Preparing For Worship: March 1, 2009

So how's it going? Is this blog helpful? Does it help get us a bigger picture of what the corporate experience of "church" should be? Is it helping us to see that we play an active roll in the worship "service?" (that's why it's called a "service" in the first place...)

If I can be an encouragement to you at all, I notice many of you actively participating in our times of corporate worship. I can see it in your faces, and I can see it when we're studying the Word together, and in the crowded hallway in between services.

For those of you still thinking about breaking out of your shell, hopefully you are encouraged by those you worship with, and will grow into that sort of active edification church-goer we're talking about.

I think it's time to look ahead even further. Time to look outside what happens at 9:00 and 10:30 on Sunday mornings. Time to look at how we can be active participants in the corporate LIVING experience. How we can take the same energy, love, concern, and service into our community. How can we "enjoy the favor of all the people" like the early church did in Acts?

I won't go into specifics right now, as there is nothing official on the calendar as of yet, but just start to think of what God could do through our body of believers if we took church outside of 28042 Ave. Stanford, Unit D, and put it into Valencia, and the Santa Clarita valley at large.

Now on to this Sunday!

We are celebrating the Lord's Supper this Sunday, and continuing on in our study of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6. So CLICK HERE to read the passage and prepare to study it together. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your ears to hear the truth and power in this passage that reminds us that we need to store up treasure not here on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves steal; but to store it up in heaven where it will endure forever.

We'll start the service with a few songs that draw us together in unity to praise the Lord: "How Good and Pleasant" and "Come Thou Fount."

Then Pastor Todd will come and lead us in prayer for our morning, that it might be a pleasing offering to the Lord.

We'll sing some more and remember the greatness and majesty of God as we sing "Indescribable" and then remind ourselves of how that same majesty reached down in the form of his son to redeem us as we sing "Majesty."

Pastor Todd will then come and teach us, and we'll have the opportunity to respond with the Lord's Supper, and set this special time aside to remember him, and the work of the cross. While we share communion, we'll sing "The Power of the Cross" and then we'll close our time with "Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross" as a reminder that in our Christian lives we never "move beyond" the cross, that we must always be found at its foot. This is the theme of one of our books of the month: The Cross Centered Life by CJ Mahaney.

Anyway, that's what's going on; happy preparation!

Good Christian Music? U2: No Line on the Horizon

"I was born to sing for you / 

I didn't have a choice but to lift you up / 

And sing whatever song you wanted me to / 

I give you back my voice / 

From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise / 

Only love, only love can leave such a mark."

So sings Bono of U2, from their latest album "No Line on the Horizon." Bono has always fluttered around in a kind of spiritual obscurity, but this seems more pointed than anything since their old stuff...

You can stream the entire album for free on U2's Myspace page, click HERE.

Preparing For Worship: February 22nd, 2009

"Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."

As Pastor Todd said last week, this Sunday we'll finish looking at Jesus' pattern for prayer in Matthew 6.  This portion of the prayer is often times our favorite, as it involves asking for stuff for the most important person in our lives: OURSELVES.  ;)

Come ready to sing this week, and take a look at the video clips of the songs we'll be singing so you can refresh your memory, and maybe just jam out a little in front of your c

omputer screen...

We'll start with about the resurrection, and the joy of knowing our Lord is alive: "See What A Morning," and then for all you Crossroads veterans, we're going to do a song that you used to do often before I came around. It's an older Chris Tomlin song called "Unchanging" and if you don't remember a time when I wasn't leading worship at Crossroads, you might want to check the song out because it might seem new to you!

Pastor Todd will come and lead us in prayer to commit the morning to the glory of God, and then have us greet each other with a holy kiss.  Probably not, but hey, it's biblical... I guess spouses could go for it, or people you're like reeeeaaaally close to... 

ANYWAY...we'll continue singing the truths of scripture in "Psalm 62" which describes God as our strong and impenetrable fortress of protections, and then we'll sing "Mighty to Save" which describes that same immense and unlimited strength and power over our sin.

Then it's sermon time, and we've got a really cool little treat for you right before the sermon involving one of our Crossroads kids and The Lord's Prayer...

Come prepared to study hard after what God would have you take away from this message, and prepared to, if need be, change your way of thinking, or change your behavior, or both, in order to more fully conform to the image of Christ found in God's Word. God's Word isn't a collection of nice stories, it's a manual for living, and its truth is life changing, but only if we're willing to effect that change in our day to day.

We'll respond to the message with song, and sing the old hymn "Praise to the Lord" which is a little reminder to our souls about God's sovereignty and providence over us and to us.  We'll end with "Give Us Clean Hands" as a prayer that we might be a generation that seeks God's face in all things.

That's what's going on; happy preparation!

Good Christian Music AND Thinking Globally!!

Compassionart: Creating Freedom From Poverty

Review from Christianity Today:

Sounds like … an amalgam of congregational and radio-friendly worship choruses sung by some of the biggest names in Christian and worship music.

At a glance … though musically on par with most meat-and-potatoes worship music, CompassionArt is groundbreaking for its approach, logistics, and charitable intentions.

