A Vibe I'm Having

I haven't posted anything real reflective since the Worship God blogs. Partly because I've been on vacation, having several leadership meetings, and generally getting ready for the new ministry year that we kick of this Sunday.

But I have a breather here this afternoon, so I wanted to take the chance to share with you what I'm feeling. We are really in a groove right now. That seems odd perhaps for some of you because:

--You know that our kids ministry has doubled over the summer and we are in serious need of more kids team vols.

--You know that we have completely halted ministry expansion so that all of our energy can go into equipping and serving our current leaders better and developing new leaders well.

--We have rotated 3 elders off of our leadership in the past 4 months (None due to moral issues, all due to rest/personal issues)

--We are scraping the bottom of the barrell financially.

But I'm as encouraged with Crew as I have ever been. We're growing deep right now in so many areas that I want everyone to know of:

--Our leaders are starting to own their ministries. We've had several great conversations that resulted in renewed goals, objectives, and plans for the fall. These are beginning to be implemented so that the way we serve our city and Crew will be more effective and transforming.

--Our current leaders are excited about being developed theologically, biblically, strategically. We have kicked off a new system of developing healthy leaders at Crew that will equip our current leaders better and make sure new leaders are set up to be Christ centered servant leaders.

--New Christians are developing in their relationship with Jesus and unbelievers are becoming believers. Another baptism is coming soon.

--Our corporate gatherings are richly and powerfully reminding us of the cross of Christ and the response corporately has been amazing. The worship team is of the right mindset and posture as they serve us through leading music and song on Sundays.

--We are developing great relationships with United Way, City Hall, and key buisnesses in Huntington. Whether it's the 5K, the riverfront meetings, the softball league project, water giveaways at Ritter Park, or the marcum terrace playground. We are engaging our city well.

--We are also growing in size. We have several new families and college students worshipping with us and joining our team. So we'll need to work hard at meeting new folks and connecting them to Christ, our small groups, our mission, and our lives.

So it is a busy hectic time of good life change for our church. With that comes many obstacles and difficulties. But they are the right kind to be having. I feel great about it.

Sorry that this post wasn't the typical one you get from me. But that's all on my heart today and I wanted to let you in on that. Pray for Crew, pray for our leaders, pray for what part you may have in serving one another and our city.

Thanks Crew for a great 5K!

Why They Only Have the Olympics Every 4 Years

9 Years!

Today is the anniversary of the day I told Sarah I would NEVER divorce her. That I would love her most by loving Jesus more than her. That I would serve her as her leader. That I would protect her as best I can. That I would pastor her soul. That I would provide financially for her needs. Today is the anniversary of the day I was able to be sexually intimate with her. A day that I said I do. And I still do and I will always do. I love you my beautiful bride. Happy Anniversary!

Final Session: Bob Kauflin

Psalm 24 was preached to show how we can live life with the Psalmist.

Introduction

• The Psalms don’t just talk about what we do when we gather, they instruct us how to live.
• The Psalms show us what a relationship with God looks like.

What Must We Do To Live Like A Psalmist?

1. Acknowledge God’s Sovereignty (24:1-2)

• God owns everything because he made everything. (cf. Ps. 33:8-9)
• When we live in the world, we are living in a world that God owns.
• When we watch the news full of war, elections, natural disasters it is reporting of what is going on in God’s world.
• When we study meteorology, medicine, astronomy, etc we are discovering things about God’s creation.
• Is God only sovereign when things are going right or is he sovereign all the time?
• Living like a psalmist is to live with the knowledge that God is in charge of everything.

2. Pursue God’s Holiness (24:3-6)

• Verse 3 is describing the place of God’s presence in Jerusalem.
• The Psalmists want to be close to God, not far off. “How can I be close to God?”
• Verse 4 describes those worthy to be close to God

• They have clean hands. Our actions are right. (Our Deeds)
• They have a pure heart. Not only our actions but our motives and intentions. (Our Motives)
• They don’t love and desire other things more than God (Our Thoughts)
• They don’t lie (Our Words)

• That ain’t me (Perry Paraphrase). Where am I to get this righteousness and closeness to God?
• The answer is in verses 5-6. The blessing and righteousness that we so need comes from God. It comes to us as we come to God.
• My Side Note: We know through Jesus his death that only by faith in Jesus can we receive God’s righteousness. The face of God is Jesus (John 1:18). He alone has clean hands, pure heart, untainted affection for God, and truthfulness.

