How Great is our God
On Wednesday night we watched a great dvd called “How Great is our God”. The video, taught by Louie Giglio, is about how amazingly BIG God is and transversely how pathetically small we are. But despite the vast distinction between God and man He chose to become like us and die in our place giving us the opportunity to have right relationship with Him.
Many of you from Calvary Crook County have been asking about how to obtain the video we watched on Wednesday Night. Here is a link to a pre-release of all 4 of Louie Giglio’s talks on dvd. It’s only $35 and will be available on March 24th.
Worship
I believe the Church is in an absolute state of ignorance in regard to what is, actually worship.
There are at least 3 misconceptions that lead to this ignorance.
1. Music has been confused with worship -
Music is certainly a part of worship but we’ve made it the totality of how we define worship. This has bred the wrong thinking that “worship” is what happens at the beginning of the church service on Sunday mornings. Certainly worship includes singing and instrumentation but at other times it looks a like washing a dish, serving the needy, having a conversation with a friend, or some other mundane task that we’ve relegated to the secular portion of our life. It’s also created this “I’m of Apollos…” mentality that can only “worship” with a certain style of music. Leading people to say ridiculous things like, “the worship wasn’t very good this morning.” Really? Because last time I checked, God is still unbelievably amazing and completely worthy of our worship whether or not the band was tight.
2. Worship has been compartmentalized -
Worship is not something we can start and stop doing. Nor is it something we do only when we participate in certain activities. Worship is what we do with our entire life (Romans 12:1-2). The question is not, am I worshiping, but who or what am I worshiping. Unfortunately most of our worship is centered on self. We live in a self-consumed culture that believes the world revolves around me and my needs. There are many things vying for our worship. Like the Athenians whom Paul described as “very religious” so too we bow at the altar of money, sex, education, entertainment, pleasure, and a myriad of other gods on a daily basis. It’s no wonder that we struggle to “enter into worship” during our corporate times of music at church.
3. We’ve lost sight of the glory of God -
If we truly understood the glory of God we would never have difficulty “entering into worship”. We would never relegate worship to a style of music or to something so small as, whether or not I know the songs. In Luke 7 we find a crowd of people who just witnessed Jesus raise a widow’s son from the dead. This crowd is initially filled with fear but that fear turns into worship as they realize that this Man is a prophet and more than a prophet He is God in human flesh (Luke 7:11-17). No one had to whip this crowd into a frenzy…they didn’t need to repeat some trite phrase until they were delirious enough to truly “worship”. These people had a true encounter with the glory of God and the only logical response was to worship. When we truly experience Jesus and His glory it will create such an overwhelming need to worship that we won’t care what kind of music is being played, how we feel, or if everything in my life is going the way I think it should for God to be worthy of the effort.
The only response will be…
Here I am Lord. Take me. Consume me. Use me for Your glory.
For more information on this subject check out -
My latest message from Luke 7:1-17 (see the sermon player to your right)
Also check out John Piper’s writings and sermons on the subject.
Conference with Gayle Erwin (Day 1)
I am currently attending a private conference hosted by Pastor Chuck Lind and CC Olympia
The speaker is well known author and teacher Gayle Erwin
The conference is very casual…almost like sitting around a living room listening to your grandpa tell stories from long ago.
Gayle has been pretty candid about his opinions regarding worship, preaching, and the direction of Calvary Chapel as a movement.
In Session #1 of Day 1 Gayle spent a great deal of time dealing with worship. He believes that worship has become too slick and professional. Too many lights, loud sound systems, and songs no one but the leader knows. Some of this is opinion based upon his age and background. But we would be wise to evaluate our corporate worship to ensure that we aren’t losing the simplicity of adoring Jesus in the midst of our techy show. He also pontificated about plants and pulpits in the sancturary. He believes that we should remove any barriers between us (the preacher) and the congregation. Apparently that includes the cheesy fake greenery that is as much a fixture in evangelical churches as a cross. Personally I like to use a pulpit. We are in the process of having a new one made out of metal that will be much more modern than our current wood model so I think I will just agree to disagree with Gayle on this one. As to the plastic plants…yeah those should be burned along with any and all Left Behind movies.
In session #2 Gayle shared about preaching. He believes pastors should employ humor but only humor that doesn’t make anyone besides yourself the brunt of the joke. This pretty much puts my humor out of business. 
He recommended puns and slap stick. Hmmm. I don’t think I am willing to stoop to that level to get people to laugh. I will just stick to my sarcasm and self-deprication.
He made some great points about connecting with people; making the Bible come alive by placing yourself in the story, using personal illustrations instead of canned stories from a book, and keeping things simple so that even children can track with you. Gayle has always modeled these principles well in his teaching and it was a good reminder for me in my desire to make the Word come alive for each and every person listening to me.
