We started going through Focus on the Family’s “The Truth Project” on Sunday night with a small group from our church and boy was it amazing. Just from the first lesson on “What is Truth” I know that this will be a highly intellectual and thought-provoking study. I was also able to meet some new people and am looking forward to getting to know them better.
I find it more than a little sad that so many Christians will defend their faith with, “Well, I believe it because the Bible says so, so that’s that.” While this is completely true and I agree that the Bible is the absolute sole authority on anything and everything, how does a defense like that stand with someone who doesn’t believe that any of the Bible is true? It doesn’t work. We need to be able to think and think well. We need to understand philosophy, history, ethics, anthropology, science and more. We don’t need to be experts in all of these things, but we need to at least have a grasp on them so that we can make clearer cases for our faith to people who trust in all these fields but have no trust in the Bible. I think “The Truth Project” will be doing just that.
In light of today being Darwin Day (ack - how in the world did we ever come to this??), it’s really good for us to know exactly what we believe and how to defend it intelligently. In light of worship ministry, we need to know why in the world we worship God as well. Yes, the Bible tells us to worship Him, but we need to understand why in order to have more intimate times of worship with Him.
Do you really believe that what you believe is really real?
Today and tomorrow Abiding Savior has the privilege to host three staff members from Faith Free Lutheran in Kalispell Montana. We’re going to have an opportunity to show how God is blessing us here, a little bit of how we do things during the work day/week, and perhaps more importantly to learn from them as well.
I would love to make opportunities like this available at Living Word someday and I would absolutely love to come visit another church to learn from their worship ministry.
Have you ever been involved in these experiences, either on the hosting or the visiting side? If you visited, what was one of the most meaningful things you learned? If you hosted, what was the most meaningful thing that your visitors taught you?
Well, despite the fact that I couldn’t log in to Songselect from home a couple nights ago, I noticed that they have revamped their main page to include some pretty cool stuff. They now have a blog, quick link to Songtouch and my favorite, CCLI TV! This is a pretty cool little link that has a player that shows some great clips from Paul Baloche’s training DVD’s as well as others. Here’s one on singers blending together There is also a section called OpenMic that has videos of new worship songs straight from the churches that are writing them like this one. This is pretty cool stuff! If you are involved on a worship team at all, you really should check these videos out.
My pastor beat me to it. Usually I’m the one that’s introducing new songs but I’m very glad that he found this one before I did. Many of you might have heard of Keith Getty, more than likely from the co-written song “In Christ Alone.” But Keith and his wife have written many, many great modern hymns for the church. We’re beginning to sing, “Speak, O Lord” at Living Word and boy is it a great song!
I would highly recommend this song, not only for congregational worship, but as a prayer for yourself every day.
Teach us, Lord, full obedience,
Holy reverence, true humility;
Test our thoughts and our attitudes
In the radiance of Your purity.
Cause our faith to rise; cause our eyes to see
Your majestic love and authority.
Words of pow’r that can never fail
Let their truth prevail over unbelief.
Well, as many of you might have noticed, my blogging has been a little sporadic lately. That’s because it’s been hard to find time to blog. Not only has it been hard to find time to blog, it’s been hard to find time to get into God’s Word, hard to find time to excercise and hard to find time for some other important things. But….
It hasn’t been hard to find time for my daughter!
Here’s the deal though: as much as I want and absolutely need to spend time with her, if I’m not spending regular time in God’s Word to know how to be the right father to her by being in love with my Savior, my time spent with her is without eternal purpose. Oh how I long for the day when she will say, “Dad, I love that I grew up with someone who spends every day in the Bible and knows God.”
I’m not much for New Year’s Resolutions and it is a bit late considering the date on this post, but I am going to make a goal to begin reading my Bible every day again. I have a yearning in my heart to soak up His Word, and it shouldn’t be hard to find time to do it.