3. Keep Our Eyes on the King of Glory

• Gates are metaphorically lifting up their heads to see the King of Glory who is coming back as a victorious warrior. (cf. Matt. 21:9)
• He has obtained victory, blessing, and righteousness for his people
• Jesus is the full revelation of the King of Glory here in Psalm 24

Great Conference!

Seminar Saturday Morning: Don Nalle: A Gospel Centered Approach to Creative Media

This will be a seminar on how to creatively use media to glorify Christ.

Introduction

A. Four Goals

1. Look at how the gospel informs the use of video in the local church
2. Some thoughts on how videos can be used in church.
3. Some examples of how they do it.
4. All for Q and A

B. Definitions of terms and scope

1. “Creative media” means video in the from of slideshow, interview, a mini documentary, pre recorded testimony, etc.
2. The context is the local church—using video in the context of Sun morning worship or some other gathered meeting.

The Gospel and Video: Do They Mix?

•Paul wrote that he became “all things to all men that he might save some” in 1 Cor. 9:22. But don’t get the wrong impression

•Paul also had limits to what he would do in order to reach folks. We see this in 1 Cor. 2:1-5. On some occasions Paul would intentionally limit how he appealed to culturally conditioned expectations. He did it so that the hearers faith would rest not on his eloquence or ingenuity but in the power of God which is Christ crucified. He focused on the most embarrassing aspect of the gospel, the death of the Messiah.

•Paul’s outlook on relevance wasn’t what we think of. We think of relevance as communicating in the a popular and expected medium of our culture. Relevance to Paul was that the message of the gospel is applicable to our lives right now. His agenda is driven by theological convictions drawn from Scripture, not audience expectations drawn from culture.

• This doesn’t mean that we don’t use cultural means or that we aren’t aware of audience expectations. It means that we aren’t driven by it. The gospel drives how we use media. Media doesn’t drive how we share the gospel.

Practical Effects of Applying a “gospel understanding” to video

A. We continually pursue and apply humility (Phil. 2:3-7)

1. Throughout the brainstorming and conception stage
2. Taking direction from those who oversee you
3. Working out logistics for a video shoot
4. On the set
5. Throughout Post production
6. Receiving Feedback
7. Analyzing and critiquing projects
8. We don’t exist to promote the arts or media or to “push the limits” or even to achieve excellence in the video culture.
9. Understand and support the values of your church.

B. We follow the leader.

1. Our goal should be to work humbly and skillfully behind the scenes to support our pastors and the priorities that they identify.

C. We emphasize content and substance over style and technique.

D. We cast video in a “supporting role.”

1. Video should not be viewed as an idol or an enemy, but a servant.
2. The power of media is meant to point us to the glory and greatness of God.

E. We recognize the special place of the preaching of God’s word and acknowledge that video will never replace, preempt, or attempt to supersede it.

1. Video and film are not on a par with the inspired Word of God
2. We need to be appropriately humble in our use of video.

F. We undertake productions that are within our means and reach.

G. We seek to involve people in video production who are both skilled and passionate about using the medium to communicate truth—people who have attentiveness to the requirements and the constraints of what makes for effective communication.”

H. We seek to understand what video does best in the local church and use it accordingly.
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1. Documenting and celebrating events in the church life.
2. Promoting an event or sermon series.
3. Testimonies
4. How God used a sermon series.
5. How God worked through a church ministry.
6. Baptism stories
7. How people came to the church.
8. How God worked in a crisis.
9. How people are reaching out to their culture
10. Biographical sketch of a leader in transition
11. Educate about a particular ministry.

I. We avoid what we determine videos do poorly.

Examples from Covenant Life: Acts and Psalms

A. When a video rolls, audiences expect to be entertained; they hope for humor or thrills or sedation or stimulation, and t hey expect it to come in predictable ways based on past experience of film, tv, etc.

B. The mindset we enter to listen to a sermon is quite different. There is at least some built in incompatibility between those two worlds.

C. It may be better to put some distance between the playing of a video and the preaching of a sermon—that is, to separate them by time. We want to make it obvious we don’t’ view preaching and video clips the same way.

