The Life...(Wait now it makes sense)

Two years ago, I went to my first sleepover. It wasn't like sleepover's are bad or anything, it just seemed like whenever someone had one, they were a million miles away in the boonies. But finally I got to go to a sleepover to celebrate the end of the year for the basketball team. It was just me and about 6 or 7 other girls. Nothing special. A few of the team members couldn't be there, but we had fun that night.

You know what, I don't think I even cared about anything other myself that entire time. I want to go next, I want to get the best flavor of soda, I want to...you get the idea. I've kind of had that attitude for the past three years. Yeah, I guess God's there, but whenever I don't need him, I'll just leave him behind. The only time I thought about God was when my dad talked about it, or the pastor preached his sermon. But I left my Lord on the steps of the church building and waved him goodbye until next week. I didn't really care about caring about Godly things. I just shrugged that sort of stuff off, like worship and the preaching, and praying, and devotions, I was indifferent to. Whatever.

Haha, oh was I lost. I was in such deep quicksand. I had "accepted Jesus" right? That's all you have to do right? Then just do what you feel like, as long as you don't kill anybody.

Until just a few months ago, I wasn't a Christian. I didn't really care about Christianity. In all honesty, I knew that if anyone ever came up to me and told me I would die if I believed in God, I would probably just give it up. What made me realize the lies I was telling myself was what I saw in my friends, how they lived differently then me. How they actually cared about what they said. How people didn't have to tell them to be Godly, they just were. No one had to say "ok everyone, talk about the Cross right now" They just did.

Many people have grown up in a Christian home, they get the Christian words, the lingo, they do stuff just cause that's what mom and dad say, whatever, they might "accept" Jesus, but they never actually learn how to live for Christ. Living for Christ goes way past Sunday. A little bit after actually realizing how lost I really was, I was able to attend the worshipGod08 conference. It lasted four days, and already, on the second day, I felt something very foreign, but wonderful inside me. I wanted to praise God. I wanted to go into the middle of the street and just scream it. Jesus is Lord! I did! I didn't care about myself, I didn't care what anyone thought, I just wanted to praise Him! And at that moment I thought, so this is what worship is really like. It's not a stuffy room with lame music, it's lifting your hearts up.

But you don't just lift your hearts up on Sunday and them give them away all the rest of the week. Every single day, our focus is God.

If you're not a Christian, it is certainly hard to explain. You might've heard that phrase before, but it means nothing until you actually experience that longing to worship our Lord no matter when it is, where we are, what's happening around us.

More to come on this topic.

God's my Buddy

Cathedrals weren’t the same as the little churches we see tucked away on the side of the street. Obviously, the cathedral builders had much more money to spend, but these gigantic buildings with pointing ceilings that soared so in the sky, were made to make everyone who stepped into the mighty doors feel puny. The very purpose of these massive structures was, essentially, to shrink the size of humans.The monks, or the pope or the church owners/pastors, they weren’t trying to make all the people coming to feel low below them or anything, all they had in mind was glorifying God. When you entered these immense buildings, it magnified your smallness, your tinyness. Of course, as a lot of things happen to function, it works two ways. You get smaller, and when you look up and see God…he’s bigger and more amazing then you ever have seen him before. It’s not as the Creator needs help from buildings to be awe-inspiring, we just dumb him down. However harsh that sounds, our minds continue to degrade God. He is holy and mighty above anything we could possibly ever amount to. It almost feels like the cathedrals were made for someone bigger then us. Like a bug going into a person’s house. It almost seems too big. But is the house of God ever on our level? Now these majestic buildings were (and still are) accompanied by equally majestic music. The organs, the beautiful horns, the soaring melodies, the strong voices of the choir, these were old hymns. It was a big song for a big God.It would actually be really good to listen to a few of them.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNcYbrTgscc ß note the big building they’re inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuvWSbJBJKY&feature=related ß same hereWhen you listen to these songs, when you feel the bigness, the immenseness that fills those buildings, you can only think….wow. Wow…wow…. After listening to the two songs above…God seems amazing…right?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfZhXz69xYQ

