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!

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.

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

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

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.

Allow me to end with a bit of a tanget: Last night, as Avery stared at the picture of the little mouse receiving the dark gray, ashen cross on his forehead, she began urging me to do that to myself, and then to her!  As I had some ashes, after demonstrating on my own forehead, I knelt before her on the couch, and I told her, “Avery, remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return, but you will rise to life.”  She smiled and nodded, and then made me do it to her Mommy.

This morning, last night’s family service of Ash Wednesday (with its harsh reality/promise of dust and resurrection) fresh in her mind, she asked me, “Will Abby the cat rise?”

Our cat’s not even dead!  So, at first I wasn’t sure what on earth she was talking about.  I had to ask her to clarify.

“With us.  At the, um, the…”

“Resurrection?”

“Yeah, will Abby rise?”

Okay, that led to a great little discussion about animals in the new heaven and new earth, what we know and don’t know about animals, lions laying with lambs etc. etc.  But the point is, she went to bed knowing she was dust and yet somehow much more than dust.  Then, walking to school, she had eternity on the brain.  Amen.

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…

Some of us speak of salvation as “when you die and go to heaven” while others think of the “living in the hope of the resurrection” – two very different aspects of the same hope.  We wrestle with incompatible thoughts, such as definitions of the Church and views of the “end times”.  The Bride is one, yet she often doesn’t know it.

What good is it, then, for me to respond to division with more contentious argument?  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss, or even argue.  But I feel that one must watch the tone of such interactions.

I am at fault.  When Frank and George argued there was no place in the Church for pastors, choirs, orderly worship and the like, I responded with the attitude that there was no room in the Church for such opinions.  Of course there is!  I may think they are wrong, but their thoughts are welcome.

Radical Atheist (a)theology is so simple that even the most diametrically opposed atheists are unified in their basic belief that God and religion taint everything and have no value.  We can’t be the blazing light that will burn up such ignorant darkness if we are distracted by infighting.

So, as a penance, I am willing not to be contentious any longer.  When I disagree, I will – with God’s help – disagree in the most, well… agreeable of ways, welcoming my brothers and sisters into dialogue with, as one of the Epistles says, “gentleness and respect”.

These words from Battlestar Galactica, are quite fitting:

So say we all.

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.

Acts 2:46 shows that the early house-church fellowships would gather together in public places very regularly, and then disperse to respective homes.  The Bible refers to the balance of “the temple” and “house to house”.  There is precedent for a balance of large and small gatherings.

The thing that’s really important to recall, however, is that the Bible never says, “Follow these laws about how to gather; wear these clothes and meet with this many people; oh, and don’t you dare meet in public too often!”  There are principles to take note of: we are all His temple; we are a priesthood of believers; we are to meet together, and everyone has something to offer.  But there are no hard and fast rules about how that is to be carried out.

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!
2. In addition to many things that the Constantinian era brought from Roman culture into the new church buildings, “The Roman custom of beginning a service with processional music was adopted… Choirs were developed and brought into the Christian Church.” (25) etc. etc. etc.  All I could say to this was what Barna himself said in the introduction to the book, “we cannot avoid bringing our culture into the church”.  I have yet to see how processionals and choirs, regardless of their origins, detract from the worship of the Church.  As a former raging Petra fan (okay – I’m still a ragin Petra fan!), I’ve seen God take, redeem and use many things from the “world” for His glory!  To paraphrase Larry Norman, “Why should the devil get all the good choirs and processionals?”  Viola and Barna – as I will opine in my posts about Chapter 3 – are woefully unconvincing in their arguments that formal worship is unedifying to the Body of Christ.
3. [The Gothic cathedrals] relied heavily on the teachings of the … Greek philosopher Plato.  Plato taught that sound, color, and light have lofty mystical meanings.  They can induce moods and help bring one closer to the ‘Eternal Good’.  The Gothic designers took Plato’s teachings and set them to brick and stone.” The authors argue that the influence of a “pagan philosopher” is somehow negative and manipulative; that the use of color, awe and beauty somehow puts parishioners in the wrong frame of mind.  I would argue that art and beauty, being an inherent part of our being created in God’s creative image, belong in the Church, whether in a Gothic cathedral or an apartment living room!
4. To continue from #3, “So with its use of light, color and excessive height, the Gothic cathedral fostered a sense of mystery, transcendance and awe… borrowed from Plato and passed off as Christian.” (29)  Two thoughts: a) Is a sense of awe really so bad in the presence of God?  b) On a personal note, I recall my Chrysalis walk – a youth retreat in the tradition of the Catholic Cursillo.  I spent a three-day weekend at Greene St. United Methodist Church in Piqua, Ohio (the most beautiful, majestic church building in all of Ohio, as far as I’m concerned).  The sanctuary was big, old and beautiful.  The back of the balcony, if I recall correctly, was adorned with a large mural depicting a Bible story.  The sense of awe I had in that place had a lasting impact on me, but not in the way that the authors warn; the smells, the echos, the cold stone mixed with warm company – these set the stage for a life-changing event in my life.  The sense of awe prepared me to receive what God had for me.  I don’t see that as a negative.
5. “The main message of Gothic architecture is: ‘God is transcendant and unreachable – so be awed at His majesty.’  But such a message defies the message of the Gospel…” (30) Since when?  Emmanuel, God-with-us, the intimate Lover of our souls, is awesome and majestic.  He is the most wonderful of paradoxes!  If Viola has lost touch with God’s transcendance, then I fear for him.  And, by the way, I’ve been in some rather majestic cathedrals, and many of those times I have felt closer to God than ever; somehow acknowledging his transcendance brings us closer to Him!

