Sunday Setlist- 04/15/12

This weekend I had the privilege to lead worship at Centenary United Methodist Church in Modesto, CA, with a group of amazingly talented friends. The core of the band (Rachel, Brian, Christopher, and myself) is the same as the group that led worship for our regional Navigator conference back in the Fall, and the new additions (Peter and Katie) are welcome ones :)

As we thought about where to take the set and planned it out, Rachel and I chose to concentrate on God's name. Isaiah 26:8 has been a guiding verse this past year. It says:

In the path of your judgements,
O LORD, we wait for you;
your name and remembrance
are the desire of our soul. (ESV)

We also aimed to mix more familiar songs with newer songs. The thread that ran through the songs then was opening with adoration and blessing God's name, singing and shouting his name, exalting him as the Name Above All Names, declaring that our hearts will sing no other name, and literally singing and extolling his name again before closing with a request to stir us up again.

1. "Blessed be Your Name" by Matt Redman (A)
2. "At Your Name" by Tim Hughes and Phil Wickham (A)
3. "How Great is Our God" by Chris Tomlin (A)


4. "Forever Reign" by Hillsong (B)
5. "Your Name" by Paul Baloche (B)


6. "Consuming Fire" by Tim Hughes (E)
7. "Come Thou Fount" (E)




The weekend was both a ton of fun and very successful! Thanks to everyone that helped make it happen!

Phil 1:29

"For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only

to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake..."

Hipsteranity

I love Jesus. And V-necks.

A while back my good friend Steven blogged about an article from Christianity Today that he read. It's focus was Hipster Christianity, which I will refer to from now on as "Hipsteranity" because I don't want to keep typing that out. His opinion, which I agree with, was that the article didn't do much other than describe the phenomena. There wasn't much application or analysis-just description.

Today I ran across another article that describes Hipsteranity, this time from RELEVANT magazine. The ironic thing is that even though it's written by the same author I find it to be far superior. Why? Perhaps because he is writing for a different audience the author actually makes an attempt to categorize different aspects of Hipsteranity into positive and negative categories.

I'm curious to get some feedback about the article. For those of you that have read the original also, did you find this article more interesting/insightful? What of the conclusions that the author reaches? Is his comparison of Hipsteranity to a certain second century heresy apt?

Attributing It to the Wrong Source

Tonight at church Johnny Hughes, who was teaching, said something that I'd never considered before. The series that they're in right now at ROCKHARBOR is called "God is..." and the point is to re-examine what our conceptions about God are. The first week the message was "God is With Us," the second it was "God is Good."

This week it was "God is Angry." Wait, wha???

It was good to hear a message that so strongly emphasized God's wrath and its intrinsic ties to His love in the midst of our culture that so emphasizes a God of love, a buddy-buddy Jesus and a Father we treat more like "Pops" than "Dad." Now these things still reflect truth-God IS love, Jesus IS our friend, and we have an intimate relationship with the Father. However, it's all too easy to forget about God's wrath.

What struck me the most was Johnny's thoughts on God's attributes. He was in the middle of defining what God's wrath is NOT to better illustrate what it actually is. Some of his points included God's wrath is not like human wrath, not trivial or petty, not inconsistent, and not easily provoked. Each had excellent corresponding points, but the one that stuck out to me was one dealing with God's nature.

God's wrath is NOT an attribute of God, but rather a response. God's wrath is a behavior of his and not a part of his nature. It's in his nature to be wrathful, but not wrath itself. It's the difference between God being loving and God being LOVE. If God is just loving, He can choose to not love-it's a behavior. But if God is LOVE, well He can't choose to do anything but be that love, can He?

I know it might seem like a small difference, but it makes a WORLD of difference! God's wrath comes from the fact that He is Love and loves us so much that He cannot bear to see us defiled, unholy, and corrupted. His desire to destroy evil and save people, (i.e. his wrath) is the response of his love and our sinfulness.

God's wrath proceeds from His love. Thank God for his wrath-without God's wrath burning against sin and evil, where is our guarantee that He'll free us from bondage to them? God's wrath now is a marker or signpost pointing to a future that is free of pain and death thanks to the fusion of Obedience and Sacrifice, Justice and Mercy, and Love and Wrath on the Cross. For that reason, I am so very thankful for God's wrath.