Jason Reeves - Blog
A blog about faith, fun, family and politics.
Friday, August 27, 2021
My Favorite Sit Down Restaurants
Tuesday, February 9, 2021
A must watch
This piece by John Stossel regarding Thomas Sowell is a must watch. If you don't know how Thomas Sowell is, you're in for a treat to learn about this great man.
https://youtu.be/e5jr50rrkkA
Monday, August 22, 2016
7 Pitfalls to Avoid in Preaching by Michael Kruger
Ministry / Michael Kruger
7 Pitfalls to Avoid in Preaching
August 13, 2016
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/7-pitfalls-to-avoid-in-preaching
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1. Confusing ‘expository’ preaching with running commentary.
Friday, July 10, 2015
My Roller Coaster Rankings!
The Beast at King's Island |
I'm a huge roller coaster fan and would love to visit every major theme park in the U.S., if I had the resources to do so.
I keep a ranking of my favorites. Each has a ranking on a 5 point scale in parenthesis after the name. This isn't an exhaustive list of every coaster that I've rode, only my favorites and some others I've chosen to mention.
- Monday June 28, 2010 - King's Island, I rated the new mega coaster Diamondback! We rode it twice in under 25 minutes! It's a great coaster cracking the top 10 of my list.
- July 12, 2011 - Six Flag's St. Louis, I rode Batman the Ride and The Boss. Batman was excellent and the The Boss was very good. The Boss was my middle daughter's first major coaster (she had mixed feelings about it). It was a great trip except it was really hot when we were at the park, heat index of 105 degrees! Yikes!
- Wednesday, December 31, 2014 - Sea World Orlando, I rode the Manta and Kraken. Despite crazy crowds and insane heat, we had a great time. I was impressed with the park. I had not been since I was a kid and they have really stepped up their game in nearly 30 years, HA! Click HERE to get a sneak peak at Sea World's new mega-coaster the Mako, coming in 2016!
- Thursday, June 26, 2014 - King's Island, I rode the Banshee for the first time and I have to say I was majorly impressed! I'm excited to now have it on my rankings list.
- Monday, July 13, 2015 we visited Holiday World. I rode the Thunderbird and I'm pleased to announce it did not disappoint, it's a top 10 on the list.
- Monday, June 13, 2016 we visited Cedar Point. It has been too long since I last visited this Roller Coaster Haven and we had a great trip. The weather was great and although it was a little more crowded that we would have preferred it was still a blast. I rode GateKeeper and Valravn, for the first time each. On the downside, I did not get to ride Rougarou or Maverick, the only 2 major coasters at the park I missed. I got in line for Maverick but the line was at 2 hours and I chose to ride other rides vs wait that long. As you'll see from the rankings below, GateKeeper now ranks as my #1 coaster at Cedar Point, yes ahead of Millenium Force.
- Monday, July 4, 2016 - King's Island. This was a great day to be at KI. Thunderstorms were in the forecast so the park was empty. It drizzled and rained on us off and on all day but I'll take that over 2-3 hour wait for rides! We rode the Banshee 4 times, and all my favorites multiple times. I have a few take aways, first, the Banshee is a great coaster in every way. Second, the Diamondback just gets better and better in my mind. It's no secret I'm a big fan of inverted coasters but I have to say this is a great thrill.
My Roller Coaster Rankings
The Beast at King's Island |
I'm a huge roller coaster fan and would love to visit every major theme park in the U.S., if I had the resources to do so.
I keep a ranking of my favorites. Each has a ranking on a 5 point scale in parenthesis after the name. This isn't an exhaustive list of every coaster that I've rode, only my favorites and some others I've chosen to mention.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Comments on the Separation of Church & State
This was posted as a comment on a blog I read regarding the Bronx Household of Faith case the supreme court decided not to hear.
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When President George Washington took his oath of office at the federal building in New York, all present then went to the St. Paul Chapel and DEDICATED THE UNITED STATES TO THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB. The federal building's base was cracked at 9-11, the chapel even though it was at ground zero, was untouched. De Blasio needs to get in touch with what the Founders Intended.
When Thomas Jefferson was Speaker of the House and with the Speaker of
the Senate concurring, church services began and were conducted in both
the Supreme Court and Congressional Chambers. The Sunday Church
Services lasted about 60 years--no separation of Church and State
there!
In Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists who had experienced
severe persecution for their faith, Jefferson borrowed phraseology from
the famous Baptist minister Roger Williams who said,"...the hedge or
wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness
of the world, GOD HATH EVER BROKE DOWN THE WALL...." Jefferson also in
his letter included this,"...I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared
that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion' (examples such as the Anglican, Dutch Reformed, Quaker, etc which were state churches in New England), or prohibiting the FREE EXERCISE thereof...."
The Supreme Court, legislating from the bench, used the Danbury Baptist letter "to protect" the state from Christianity instead of protecting Christianity from
the state. The Supreme Court should have obeyed the U.S. Constitution
and the Amendments which were the final authority of the law . Thomas
Jefferson was not a signer of the Constitution nor present at the
Constitutional Convention; therefore his letter should never have been
used for this purpose. A Supreme Court case using the Wall of
Separation was tried in 1879, but the meaning of the First
Amendment at that time was clearly understood, and the attempt failed.
The Justices effectively secularized our Republic. They should have paid more attention to Fisher Ames who penned the First Amendment and called the Bible the chief text book to be used in
teaching children in the public schools. Dr. Benjamin Rush noted as the
"Father of Public Schools" warned that if the Bible was taken out of
public schools, America would have to deal WITH SO MUCH CRIME THEY COULD DEAL WITH LITTLE ELSE.. I
add this as a reminder of what has transpired: After School Prayer,
Bible Study, and the 10 Commandments were banned from the public
schools, circa 1963; violence in America increased by 554%, and after 2007
by 995%. Prior to 1963, violence increased very slowly.
There has been no void in a religion being taught in public schools. Secular Humanism has been the underlying support for educational material. To verify, computer search the Humanist
Manifestos I, II, and III. Our children are being taught under these misguiding doctrines. Under this religion, there are no absolutes. Killing your fellow man, such as abortion, becomes acceptable if the culture decides it is ok (situational ethics)---your friendly Secular Humanism.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Hipster churches in Silicon Valley: evangelicalism's unlikely new home
Netflix fasts, coffee vouchers, plaid-wearing worshippers is what it takes for ‘church transplants’ to make their home in the affluent Bay Area
Take me to church: ‘How does one even start a church in the land of $3,000 studio apartments?’ Photograph: hipster church
Annie Gaus
Thursday 29 January 2015 09.00 EST
Like many San Franciscans, overpriced coffee is a considerable portion of my weekly budget. One day in Soma, the industrial district home to many start-ups, I came across a flier advertising a free gift card to Philz, a nearby coffee shop. All that was required was to show up for service at a local church called Epic. I hadn’t been to church in months, and decided to give it a try.
The Bay Area has never been perceived as religious: a 2012 Gallup poll found that fewer than a quarter of residents identify as “very religious” (defined as going to church weekly), as opposed to 40% of the nation as a whole. High salaries have drawn droves of well-educated millennials to the booming tech sector, which correlates with lower religious sentiment. So far afield from the Bible belt, the region is in fact seen as hospitable to all forms of old testament abominations: fornication, paganism – even sodomy.
If you look around, however, you’ll notice a bumper crop of newer Christian ministries that, upon superficial glance, could pass for any other Bay Area start-up: glossy web design, well-curated social accounts and yes, free coffee promotions. County-level statistics substantiate this: numbers from the Association of Religion Data Archives show that several large Protestant denominations have grown in San Francisco County in recent years.
How does one even start a church in the land of $3,000 studio apartments, transient tech workers and rationalist tendencies? The answer lies in a mix of organized efforts by large religious bodies, coupled with messaging that speaks to the tastes, needs and neuroses of ambitious young Bay Area residents.
The Sunday following my flier discovery, I made my way to Epic. The church’s home is in a modest commercial space sharing a street with a marijuana dispensary, a few small tech firms and a homeless encampment.
I grabbed a free bagel and was quickly welcomed by a young pastor named Tim. We were then ushered into the basement, where a three-piece band played a gentle song about keeping promises. Following announcements – Epic would soon be moving to a new, larger venue closer to downtown – lead pastor Ben Pilgreen began a sermon on the idea of resurrection that mixed self-deprecating humor with notes on the ruthlessness of the corporate ladder, as well as occasional asides about processed food: “Have you ever looked at the ingredients in a McRib? What are pig innards?” “You don’t want to know!” called out a scientist in the second row, to rippling laughter.
