exchanged living.

From the Seedbed: How Artists Do Theology

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:36:57 -0500

From the Seedbed: How Artists Do Theology:

This is an absolutely wonderful article by Phillip Talon on art, creation, and the incredible goodness and graciousness of God. Check it out.

Good Grief: Ben Witherington on Death and Grieving

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:43:37 -0500

Good Grief: Ben Witherington on Death and Grieving:

Dr. W lost his 32-year-old daughter last month. His response and reflection on this tragic event has be nothing short of inspiring. To this point, he has posted four posts on Christian faith in the midst of suffering, especially unexpected tragedy. They are all worth reading. The link above is the first post. Click here for post two, post three, and post four.

"My hope is in nothing less than a dramatic reversal of death in the flesh. My hope is not even just..."

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:36:04 -0500

“My hope is in nothing less than a dramatic reversal of death in the flesh. My hope is not even just in the Risen One, though that is true enough, but in his promise to raise those who are in Christ from the dead. Nothing less than this is my hope. So, as I grieve for our Christy, I do so in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.”

- Dr. Ben Witherington on grief and the loss of his daughter Christy last month.

A Free @hope_church Lent Wallpaper for your spacephone, courtesy...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:00:05 -0500

A Free @hope_church Lent Wallpaper for your spacephone, courtesy of ccausey.com. Photo by Wolfgang Staudt.

The Trojan-Horse Seed of Obedience

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:51:34 -0500

I just finished an email to a professor that I’m hoping to potentially study with in the future. I’m writing a number of these emailed these days as I prayerfully consider further study in theology and biblical studies. There are tons of question marks on the horizon for us these days, and that’s not a bad thing. Catherine and I are trying to make wise decisions, keeping our ear to the ground as we wait for some of our future obedient steps to become clear.

In the mean time, I’ve been noticing more and more how some of the little steps of obedience on my plate now have huge potential futures in them. It reminds me of one of the key teachings of our church: your obedience in the moment can usher in world-changing possibilities in the future. I don’t mean to say that I think the email I just sent is going to change everything in the future; but I do believe that an obedient act now can send a ripple of events forward that reaches far beyond what I may ever see or know.

Take Paul in Acts 16. He and his entourage are headed in one direction, and the Spirit gives Paul a vision one night of a Macedonian man asking them to come help them (16:9). So they go and help the people there. Simple enough, eh?

Yet that step of obedience took the gospel westward when Paul had wanted to go east. That westward move brought the church into Macedonia, planting churches in cities whose letters from Paul still speak to the church. That westward move eventually brought Paul to Rome, and the gospel westward. And that shift changed all of church (and world) history, and one of the results of that history in the church’s presence in the US, even the church you attend.

Am I saying that Paul’s yes to that vision is the reason my church exists? No and Yes. No, in the sense that God’s purposes for the world are larger than a single act of obedience. Yes, in the sense that one simple act of obedience may hold within it thousands and thousands of future obediences, both for you and for those whom your yes affects.

Any doubt of the pregnant possibilities of your obedience need only look to the perfect obedience of Christ, through whom all of the promises of God find their yes. His prayer in the garden to take the cup and see the Father’s will unfold enables and fuels every obedient step the church has or will take. The greater things of which he spoke in John 13 pile out of the trojan-horse obedience of the cross, that Yes that makes every other yes possible.

So I’m excited about some of the possibilities that may come to be because of the steps I have before me these days. The seeds of obedience sown today have harvest upon harvest in them; may his Spirit empower and embolden me to say yes to them as they come.

In studio for an Asbury/Seedbed project based on the metric...

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:05:34 -0500

In studio for an Asbury/Seedbed project based on the metric Psalter. Should be interesting.

If your church sings psalms, how do you go about choosing melodies? Just curious…

Beard.

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:00:06 -0500

Beard.

Old Testament Family Tree - from Adam to Jaddua

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:56:18 -0500

Old Testament Family Tree - from Adam to Jaddua:

kinda cool, eh?

"Praise is more than our duty; it is our humanity! Men have climbed Everest, they tell us, because..."

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:22:23 -0500

“Praise is more than our duty; it is our humanity! Men have climbed Everest, they tell us, because the mountain is there. How much more must we climb God’s Holy hill in worship because God is there, revealing his glory to humanity made in his image?”

- Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching Christ in All of Scripture

Lent Resources for Worship Leaders || Cardiphonia

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:02:00 -0500

Lent Resources for Worship Leaders || Cardiphonia:

A great list of resources for litany, songs, and other perspectives on Lent. Thanks for the link, Bruce!

Melvin Clark’s version of “Soon and Very Soon”...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:00:05 -0500

Melvin Clark’s version of “Soon and Very Soon” on his invention, the Piano Rhythm Board. Thanks for the link, Joe!

Question for Worship Leaders: Lent Song Selection

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:52:36 -0500

I’m slowly piecing together liturgy and songs for our Lent season, and I am wondering what songs you might be singing during this season. Let me know what you have in mind; I’ll post some of my ideas next week.

