JADDOG

Touch my toes. (without bending my knees)
Run a triathlon.
Learn to play the drums.

I was stretching after running last night and realized I can almost touch my toes from the stretching I’ve been doing. Then I realized that my curiosity to compete in a triathlon will soon be completed.

I guess the drums can wait for now.

My heart keeps beating even though I can’t control it.
My lungs keep breathing I admit I don’t know how.
Bring the flood or bring the fire in this lifetime
I’m ready for the altar or the plough
There are always days when I don’t feel like singing
There are always days when I don’t care at all
But I know the King of All Creation reigns completely
Over every moment great and small

Long Live the King, Aaron Shust

I was on the treadmill tonight listening to Aaron Shust and training for my triathlon reflecting on the evening. Quite an emotional night. Today my wife had accompanied my sister to the doctor for a consult for a surgical procedure she’ll receive this Thursday. When my wife returned home we were discussing the pre-surgical consult they attended and the “slim to none” complications came up in the conversation. Somewhere in the discussion the likelihood (or rather not so likelihood) of their occurrence got lost. After losing my Mom to MS November of 2007 it was a hard pill to swallow entertaining the “worst case” complications that could occur this Thursday and the conversion started to close with me pretty shook up and upset. I think imagining my sister with a breathing tube while she will be under escalated my impression of the procedure and really threw me for a loop.

The song quoted above reminded me of God’s Sovereignty and comforted me in knowing that the outcome of the surgery and likelihood of complications is in the hands of God. His will is ordained for His Glory and without our trust resting solely in that truth we selfishly attempt to take control of a situation we ultimately have no control over. 2 songs later I was singing along with these lyrics:

Separated from night, You spoke and then there was light, They point to You
Divided water from land, Bowing to Your command, They point to You
The sun that’s blazing at noon, And every phase of the moon, They point to You.
A baby’s cry and the way, A sunset closes the day, They point to You.

Create Again, Aaron Shust

Another simple truth struck me. Months (maybe a year or so ago? haha) we had studied Romans 1. Versus 19 and 20 teach us that God’s creation displays his “eternal power and divine nature” through his creation. All and any of his creations. From rocks to babies. It goes on from there to teach us that this display is enough for us to know that He exists and is to be worshiped. No excuses. This truth is a foundation that we’ve referenced throughout our study of Romans. Last night I finished Chapter 3 in John Stott’s Basic Christianity. In Chapter 1 he starts the book out by quoting these two versus and declares this truth.

I don’t know that I started this post with a particular point to make. I just was just reflecting on sovereignty and creation.

Aaron Shust
Whispered and Shouted
© 2007 Bridge Building Music, Inc. / White Spot Publishing

One day Christ will return, hopefully before then I will actually finish reading a book. I was reading CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity, I think I’ve started it about four times by now. I put that down to study Bob Kauflin’s Worship Matters with a friend of mine. In the seventh chapter he references a John Stott book. I was discussing this with my friend and I couldn’t remember the name of the Stott book. I should have looked it up. Unfortunalty I was  little ahead of him in the book and our discussion ended up on Basic Christianity. After the conversation I picked up a copy of it. I looked up the one Kauflin references later and found out that he had referernced Authentic Christianity. So now I’ve started Mere Christianity, Worship Matters, Basic Christianity and I still want to cross reference Authentic Christianity when it shows up in the mail. A good dose of Paul’s perseverance please? At least I’m reading consistently. That’s a huge improvement in my habits.

I’ve been praying for the past year for a desire to read and a yearning to study God’s truth more earnestly than anything else in this world that entertains me. Praise the Lord for a prayer that’s  being answered.

For now Basic Cristianity is a short read and I’m enjoying it. So I’ll probably journal about that again before the others.

I was in the pool today at lunch and completed a 1000 yard work out. It was a great time of reflection that I’d like to write about.

I’m discussing the book I’m reading, Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2008), with a friend of mine. He sent me and email with his thoughts on the first few chapters a few days back and I had a chance last night to sit down and digest it. I enjoyed rereading this excerpt from chapter 2 which he brought attention to:

How do I know what I love the most? By looking at my life outside of Sunday morning. What do you enjoy the most? What do I spend the most time doing? Where does my mind drift to when I don’t have anything to do? What am I passionate about? What so I spend my money on? What makes me angry when I don’t get it? What do I feel depressed without? What do I fear losing the most.

Our answers to those questions will lead us straight to the God or to the gods we love and worship.