Pilgreen’s resurrection talk was shrewdly adapted to the worries that would keep any ambitious professional up at night: what happens after a failed project, a faded dream, or even a lost sense of humility following the kind of dizzying financial success that many San Franciscans have sought ever since the tech boom days.
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Some planters are candid about the necessity of behaving just like any other start-up. Photograph: Celine Loup
Off the pulpit, Pilgreen is softer-spoken but no less accessible. He, along with his family and a missionary group of about 20, relocated from Louisiana to what has been long considered rocky terrain for “planting” – missionary parlance for starting up new churches in an appointed city. The church is now in its fifth year, and boasts a growing and diverse attendance.
Missionaries sometimes describe a personal call from God to take on the task of launching and growing a ministry, often far from home. But on a practical level, church plants are brought to life through complex systems of financial and logistical support that scale up to the largest religious bodies in the world, like the Southern Baptist Convention. Epic was founded through the 10-10-10 initiative, a Southern Baptist Convention-supported program to plant 10 new churches in the Bay Area in 2010.
Linda Bergquist was the lead Bay Area catalyst for the initiative, helping to guide new pastors through the spiritual and logistical process of starting a church in one of the most expensive and dense metro areas in the country. When I ask her about traits that make a successful planter in the Bay Area, she offers an anecdote about Pilgreen’s group:
When Ben and his original team came out here for the first time, it was during Obama’s inauguration. The first thing we did was to go down to Civic Center. People were throwing shoes at what I think was a picture of George Bush. Rick Warren came on screen, and people would boo him. It was just so insanely San Francisco. I wanted to watch how Ben and his team related to it, and I hadn’t even told them about Soma ... But I asked afterwards, ‘How was it?’ And they really liked being there. They loved it.
It was this level of comfort with San Francisco’s rebellious spirit, Bergquist told me, that assured her this was the right group to plant in the sometimes bawdy Soma district.
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Regardless, it should come as little surprise that the challenges of planting a church in San Francisco are less ideological than logistical. “It’s difficult finding a place to rent,” Bergquist says. “And depending on where it is, you’ve got to rethink space – what’s walkable, what’s bikeable, what’s hikeable, knowing transportation lines, knowing whether people have cars – that’s just something you have to get used to.”
Material support is another matter: as 501(c)(3) exempt charities, churches are not bound by financial transparency, but generally benefit from what Bergquist describes as greatly improved support systems from both official denominations and non-denominational missionary groups. These groups assist with coaching, personnel and of course financial means during the crucial first years of a church plant’s existence.
Some planters are even more candid about the necessity of behaving just like any other start-up in the nation’s technology hub. Troy Wilson, the Presbyterian-ordained pastor of The Table, a brand-new ministry now operating out of Hayes Valley, described to me a multi-year solvency plan – that is, achieving 100% revenue derived internally as opposed to outside, private boosters. Churches are the original crowdfunders, as it turns out: “We are starting a corporation – a non-profit corporation, but we have to see it that way.” Presently, Wilson says, most of The Table’s outreach comes in the form of organizing community events like art shows, performances and parties, in the hopes of gradually building a stable congregation through creative enrichment.
This is perhaps the core challenge for start-up churches like Wilson’s: the pace of change, and the transience of the younger demographic. Dani Scoville, program director at a Christian center that ministers to younger adults in the Bay Area, describes a population of “believers moving from community to community based on life stage. You might be in a certain church when you’re single and looking for a partner, and in another when you’re married and looking for a church with a good children’s ministry.”
As for successful ministries in the Bay Area, she muses: “What are the needs and aches of the place we’re living in, and how do we respond to that?” In Scoville’s work, this can include anything from Netflix fasts to making a budget and limiting coffee to manage anxiety.
When raising the issue of how to reach younger Bay Areans, one ministry in particular came up several times: Reality SF, which makes its Sunday home in a middle school auditorium in the Castro district. Reality’s website features a group of shiny young millennials lounging gaily in picturesque Dolores Park (marijuana truffles and beer not pictured). Its teachings, which are published online, address subjects like “re-imagining singleness”, “tech in spirituality” and “wisdom for charity” in a blend of CS Lewis quotes, TED Talk references, and occasional guests from groups like Praxis, a “kingdom-centered” business accelerator.