This was probably the worst seminar of the conference in terms of transferability to our context. They give some good cautions as far as making media king. But I'd like to know how they plan their videos, what are some tips on using video strategically, etc.

Friday Evening Session: Praising God With The Psalmist (Bob Kauflin)

We’re sitting in room 320 @ the Hilton. Josh, Sean, and I are getting ready to break down this evening’s session. Josh wanted a night off from blogging, and thought it would be clever to have me blog our experience. However, after the experience, it is going to take more than a typical blog to wrap this one up. So, rather than just a report, we felt it would be interesting to take the next couple hours or so to collectively share the experience through our conversation.

The night was introduced by Bob Kauflin that the session was going to be a little different. It was going to be more of a “workshop”. The title was “4 Concerns that the Psalmist had that we should have as well”.

JP: I want to confirm Bob’s character, his understanding of the scripture, his commitment to the truth, his love for worship leaders, his love for the local church. On and on I could go. What this guy wants to teach me, I’m open to. I respect. Not just some yahoo off the street. He’s lived it, seen a lot, studied the scripture, etc. If I’m sitting at home and I hear the following things, I’m not going to put much weight in it. But with the respect I have for this man and his dedication to truth, I’m going to pay attention.

Concern 1: What do we do with our bodies in worship? (10:49pm)

Undoubtedly clear from even a casual reading of the Psalms: There is clapping, shouting, dancing, bowing, raising arms, etc. as an act of natural response to God. We wholeheartedly affirm/agree with this. Having shown us that, Kauflin challenged us as leaders and worshippers with a question along the lines of, Are there any of these expressions that you have never expressed in your worship, and why? If the answer is NO because of how I’ll be perceived or NO because I’m not sure if it’s right, then during the next Psalm I give you freedom to step out and respond however is natural.

We sing “Oh Happy Day” by Tim Hughes, during which the room began to worship with singing, dancing, jumping up and down, clapping hands, bowing, arms raised, you get the point. Essentially in responses found in the Psalms.

(Enter Josh starting to type because Brian can’t keep up with me talking)

Sean Knisely loved it. He felt more engaged with God through not only worshipping with his mind but also his body. This freedom wasn’t emotionalism, it was a natural expression of his feelings for Jesus.

Brian completely failed. He hates God. He hates moving his muscles. In fact he hates all physical matter. He has become a Gnostic. [Ok, that’s a joke from Josh. He didn’t feel that way, but he did fail]

Brian did feel he failed because rather than focusing on God, he felt intrigued by what others were doing. Not as a judgment, but as a curiosity. Also, he felt a little bit like he was being manipulated to do something that wasn’t natural to him. He knows that wasn’t what was intended by the leaders. But it felt as if he was being told, “the Spirit is moving now, so show it.” So he began to close his eyes, however, and focus on the words and worship. He began to sway and sing which was a “relatively charismatic” response. [And then he spoke in tongues…sike]

I’ve been in environments where people worship through dancing, shouting, clapping, etc and felt at ease being myself which was clapping, swaying, and singing. I felt completely natural with that response.

Concern #2: What do we do with our minds when we worship God? (11:45pm)

Bob then stopped our singing and went to the next point, which was that we need to think about what we’re singing and respond with our minds what we’re singing. He showed us through the Psalmist’s use of the word translated Selah in our Bibles. This word most likely means pause, stop, or think about that. It was very likely a signal as well to the choir director to go into a musical interlude for the singers to do that. So that’s what we did on the next song. We sang Psalm 100 and after each line, we selah’ed (is that a word) we paused while there was a musical interlude and he invited us to sing a response to God as we thought with our minds about what we just sang.

Brian thought that it was counterproductive to what a Selah should be. If a selah was a reflection on what we read and sang then we should be given the best opportunity to reflect and with over a thousand people audibly responding it was very hard to keep your thoughts. I agree with that. Although I love the idea of a musical interlude and time of reflection and thinking and the leader using the selah as a time of instruction. Sean felt it was a great way for the leader to elaborate and teach throughout the song.

Concern #3: What do we do with our trials when we worship God? (12:22am)

So we sang a song in a minor key called “Out of the Depths”. Bob reminded us to think of Christ who suffered the worst trial of all. As leaders we can’t avoid the presence of trials. Everything isn’t all happy and fake. We have to deal with all of the emotions when we worship. Not just the Happy Day song, but also the Out of the Depth song.

