I must follow, if I can: July 2006 Archives

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July 29, 2006

Getting back in the saddle

I've been asked by the pastor of a very small congregation to lead worship place of my Dad tomorrow morning, because he's driving my Mom to Henderson to see Gayle Erwin teach (lucky...).

For those of you who don't know, I've been on a sort of musical hiatus ever since I left Calvary Chapel of Chico. I've been digging into the scriptures, reading books, and listening to John Piper's Desiring God Radio podcast during this time while I've been re-evaluating what worship is really all about. I've also been comparing this "ideal", or the biblical standard of worship (see ch. 7, "The Inner Simplicity and Outer Freedom of Worldwide Worship" in Piper's book Let the Nations Be Glad to get a glimpse of what I'm talking about), with what I've been observing on the stages of local churches, a presentation of something which is distinctly and emphatically NOT what worship is about.

I feel so strongly convicted about what worship is, that I don't want to participate in something that I know it's not. I've been seriously convicted regarding the use of that word. It doesn't mean what we think it means. And the modern-day evangelical church has come to use it to refer to the sing-along time which comes before the announcements, the passing of the offering bucket, and the preacher getting up to speak. But worship is a lifestyle, not a sing-along.

When I left Calvary Chico and started going to a fellowship on campus at Chico State called "The Edge", it was really cool. Worship--or the sing-along thing we refer to as "worship"--wasn't just a sing-along. It was a real experience of entering into the throne room of God! It's becoming rarer these days, and I don't understand why! I have a real sensitivity to the worshipper's heart in people I see leading worship, and if they don't have it, I tune out right away. And it's something that's so much bigger than technical expertise.

It seems like so often people feel like they must put a band together and have a PowerPoint presentation, for the sole reason being that it's just the way it's done these days. The sadness is that often "worship" of this type just plain stinks. I've been spoiled by my time in southern California, being surrounded by so much God-given talent being properly exerted for God's glory in worship music. But there's a difference between a genuine expression according to the gifts God's given you, and trying to do something because that's what everyone else is doing. Worship must first of all be genuine, and you're more likely to find a single guitar player or piano player with a genuine worshiper's heart than you are to find a whole band. And it is my belief that you shouldn't have a band for the sake of having a band.

The ideal worship expression for me is in a home fellowship, where you know everybody there is saved and on the same page. And when this is the case, you can go on for hours!!! Speaking of home fellowships, I think a big part of the problem with the modern contemporary evangelical congregational expression of worship is directly related to the size of our churches. We've made "worship" an external concert experience rather than an internal stance of devotion and heart-attitude. I think when Scripture refers to "speaking to one another in songs, hymns, and spiritual songs", the original context of that was not in a huge temple gathering with all the other Christians in town. It was in a private home. Even if you have people sitting on floors and window sills (or falling out of them), you were with a group of people you knew and trusted. There was heavy persecution at the time, and you didn't want Judaizer spies turning you in to the Sanhedrin, so the church gathering was private rather than evangelistic. (The evangelism is what happened on the streets and in the temple courts. And in the jails.)

Contextually, in such an instance of "songs, hymns, and spiritual songs," you don't have a ton of people watching you. It's not a performance that's being critiqued, and you don't have to worry about people not coming back next week. When the focus group is smaller, the level of talent expectation goes down. But I believe this has a lot to do with what the gospel is all about: taking ordinary people and leveling the playing field so that it has nothing to do with your status according to what the world sees. Like when Samuel anointed Saul: "Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." I firmly believe there are plenty of people with "three chords and the truth" to be able to have a worship leader in every congregation if all congregations were small enough to fit in somebody's living room.

I used to think about worship as giving to God. A "sacrifice of praise". But God does not need anything from us (Acts 17:25). John Piper wrote an excellent assessment in "God's Passion for His Glory" that's exactly how I feel:

"If the focus in corporate worship shifts onto our giving to God, one result I have seen again and again is that subtly it is not God that remains at the center by the quality of our giving. Are we singing worthily of the Lord? Do the instrumentalists play with a quality befitting a gift to the Lord?... And little by little the focus shifts off the utter indispensability of the Lord himself onto the quality of our performances. And we even start to define excellence and power in worship in terms of the technical distinction of our artistic acts."

There's more from John Piper, in Let the Nations Be Glad, ch. 7 (the chapter I mentioned before). One thing he said is that the OT word for worship is boycotted in the NT because it "did not make clear enough the inward, spiritual nature of true worship. It carried significant connotations of place and form. The word was associated with bodily bowing down and with the actual presence of a visible manifestation to bow down before." So, when Jesus was there physically, people were "worshipping" him all the time! And there's a whole lot of "worship" going on before the throne of God in the book of Revelation.

