Louisville's Clifton Baptist Church. Best is Dean Emeritus of the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, and the author of Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the Arts and Music Through The Eyes of Faith.)

Session One

Cosper, Best and Stam - session three on worship from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.

Sojourn Worship & Arts Pastor Mike Cosper interviews Dr. Harold Best ("Unceasing Worship," "Music Through The Eyes of Faith") and Professor Chip Stam (Director, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's Institute of Christian Worship) about issues pertaining to Christian worship practices and theology, and the modern worship movement.



Session Two

Cosper, Best and Stam -- session two from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.

Dr, Harold Best ("Unceasing Worship"), Professor Chip Stam (SBTS) and Sojourn Pastor Mike Cosper continue their discussion of worship and church music.

Session Three

Cosper, Best and Stam - session three on worship from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.

Session Four

Cosper, Best and Stam - Session Four from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.

Session Five

Cosper, Best and Stam - Episode Five from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.

Session Six

Cosper, Best and Stam -- episode six from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.

Session Seven

Cosper, Best, Stam: Episode Seven from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.

Session Eight

Cosper, Stam and Best - session eight from Sojourn/The 930 Art Center on Vimeo.

Read More......

Psalm singing / ninth of several

[Spurgeon -- whose hymnal began with a rich and complete psalter]

The fifth of eight reasons why we should sing the psalms regularly, intentionally and methodically.

When you sing the psalms you praise the person and work of Jesus Christ.


I'm taking the liberty of quoting directly from Joe Holland (a PCA church-planting pastor in Virginia). See his discussion here.

One of the most ignorant statements a Christian can make against psalm singing is, "I don't sing psalms because they aren't about Jesus." Too many evangelicals--having unwittingly drunk deep of the Marcionite heresy--have ceased to see the Old Testament, and especially the psalms, as a masterpiece of redemptive history telling in types, shadows, and rituals the person and work of Jesus Christ. When the earliest Christians wanted to sing praise to God for the redemption wrought by Jesus' atoning death they turned to the psalms. It is sheer biblical ignorance and chronological snobbery to assume we can write better songs about Jesus than are provided in the psalms through the lens of the New Testament. To sing the psalms is to sing of the person and work of Christ.

[An added clarification or two to Holland's fine words: We use the psalms, not only to sing of Christ in the promise of redemptive history -- but we also take the psalms as a touchstone to inform us how to sing of Christ now, in the new covenant, now in the time of "better promises" (acc. to Hebrews). In other words, we should also sing hymns now that speak overtly of Christ, his person and work. And so -- to stir a nest, perhaps -- I believe it is appropriate for us to sing the psalms in New Testament paraphrase.

Consider Isaac Watts' treatment of Psalm 72. The psalm speaks, of course, of the coming king. Watts merely makes this Christological grasp explicit. Yesterday we sang "Jesus shall reign," and I titled it, "Psalm 72."

So we sing the psalms because they are, in this sense, "trans-covenantal," songs appropriate to the people of God under old and new covenants. And we also sing hymns (human-composed praise), under the pattern given us by the psalter, in the light of our New Testament. I remember Vern Poythress arguing somewhere from Hebrews 2:12 of the legitimacy of singing overtly New Covenant hymns -- that the text suggests our Lord himself now sings in the fulfillment language of the New Testament. We now sings psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with our Brother.

I'm not sure what Pastor Holland's position is, but to be clear: While I do want us to recover regular psalm-singing, I am not arguing for exclusive psalmody.}
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Sunday Setlist 6/14/09

MORNING
PB preaching Col 1:28-29, on the nature of apostolic preaching
Music theme: praise to God

WALK-IN
Here I am to worship

SET
Jesus shall reign (Ps 72)
How great is our God/Then sings my soul
O church arise (Getty)
You are my all in all

B/4 SERMON
Ancient words

EVENING
PJ preaching John 17:16-19
Music themes: God's Word, consecration

WALK-IN
Praise be to Christ - a setting of Colossians 1:15-20 by Timothy Dudley-Smith, set to tune: Ye Banks and Braes

SET
The worthy lamb ("Revelation 5") -- PT's hymn; music by Joy Malone
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet
Holy Bible, book divine
Psalm 62 - Keyes/Townend

B/4 SERMON
Surrender (sov grace)
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Sunday Setlist 6/7/09

In the morning PJ preached from Luke 16, lessons to be learned from the recent murder of George Tiller, abortionist

The music had been planned around a different theme, before the sermon was changed. Wonderfully, the songs fit! I'm grateful our pastors feel the liberty to speak, now and then, a Biblical response to current events.

walk-in
Arise, my soul, arise

set
Ps 100/doxology
Let your kingdom come
Because we believe
Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
How sweet and awesome

Before sermon
Come to the waters whoever is thirsty (Boice)

Evening Lord's Table
PK preaching

Walk-in
Psalm 62

Set
There is a fountain
How deep the Father's love
Jesus, thank you

At the table
Behold the Lamb
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Sunday setlist 5/31/09

Morning - Friend Sunday
Pastor Joe preached Matt 21:23-32, on the authority of Jesus. Music theme: Jesus our King & Redeemer

Walk-in
As the deer pants for the water
 (fixing the quirky mix of old & new verbs/pronouns in v.1)

Set
Rejoice the Lord is King (lifeway arr.)
We will glorify the King of kings
Psalm 45, "With hearts in love abounding" (tune: AURELIA)

  Harriet Auber's version (from her Spirit of the Psalms, London, 1829), rev.
King of saints! Incarnate God! (tune from "O great God"/kauflin)

  Joseph Hart, from Gadsby

b/4 sermon
Here is love vast as the ocean (did the Matt Redman version)

Evening
Pastor Sam opened up Romans 1:5-6, the "obedience of faith." Music theme: saving faith (which itself is obedience to the gospel)

Walk-in song
Psalm 62 (My soul finds rest in God alone)

Set
I know whom I have believed
Hark! the voice of love and mercy (tune: BEACH SPRING)
Amazing grace/my chains are gone
Beneath the cross (from hymnal, voices alone)

b/4 sermon
Psalm 51, "God be merciful to me"  (Christopher Miner's tune, see indellible grace)

Read More......