They go on and on… through the evolution of the church building… some of their arguments are compelling (see yesterday’s post), and some are ridiculous (they compare the steeple to the Tower of Babel).  But the crux of the argument is: the church building is a barrier to ministry and must be done away with!

I’d say, no, they are a tool and need to be taken off the pedestal we have set up for them.  Is the church-building-versus-home-church argument really a matter of either-or?  Or is it possibly one of both-and?  In my last post, I recommended a few ways we could use our buildings in new ways, such as various parishes sharing buildings.  Of course, many who read this chapter of the book (such as church plants, and my own tradition of the Anglican Mission in America, many of whom lost their buildings as they left the fold of ECUSA) will find the question moot; they are already doing the first-century-church practice of renting spaces and meeting in homes!

I may have another post in me on this topic…

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)!
3. “These homes [where the Church met] were never called temples.” (15)  Jesus is the Temple.  Amen and amen.
4. [Basilicas, the first dedicated "church" buildings, promoted by Constantine] were wonderful for seating passive and docile crowds to watch a performance.  This was one of the reasons why Constantine chose the basilica model.” (22)  This is one of the greatest arguments against church buildings as they stand today: creating the weekly “show” that has emerged in so many congregations (“The concert and the pep talk”, as I have mentioned).  While I will later argue (in the next post) that being a mere recipient is sometimes a good and godly thing, I think that this criticism of church buildings is quite legit; it calls to mind Robert Webber’s advice that we as a Church need to remove the terminology of “stage”, “audience” and “performance” from our worship vocabularies (Planning Blended Worship – sorry!  I couldn’t find the exact page yet!).
5. “… a loss of intimacy and open participation…” (25)  For the solution to this, I will refer you to the Red Flags below; however, I agree that intimacy and open participation need to be restored, and the BCB (big church building) doesn’t really lend itself to this!
6. After describing the long evolution of the church building sanctuary, the authors describe the pulpit, which “elevates the clergy to a position of prominence… it puts the preacher at center ’stage’ – separating and replacing him high above God’s people.” (34) This criticism resonates with me; as my friend/pastor Alan would say (ironically, in this case), “That’ll preach!”  I think that sanctuary designers are enslaved by certain preconceptions: elevated stage, rows of pews (or folding chairs), everything facing in one, boring direction toward the pulpit.  Why can’t we mix things up a bit?
7. “Every building we encounter… explicitly shows us what the church is and how it functions… it teaches what is important and what is not.” (37-8)  I think that to fool people into thinking that the pretty buildings on the corner are “the Church” is to rob many of what could be an invitation, to “close the doors of heaven” on many who would come over for dinner a decade before setting foot in a church narthex.  You’ll see below that I do not totally agree with a completely negative assessment of the church building, but I do intensely agree that we need to change the image that the word “church” places in people’s minds.  “[Certain] Social locations can teach good and godly people very bad lessons and choke their lives together.” (38)
8. (The BIG Green Flag) “Most contemporary Christians mistakenly view the church building as a necessary part of worship… [but] real estate owned by institutional churches today is worth over $230 billion.  Church building debt, service, and maintenance consumes about 18 percent of the $50 to $60 billion tithed to churches annually.” (41, emphasis mine)  The authors argue that a house church can use “more than 95 percent of its shared money for delivering … ministry, mission and outreach to the world.” (41)  I just kept nodding and nodding during this portion!  Owning a church building, versus the early-church habit of converting homes or renting buildings for worship and fellowship, is so often just a waste!

Okay… before going on to the Red Flags tomorrow, (believe it or not, I have mental room for some…) I will offer a few final thoughts about the merits of this chapter:

I have begun chanting (much to the irritation of a few friends), “The Church around the world need never, ever build another church building!”  Now, before you get all mad and tell me all the reasons why this is a horrible thing to say, let me suggest something: some churches are so large and could so easily share their space with smaller parishes and congregations!  What if your local megachurch (I’ll pick on Calvary Church in Charlotte, NC, for example) offered three or four smaller churches (plants, aging congregations) a very modest rent to use their space?  What if a lot of their weekday activities (Bible studies, ESL classes, knitting circles, choir practice, youth group etc.) were transfered to other locations such as parks or homes so that smaller congregations could hold their weekly services (any given day of the week or rotating churches on a given Sunday) in their sanctuary?  What if a 30-member parish met in the fellowship hall while a 90-member congregation met at the same time in the prayer-chapel?  Oh, and all that rent can help the megachurches honor God by aiding in paying off those ridiculous mortgages that waste God’s money.

I’ve been part of three churches that shared buildings.  I hear it’s rather common in other countries.  It forces congregations to acknowledge each other and to cooperate.  That can’t be a bad thing!

While we’re at it, what if we did some major redecoration, like putting the pews in a circle around the pulpit so people could see each other?  Or, like many liturgical churches, why don’t we put the pulpit off to the side?  Many churches never plan on buying a building, and I think they are happier for it!

These are just a few ideas.  I’m sure a creative Body of Christ can come up with some major great ideas!  I’d love to hear them.  Here’s my one rule: please don’t comment just to say, “Church buildings are evil!  Burn ‘em all!”  Let’s dialogue on creative, constructive things to do with the buildings already in our possession.

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!