The Church is a Feast-Factory
Christians come into worship to inhabit time. When we forsake worship, we lose track of time; we live in a foreign time zone. But when we come into worship, we come into heavenly time; a time when the Church communes with the king of time, Jesus Christ. Worship allows everyone to be in the same rhythm, marching with the beat of the liturgy.
The pre-resurrection church was in the dark. They couldn’t read the time accurately, and everyone’s clocks were set according to their own schemes. The false teachers drew us away from real-time. They perverted the rules of time. They made up time and forsook the time of the Torah and the prophets.
But the resurrection of Jesus gave us uncorrupted time; without perversion. The Church walked in accordance with the time of heaven.
She has since been feasting since AD 33 with gusto! And as long as she communes with Jesus and continues in this long-time-tested tradition of gathering and lifting their voices, she won’t lose track of time.
The Church is a feast-factory; she produces clocks for a world gone mad; a world lost in sadness that arranges life according to her own time-zone. The world has no sense of time, so she makes her own time. But God has ordained one time, one day, to come as one.
While the world fabricates parties to make sense of time, the church parties on since that glorious day when time saw a stone rolled away and a resurrected Lord triumph over the gates of hell.
Time is on our side. And therefore, let us join the feast! Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!
The Revival of Psalm-Singing
Psalm singing is experiencing a revival today. Sacred harp groups are increasing in the U.S. and Europe, and Sea Chanties have catapulted in popularity, chanting has also returned to the life of many congregations. Our little band of churches in the CREC has made Psalm singing a central part of our mission. And you may ask, “What is behind such a renewal of interest in singing sacred music?”
Three elements stand out:
First, people seek permanent things whenever a society undergoes tumult and confusion. They flee from the fleeting. They seek things that stabilize their culture and those who they love. Music, especially biblical music, offers consolation and strength when nothing else in society makes sense.
Second, many are discovering that church music is not as complicated as it appears. Reading music, or at least following sheet music, is achievable, even for those who did not grow up in musical homes or churches. All it takes is a few good practices, and suddenly, we are singing things that, on paper, look quite complicated. If you put a few folks together with a few simple songs with a few predictable lines, you can easily sing a metrical psalm, and then if you take it to the next step, you may learn a through-composed psalm and then a fugue tune, and then the sky is the limit. But ultimately, all it takes is a willingness to learn something new.
And finally, this renewal has come because parents have seen the benefits of singing in their own homes. Even if they did not grow up in singing homes, they now see the fruits of singing in their homes and among their children, congregational music moves from the eucharist table to the tables of our homes and even at work.
Tonight, we have a selection of Psalms (and a couple of hymns) that fit lots of these layers of knowledge. We have a chant, which is quite predictable, but then we have a fugue tune that will require a bit of work and several things in between.
I pray this evening will further encourage you to pursue Psalm singing. May this revival be more than a fad or a trend; it should be a way of life for God’s people.
Our De-Ritualized Culture
But the Apostle Paul is skilled in the Hebraic culture, and the Apostle Paul understands that the Bible is embedded in a culture where rites of entrance are given to people, and where entryways are needed so that a person can be transferred from one old world to a new world.
Man Rampant, NSA, Hale Institute, and Moods
Pastoral Theology and Anti-Jewishness Moods
Baptism and Our History
One of the joys of life at Providence is seeing children come to the baptismal font. We see these scenes often in our church, which is a sign of life. We witness the Spirit’s work in the waters of baptism, and I hope every baptism you witness becomes a reminder of who you are and what you are called to do. Baptism connects us to that great historical record that goes all the way back to Acts 2.
We are reminded that at Pentecost, that new beginning for the Church, the Spirit of God was poured on the heads of the early church, and that church was propelled to baptize the nations. 3,000 were baptized and joined that new movement beginning in Jerusalem and going to the ends of the earth.
Immediately after, household after household began to be baptized because God’s faithfulness is to you and your children. He does not change his plans but confirms them, and he does change his recipients, but he receives them.
This morning, God is bringing these little ones into the church’s life so that they may enter into the same Pentecost spirit of Acts 2. These little ones are receiving a new beginning. They are entering the waters of baptism and joining the prophets and kings and priests, the households of Acts and the billions baptized ever since. Today marks the start of a new identity, a new way of moving, being, and living in the presence of God.
How the CREC got on Tucker Carlson twice in one week
What would cause a small denomination of about 130 churches worldwide to have two representatives–in the span of seven days–interviewed by one of the most listened-to shows in the world?
It requires what I call “happy generalism.” You must desire an ecclesiastical culture that is at ease in the priestly world of Exodus and the heavenly world of thronerooms in Revelation, who sits in the Shire, Wessex, Middle Earth, and walks through wardrobes.
To have something worth sharing, you need curiosity about the world. In other words, you cannot be interesting unless you are filled with interests. A happy generalist must be saturated with imagination, ready to twist the plot at any second, prepared to explicate things from a unique angle, avoid cliches, and see the world through new eyes.
I guarantee you that this is not the fruit of public education nor a steady dose of Fox News; it is a mind equipped with the literature of the West, biblical preaching, abundant discourse and dialogues, festive meals, and champagne toasts.
I have seen congregations of 50 people achieve more publicly and intellectually than congregations of 5,000. No one should be allergic to growth, but we should all be allergic to incurious growth, the kind of increase that happens merely on emotive or entertainment grounds.
This week has been more than instructive. We have seen that good ideas articulated carefully, rooted in undaunted courage, can take you to some of the biggest platforms. In those places, you can tell millions that Christ is risen indeed, halleluiah!
The Scattered Seed Podcast on my Life and New Book
This was an enriching interview. I was able to offer some of my history in pursuing pastoral ministry and then delve into the purpose of the armor of God. The questions were engaging, and the conversation flowed easily.
I have done hundreds of interviews, but these guys set the bar pretty high for excellency.
Racism and the Seatbelt Society
Various forms of racial/ethnic animosity are a common thread in a disenchanted world. It is far easier to find massive scapegoats to alleviate our people’s political and social sins or our own.
In this paradigm, we can live reactionarily, passing out guilt cards to everyone else and every people group but ourselves. Then, our mistakes can be atoned for and absolved by those who regurgitate the same priestly language. It’s “their fault” is not a 21st slogan. It is as old as midday in the Garden of Eden. This model chooses a seatbelt society specializing in safety but never giving heed to the adventure of responsibility.