Piper also says (and this one's a real nugget): "In the New Testament, worship is significantly de-institutionalized, de-localized, de-externalized. The entire thrust is taken off ceremony and seasons and places and forms and is shifted to what is happening in the heart--not just on Sunday but on every day, and all the time in all of life."

I want to be a part of a community that's seeking after God, with what Dave Owen used to refer to as "burning at the same spiritual temperature". But without the forms and the religiosity. Without the control of "connected" people heavily influencing church politics, who get upset when you don't do things their way. I haven't found such a place yet, at least not in the town where I am.

Brian Tieleman wanted me to come lead worship at their new church plant in Calabasas last month. Now, I know Tieleman's heart is always going to be sensitive to provide an atmosphere conducive to worship. But I don't think I was ready yet. The church where I'll be in the morning is the size of a home fellowship, even though it doesn't meet in a home. I kind of wish they did, though. It would force people to not sit in rows. And it would probably make them feel uncomfortable if they wore a suit and tie (which is something I don't approve of in the context of church, unless you're at a wedding or a funeral. In the New Testament, church was about sharing your life. Your real life, not the shiny happy face you put on in business meetings. I believe dressing up is like wearing a mask.)

Though he wears a tie, the pastor is a fan of my dad's, and very humble about his own skills. When he asked me if I would do it, I told him it's been a really long time, but he insisted. I was thinking about how much I'd love to do it if I were in Scotland, and I believe the missionary heart needs to have the same servant response whether you're at home or abroad.

Here's the song list:

"Shout to the North" (Martin Smith)
"In Christ Alone" (Stuart Townend)
"My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less" (William Bradbury)
"Once Again" (Matt Redman)

Other than the hymn, written by a New Englander 150 years ago, all the songs are British. I felt like getting in the mood for a ministry trip to Scotland & Ireland (even though there's little chance of that happening any time soon because of my work's lousy vacation policies). Also, the pastor is Irish, so is a third of the congregation.

My fingers are sore. I only had a week's notice to prepare, but that's no excuse. Scripture says we need to be ready "in season and out of season."

Posted by aaronlord at 09:44 PM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2006

Bonus Baseball in San Francisco

The Sledgehammer I don't know if any of you know this, but I'm a Padres fan. Born and bred in sunny San Diego, California, I grew up listening to games on the radio, watching them on TV, and even going to games with my family. I even have some souvenirs! The bat that I usually keep by my front door as my sole theft deterrent was picked up as a home-game give-away way back in the early '80s, back when they wore brown and gold. Anyways, here in Vegas, Cox Cable, as a proud sponsor of the Friars, carries live game coverage for virtually every Padres game, unless it's a national network blackout or a midweek day game. So after living in towns where local coverage was always given to the Dodgers and the Giants, I now finally get to play catch-up and watch the Padres play all the time!

It was a tough series against the Giants this weekend. They lost 3 in a row, and last night's loss resulted in them losing first place in the National League West, while the Giants Bogarted that title, for one day, anyway. But this afternoon's game was one to remember. One of those edge-of-the seat nailbiters! It took 12 innings, but they finally earned the victory, and moved back into the lead that they had successfully held on to all month until Saturday's loss. I'm so proud! Here's the article from padres.com.

Posted by aaronlord at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2006

Giving Is a Party

Kent Hughes may be a gifted teacher, but there are things to disagree with him about.

First of all, he's a pedobaptist (or halfway, anyway), meaning that he thinks it's cool to baptize babies before they're old enough to be able to even say "Jesus". (See last year's discussion in Matt Hall's blog).

Another issue troubled me recently when I was reading his chapter on giving in Disciplines of a Godly Man. First, I'd like to say that I know that I give less than I should. But the only reason for that is that I believe it's biblically less-than-ideal for me to have credit card debt, so I am putting more than half of my income towards remedying that situation, in order that I may be more free to give in the future.

There are some points I want to make about the issue of giving, and how the modern church misuses scripture and manipulates the poor in order to keep the coffers full.

First, ancient Israel was intended to be a theocracy. Which means that the government as well as the state religion were supported by a 10% tax. The Levites, 1/12 of the tribes of Israel, were set apart for temple service, and they were supported by the other 11/12 of the nation. This was called a tithe. Numbers 18:21 says that the tithes are to support the Levites, who work in the service of the Lord, and thus don't have their own fields and herds from which to eat.

Every year, the Israelites tithed to the temple. Except in every third year. Deuteronomy 14:28 clearly states, "At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year..." (NIV). Now, maybe the NIV has it wrong, but this is the translation Hughes himself chose. But I always understood this to refer to that year's tithe, meaning that the Levites only ended up with 6.67% of Israel's income on average, and the other 3.33% went to the poor. If you count out the tribes and consider the Levites 1/13 of the nation, then giving them 6.67% of the nation's wealth is a little more fair (Joseph was split into two tribes in order to even things out in battle, since the Levites weren't soldiers).