Track Listing
1. Come to the Water
2. Shout Praise
3. King of Wonders
4. Lead Me to the Rock
5. We Won't Stay Silent
6. Highly Favoured
7. Fill My Cup
8. Friend of the Poor
9. King of the Broken
10. You Have Shown Us
11. Until the Day
12. Let It Glow
13. So Great
14. There Is Always a Song
15. There Is Always a Song (Reprise)

The inextricable bond between religion and social justice is as old as James' charge to visit the fatherless and the widows while keeping oneself undefiled from the world. Of late, more and more artists, especially worship leaders, are embracing that challenge, creating songs that not only encourage believers to reach upwards, but outwards, too—to the outcasts, the downtrodden, the least of these.

CompassionArt: Creating Freedom from Poverty is easily the most ambitious, sprawling initiative to arise out of that desire to date. It all began when Delirious frontman Martin Smith couldn't reconcile his comfortable Western lifestyle with that of the people he encountered in his worldwide travels—especially those too poor, too hungry, or too exploited to speak up.

And so CompassionArt, the charity, was born. The idea for the nonprofit appeared novel on paper but was logistically formidable. In a nutshell, the plan was to invite the biggest worship songwriters in CCM—including Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Paul Baloche, Tim Hughes, Darlene Zschech—to a retreat and see what songs would spring from their collaborative efforts. Making the challenge even more difficult was the goal of giving 100 percent of the publishing royalties collected in the song's entire lifetime to charity. All of it.

Nothing quite like this has ever been done. There have been scores of charity singles, albums, and concerts to benefit those less fortunate, but it's unheard-of for a concerted chorus of artists, managers, publishers, and music administrators to forever relinquish their piece of the pie for an entire album—especially at a time when the music industry is tightening its belt more and more.

This collective act of generosity makes it difficult to review CompassionArt without risking sounding at least a bit cynical. But let's face it: the only way both the disc and the charity will go places is if these songs are picked up by churches and become the next "Here I Am to Worship" or "How Great Is Our God." (Airplay is nice, but it's nowhere near as lucrative as scoring a Sunday-morning smash.)

Martin and his co-laborers know this, so they took great pains to write songs that are sweeping in scope and congregational in spirit. The single "King of Wonders," for example, hits all the right buttons to become CompassionArt's most likely candidate to shoot up the radio charts and church set lists. Its soaring melody—carried with Brit-pop abandon by Redman, Hughes, and Hillsong United's Joel Houston—is to die for, even when the sentiments are familiar for the decade-old modern worship canon.

Many songs follow the same pattern: a strong melody coupled with a straightforward lyric. On more than one occasion, the words will touch on the social justice theme ("Friend of the Poor," "You Have Shown Us") and even make direct references to Africa and orphans, but thematically things are kept as accessible and immediate as possible.

That's not to say there aren't curveballs. For all its similarities to something Passion or Delirious might do, "Come to the Water" is given an ethnic flair thanks to the Watoto Children's Choir and adlibs from gospel superstar Kirk Franklin. It seems Franklin is only there for effect. Other than marquee value, it's unclear why he or tobyMac, with whom he trades microphones with in "Let It Glow," are included in a collection of worship songs.

Elsewhere, Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith offer up a lovely duet ("Highly Favoured") that ranks with other classic performances by the duo, while Israel Houghton turns in a high-powered gospel-funk number that recalls his work with Lakewood Church. But the most soulful and celebratory moment comes with "Fill My Cup," a marriage of Americana and gospel where handclaps, an upright piano, and lead vocals by Smith and CeCe Winans bring the house down, O Brother Where Art Thou-style.

CompassionArt has a tendency to sonically be all over the place, but it's pulled together by its charitable purpose. In practice, only a handful of these songs are true homeruns for congregational use, but then again, the church has always had the last word. As worship leaders look to these songs for their weekend services, let's hope they choose with their heart.


Go out and pick up this album! I'm really excited to find some good songs for us to sing together at Crossroads! It's on sale for $14.99 at Family Christian Stores (the one on Lyons).

Preparing For Worship: February 15th, 2009

My apologies if any of you felt ill-prepared for last week, as I did not post a Preparing For Worship!

Here's what we can look forward to this Sunday as we continue to study the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6. This week Jesus teaches us how to pray...

And the singing! Oh the singing there will be! We'll start the service with "Here I Am to Worship" and "For You Are The Lord." Then Pastor Todd will come lead us in prayer and a time to welcome and greet each other, and our visitors.

Next we'll sing some songs that help prepare us to study the first part of The Lord's Prayer; with the perspective that worship and prayer start with God, and not with us: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be YOUR name... "Ancient of Days" and "Lord Jehovah."

Pastor Todd will then come and teach us the pattern for prayer that Jesus lays out for us in the Lord's Prayer.

We'll respond with a time of worship and prayer, and sing "How Great Is Our God" together as we close the service.

That's what's happening this week so rest up, eat lots of carbs, stretch, and keep your knees bent, and come prepared to worship!

Quote from Keith Getty

Co-author of "In Christ Alone" and writer of many modern hymns:

"The contemporary generation talks a lot about songs having to sound contemporary for the unchurched to listen to. In my experience of having non-Christian friends attend Christian events or church, they're much more warmed when everyone is singing passionately and confidently, rather than somewhere somebody's trying to do something half as well as it might be done on MTV, or where everybody in the congregation is standing around and staring. Nine times out of ten, they're acutally quite embarrassed by that.

If I've got non-Christian friends coming to church, I'd far rather give them four verses of comparatively heavy theology with some theological words which explain the gospel, than give them twenty repeated words that could be said about your pet horse or your girlfriend."