Oh goodness, the only thought that crosses my mind is ‘God is our Buddy.’ This is what CCM is trying to tell you. God is your buddy. He loves yaThis is another example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_DbnBCVGPcWell…After that….Does God seem big?Does God seem mighty?Does He seem like the kind of person who can make mountains stand on their head and fling lightning across the sky? God is not given his due glory. God shouldn’t ever ever have to be reduced to going to the movies with us, or being our ‘best friend.’ (in the most casual sense)Intentional or not, these songs can only bring these thoughts into our head. Maybe it came from the idea of Abba (daddy) Father. Maybe, but the truth is, God is holy.I love this passage in Isaiah 6 :In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"If, when you heard about Isaiah, or continue to hear and read about him, do any of us view Isaiah the prophet as sinful, Satanist or worldy? Not really, yet even he feels the burden of his sin, his blackness, his punyness in the presence of such a mighty and powerful being. This is one of the issues that can come up when worshiping God. The words might sound nice, but not when it brings God down to nothing (our level). That’s a possibility, but not unavoidable. Anyone who says all Christian worship songs are like “I am a Friend of God’ has never heard Delirious?, virtually any of Hillsong’s songs, etc. etc. If you feed your brain constantly with this, the mindset and the thinking get's forced in too. It becomes easy and natural to think of God as casual. Even if we don't know it. I'm not saying that we should only listen to hymns. Strap ourselves to a pair of headphones and blast organ into our ears for ever. Certainly not. In fact, God is immanent and transcendent. He isn't just transcendent, what I'm saying is that there is a potential hazard in only dwelling on God-punyizing worship. You might want to ask yourself the following questions about a song you are doubting:

Does this song promote a ‘warm and fuzzy feeling’ about God?
Does this song refer to God as a friend/buddy/in a very casual way?
Is this song by Philips, Craig and Dean?


(by the way, that last one was a joke…sort of)
I would encourage you to look at a couple of songs (as examples of God-bigifying songs):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy9CGymYvuAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSZdflfRTNAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G7AKpKayac
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BbW4xwkQOLQ (not necessarily a worship song, but you get the idea)

He Spins Me, oh He Spins Me

I just found out about this video yesterday. In all honesty I was expecting the (ungodly) usual of kicking old ladies in the face, a guy with colon cancer in the stomach, more beating, and more supernatural "HEALING"
Then I actually watched it, and, well you can see for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL2q-8G_I5M

So, apparently, Jesus spins you around like a record. And that's pretty much the peak of theology and truth given to these people going to Todd Bentley's "Revivals"
Well, I am not going to say much about Todd Bentley's actual healing...ministry, although it's not a ministry, if you're thinking like bringing people to the true Christ ministry, but rather I'm really talking about what he's doing in this 'worship' scene.
So these people are jumping up and down in this meeting waving their socks all over the place because this "Angel of Light" (2 Corinthians 11: 14) is telling them to. The first question I want to ask is, why? Why are these people getting all excited about Jesus spinning them? Because Jesus died, he was murdered, so they could be alive where they are now? Because they don't have to fear going into the throne room of God with the blood of all the people they murdered on their hands? Is that what the singing of his grace, how amazed they are?

Well, you probably know where I'm going. I don't think any of that was in anyone's heart. Sure enough they were distracted, they weren't worshiping. Maybe something like 'why the heck am I waving my dirty sock around my head' or 'this is an awesome song and they added Jesus. Yay this is an awesome song' etc. etc.
It's not exactly the goal of true believers in Christ to get people worked up about the 80's and dirty socks.
Bob Kauflin put it well in his book 'Worship Matters' (pg. 122)

"We don't want to motivate people to worship God through manipulation [or to get them engaged but not worship god at all] I can try to manipulate them through music style...insincere emotion...mysticism (let's close our eyes and act like something really significant is happening though no one's sure what it is) and performance (that electric guitar solo before the modulation on verse 4 is guaranteed to get people worshiping)"

You see, it's not just about how cool something sounds that makes it good worship. But you know what, I doubt that's what even Todd Bentley was trying to do.
All that song was, all those 'Revivals" are are merely ploys to get people to buy into it. The happy 'cool' sound to the pointless song is mainly aimed at teenagers, or otherwise 'hip' people. If you're cool, you dance. If you're cool, you sing Jesus spins me. If you're cool, you twirl your socks. That's all there is to it. Oh and guess what, you get the added bonus of looking like your praising God. These people don't understand who God is. Even Satan can appear as an angel of light. Because if someone goes into one of Todd Bentley's services and comes out decided they want to follow Christ, as soon as they get into the real world they will either continue using false doctrine and never really believe, or they will realize how false and fake this teaching is and lose interest.

All of Todd Bentley's "revivals" are for his own glory. He even claims to be able to control God.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeLabIBf9Aw

But I'm not here simply to tell you the problems that are packed into Todd Bentley's ministry. The point right now is about the worship.
That's why the rate is so high for college students and young adults and singles to fall away from the faith they had in childhood. Why? because they never are getting the gospel in the first place. They are getting all the motions. They go to a church, the sing songs, they here about voodoo monsters being cast out, and they say cool, so this is what I am. But they never...ever...really have true faith. This is the importance of true worship, true teaching, and having a guard for, frankly, heritics like Mr. Bentley.


