A Poem by Mark Van Steenwyk

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Summer Dinner on the Porch

Cranked up the grill and sat out on the porch until it got dark, smiling at passersby. We put our feet up and crossed our arms across our chests and…

Nicaragua

 

How to Write a Contemporary Christian Worship Song…

We were at the worship section of a youth conference last night that just happened to be in town this week. It made me think that if someone were to write a book on how to write contemporary christian worship music it would have handy dandy information like:

Cut and paste lyrics from Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, Steven Curtis Chapman and whoever else and just randomly glue them together with words like hallelujah, Jesus reigns, and oh God. And don’t forget to unashamedly employ repetition to increase the longevity of the songs, either. It works well, and people seem to like it.

It doesn’t really matter what the songs mean or say, people are going to eat them up. And if we can time the drum solo just write (at the height of one of the repetitive parts) then people can have a really moving spiritual experience. 

It works something like this:

Holy God of everything big and small, greater than anything we could ever know, I feel you near so close to my heart, I need to see you more and more.

I see you in the sky, the stars, all of creation shouts your praises, we shout, so loud, out loud, we lift our voices up to you. We lift our voices up to you, up to you (drum solo), up to you.

I don’t know, crap like that, it’s so easy (only took me 2 minutes, I’m so used to singing this stuff). 

Anyway, someone really should get a book like this out there in the market, it could make billions (and God knows we need more christian books even more than we need more christian worship music).

The Lord’s Prayer

We’ll call you father, even though your name is far beyond being spoken, or understood. Your ways, too, are mysterious, the customs and traditions of your kingdom are strange. Puzzling as they are, we are convinced, and we long to see them gain more and more momentum here on this earth. You have bewildered us and we are overcome, but you have given us the strength to live out today in the name of Jesus and in the inexplicable ways of your kingdom (by faith, not understanding). You have even given us the strength to lay our hearts down, open and wounded in forgiveness like you did. Cradle us. Grasp us. We cannot grasp you. 

This was inspired by the prayer Jesus taught his disciples and a book by Peter Rollins called “How (Not) To Speak Of God”. 

Just as the heavens are higher…

This is some version of what I confessed to the “kids” last night:

I caught this pretty funny/convicting cartoon the other day on a webzine I read. It reminded me so much of myself it scared me. Really, it did. I mean, I get so up in arms about how Jesus is about love, that I hate those who disagree with me. I’m a walking contradiction (please, don’t feel sorry for me).

I got so mad this past Monday about what’s wrong with people/the world/the church that it nearly broke me. And even to this moment, you cannot convince me that I was wrong about what I thought/think was wrong. I still do.

But my previous Friday and Saturday were totally different. See, I’d been in that critical, cynical, funk for a while, but my weekend was not like that. It was a good long while of not thinking about what is wrong with everything. It was the closest to God I’d felt in some time.

But I let myself go on Monday, and I woke up Tuesday unable to figure out where God’s peace had gone, and the joy, and the love. But it just felt SO RIGHT to get pissed about all that is infuriating. It really did. But if God said that “just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” and “so right…” led me away from his peace, love and joy, than maybe God has something else in mind for my not being cool with the way the world is. Something that doesn’t lead me to where I went on Monday. 

I want that. I do, and even though it felt so right to satisfy my need for… whatever… it’s as stupid as raping to end the problem of rape. It’s using the methods of this world to fix the problems of this world. God’s ways are different. I wish I could put my head/heart around what that really means.

Reggie McNeal

This is Reggie McNeal speaking to a group at the One Thing conference for the Reformed Church of America. I first saw a reference to these talks on TSK’s blog (in a post talking about the house church movement). I liked the talks so much I showed the first one to our kids after bible study and even hosted a lunch for our church staff (before staff meeting) to show that same one. They are each about 45 min long, so pace yourself.