Even though you might think of the concept of tithing as legalistic, if you look at Deuteronomy 14, you can see that God gives people immense freedom and variety in how they can give. Option 1: take your produce to the temple (verse 23). Option 2: if you live too far away from the temple and don't want to cart all your produce, you can just sell it for money, and take the money to the temple, with your family (verse 25). Option 3: every third year, you do this in your local towns so that orphans, widows, nomads, and Levites who don't live in Jerusalem can benefit.

But I think the big thing that stands out for me in Deuteronomy 14 is that it's like a huge party. Verse 23 says, "...you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock..." (ESV). Verse 26: "...spend the money for whatever you desire--oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves." Hello! Did you see that? God wants his people to party like crazy animals! "And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household." And every year, the party happened in the local towns, that all the disadvantaged in the area "shall come and eat and be filled, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do."

No wonder people have a hard time giving today. It's not as fun as it used to be! There used to be huge parties where you'd spend all of your tithe on steak and adult beverages! This doesn't really have anything to do with the way tithing is done in churches today. I see more whine than wine when the offering plate is passed!

Now that I have the groundwork laid, I want to address the problems I have with Hughes' interpretation. My chief argument with Hughes is the way he interprets the tithe for the Levites, the festal tithe, and the third-year tithe for the local poor, as three distinct tithes, all of which happened at the same time, so that it comes out to 23.3% on average. But I think it's painfully obvious that each of these references refer to three different manifestations of giving for the same 10% of your income.

The trouble with Hughes' interpretation is his resulting application. He's either trying to guilt-trip people if they give less than 23.3% of their income, or he's trying to guilt-trip them into giving at least 10% by saying, "Oh, come now, you have it easy. It could be so much worse, just look at the Israelites! They had to give much more!" We know that on average, people who call themselves Christians in America don't give any more than those who don't (and it's much less than ten percent), so we all need to give more. But if someone already feels too overwhelmed and discouraged by a 10% goal to actually take action and commit to giving, how much more overwhelmed and discouraged they are going to be when you tell them the goal is 23.3%! Furthermore, by trying to use a Biblical reference to support a 10% tithe, and yet raising the Biblical tithe to 23.3%, he thereby nullifies his application of Old Testament law to support tithing 10% in the church. If we're supposed to tithe like the Jews, then we're supposed to tithe like the Jews. If we're not, then we're not!

My second gripe comes from something he said later in the chapter. For a chapter which is intended to be about how it's bad to be materialistic, I think he shows his weakness with materialism by making it about numbers. Instead of glorying in what giving is: worship unto the Lord, giving ourselves to him in trust that he'll provide for us. He mentions the widow's mite, and how Jesus said she gave more than all the rest. Clearly, for Jesus, it's not about quantity. And you'd think Hughes understood this, otherwise he wouldn't have used the illustration. However, he then goes on to say something terrible!

And in the case of the Macedonians' grace giving, the amount must have been way over 10 percent because 10 percent of their "extreme poverty" (2 Corinthians 8:2) would not have helped anyone. (pp. 198-199)

The audacity!!! It's actually harder for poor people to give ten percent of their income than it is for rich people to, because the poor do not have anything expendible. So even if the poor Macedonians only gave 10%, that's worth so much more to God than 10% given by a rich man, because it's an act of sacrifice. Looking back at the widow's mite, in Jesus' mind, the others who gave would be doing good by giving until what they had left was the same as the widow. I believe that's what God's economy is like.

Christianity was never intended to be a state religion. It was about living in community, not supporting institutions. In the second chapter of Acts, we have the best picture of what Christian giving is supposed to look like.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. (v. 44-45, ESV)

Remember, these were all Jews living in Jerusalem, the place where the temple was, the place where everybody took their tithes. Now they were Christians. It's not that they stopped tithing to the temple and started tithing to the church. They were Jewish citizens in a land occupied by Rome. They tithed to the temple, and they paid taxes to Caesar. It was the law! But both of these became for these Christians social necessities, just as, if you live anywhere but Nevada, you have to pay taxes to the state as well as the federal government, and you give as the Lord leads you.

In the biblical New Testament form, giving will always mean there are some people who will receive more than they give, because they had "all things in common" and distributed "the proceeds to all, as any had need". The biblical New Testament form, white American Christians would give to poor African Christians until you looked at their houses and couldn't tell the difference between those who earned $8,000 a month and those who earned $80 a month. That's what a literal interpretation and application of this verse would mean.

The church was never intended to look anything like the temple, just as giving was never intended to look anything like the tithe (although if it looked more like Deuteronomy 14, with the juicy meat and the drinking, we'd be doing a lot better!).