Concern #4: What do we do with evil when we worship God?

This is Sean writing now, as Josh brushes his teeth at 12:26am. This last part was great, as David Powlison (who brought the message in the morning) came back up to explain how we should respond to the presentation of evil and judgment in the Psalms (but it’s pretty deep and hard to explain, so bear with me as I try). For example, Psalm 137 says something about the blessing of smashing enemies’ babies against a rock (wow). So, there are two wrong reactions, he said, both resulting when we place ourselves outside “the problem of evil”: We can be self-righteous, saying “Save me but let my enemies die,” or we can be overly nice and pretend that these Psalms are overly primitive and barbaric as if no one deserves this kind of punishment. We should instead see ourselves inside the problem of evil (in fact, part of the problem).

A cool quote: “The anger of God at evil is one of his excellencies.” God has promised to destroy evil. Jesus burned with anger against wrongdoing just like he wept for the world’s misery. The Psalms contain pleas to God, asking him to destroy evil. Powlison explained that the context is important, though: The ones the Psalmist is asking God to destroy are described as: Liar, accuser, betrayer, malicious, killer, deceiver, destroyer, etc. That’s Satan (and his children who are in his image). The one praying is described as: Victim, sufferer, the poor, righteous, God-aligned, etc. This represents Christ as he suffered evil in this world. He himself said that the Scriptures (which, then, meant the Old Testament) were about him. The Psalms are about us and our feelings, but they also show Christ.

So just like Christ hates evil, we should hate evil, but we’re part of the problem as sinners, so that complicates it for the Psalmist to ask God to destroy evil. However, Jesus drank the “cup of wrath” reserved for the wicked in Psalm 75. Now, while part of God’s wrath is the “repent and turn to Jesus or you’ll go to Hell” kind, a huge part of his wrath that we easily overlook is actually our hope. Since we’re not condemned anymore, and we’ll be set free when temptation and evil are removed from the world, his wrath against that evil will be a wonderful thing that sets us free, and we can hope in that. In the Lord’s Prayer there are examples implied of this: for God’s name to be hallowed, he has to destroy everything that defames his name. For his kingdom to come, he has to destroy all the pretend kingdoms that are alive now. For his will to be done on earth, and to keep us from temptation, he has to destroy evil and the sources of temptation.

So there’s this weird conflict now, because we are both commanded to “love our enemy” and to “hate evil.” In Exodus 34, God’s described as being slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and a forgiving God, “but who will by no means clear the guilty.” Both mercy and justice are right there. We should be the same way, slow to anger, full of steadfast love, full of forgiveness, but hating evil. We should pray for God to destroy evil but to transform evil people if that’s his will (if they won’t be saved, then they should be destroyed… still sounds harsh maybe). So the application to our worship is that we’ll see God in a bigger way and love him for his justice and for his mercy.

I hope this made sense to you all and helped in some way; we all loved it. Let’s love good and hate evil, like Jesus. Let’s not just be “nice,” let’s be godly; let’s admit and embrace that evil has to be destroyed. Let’s hope in God’s ability to destroy evil and bring us to his perfection. Let’s also be stunned by his insane love, by the fact that he chose us out of this evil world to know him by his mercy. We would never have picked him on our own; we were part of the problem, but he brought us to himself.

Seminar Friday Afternoon 2:30: Building Bridges: Pastors and Worship Leaders

Bob Kauflin is leading this session and I’m anticipating it being good.

The Current Situation

A. Average Length of Employment For A Music Minister is 2-3 yrs. Why?

1. Change of occupation
2. Financial need
3. Relational issues remain unaddressed

B. Conflicts and confusion between pastors and worship leaders are not a new problem

1. Pastors tend to view worship leaders as temperamental, late, unorganized, non theological, trendy, unresponsive, proud.
2. Worship leaders tend to view pastors as controlling, angry, demanding, insensitive, out of touch, over detailed, non relational, proud.