In the last part of the second session Gayle talked at great length about the Calvary Chapel movement and his desire to see us return to simply loving Jesus and pointing others to Him. He doesn’t understand why our movement is so infatuated with the Emerging/Emergent Church.
“If it wasn’t for Calvary Chapel their 15 minutes of fame would have been up a long time ago…we’re keeping that thing going by talking about it all the time.”
I couldn’t agree more. Just preach Jesus and Him crucified. Let Jesus take care of His Church.
He also warned against being content with what has happened in the past and not pursuing our own move of God in the present. Amen Gayle! I don’t know about you but I wasn’t even born during the Jesus Movement. And while I praise God for the heritage I’ve been given, my desire is to see God do something amazing and fresh in my own generation.
Stay tuned…Conference Day 2 tomorrow.
Candle Wax Debacle
Last night we had an amazing Christmas Eve Service (even though we came in to find the roof leaking just above the sound booth). The building was packed…we had a wonderful time of worship and singing Christmas songs, I taught a short message from Luke 2:36-38 (4 characteristics from the life of Anna), and then we closed with candle lighting and singing Evan Wickham’s song “Halalujah Jesus”
It was really cool to look out at the congregation and see all those candles shining in the dark but I was unprepared for the mess these little suckers would make
As some of you know we just bought brand new chairs for our sanctuary…now they are brand new chairs adorned with candle wax. We also have a remolded building that is less than a year old…now we have new carpet with huge splotches of white wax to add some character.
Actually I’ve heard there are some simple remedies to wax removal…either freezing it with ice until it hardens and crumbles or heating it with an iron and soaking it up with a paper sack are the most recommended solutions.
Not ideal especially for the folks who clean the church but we’ll get it cleaned up and research some alternatives for candle light for next year.
It does prove that you can have small disasters like these and still have a great service…everything doesn’t have to go perfectly for the Lord to bless His people. I’m continuing to learn this principle maybe one day it will REALLY sink in.
Have a Merry Christmas!
Defining Success
Defining successful ministry can be difficult. Too often a ministry is deemed successful purely on the basis of how many people attend.
How was church? Becomes code for, how many people were there?
Now don’t get me wrong…I believe that numbers are important because each number represents a person for whom Jesus died. In fact in Acts 2 Luke records that 3,000 people were added to the church. Apparently numbers are important to the Holy Spirit as He inspired Luke to give such a detail.
However I don’t think the Holy Spirit intended for us to define success solely on this basis. And it’s services like we had today that remind me of this truth. (more…)
Leeland
Okay…now I’m really stoked. Leeland has a new album coming out tonight and it’s only $7.
I think Leeland’s debut album “Sound of Melodies” may be one of my favorite worship albums.
We do a few of their songs like, “Beautiful Lord” and “Carried to the Table” at church.
If you or your worship leader are looking for new songs check these out…Carried to the Table is an amazing song for communion and Beautiful Lord is my favorite worship song we do right now.
If you haven’t listened to these guys I bid you come partake of the sweetness.
Listen to them here
Proud Pastor
This weekend Calvary Chapel of Bend hosted a worship conference with worship leaders Terry Clark and Dave Morrow.
Now I will be the first to admit that I’m not a huge fan of Terry and Nancy Clark’s music. I think they are great people with a tremendous heart for Jesus. But as I listened to him teach about worship I realized that I don’t need to love somebody’s style to be edified by their experience.
The conference was called “The Heart of Worship.” Both Terry and Dave did a great job of communicating the heart of worship…when the heart of the one leading worship is right everything else will flow naturally from that. Worship isn’t just about music…music is a part of worship but worship is the essence of all we do (Romans 12:1-2).
After the conclusion of the conference this afternoon, we reconvened for a worship concert this evening for which our worship band opened for Dave Morrow.
I know I am probably a little biased but our worship band ROCKED!
Not only were they super tight musically but they displayed an amazing humility and sincere heart of worship. I sat in the back like a proud parent watching our young worship band allow the Lord to flow through them to blow everyone’s socks off.
I don’t know if it’s right to be a “proud pastor” or not…but I was proud of our guys (and gal) tonight.
Our worship leader Stewart White and I have been working together for over two years now. He and I have a great relationship that has been built through many “Monday morning chats”
You know the one’s that start with…”so what did you think of the services yesterday?”
Sometimes my timing isn’t very good, my tone is irritating, and my suggestions are stupid but he listens because he’s humble and teachable. We work through stuff…we argue…we fight…we laugh…and through it all God has developed a very strong relationship that He is using to minister to the people of C4.
Stewart I know that I can be hard to deal with sometimes…like when I woke you up the other morning on your day off.
But I want you to know that you and the band are doing an awesome job and that I’m proud of you!