Thirty Days of Prayer :: One Church's Method of Covenant Renewal

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:00:05 -0500

Thirty Days of Prayer :: One Church's Method of Covenant Renewal:

Covenant renewal in the church is something that greatly intrigues me. I have a growing obsession with using baptism well in the church (especially with the idea of baptismal renewal), and I also love when churches who have a covenant structure as part of their membership (like my church does) take that covenant agreement seriously, and call their members to renew their commitment to both Christ and their community of faith periodically.

The church behind this link is the one my brother Josh pastors in Baton Rouge: The Ring Community Church. They have taken 30 days every year to pray together through their covenant commitment as a church since their inception. This link leads to their prayer guide for this year. I figured I’d share it as a resource for those looking to do something similar in their own context. Enjoy.

MLK’s “I Have A Dream…” It is amazing to...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:48:36 -0500

MLK’s “I Have A Dream…” It is amazing to me how popular it is to reference this speech, but how few have really watched and listened to it, especially the full version of it, since their days in high school. So here’s your MLK challenge: listen to the speech and think about how this transfers into our world, into our (or your) local context, into issues like race and ethnicity in your town, your church, your life, and the call to love and serve all, family, friend, neighbor and enemy, as the people of God in this world.

From the Seedbed: A Review of Crowder Band's Requiem

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:52:27 -0500

From the Seedbed: A Review of Crowder Band's Requiem:

My friend Trevor gives his take on Crowder and Co.’s latest musical/liturgical adventure. I’m downloading this album this morning, and hope to get to really take it in today. for those who have heard it, what did you think?

I'm on a Boat! (seriously, though)

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 10:15:57 -0500

I’m on vacation until next week. Talk to you when I get back.

Seedbed launches later today! Seedbed is an online resource...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:14:00 -0500

Seedbed launches later today! Seedbed is an online resource featuring a number of incredible voices from the diverse community and network at Asbury. Check it out here!

Are You Living A Blessed Life?

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:41:55 -0500

Blessing. This term has huge currency in our world, in the church, in Scripture, even in my own vocabulary. In a generic sense, someone who is blessed is usually seen as someone who has (as opposed to someone who doesn’t have). I saw an interview yesterday with Jamie Foxx where he talks about how blessed he is to work with Quentin Tarrantino and Leo DaCaprio.

Blessed=to have, in his case, an amazing opportunity to make a movie.

Most of the time Christians see blessings as gifts from God. We acknowledge with Scripture that God is the giver of all good things (James 1:17), and in calling someone blessed, we credit God as the gracious provider of what we see as good in their (or our) life.

Blessed=to have.

The root word in the OT is barak (yes, like our president), and it has interesting overtones in its meaning. In some contexts, the word can mean to make fertile. God blessed both the creatures of the world and the man and woman in the garden when he commands them to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:22, 28). In other contexts, blessing is synonymous with empowering someone for a specific purpose, like God’s blessing of Abraham to make his name great that he may be a blessing (Gen 12:2). Every covenant made between God and man has blessing as an accompanying promise- when God enters relationship with man, blessing results. Blessing is part of the divine grace and love of God; it is life-giving and empowering, and more than material things, it is the direct result of God’s covenant loyalty and mercy towards his people.

Blessed=in relationship with a gracious God.

This is why I was floored reading Peter’s sermon in Acts 3 this morning. He concludes with this:

“God, having raised up his servant (Jesus), sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” Acts 3:26 (ESV)

Blessed by Jesus=turned away from our own wickedness by Him.

As Peter preached to his Jewish brothers and sisters, he reframed God’s intentions in sending Christ. Christ was sent to bless his people, but not simply by making them people who had good things, or even as people who has a relationship with a gracious God. Christ wanted to bless them (to empower them, or to make them life-givingly able) to leave their wickedness behind.

When Christ turns us away from our wickedness, we are blessed. The aim of the sending of Christ by God was to enable us to live a blessed life, and such a life is impossible when we are fully engaged in our own wickedness. But do we want this kind of blessing?

Do we want a blessed life as Jesus defines it, one where we welcome his grace to turn us away from our destructive sinfulness? Or would we rather just be people that “have”?

That’s what I’m wrestling with today.

"Worship should evoke memory, our common memory especially. And here we have a steep hill to climb:..."

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:57:21 -0500

“Worship should evoke memory, our common memory especially. And here we have a steep hill to climb: for many the stories of the Bible are either such a distant fading memory or unknown completely that the songs we sing can’t make sense. Read the Bible and the songbook will come alive; ignore the Bible’s stories and the songbook will gravitate to personal experience songs.”

- Scot McKnight, found here.

“Only corrupt fruit grow on a corrupt tree.” - John...

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:00:02 -0500

“Only corrupt fruit grow on a corrupt tree.” - John Wesley, “Salvation by Faith” (sermon 1)