C. We are called to glorify God not only to our public ministry but in our relationship with one another (Rom. 15:5-6)

What a Worship Leader Can Do

A. Serve Your Pastor

1. Pastors are ultimately responsible for a church’s direction and life (Heb. 13:17)
2. Focus on serving the priorities of your pastor and not your own. (Phil. 2:3-4)

B. Listen to Your Pastor

1. Publicly and privately (I need to let Sean into my heart and vision and passion. Let him get to know me well. This takes time and vulnerability on my part)
2. Make sure you’re speaking the same language
3. Clarify before responding

C. Initiate with Your Pastor

1. Encouragement.
2. Creative Ideas
3. Evaluation of Yourself. What can I do better? What are some things I need to be be doing? Am I creating tension? Am I joy to work with?
4. Willingness to step down

D. Grow Personally

1. Spiritually
2. Theologically
3. Musically
4. Administratively
5. Technologically

What A Pastor Can Do

A Recognize Your Role

1. The pastor is the primary worship leader, humanly speaking.
2. Pastors are responsible for the whole meeting, not just a portion.
3. Leading worship is a pastoral function before it’s a musical one.
4. Pastors need to study and teach on worship in the Bible.

B. Communicate What You’re Looking For

1. In Your Meeting

• a. Pursuing fads or biblical faithfulness?
• b. Motivated by pastoral care or preferences?
• c. Role of music in church gatherings
• d. Order and structure of the meetings

2. In Your Worship Leader

• a. Humility—desires to serve more than impress, willing to submit to your vision.
• b. Godly Example—devotional life, family, passions
• c. Values Good Theology—sees this as important
• d. Leadership
• e. Musical Skill—instrument, theory, technique

C. Equip and Encourage

1. Budget for books, music, and CD’s
2. Budget for equipment
3. Conferences—worship and otherwise
4. Encourage specifically—growth, responsiveness, creativity
5. Encourage privately and publicly
   

• a. builds faith in the people for following him
• b. not in competition
• c. don’t encourage beyond your faith level

D. Plan and Evaluate

1. Frequency depends on stage in relationship and maturity of worship leader.
2. Plan songs, but also meetings.
3. Evaluation shows you notice and care.
4. Point out patterns rather than nit pick.
5. Evaluate specifically and soon.

Dealing With Conflict

A. When considering filling or applying for a position, ask too many questions, not too few.

B. In conflict, determine what the issues are.

1. Methodology
2. Theology
3. Character

C. Don’t’ work with a pastor or worship leader you can’t or don’t trust.

D. Don’t bring your family to a church you wouldn’t otherwise want to raise your children in.

E. Get counsel from others you respect before you face a crisis or decide to leave.

Benefits of Being A Team

A More Gets Done

1. Give thanks regularly for the opportunity to work with your pastor/worship leader.
2. No one gets it right all the time. Be thankful that on days when you’re off, you pastor or worship leader is on!

B. You Have Multiple Perspective

1. No musical style or order of service is prohibited or singled out by Scripture as being preferable.
2. Work together to determine what is best for your congregation

C. God receives more glory.

Yet another very good session. Kudos.

Seminar on Friday Afternoon 12:45: Planning For Sunday

I’m excited for this seminar because I suck at this and really need help. Planning for worship involves spread sheets and sitting in a room and talking about 6 months from now. A lot of detail and I don’t do well with that. I value it and I want to be good at it and I want to use it as a tool to serve the church better. So here we go.

Its lead by some dudes named Jim Donohue and Joseph Stigora. Jim Donahue is an executive pastor at Covenant Fellowship Church in Philly. An executive pastor oversees the church in it’s executive matters. Imagine that. Things like staffing, planning, organizing etc. I wish we had an executive pastor. Oh well.

He’s going to share with how they do things where he is and how we might use that.

Introduction

I’m going to give you some statements from his outline and then ask you some things as it relates to Crew:

• “As the service goes, so goes the church”. What do you think of that Crew? I’d love to hear. Is that an overstatement or not?

• Challenge to Leaders: Resist the temptation to not give our best efforts to Sunday. Resist the temptation to do whatever will grow the church size. Resist being lazy about planning Sundays (this might be me).

• Every Sunday is meant to be a great day. Do you anticipate Sunday or is it blah? Do you feel jacked to encounter God through worship on Sundays?

• Don’t aim to be creative, aim to be intentional. He doesn’t mean that creativity is bad, but if our goal is creativity then we’ll distract from the most important issue of worship God. Creativity will be our God. We’ll also develop a culture of expectation of us to continually trying to outdo ourselves or other churches or entertain people. He also mentions that creativity starts out man centered, whereas intentionality starts out God centered.