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This makes me think of two area’s of my life I’ve been pursing in the past few months. One, I’ve been irregularly meeting with a groomsman of mine where we’ve been challenging one another to pursue growing in Christ. We’re holding one another accountable to the goals we’ve set for ourselves. I’ve set goals to read the bible and Christian books at least every other day and to serve my wife selflessly. Two, I’ve committed to a 100km bike race in February and planning to sign up for a sprint triathlon in April. Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Between Paul and Kauflin I’m encouraged by conviction. I’m encouraged that I can see my goals in both biblical training and athletic training. I’m convicted that I often day dream about the athletics more than the sacrifice our Saviour made. I’ll end with another quote from Kauflin that I love. He asserts this in the context of leading a body of believers in song to worship our King.

If our doctrine is accurate but our hearts are cold towards God himself, our corporate worship will be true but lifeless. Or if we express our fervent love for God but present vague, inaccurate, or incomplete ideas of Him to those we’re leading, our worship will be emotional but misleading — and possibly idolatrous. Neither option brings glory to God.

My Prayer for myself and every worship leader is that we’ll become as familiar with the Word of Truth as we are with our instruments. Hopefully even more so. If we do, there’s a strong possibility people are going to walk away from our meetings more amazed by our God than by our music.

And that will be a very good thing.

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I think Kauflin has it right here. Further I believe you can replace the role of a music leader with any role, formal leadership or not. We have to be pursuing God’s truth and refining our understanding of His word and we have to be living His truth in our daily lives. If I replace the leadership role he’s discussing with my triathlon training I have two outcomes of every day. I can consume myself with athletic training and try and find time to pursue God. Or I can consume myself with pursuing God and ask for my athletic training to bring Him glory.

I pray the later would be my mindset.

I continue to get a kick out of my first swimming experience training for my upcoming triathlon. My job provides a membership to the college campus gym that’s around the corner from us. On my way to work yesterday I grabbed my suit and goggles and figured I’d get a towel there. My gym membership with my previous job included a towel. Well, the membership I have now does not. Oddly it didn’t take me long, once I found out my membership did not include equipment, to decide to just swim anyways and I’d forgo the towel. So after swimming a workout in the pool for the first time in more than a year. I took a quick shower to rinse off some of the pool chemicals, ran my hand through my hair briskly until it was mostly dry, put my cloths and toboggan on and walked back to work to complete the work day. I’m contemplating just doing that every Tuesday and Thursday instead of fiddling with a towel. I wasn’t unbearable wet when I left the gym.

Last fall I bought a road bike. I’ve really enjoyed spending time with some other guys on the road accumulating miles on the bike. Thus far my most memorable ride is the 58 mile route we took from Burlington, NC back to Cary, NC. We put our bikes on the train in Cary and took the forty-five minute train ride to Burlington and rode our bikes back. While sharing this story with some friends of my wife and mine The idea of training for a triathlon suddenly became a reality when I found out that there are sprint triathlons. Translated into nooby terms… short triathlons. Before that day I always wrote them off as too long.

As of now I’m signed up for a metric century bike race in February and planning to sign up for a “sprint” triathlon in April, probably will sign up for the triathlon before February to avoid the extra fees

By this point I suppose you may be wondering where the 600 yards comes from. I started training for the triathlon today by swimming 600 yards. My plan in to swim Tuesdays and Thursdays and run every other day. I’m going to try training for swimming by working up to 1000 yard workouts. I’ll train for running by working up to 3.5 mile workouts. I don’t think I’ll need to train any more intensely for biking since I have the 62 mile race I’m working towards. As weather permits I plan to try and double up some of the running and cycling workouts. Maybe one weekend I could start at the pool and bike home. Hopefully I’ll be able to complete my first triathlon when April rolls around.

It’s been a great experience spending the past couple days with the Fedora community. Lots of leaning and meeting new people. We even got some snow while in Boston. I’m in the van on the way home, just another 8 hours or so to go… Here’s a photo I took on the way home from FUDPub last night. I have a good one on my camera still of snow covered Boston too. I’ll try and remeber to add that one to this post later.

I get emails from time to time from Akamai regarding “The State of the Internet”. I have no idea how I got on the email list but it’s beside the point. While we were roaming around Cambridge tonight, btw we made it to FUDCon safely, past an Akamai building. On the ground floor there was a huge room with lots of tv’s all over the wall with graphs and stats on them. You know, a “mission control” kinda room. I took a picture that doesn’t do the room justice but gives you a little idea of what was in there. Kinda cool to see.

