I’ve been listening to Mumford & Sons “Sigh No More” record with equal parts enjoyment and intrigue. Before I knew really anything about the band I could tell the writing was wrestling with a lot of good spiritual issues. After I saw them live here in Phoenix and saw the response in the crowd I was blown away by how the songs were reaching people. Then I discovered that Marcus Mumford has strong Vineyard ties, son of the Vineyard UK regional directors and is friends with some local Vineyard friends. All that to say, I love their music and pray for that band in a different way now.

One of their songs “Awake My Soul” really caught me as something that, in pieces, could work really well in a worship set. I’ve been playing around with it and came up with a few minor, but important, lyric changes and introduced it as a tag this past week. The congregation responded well and I thought it served the aim of the set and what God had been stirring in us. I’m not sure if we’ll do it again, but it’s a possibility. The lyric we sang was very simple:

Awake my soul
Awake my soul
Awake my soul
For we were made to love our maker

The bluegrass feel went quite well sandwiching our first song by Ryan Delmore. We teased the tag at the beginning of Ryan’s song and then reintroduced it at the end. Here are the details of the set:

1. The Gift of Gifts – Opening Puritan Prayer
2. The World Can’t Take It Away – Ryan Delmore
3. God of this City – Bluetree (loop available)
4. My Soul Sings – Delirious (loop available)
5. Nothing But the Blood – Robert Lowry (Page CXVI arrangement linked)
6. Our God Reigns – Delirious (loop available)

Really cool to watch the process. I could throw way too much money at vinyl, have to resist. Also interesting to hear the up tic in how many records are pressed nowadays, definitely a big resurgence in vinyl. How many of you are collecting vinyl right now? Any prized albums to share with us?

[via StudioDog]

Somehow this bottle of magic Miracle Gel came into my possession, don’t ask me how. I can’t believe I’ve lived my life all these years without this incredible product. Apparently it contains the very essence of God itself plus additional natural minerals, organics and eloptic energy(see below) if God’s anointing just isn’t enough for you. Better safe than sorry I suppose. All for the low low price of $16 per bottle! Before you run off an order you own bottle of Miracle II Neutralizer Gel, let me share some priceless details.

You can rest easy because Miracle Gel comes “pH – Supernaturally Balanced“, but the real genius is on the back of the bottle.

Transcript of the ingredients:

Contains: Prayer – Electrically engineered eloptic energized stabilized oxygenated water – Ash of Dedecyl solution – Calcium – Potassium – Magnesium (Carbopol) And the Anointing of God. Miracle II contains and holds spiritual and eloptic energy beyond measure for a miracle for your body.

For those of us who aren’t crazy and didn’t already know, eloptic energy is harvested from the stars. Why settle for anything else really? I demand star power in all my neutralizing gels!

In Deuteronomy 31- 32 we read about the final days of Moses’ life and how God would have him pass his leadership but also how he would deliver a parting revelation to the people of Israel. It’s all too popular for Christian songwriters to explain every song with the phrase “God gave me this song“, but this is one of the few cases in scripture where this can be said. God gives Moses a song to write for the people of Israel, for His glory and for the benefit of His people. In this blog series we’ll look at 5 lessons learned through the story of the Song of Moses. In Part 1 we looked at how worship songs are a response to God’s revelation to us. In Part 2 we discussed confrontative worship and in Part 3 we discussed knowing our churches inclination to idolatry.

Unforgotten in the mouths of our children

The song of Moses is sandwiched in scripture with a couple statements about the impact of this worship song to the children(literal) of Israel. First as God gives his directive to Moses in the middle of Deuteronomy 31:21:

[21] And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.” (Deuteronomy 31:21 ESV)

Then after Moses writes and recites the song to the people he clarifies the importance of the worship song:

[45] And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel, [46] he said to them, “Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 32:45-46 ESV)

So we see clearly that a very important purpose of this song is to deliver lasting theological clarity and purpose upon the children of Israel. This worship song was meant to confront Israel, turn their hearts back to God, and for this song of repentance and redeemed worship to be instructed to the kids to the point where they’d never forget it.

I love that the point of instruction for the father’s from God isn’t to have the kids watch them live in response to truth. No God has already bluntly revealed their own wicked hearts and inclination to false worship, instead God has them teach God’s truth to their kids. So both father’s and children are aligning themselves to God’s truth, the only true barometer of righteousness. With that in mind there’s 2 points I’d like to focus on:

1. The value of song in teaching our kids theology

It’s been said many times in many different ways that song has a tremendous impact on teaching and framing our theology. I don’t think there’s any denying that and depending on your background it may be that the only thing you know about God is what you remember singing. Whether or not that’s a good thing is another discussion, but the truth is that’s reality and we can’t ignore it. My Dad was a pastor for many years, all through my youth. I can’t remember many of his sermons but I remember almost every song we sung. What I knew of the gospel as a boy predominantly came from what we were singing, song is and was instrumental in my growth in the gospel.

