Here are the songs that we worshiped with this Sunday, November 8th:

“All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” by Edward Peronnet and Oliver Holden. This is a great hymn from the 18th century re-arranged for the contemporary church. (Amazon / iTunes)

“Lord Most High” by Don Harris and Gary Sadler (Amazon / iTunes)

“Only You” by David Crowder (Amazon / iTunes)

“Center” by Charlie Hall and Matt Redman (Amazon / iTunes) – I love the way that this song allows us to meditate on who Christ is and pray a simple pray of making Him the center of our lives

“There Is a Redeemer” by Melody Green-Sievright as performed by her husband, Keith Green (Amazon / iTunes). Keith Green was a Christian musician in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. He passed away in a tragic airplane accident in 1982. While he had already passed away when God got ahold of my life in high school, his music and life dramatically impacted me through his biography, No Compromise, as well as a collection of his articles, A Cry in the Wilderness (which is no longer in print).

The latest issue of Christianity Today has a brief article that I added helpful fuel to fire of discussion about new technologies and ministry. See my other posts on this topic, if you’d like to enter the conversation:

• New Media and Ministry
• Twitter – Continuing the Conversation

The article – which, ironically, is not available online yet – is in “The Village Green” section (pp. 62-63) and offers commentary by three different ministry leaders in the technology area on what they see as “which technologies hold the most promise – and the most peril – for use in church ministries.” Here’s a quick summary.

Brad Abare, founder of the Center for Church Communication, writes about smart phones.

• Promise: smart phones can resource and supplement our journey with God (e.g., access to multiple Bible translations, enabling connections around the globe, connections within worship services for interaction with the congregation).
• Peril: smart phones could be eroding our understanding of the soul (e.g, increasing busyness, cultivating inattentiveness, becoming a “tool of our tools” from Thoreau)

Mark Kellner, author of God on the Internet and author of a technology column for the Washington Times, evaluates the relative dearth of use of online video in churches.

• Promise: online video has huge potential for both outreach – sharing our message in visual and compelling ways – as well as for “inreach” – social networking and telling stories
• Peril: we may be behind the curve in the religious use of online video, failing to use it as effectively as other religions: Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, scientologists, etc.

John Dyer, web development director at Dallas Theology Seminary, steps back to emphasize the need for talking about technology as providing focus for the best use of technology.

• Promise: “when it comes to technology in the church, I believe that the technology that has the most promise in the church is not the latest thing that comes off the assembly line. Rather, it is the technology – any technology – that church leaders openly discuss with other leader and with their congregations.”
• Peril: If we do not critically discuss the technologies we use, we either ignore new technologies or naively use them with potential ill effects upon our congregations

Thanks for CT for providing an opportunity for these gentlemen to share some thoughts on this important topic.

Here are five more links for your Friday: some interesting, some hilarious, some worth spending time with.

1. What is this song? Make sure you watch to at least halfway through.
2. Uncovering Steve Jobs’ Presentation Secrets. Maybe this is just interesting to presentation geeks like me.
3. What do you really buy when you buy a lottery ticket?
4. Jesus and the World Series.
5. It’s a rough day when…you show up at your own funeral.

[I wrote this article for Relevant Magazine's online edition a few years back. It is no longer available online, so I am re-posting it here.]

I have a friend who is in the midst of a separation from his wife. He’s hurting. We were talking in another friend’s kitchen tonight about all that is going on in his life.

There are the practical things about the separation: phone calls with lawyers, figuring out the timing of who has the kids at what time, and looking for a temporary place to live.

Then, there are the relationships with others around them. How do you re-approach your own parents and in-laws in this sort of situation? What happens with the relationships in a small group when both people are involved in it? They are trying to figure out who their support network is, when everything is so intertwined.

At the core is their relationship with one another. Do they want to work this out or not? What if they don’t even agree about that? What if he’s blown it too many times? What if she’s hardened toward him? What happens when the pain traces back through years and multiple events? Did they get married too young? What about the kids? Is there still hope?

All through the conversation, he kept breaking down in sobs of tears. It’s not too often that three grown men stand around in a kitchen drinking coffee and commiserating with tears and hugs. His shoulders shake. His face scrunches up in anguish. His lips quiver. The end of his nose is pinky-red and moist. He’s a mess. And the outside is nothing compared to all that is within.

I try to listen. I really care. What would I do in his place? What if Kelly and I were there? My God, are we headed there? What would keep us from the same spot in two more years?

My friend is broken? It’s sad and difficult to see. I never enjoy seeing someone in this state. It’s not pretty or neat. It’s not controllable. It’s not one of those places any of us ever imagines ourselves in when we’re asked to think about who we’d like to be or what we’d like to be doing in five or ten years.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” we’re asked. Would we ever answer, “Ruined”?

I hate being weak. For me, the only thing worse than seeing another person being broken is to be broken myself. I like to portray the image that all is well at all times and in all ways.

“How are you, Matt?” someone might ask.
“Fine,” I casually offer in response.
“Fine?” they ask quizzically.
“Really, good,” I elaborate mildly.
“Good?” they query me again.
“I am doing quite well,” I firmly conclude.

It really doesn’t matter what’s going on in my life at all. The portrayal tends toward automatic similarity.

I hate being weak. But the awful truth is that I hate being weak before others more than being weak itself. Even if I feel shattered, God forbid that I should have to talk with someone else about it. “We just don’t do that!” reverberates in my head for some reason. “It’s not our way. We are above that.”

Somewhere along the way I learned this avoidance of any appearance of weakness. “All is well. All matter of things is well. And even if they’re not, you’d better not tell.”

So, I stand in the kitchen with my broken friend: nose dripping, eyes watery, hands wringing, not knowing what to do, where to go, how to do anything. In his anguish, he’s trying to run to Jesus daily and be held there.

I keep thinking of the words of a psalm:

The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise (Psalm 51:18).

Perhaps my friend is in the best place he could possibly be right now with God, himself, his marriage, his kids, and everything else.

Broken and weak.

Learning the right sacrifices of God.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

All these people [Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah] were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners on earth. (Hebrews 12:13)

Faith. It’s the object that Christianity is built upon and around. But what is it?

Ask around and so many people say things like: “At least I have faith…” or “I have faith that things will get better…” But what do they mean? What is the substance of their faith?

The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews defines the ancient understanding of faith: “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Faith is a surety and certitude connected with an enduring hope related to unseen things.

But this is still a slightly broad and abstract definition. I could have a blind and confused certainty about something I cannot see. For example, I could have faith that I will win the lottery. It is a hope. I do not see the reality yet. But I believe! This is the sort of false faith upon which so much of the prosperity religion is founded these days.

But if this is not the faith we are after, what is it? The second reference from Hebrews gives us clarity. Launching out of the stories of Old Testament characters, the writer tells us that they “were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised.” We’ll stop here.

There was a promise given to them. By who? Clearly, the promise was given by God.

They heard the true promise of God and believed it. It was not some pie in the sky idea they had drummed up themselves, but something truly from God and which they knew they could base their lives upon. It became for them the most believable of realities.

They heard it, believed it, and then lived in light of it. The promise that they heard from God and in which they believed as ultimate reality became the center of their lives. If God – the Creator and Sustainer of all things – was the giver of the promise, they knew that their lives should be lived out from the promise given. He would create something new in their lives and He would sustain them in and through it.

Faith is something that marks our response as we hear God’s promise, believe it, and then live in light of it.