I have to make a confession today.  What I’d like to confess is that I want this blog only to be used for the glory of Jesus Christ and to lift Him up.  What I’d like to confess is that I don’t want to use this blog to spread my name.  But, what I’m confessing is actually the exact opposite.  My human nature is fighting, fighting with the fact that I know I need to give up my thoughts of spreading the word about what I write.  My human nature is fighting the fact that when I look at my stats and see them rising I know that it shouldn’t matter.  My human nature is fighting pride.

God’s Name or Our Name?

Especially as bloggers – we tend to do what we can to build our followers, promote our blogs, trade links, whatever – but why? Are we truly doing it so that God’s glory can be known and exalted through our blogs – or are we doing it so that our name can be known?  I don’t know about you, but I am fearful that there will be a constant struggle for me as I write and continue to make new acquaintances that I will want more and more to promote myself.

I pray that God is always rightly exalted through me and that I would continue to decrease while He continues to increase.

I guess I just wanted to confess this to the world today, ask for prayer – and encourage us all to keep things in perspective.  Is it wrong to want to promote ourselves?  If it’s under the guise of “oh – I’m doing this so that Jesus will be lifted up” but really, deep down we just want ourselves promoted – yes, I think it’s wrong.  If we truly have the desire to lift Jesus up more than anything, maybe not.

What About You?

So, those of you who are bloggers out there – what do you do to remain humble?  Are you justifying self-promotion because “it’s all about Jesus” but it’s really all about you?  For me, thankfully, God used a couple of different circumstances to say, “Hey, Ryan, slow down – this is about me, not you.”  And it was right when I needed it.  God’s Word says,

Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5) as well as

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” (Proverbs 11:2)

My prayer, for all of us, is that we would have humility and wisdom before everything else.

(photo by Forrest Cavale)

Yesterday at Living Word was a bit different than usual.  Our pastor is on a much needed vacation, so I filled in with the teaching yesterday while the other two deacons helped to lead the service.  Will, Kelli and Robin did a fantastic job of leading worship, bringing back a few of my favorite hymns that I hadn’t sung for a while.  Songs for the morning:

• Praise to the Lord the Almighty (hymn)
• Blessed Assurance (hymn)
• Softly and Tenderly (hymn)
• Jesus, Thank You (Sovereign Grace)

One of the best parts of the day for me was a testimony from Hans, one of our youth who had just been to what’s called FLY BootCamp (Free Lutheran Youth Boot Camp), an intense time of training and encouragement for youth from the Free Lutheran Church around the country.  This year they focused on evangelism with some hands on training.  I must admit, when it comes to evangelism – especially on the street, everyday, talk to whoever you meet evangelism, I fall way short.  Hans challenged all of the adults in the congregation to be examples for the youth, because that’s where the youth get their inspiration and encouragement to keep going.  I was sure convicted!  What a great challenge for adults for every area of life as well.  People are watching, folks.

By the way, Fred McKinnon just started something pretty cool to get people seeing what other churches around the country are singing week to week.  This post is part of his ‘Sunday Setlists’ post. Check it out, especially if you’re interested in some new song ideas.

Tomorrow, I want to dive into a hard topic, one that I’ve been wrestling with this past weekend as some interesting things have happened with this blog – pride.  I’m going to be honest and raw and hope that some of our thinking might shift a little.  See you tomorrow.

As I was recently re-listening to Come Weary Saints I couldn’t help but notice an interesting choice of instrumentation on the title track.  I’m not sure exactly because I purchased the mp3 set and don’t have the pdf handy to check instrumentation, but I’m pretty sure they are using a harp at the end of the song.  It very well could be a nylon stringed guitar – but I think it’s a harp.  I had never thought of using harp as a worship team instrument before, but now I think I could definitely find some ways to do it – which leads me to my question:

Apart from David Crowder’s crazy rigging of a Guitar Hero© controller, what is the most different or unusual instrument you’ve seen used by a worship team? I’d love to hear it all – even if you’re from another country and think that using a guitar is unusual!

Let’s hear it!