A series of articles on prayer written by Joel Virgo are currently being featured on The Resurgence Blog, a resource based in America and run in partnership with Mars Hill Church Seattle and the Acts 29 network.

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The biblical doctrine of prayer is not in contradiction of its doctrine of providence, but in correspondence with it.

Prayer is among God’s ordained means to God’s ordained ends: He who has purposed to accomplish His will has also purposed to do so through and with the prayer of his people.

Prayer often seems to us the weakest of all our works and sometimes the most irrelevant. But the power of prayer is, quite simply, the power of the divine response to prayer; it finds its power in the strength of his love, as the power of the baby’s cry lies in the devotion of the baby’s parent. Its relevance is asserted by God who tells us to pray.

Peter Lewis
The Living God
P 312.

I’m away for two days at an annual Songwriters Consultation that Graham Kendrick runs,  there are about 60 of us here from the UK and further. Having a great time. Today we had Jim Wallis talk about remembering the poor, justice and compassion. It was hugely challenging to be honest… Followed by a Q&A session with Jim, Martin Smith and Tre Shepherd.

I guess it’s easy to think that caring for the poor is what the ’social justice’ people do, or just a few projects we do on the side. But the truth is, it’s at the heart of the gospel. The first words Jesus proclaimed in public are quoting Isaiah 61 – ’sent to the poor’ (see Luke 4:16-20). Also, remembering the poor is quite a clear theme through scripture – which obviously climaxes with Christ, the One who became poor to save the poor.

Anyways, heard a lot of stuff today but here’s some thoughts for songwriters… There are three types of compassion/justice songs:

1) Songs that inform us about the poor and injustice. Eg the verses to Delirious’ Our God Reigns

2) Songs that help us worship in the place of poverty, injustice. Eg It is well with my soul

3) Songs that commission us to go to the poor. Eg God of Justice

But all of these MUST be in the context of the gospel – The God of justice sent His son to the poor to bind up their brokenness and bring freedom to the captives, and by extension we carry on this Kingly work of Christ as His hands and feet, as His church. Our motivation for mission and source of compassion is the gospel, and the agent for God’s mission is not a charity but the Church. Yes!

I’m challenged as I haven’t written any songs in either of these 3 camps. Hmmm. Well there’s my thoughts for the day. Over and out

Awesome! is a word we use quite a lot in our culture. We talk about awesome roast dinners… and awesome free-kicks… and awesome movies… But Job 25:2 says ‘Dominion and awe belong to God’, so only God is truly awesome.

I’m reading The Living God by Peter Lewis at the moment (an astonishing book) and just read about Mount Sinai and the 10 Commandments. I was so stunned by this paragraph, I had to share it. It’ll help to read Exodus 19:16-19 for the context…

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.  Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain  trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. Exodus 19:16-19

Peter Lewis writes:

“It is surely fair to say that awe is in danger of becoming the forgotten emotion among Christians today. This is not because we know better but because we know less! We have lost sight somewhat of the awesome holiness of God. We have become desensitized to sin. We do not realize how extraodrinary it is that we can survive in God’s presence. The fact that it took a Calvary for us to ‘have confidence to enter the Most High Place’ (Heb 10:19) should make us think again: ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for us’ (Gal 3:13)

There is only one place on earth more awesome than Sinai and that is Calvary. There God the One and Only did not come down to a mountain but was lifted up on a cross. There the Son of God, who had come in our human nature, bore the penalty for our human sin, our great rebellion against God. There the Judge was judged in our place and the One who had given the commandments died for those who had broken them.”

The living God, the true God, the God of the bible – alone – is truly awesome.

C.J. Mahaney answers the question, “Why sing so many cross-centered songs in corporate worship?” at Bob Kauflin’s WorshipGod conference. Absolutely worth all 8 minutes 35 seconds. Phenomenal.

Psalms Hymns and Spiritual Songs

So it’s important that lyrics are true and reliable if people are going to sing them and allow them to feed truth into their daily lives. So does that mean we should restrict our song content to Scripture quotations?

While there’s a strong argument for saying “yes”, it is clear from Scripture and church history that the people of God have always benefited from contemporary expressions of eternal doctrine applied and expressed in a way that their generation can easily grasp. The meaning and content of Scripture should always be central to the songwriter’s work; but there is value in moving beyond the mere reciting of Scripture in order to explore the meaning, much as a preacher might do in a sermon.

The Role of Songs

The first thing we must realize is that worship songs play a significant part in our lives; not only for us as musicians, but for all those who attend our services. Our congregations may hear some fantastic biblical teaching on a Sunday morning, but when they leave they’re more likely to be humming one of the worship songs than reciting a section of the sermon.

Let’s face it: songs stick in the mind in a way that the spoken word does not. And that means that in our daily lives we can recall truth when it is contained in a song. For example, I still sing the old chorus “For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…” when I’m trying to remember Galatians 5!

This fact was not lost on great preachers of the past. For Luther, Newton and Wesley, the central message of their songs was the truth they were preaching in their sermons. In fact, William booth and others changed the words to popular secular songs of the day in order to better fix biblical truth in the minds of believer and unbeliever alike.

This is part 2 in a series of thoughts on Does it matter what we sing? More coming soon…

I noticed an article recently in a Christian publication claiming that a number of well known, much-used worship songs were actually unbiblical. The writer’s arguments concerning specific songs were not particularly convincing, but it did raise an issue that affects all those of us involved in leading and participating in church worship: how much do we take care to ensure what we sing is true? And does it really matter anyway?

Yes.

Over the next few days and weeks, I’ll try and post up some thoughts on the Role of Songs, Doctrine and Experience, Theology and Poetry and Psalm, Hymns and Spiritual Songs.

I’ll tweet once something’s up if you’re interested…