If you want to learn more about the falasies in Todd Bently's ministry, I'd suggest listening to "The Lawman" witnessing at one of his revivals.
Part 1: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=t_EqqP8YzVU
Part 2: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tw80YxifRJ4&feature=related
Another Video worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICmzl6VmyU4&feature=related

NewSongCafe

This is just a post telling you about a great resource for worship leaders, muscians, or anyone who wants to learn to play Christian Songs. It's called NewSongCafe, and they get the artists to come in, play and teach their songs.
You can find their videos here: www.worshiptogether.com
Their youtube channel is: http://www.youtube.com/user/NewSongCafe

The Main Idea.

I have many many post ideas that will be coming up, but this is sort of where all those ideas branch from. Just a note. Anyway:

Don’t you love it when you hear a really good talk, a really good sermon, in a really powerful worship service, and you try to explain it.
“It was so amazing. I’ve never felt so excited about worship before. He just spoke so well…it was…just…really good.”

Well yeah, that’s kind of how I’m feeling right now. You just had to be there. We just finished the WorshipGod08 conference, and it was amazing. Bob Kauflin is anointed by God, it’s really spectacular how he just draws you in right away and engages you. As a worship leader, it’s just breath-taking, singing those songs with him and the little church band. Unfortunately, I can’t say all what’s been said in the sessions here. However, you can find a lot of stuff on this site: www.worshipgodconference.com
But the most important thing of all worship is simply this: meaning what you’re singing, saying and living. I’m mainly talking about singing right now. And there are two different aspects of it that I just want to touch on. And it’s just touching. If you want something in depth, go to Bob Kauflin’s blog, because he’s way smarter about worship then I will ever be. This is merely an encouragement to you. (what, is that a death sentence? A blogger telling people to read someone else’s blog?)
:P
But anyway, the first thing is simply this: what you think while you are worshiping.
Frankly, you will not die if you do not sing the words written. Often times, I just want to listen, and hear the truths sung to me. It is much easier for me to weigh the words like that. But a lot of people just love singing. I love singing, I’m sure there are other people out there that love singing, but I don’t know how many times I sing because I like music. That’s right, music. Not God, not that these songs are my war cry, my victory song, my chant, my anthem, but that music sounds good to me. And, by the way, this song has a cool melody in the chorus.
I just like this song.

It’s sad, but it’s awfully true. We should be singing these songs because we have mercies to sing of. We have problems to lay at Jesus’ feet. We have things we don’t understand, but all we know is that God reigns, God saves, and we will rejoice in that. Yet, we still think worship time is the time to be thinking about lunch, or our friends, or our kids, or why our expecting mom’s would crave pickles and chocolate sauce.
The only reason that worship band is up there, and those lyrics are flashing across the screen, and those mixing and tech guys are doing what they do, is to help you worship God. They want to assist you, get you thinking. That is, about the Truth, not the latest style of converse shoes.

It’s funny how our minds work. See, since I told you ‘think about what your singing and the truths,’ you will be doing one of a couple of things. You may just think about the bible in general. ‘oh that was a nice story. Oh yeah, Jesus died on the cross.’ You might be imaging the scene. Like from the song ‘Amazing Grace’ and the chorus Chris Tomlin added. ‘My chains are gone, I’ve been set free…’ Then you picture some slave being released, maybe even the movie Amazing Grace popping into your head. Both of the previous options are not good. Why? Because they don’t make you grow. Martin Luther didn’t sit down one day and decide what the right way is to worship, and then we caught on. No, it’s a. What gives God glory and b. what makes you grow in a relationship with God. (that is the most watered down definition of worship you will ever find)
The entire point of this is: you can sing, you can shout, you can cry, you can jump, but why are you doing it? Well, because that’s just what you do first thing in a church service. It’s just what you do. No thought put into it, it just happens. So worship, so praise to the God who took us out of black and put us into light, it just happens? You don’t even think about what you’re doing, you just do it?

If this is what is happening my friends, then there is a serious problem. Why? Because we have a clear reason to sing. Every Sunday, you’ve had seven days of mercies, or new mercies to happen, for God to give you. Those mercies should make you sing. Them alone.
So, where does this put us? If you are truly a Christian, and know that God saw that speck and decided to save it from the flames, and you follow God will all that’s in you, then it only puts us in one position. When we go into that auditorium, that classroom, that living room, whatever it may be, on Sunday Morning, we go because we want to sing. We WANT TO SING! We want to let it all out! We don’t care about who made the soccer team, or who has a dirty shirt on, because does it really matter? No, not in the slightests. What matters is that God Reigns. He saved you. And you want to sing to him, you will sing to him with every breath that is in you.