• The goal of our Sun. morning service is for people to celebrate God’s grace in the gospel, apply God’s Word, pursue mutual edification, and encounter God’s presence.

Planning

A. Personal

1. Prepare my heart first
2. How?

• a. Practice spiritual disciplines.
• b. Make my goal the glory of God. Do you feel that this is what we’re about at Crew? Be honest. Tell me if you feel we are seeking another goal.
• c. Prepare for people, not meetings. I really like this point. As we prepare our meetings I need to think specifically of the people who are gathering and what they are facing and what we’re going through.
• d. Pray for each part of the meetings. I do this and will continue to do so. I ask that each ministry team leader however begin to do this if you don’t already. Pray for who’s up on the schedule. Pray for what special announcement is happening. Things like that.
• e. Listen for the Spirit of God
• f. Recognize that things may go wrong. Our goal is not a polished service. We are not professionals.
  

B. Annual

1. Senior Pastor: Actively planning what the ministry year looks like.
2. Annual retreat to plan Sunday morning sermon series
3. Spend extended time in prayer

C. Monthly

1. Sunday (creative) team and the extended team (creative laypeople). Be looking for creative ways to better communicate what we’re doing. Get a combination of dreamers and doers. This applies to the sermon series, music, videos, communion. Think out 3-6 months out. Baby dedication, baptisms, etc. Last’s about 4 hours.
2. Monthly Sunday team meeting
3. Intentionality is a responsible goal for every public meeting.
4. The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.
5. Watch your Sunday planning message by Josh Harris and Bob Kauflin , 2007 Sovereign Grace Leaders Conference.

D. Weekly

1. Pastors with Sunday morning responsibilities.
2. Weekly planning meeting on Tues. mornings.
3. Bring evaluation and review.

• a. They talk about ½ an hour and review the different elements of the previous week. Don’t go too long in this process. And don’t be nitpicky. Some things can be critiqued personally rather than called out in this meeting. Do this with grace.
• b. Focus evaluation on the preaching. This is the most important aspect that it be right.

Practice

A. Corporate Singing

1. Remember that pastors are the primary worship leaders. I personally leaned over and told Sean that I have failed in this area and that I’m going to do better. I have essentially given our song leaders the theme and then asked them to take the music and the transitions etc and thought “Ok, they’ve got that”. I need to be more active even though I may delegate that aspect to their leadership. We are going to be working closer and more actively together in the future. This will serve you well Crew.
2. Choose songs that emphasize the character and nature of God and that are rich in the gospel themes.
3. Pray for and expect God’s active presence.
   
   a. Be ready to respond to spontaneous direction God may bring through prayer or impressions
   b. Our time together expressing worship to God should be characterized by God’s active presence with us, evidenced through varied spiritual gifts.
   
   
4. Consider spreading singing throughout the meeting or singing at the end. Our music leaders do a very good job at this. Good work!

B. Announcements

This is a great slot for communicating values, demonstrating grace at work in the church, and using creative elements. You want this to feel like a family moment. I like that line. Also, there is probably a whole blog worth of what I’ve learned about announcements from this conference. They do it very well. It is a worship event and it’s fun and you learn about the personality of these people and what’s important and they do it right in the middle of the service and they equip folks and on and on and on. Look for a blog on that later next week. Hold me to that too please.

C. Prayer

1. Be intentional and biblical
2. An opportunity to equip the church in priorities and faith.

D. Message

1. Prepare your message to serve and apply, not impress.
2. Recognize the relentless presence of the fear of man which tempts us to use preaching as an invitation for people to stroke our egos and idols.
3. See 2008 Sovereign Grace preaching conference.

E. The Lord’s Supper and Baptism

1. Purpose to make these meaningful and intentional
2. These are pastoral and grace filled events, not rituals.

F. Close

1. Target the “points of life” during the message—what points had a noticeable impactd on the people.
2. Move quickly to identify ministry targets or bring application
3. Resist the temptation to recap the message
4. Use worship songs to help people focus on God’s grace and gospel
5. When calling for repentance, reinforce God’s activity within them.
6. Consistent how you can reinforce values in closing.
7. Don’t forget the guests.

