Leadworship.com’s Great Resources

Song/Hymn-writer Paul Baloche’s website, www.leadworship.com, is an anamoly in the world of commercially successful Christian artists.  Like a precious few others, he likes to offer songs and lead sheets for free!  He seems to get it, that these songs of worship – as in the days of Watts, Wesley and Fanny Crosby, need to be “out there” for the Body to use.  He also has a heart for making sure people learn from him, so he has many good “Thoughts on Worship”.

I want to specifically point you to his free songbook page.  For the non-musician, he has many full tracks you can listen to and be encouraged by (and may I encourage you to then go and buy one of his CDs, because you will be glad you did!).  For the church or private musician, most of his songs have available chord charts and lead sheets to download and use.  Of course, if you use them in worship, please be sure to give him proper credit and report the use to CCLI.

One of the neatest things about the songbook online is Paul’s sense of the seasonal.  He has placed songs for the Easter Season right there on top so you can access them.  A personal favorite right now is Great Redeemer, but there are many others worth giving a listen to!

Be blessed and equipped by this great resource!

A Series from the Psalms: “A Meditation on Psalm 119″

I’ve been inspired – as have many songwriters – to write songs based on a number of the Psalms. I decided that this, the second half of Lent, would be a great time to introduce them in a short series. I think I’ll try to do several in the next week or two, as Lent fades into Holy Week…

Today’s song is called “A Meditation on Psalm 119″:

• Listen to “A Meditation on Psalm 119″

• Chord chart for “A Meditation on Psalm 119″

• Transcription of the flute part

I wrote this song waaaaaay back in 1999, while we were living and serving at Chicago’s Holy Trinity Church. As I’ve said before, the pastors, David Helm and Jon Dennis were amazingly forward-thinking in utilizing the gifts and talents of almost everybody at the church – certainly everyone who was willing. I am eternally thankful for that kind of encouragement.

I had been reading Psalm 119, thinking it would make great fertile soil for a song – or a whole album!

When I recorded it, I was blessed to be accompanied by two amazing talents: Jennifer Atala on the flute and the wonderful voice of my good friend, Gwen Camera. I’ve sung this song with others, but this original version has a special place in my heart.

A Meditation on Psalm 119 by Thomas George Fisher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://blendedworship.wordpress.com.

An Amazing Time of Lenten Prayer

I will miss quite a few things when we move from Bolivia back to North Carolina in June – most of those “things” have something to do with the people who have impacted our lives for the past two years.  Some of these are fellow teachers (who have ruined other schools for me), some are missionaries from other agencies – SIM, International Justice Mission, Samaritan’s Purse, Word Made Flesh – some are locals (like the Peruvian guy who makes amazing croissants and looks like the world’s greatest grampa).

Many of these amazing people – not, unfortunately, the croissant man – are part of our little monthly “house church” we call Community Group.

This month (last night, to be exact), they blessed our socks off.

We had a Lenten prayer service, and I asked folks to come with scripture passages pertaining to prayer.  Also, instead of a linear list of prayers, I printed a number of diverse prayers (from prayers of pennance to ones of intercession, to praise and doxologies) from diverse sources, cut them out so folks could each take one to read as the Spirit led, and passed them out along with the service guide/songsheet.

What I expected to be kind of messy and disorganized (because of my own logistical failings) turned into a time of, not only prayer, but a spoken-word praise service.  A non-stop chorus of prayers and scriptures (many provided by our friends!) went up before the Throne of Grace for quite a while.

By the time that segment ended with the singing of John Michael Talbot’s “Only in God” (a song everyone should know), my spirit was soaring, and I was just so… thankful?… proud?… thrilled?… with the blessed community God has provided our family here in this faraway land.

Here’s a printout of the prayers, in case you’re curious.  These sheets were cut apart so each prayer was on a separate little sheet of paper. I found them collected in The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle, the Book of Common Prayer (especially Form V) and Listening Prayer by Leanne Payne.  I paraphrased or compressed a few of the prayers.

In His Peace,

Tom

Song of the Week: “Thanks Be to God”

done

Thanks Be to God – Lead Sheet for Voice and Guitar

I lead music in three of the four chapel services we have weekly at our school: lower elementary, upper elementary and middle school (the high school, for better or for worse, is pretty much doing it on their own).

In our liturgically-starved environment, I like to bring little moments of reverence and consistency into the worship setting, and it’s surprisingly easy and well-received.

At my first-ever Anglican church experience (Church of the Resurrection, near Chicago) my then-girlfriend/now-wife, Anne led children’s church. It was an odd, yet rich and beautiful experience for me to see. One of the things I learned was how the kids were led into and out of the reading of God’s Word, with a little song – “This is the word of the Lord, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks be to God” (before) and “Thanks be to God for the reading of His Word; thank You, God, thank You, God” (after).

For the youngest group at our school, I began using that exact tune (which I’ll post sometime, because it’s really sweet and easy for the kiddos to learn!), but for the upper elementary, I wanted something a little less sing-songy, so I created the simple tune you hear on the video above.

It’s the first of several liturgical songs I’ll post in the coming weeks. I hope you can use them or – better – be inspired to sing these ancient words with your own tune!

In His Peace,
Tom

A Wonderful Resource for Children

I was visiting the States this past Fall, bopping about in my local, Charlotte, NC Cokesbury Bookstore (my favorite Christian bookstore, by the way), and I found this little treasure, which I later bought for my daughter Avery as a Christmas gift.  It’s called Come, Worship with Me by Ruth Boling It features a church full of adorable little mice, and the central character/narrator is a young mouse taking us to “come worship” with him, through all the special days of the Church year.