So I want to be the uber geek I am and post this blog post as I ride in a 15 passenger van to Boston. There are 9 of us in the van on our way to attend FUDCon F11. We have a power strip plugged into the cigarette adapter and half a dozen laptops plugged into the power strip. We also have a wireless access point broadcasting an internet signal it gets through it’s onborad PC card slot pulling over the cell towers. It’s almost 11pm night. ETA  in Boston: lunch time tomorrow…  More to come. I’ll be in front of a computer at the conference through the weekend.

I’ve been reading Bob Kauflin’s book Worship Matters and have just finished chapter six. I have been recommended to read the book by many and I agree with their recommendation. The book is a great blessing thus far and I have high expectations to continue to be challenged and grown by Kauflin wisdom and experience. This post in by no means an attack or a rant against my one disagreement with Bob Kauflin, so far. It’s just a journal entry as I wrestle through the place God has me in my transformation by the renewing of my mind.

In chapter six Kauflin address the often seemingly equivalence with using the word “worship” when we mean corporate worship through music. He addresses it in the specific context of the “worship leader” by quoting D.A. Carson:

I would abolish forever the notion of a “worship leader.” If you want to have a “song leader” who leads part of the worship, just as the preacher leads part of the worship, that’s fine. But to call the person a “worship leader” takes away the idea that by preaching, teaching, listening to and devouring the word of God, and applying it to our lives, we are somehow not worshipping God. **

Kauflin goes on to commend Carson on his point and expand on the quote stating:

If the individual leading the singing is the “worship” leader, it can imply we aren’t worshipping God during the rest of the meeting. But activities such as praying for others, giving financially, and studying God’s Word together are also acts of worship that bring glory to God. **

He continues by portraying what I interpret as an awkwardness we experience from trying to break away from the cultural tie to calling our music leader “worship leader.” He then states:

And while I agree with Carson’s perspective, I don’t think we have to lose the term worship leader. **

I disagree. I’m going to take a step back and present my thoughts from a more general perspective. I routinely find Christians referring to music during a corporate or small group setting as worship. “Will we have worship tonight at small group?” “Let’s do the announcements after the worship.”

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:1-2 (ESV)

These are my favourite two versus in scripture and I think that they will ground my opinion well. I have no idea why we started to call tie our music time to “worship”. I have my theories, but I won’t waste your time. In the beginning of chapter six Kauflin suggests that those born after 1980 are too young to remember how it happened. Fair enough, I was born after ‘80. But I don’t care where it came from, I ‘d like to question why we should keep it. I believe that Romans 12 is the best description of worship I’ve experienced. To sacrifice our bodies holy and pleasing requires that we are in obedience to Christ seeking sanctification as our bodies are in service to His Glory. That is our spiritual worship. Further our worship is meant to test and discern the will of God. Kauflin has already made the case for me that there are other things that we do to worship God during our corporate worship other than sing and play music. If we line up the use of the word worship to refer to the time we play music next to the list of other ways to worship God Kauflin presents next to Romans’ definition of worship I think you’ll find that “one of these things is not like the other things.” There’s a quote for those of you born after 1980 you should remember from Sesame Street. So lets do some discerning here and realize that the use of the word worship as Kauflin suggests we can continue takes the word worship out of its proper context. I challenge you to consider how it could very easily mislead both believers and non-believers who are not familiar with the surfacey equivalence that our verbage superimposes around our corporate worship through music and true worship.

Honestly I have wrestled with this since I began attending the church we’re about to join since our move last July ‘08. Now that we’ve stepped out of a fellowship that shares the same practices as I believe I often am discouraged by its seemingly equivalence. I’m curious how nievely it’s used like that. I believe the church is solid and this is not an issue to raise  up in arms about. Again I use such strong words to get thoughts and feelings out, not to discount anyone.

I’ll conclude with my proposed solution. Otherwise I feel like I would just be complaining. I agree with Kauflin that when we meet together in obedience to Hebrews 10 it’s sometimes awkward to reference our time of music as something other than worship. I challenge you to call the music exactly what it is. If you’re singing a cappella then maybe call it singing. If you’re using instruments maybe call it music. If you want to refer to the music as worship call it worshipping through music. How often do we say something like “lets continue our worship as we study God’s word.” Well, “lets continue our worship as we worship though music.” Maybe you start your service with music. “Lets begin today by worshipping God through song.”

I’ve been blessed to wrestle through putting my feelings into this post. I worship God for the intelligence we’re given to encourage one another by discerning what is good and acceptable and perfect.

On a side note. I’m reading this book at the same time as my previous pastor and plan to study it with the music pastor at the church I’m about to join. I image you may here more on this topic as I discuss it with them.

**Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2008), 53-54.