I might add that I need never have fallen into so much debt after the dot-com bubble burst, if giving in the church today looked like it's supposed to, with those who have taking care of those who have not, rather than giving to support a new building, fancy lighting and video projection system, and a fancy new Mercedes M-class and Saab convertible for the pastor, all the while telling those who were receiving unemployment benefits that if they weren't putting 10% of it in the offering basket, they were "robbing God" just as Malachi says. However, I must point out that even in my poorest state, I was much more well-off than tons of homeless people in America and the poor around the world.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swollowing a camel! (Matt. 23:23-24, ESV)

If the chief phrase for you in that passage is "without neglecting the others", then you're totally missing Jesus' point.

Like a quote a friend of mine likes to repeat as often as possible, "How much can I do without that I may have more to give?"

Like I said, giving in the New Testament is not about supporting institutions and building projects. It's about helping those in need. There are links on my blog to WorldVision, an organization I support because they are Christians who preach Christ whenever they can, yet they care blindly for those who need their help, because you can't preach to them if they starve to death. My parents support a bunch of missionaries. And if you need more ideas, there's also Samaritan's Purse and Gospel for Asia.

Posted by aaronlord at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)

July 15, 2006

No unclean thing...

It's against the MySpace user agreement to use CSS or other means to disable ads from showing up on your MySpace profile. However, they have no control over your browser extensions, so if you'd like to keep those "TrUe" "8 million singles" "It's nice to be naughty" ads from showing up every time you visit myspace, all you have to do is use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, and download the Adblock Extension, and the Adblock Filter Updater.

Posted by aaronlord at 10:56 AM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2006

Un-Delling Your Dell

Just thought I should follow up on the computer upgrade progress, for those who seemed to be interested in what I was doing with it last year. As I mentioned in my MySpace blog a couple of months ago, I had to replace the motherboard in my computer. I replaced it with an ASUS P4P800 SE from NewEgg.com, which works excellently! I had gone to Fry's to get a new mobo because I considered it an emergency, only to find out when I got home that the one I picked wasn't even compatible with my CPU, so I had to return it. This one's a perfect replacement, although you would need a larger ATX case like mine to hold it (for those of you trying to upgrade your Dell Dimension 2350). The mobo has an AGP video slot, so I also got a new video card with dual monitor & DVI capability. I also replaced the power supply with a new one from Antec. Replace the mobo also meant I had to buy a new copy of Windows to replace the OEM version. Last winter I also added on a 120 GB hard drive to hold all my music. So now there's nothing Dell about it (except for my Dell LCD monitor, which I purchased separately because it was a great bargain).

Posted by aaronlord at 03:37 PM | Comments (2)

Wisdom Teeth, or My Mouth Hurts Really Bad

Well, I got my lower wisdom teeth removed yesterday. It hurts so bad!!! I had totally been looking forward to having the day off from work (I don't get many of those), but I don't think the trade-off is worth all the pain! I'd much rather be performing monthly maintenance tasks on the company's call collector database, or even -- *gasp* -- importing huge spreadsheets of e-mail addresses into the Smash Mag mailing list!

Last night I watched the new Pride and Prejudice with my parents. Being the manly man that I am, I tried to avoid it for such a long time! But I suppose my curiosity was captured through the references in Blue Like Jazz, as well as You've Got Mail (which isn't a very manly-man type of film either). Notwithstanding the fact that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, the film was actually quite good, and I gotta say Elizabeth Bennett's an awesome chick! However, I did get rather depressed by that whole, "Papa, we're so similar", thing. I think the quest for a soulmate is easier when you just give up on it entirely, and it hurts less when you don't expose yourself to such sentiments in film and literature. But that's a rather morbid attitude, and since I am never again going to date somebody with which I don't have that kind of connection, I should make it clear that avoiding the soulmate idea for me does not mean replacing it with an anti-soulmate outlook. Once, for a couple of months, I gave up on the soulmate thing and replaced it with a sort of pragmatic, go-with-the-flow outlook, and I must say it was the worst period of my life. I believe in the Providence of God, and that he does have someone picked out for me who would match in that e-Harmony kind of way (which I don't use, by the way), and I reject the teaching and opinions of those who say the opposite. So when I say it's easier to avoid it, I guess I mean it's easier to not think about it (for example, by avoiding chick flicks and love songs), because all that does is bring depression. I guess I have to just wait for God's timing and remain available to whatever his plans are, waiting for him to point her out to me.

One more observation: I gotta say that if it is at all possible, one should avoid having 5 daughters and no sons. I know that sometimes such things cannot be avoided, but in such cases, one should hope for his daughters to be more like Elizabeth than the others, and one should stand up and be the man of the house and prevent the kind of meddlesomeness and shallowness expressed by the mother and other sisters. Okay, that's all I have to say about that.