As we go through the Calendar, the young fellow draws us into the joy and the solemnity, the deep meaning and the simple lessons of each step through the year, and through the story of Jesus it tells.

After each page-long, beautifully illustrated “joural page”, describing ritual, song, and significance, the little mouse ends with a simple, sentence-long message: “God is near,” “Sometimes we can see God,” “We need God,” “God is alive.”  Each child-friendly summary wraps the special services of the Christian year into an easy-to-remember package that my 4-year-old (and her 36-year-old Daddy!) can chew on until the next special day.

A Penance

I am bummed.

I had one great last post all ready to urge people to reject the teachings of Frank Viola and George Barna.  I had commentary on their use of proof-texting to defend their entire book.  I even had given them a clever “celebrity couple” name.  And I was chomping at the bit to finish, polish and send it.

Then God the Holy Spirit convicted me.  That post will never be sent.

In the face of the onslaught of what I am calling the “New Stalinism”: attacks from the ridiculously far left (Bill Maher, Hitchens, Pullman, Dawkins and the like), I had to take a good, long look at my way of dealing with extremism within the Body of Christ.  Is it right for me to respond to divisive comments with (possibly more divisive) counter-attacks?

I had to conclude: nope.

The radical atheist movement, which would like to see the Body of Christ disappear from the face of the earth, are too unified in their one, simple piece of religious dogma – “God is not” – for us to afford to be divided.  And, when my efforts to counter division in the Church become ugly attacks on the very sources of division, the New Stalinists become even more powerful.

Fact is, Christ has one Bride, the Church.  She is a conflicted gal, to be sure.  She is simultaneously convinced of the efficacy and sufficiency of the Cross and the need for meritorious works; the surety of God’s sovereign choice and the freedom of the individual; the priesthood of all believers and the importance of the clergy; embracing at times Rome and at times the Reformation; holding icons in one hand and casting them away with the other…

Balance Is Required…

A few last words on Chapter 2 of PC. Then, I promise, I will be less… yeah, I guess “wordy” is the correct term!… in the rest of the posts.

I think that Viola and Barna are teetering on the edge of (or have jumped headlong into) a legalism that could really go to further splitting the Church.  This book could be a whole lot more constructive and useful, were it not written in such combative, adversarial language.  This book’s tone doesn’t invite discussion – it squashes it.

A better book for looking at the need for getting the Body of Christ out of the sanctuary to take part in home-based worship is The Second Reformation by William A. Beckham.  While not a perfect book (I’ve only read one perfect Book!) it has a great sense for the balance of whole-Church formal worship and home-based fellowship; he refers to churches that only meet in one as a “one-winged church”; the “two-winged church” sees the need for recognizing the majesty of God in formal gatherings as the local Body of Christ in public settings, and also the need (and deep desire of Christians everywhere) to really share life with a small, consistently caring home-based fellowship.

Viola and Barna, Chapter 2 – The Red Flags

As you might have guessed if you read my previous post, I don’t think Viola and Barna’s chapter (in Pagan Christianity?) on church architecture is without its problems.  Here are a few (in my mind) glaring issues:

1. Frank and George seem to denigrate the visual arts in worship (though they do not think it worth devoting a chapter to).  Their basic argument seems to be that it originated with honoring dead saints.  Two problems with that: a) what’s wrong with honoring those who have gone before us?  Honoring that “great cloud of witnesses” is far from idolatry; b) the origin of the first Christian worship art is irrelevant – the question is, how do we use the arts in our worship?  Art can be used in so many edifying and God-honoring ways!

Viola and Barna: Pagan “Church” Buildings?

In Chapter 2 of Pagan Christianity (hereafter, PC), Viola and Barna take on both the history and value of the traditional church building. I’m going to go over some of the highlights of this chapter.

How I’d like to handle these chapters is to list what I call “Green Flags” (things that really ring true), “Red Flags” (things that don’t ring true or seem illogical) and neutral, interesting points (such as interesting facts, “so what?” statements and books cited that I just may want on my Christmas list – often from writers Viola doesn’t seem to like!).  If I get really wordy (like this post) I will divide Green and Red into two posts over two days.  Today: the Green Flags!

Green Flags:

1. “The New Testament always reserves the word church (ekklesia) for the people of God.  It never uses this word to refer to a building of any sort.” (14)  Amen to that!  The Church is the people of God.  No argument there.
2. “Meeting in homes was a conscious choice of the early Christians.” (15)  And it is a conscious choice of the organic fellowship groups we’ve been involved with for the past nine years!  Of course, this leads to a bit of a Red Flag (see below)!

First Community Group of the Year… a Casual Affair

Well, now that the school-year is back up and running, the Fishers of La Paz (that’s me and my family) began inviting folks back for monthly English gatherings of good food and home-worship, what we’ve been calling Community Group.  Normally, CG consists of a good potluck meal, simple worship and small groups dispersing into various rooms of the house, sharing with one another about their walk with Christ and their lives in general.

But this week, to launch things a bit, we decided to simplify a bit.  We baked potatoes (a true feat here at 11,000-ft. La Paz!) for a potato bar; everybody brought something to put on the top, or drinks, salads and desserts.  Good stuff!  Then, instead of busting out the liturgy (which we are so excited to do next month!), we mingled, we met new people whom our friends had invited, and we played a couple goofy party games.

Very cool.  Had a great time.  Many carbs were enjoyed.

I think this kind of informal gathering, especially after lengthy vacations, is a great icebreaker.  Not only that, but it frees our “churched” friends to invite “unchurched” friends to have a great time with us!