Out of this I’m realizing and being affirmed here with Sean that this is really a role for me. I should be ending our services.

This has been most helpful to me practically and spiritually. I needed some serious direction in this area and I have a head full of ideas and hands full of tools with which to improve. Thanks so so much guys. You know what, I’m emotionally charged right now, so forgive me if I go overboard, but this has been the best conference I’ve ever been to. It is so well balanced between the glory of God in the cross of Christ (THE MAIN POINT), but we’re not left without practical tools to help us make much of Christ within our church at a street level.

Main Session Friday Morning: David Powlison

Team from a church Philly led us this morning and once again very well done.

One thing I want to point though that I thought was great. They started on one song and it was in a couple of different keys. They had to tell me that. I didn’t even realize it. I just recognized that it sounded very bad at the time. So the worship leader stopped everybody and said something along the lines of “this isn’t how it’s supposed to go”. Bob Kauflin, the conference leader, came up and addressed it by making fun of it and reminding everyone that the Spirit loves this kind of thing. It turned an awkward moment into a worshipful moment.

Sean and I talked about how thing is invariably going to happen and happens a lot at Crew. So it’s ok, but we will need to be able to use those unexpected detours and celebrate them as Spirit given opportunities to make much of Christ. Essentially, everything is ok, just say it, and deal with it, right? I’d love to hear of any great awkward worship moments you guys have been a part of. I had a person pass out next to me once. Top that.

The speaker this morning was David Powlison is a great counselor and trainer of counselors at Westminster Theological Seminary. I have a couple of his books and he’s wonderful at exposing how our heart and our sin is the root of our struggles and how the grace of God in Christ is our healer. His topic is Enduring Trials With The Psalmist. His passage is Psalm 28.

The Psalms Change Our Lives Through a 3 Part Process. A Triangulation if you will

1. His Exact Need: There are outside possibilities of danger, our internal sin, our emotional apprehension, fear, anger, etc.

2. God Speaks to Our Need: Revelation (example is Psalm 23)

3. A Personalizatoin of God’s Speaking to my Need: I own Psalm 23 not as someone else’s prayer and promise, but my prayer and promise.

It’s this process that he wants us to begin to understand and apply. Particular to the Psalms.

He just made this statement: “The Psalter is tipped toward sorrow”. Great line! It is 2/3 or 60 or 70% about suffering, pain, and down times. But Christ, the man of sorrow, walked out the Psalms and lived out their suffering and tipped it the other way. We live, in Christ, generally, 2/3 joy or 60 or 70% joy. Obviously there are sorrowful seasons and some reading this will not feel this, but overall this tends to be the human experience.

A Few Ways The Psalms Help Us In Suffering

1. The Psalms help us live better. They give us patterns of how to think through our suffering, articulate our suffering, and apply to our suffering.

2. The Psalms teach us to be gloriously honest. Just being honest isn’t always holy. It can be ugly, self righteous, and sinful. The psalmist show us we can articulate emotion in a way that is healthy and honest and righteous.

3. Another thing the Psalms teach is that working through our suffering with God results in new songs, creativity, and a fresh vibrance in God.

Psalm 28

28:1-2

• He paraphrased verses 1-2 very well. Something like, “I’m calling out to you God. Listen! If you don’t answer me, I’m going to die!”
• Faith isn’t always pretty. Sometimes it is painful. He believes that he can call out to God, but if God doesn’t respond death will take place.

28:3-5

• He names his problem. People are gossiping and slandering him in order to get him. Ever had that? We all have, right? Jesus had that too.
• Jesus in the Psalm: The NT letters respond to Christ who sufferED and diED. The Psalms as Jesus lived them show us Christ sufferING and dyING. Never thought of that.

28:6-7

• God has answered. Now faith feels Good

28:8-9

• There’s a shift from the personal to the communal. It’s now “his people” not, “I” and “me”.
• My need now becomes beneficial to the community.

Practical Tips to Song Writers and Worship Leaders

1. Remember the minor key. Don’t lose songs that articulate our pain and suffering and sadness.
2. Remember there are slow tempos. This gives us time to think and pause and reflect
3. Remember to let us rest. There needs to be time for silence. It’s the silence that builds the sounds anyway.
4. Remember the darker instruments. Those tools that have a more sad and darker sound that can score sorrowful emotions for us