Archive | January, 2006

On Musicians and Reading Books

I think I’ve interacted with enough Christian musicians over the past couple decades to make a general observation: Christian musicians rarely read theology books. Now, I know that’s a broad statement. There are non-musician Christians who don’t like to study theology, too, and some Christians musicians who actually love theology. You’re the ones who took offense at my earlier comment. “What’s he talking about? I’m ALWAYS reading theology books!” If so, you’re to be commended. But you’re the exception. When I’ve asked musicians what they’re reading, the response is often secular business bestsellers, novels, music magazines, …

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Monday Devotions – The Happiest People on Earth

“Serve the Lord with gladness.” (Ps. 100a) God cares whether or not there is joy in our hearts when we obey Him. He feels so strongly about this that in Deuteronomy He tells Israel they will be enslaved because “you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart.” (Deut. 28:47) In Ps. 32:11 he commands us “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” Philippians 4:4 sounds the same note: “Rejoice in the Lord, always; again I will say, rejoice.” Obviously, these verses aren’t referring to a superficial happiness that depends …

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A Community of Bloggers?

At the risk of being redundant, I wanted to share a few more thoughts on blogging, in response to a question I received from Steve. He wrote, “Is there the potential for there to be recognized "elders" among Christian bloggers? I wonder what that would look like, and if it would help foster a more healthy "community" here in cyberspace?” I want to take Steve’s question to address the larger issue of what blogs can accomplish. Let me respond to the second question first. What would a healthy community in cyberspace look like? Excellent question. I’m not sure how much of a healthy community CAN exist in cyberspace. …

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Blogging to Worship God 3 – Motives

My post from yesterday is already out of date. Technorati.com now says it searches 24.5 million blogs. That’s 100,000 more than yesterday. Which leads me to ask two questions. What are all these people saying? And why are they saying it? The past two days we’ve been talking about ways Christians can distinguish themselves in the blogosphere – in content and attitude. Today, I want to speak to an area that may not be as obvious – our motives. Every action has one or more motives behind it, whether we’re aware or not. Sometimes our motives are godly, sometimes sinful. Often I find that my motives are mixed. While …

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Blogging to Worship God 2 – Attitudes

Today, Technorati.com told me that it searches 24.4 million blogs. That’s up from 14.2 million two months ago. Apparently, in the past 8 weeks, at least ten million people have decided they have something the world needs to hear. Maybe. Maybe not. However, as Carl Trueman succinctly points out: “The danger of the web is this: where everyone has a right to speak, everyone ends up thinking they have a right to be heard; and when everyone in general thinks they have a right to be heard, then you end up with a situation where nobody in particular is listened to.” In spite of the inherent dangers, I really am grateful to God for …

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Blogging to Worship God 1 – Content

Recently I’ve been reading some insightful posts by bloggers on blogging. (Specifically, these by Carl Trueman, Michael Beasley, and Timmy.) While I don’t think everyone who reads WorshipMatters has their own blog, I know that a good number of you do. And if you don’t, you might leave a comment on one. So, I want to take this week to talk about how posting or commenting on a blog can be an act of worship to God. He tells us in 1 Cor. 10:31: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” If we should eat and drink to the glory of God, certainly we should blog to the glory of God. Three ways we can …

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Monday Devotions – Psalm 1

For the last few years I’ve made it a practice to begin each morning reading the five Psalms for the day. I multiply the day of the month times five and read that Psalm along with the preceding four Psalms. I read Psalm 119 on the last day of months that have 31 days. I started reading the Psalms in earnest after realizing that this is the one book God gave us that shows in detail how we should relate to Him in praise, prayer, and petition. There are few books in Scripture that so profoundly teach us about God with such a broad range of emotional expression. Even more importantly, since my job is to lead people in worshipping God corporately, …

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