The Song of Moses shows us that song is a gift from God, intended to glorify Him and teach us about Him. Thank the Lord for song but what an incredibly heavy responsibility it is and the church needs worship leaders that aren’t afraid of carrying it. Too often I hear worship leaders shirking that responsibility and excusing bad teaching in song through some belief that it’s just some kind of “musical venting”. Just something they “felt” a responsibility to release but somehow “felt” no responsibility to consider what it communicates about God. I love creative worship songs sung from different perspectives in different contexts, that’s awesome. But know that ultimately you are teaching something about God and it’s either truth and God glorifying, or a lie and destructive. We’re accountable for that worship leaders.

2. Look at me vs. look at Him

The way we live as parents is a huge influence on our children, but the way we use that influence is what needs to be considered. I’d much rather use my influence as a father to continually point my kids to Christ, his accomplishment and the work of the Holy Spirit instead of hoping my influence and works somehow regenerate their hearts. Now I’m not trying to shirk my responsibility as a father to mirror Christ to my kids. It’s absolutely vital we mirror Christ to our children, but we also must teach them about Jesus, pray for them to know Him, sing songs with our kids that teach them the truth about Jesus and make sure we are mirroring our own need of Jesus to our kids.

We can’t just drag our kids to church and hope that through some form of osmosis they are made into the likeness of Christ. A godly environment is important but it’s not enough, godly influences are important but they aren’t enough, Jesus is enough, Jesus is what needs to be taught and aligned to. And if we as parents mirror that truth to our kids, then we’re doing as God commanded Moses, for parent and child to look to God, worship Him and be changed by Him.

I’ve been so blessed the past 6 weeks or so with our new instrumental/puritan prayer reading openings to service. I’ve been blessed on multiple levels. First, I’ve loved see more people involved in Sunday service. We’ve opened this prayer reading up to the body and man we’ve had some incredible readings. Secondly, the content is just crushing. We’ve been reading through “The Valley of Vision – A collection of Puritan prayers & devotions” and the prayers are a brutal combination of truth, wisdom, passion, pain, joy…I mean they are just incredible!

Third, the tone we’ve been able to set from the get go with the music in support of the reading has been really beyond my expectations and become something I look forward to the entire week. Every week we work on a new original instrumental arrangement and I’ve been blown away by what we’ve come up with and I can’t wait to turn these core riffs into full songs. Creatively I feel like we’ve hit a real groove and it feels amazing to be part of. If you’ve played in many bands you’ll know that it’s really special when you find that creative groove that seems to come easy, that’s rare.

Here are the songs that made up our set…

1. Opening Prayer – “The All Good“
2. You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band
3. We Will Run – Gungor
4. Nothing But the Blood – Robert Lowry (Page CXVI arrangement linked)
5. How Deep the Father’s Love For Us – Stuart Townend (Chad Gardner arrangement linked)
6. None But Jesus – Hillsong
7. How Great Is Our God – Chris Tomlin (After Sermon)

I love auto-tune news, it just never gets old. The original news story is hilarious (no there’s nothing funny about rape, glad the woman is safe and unharmed of course), but the victim’s brother, Antoine Dodson…that guy kills me. Painful laughing. Here’s the slick auto-tune version, with a killer remix at the end.

Also I created a iPhone ringtone from this video, download it and enjoy. Here’s a mp3 version of the ringtone for you non-iPhone peeps.

I can’t tell you how much the below Driscoll clip resonated with me. I’ve seen up close the destruction that in sues from this idolatrous seeking of some great past experience, some great moment in the church where God moved in a powerful way. The church and it’s leaders become fixated on how to get it back and completely reject what God is doing presently. I’ve seen it close, been part of it, and it’s devastating to a church’s health.

Sometimes the church experiences a tremendous hurt, maybe a leader being removed or caught out in sin, and instead of faithfully walking through God’s restoration in the body, there’s a detachment and this constant day dreaming of what used to be. I’ve see that up close too, and it’s devastating. Worship leaders, make sure you aren’t chasing experiences, for the benefit of yourself and your body…don’t do it.

Nearly wet myself. Ha-larious.

[via FAILblog]