To borrow the words of one Yelp reviewer, walking into Reality itself feels “like a Decemberists concert”: at least 25% of the congregation is dressed in plaid, and the couple next to me thumbs through Facebook throughout an extended version of John Mark Mcmillan’s How He Loves, which everyone but me seems to know the lyrics to:
Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss …
Noting its majority single congregation, Reality’s extracurricular panels offer guidance on Christian dating while mostly avoiding hard-boiled doctrine on issues like homosexuality and premarital sex. Correspondingly, the church also boasts “eat-ups”, classifieds and dozens of community groups, providing an instant friend circle (and maybe more!) for the population of young transplants who find everything they need in San Francisco, except a stable community. Reality’s lead pastor, Dave Lomas, politely declined to be interviewed, but it’s clear that Reality understands its congregation: it accepts tithing in the form of stock, and reported a budget of $2.3m in 2014.
However you might define the spiritual needs of the modern, hipster-leaning young professional, those may be even more pronounced outside the density of San Francisco’s social environment.
Forty miles south in Palo Alto, I went to C3SV (C3 Silicon Valley), which declares prominently on its website: “Not religious? Neither are we!”
The distinction, says pastor Adam Smallcombe, is in what the government expects of a church and what people are really seeking. Smallcombe, who is originally from Australia, emphasized the “community void” in Silicon Valley: “People are desperate for community. Everyone’s moving in, and tech companies are trying to provide that community as much as possible, so that we all never leave work. But there’s a community and relationships that people are looking for outside – for doing life, and going beyond just attending a service.”
Not unlike Reality SF’s community groups, C3 offers mountain biking, hiking and other physical and charitable activities for its members, in addition to a mobile app, shuttle bus service for its San Francisco branch, and sermon livestreams coming soon.
Smallcombe acknowledges openly that the community he serves – affluent and immersed in opportunity– wants for little. His aim, rather, is to “leverage the optimism” in Silicon Valley to help people find fulfillment in life outside of the corporate ladder. “You rule over Silicon Valley!” one of the pastors urged energetically during the sermon. “It is not in Google’s hands, or Facebook’s hands, or Yahoo!’s hands – the kingdom is in your hands!” After a performance by what I can only describe as a modestly dressed version of the Cheetah Girls, he reminds his congregation to “believe in the tithe”.
Smallcombe aims to shepherd the church fully out of “start-up” mode by 2020, he explains, at which point he hopes to have helped establish hundreds of new C3 ministries across the globe.
Ambitious as this may sound, for some start-up churches, nothing seems out of reach. Provided they meet people where they are – on phones, at Dolores Park, or at work – they can successfully serve the unique, sometimes evasive needs of their communities. Or at the very least, a good cup of coffee.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/29/hipster-churches-sillicon-valley-evangelical-new-home?CMP=edit_2221
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Prayer Quotes
2. "God does nothing except in response to believing prayer." John Wesley (Famous evangelist who spent 2 hours daily in prayer)
3. "Prayer strikes the winning blow; service is simply picking up the pieces." S.D. Gordon
4. "One should never initiate anything that he cannot saturate with prayer."
5. "The greatest thing anyone can do for God or man is pray." S.D. Gordon
8. "Prayer doesn't change the purpose of God, but prayer can change the action of God." Chuck Smith(Note: S.D. Gordon penned a similar quote).
9. "Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers." Sidlow Baxter
10. “God shapes the world by prayer. The more prayer there is in the world the better the world will be, the mightier the forces of against evil …” E.M. Bounds
11. “Prayer is where the action is." John Wesley
12. "Satan does not care how many people read about prayer if only he can keep them from praying. Paul E. Billheimer
13. "0h brother, pray; in spite of Satan, pray; spend hours in prayer; rather neglect friends than not pray; rather fast, and lose breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper - and sleep too - than not pray. And we must not talk about prayer, we must pray in right earnest. The Lord is near. He comes softly while the virgins slumber." Andrew A. Bonar
14. "Don’t pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it. A man is powerful on his knees." Corrie ten Boom
15. "Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still." E.M. Bounds
16. "The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness, in other pursuits than seeking God will make poor headway seeking Him the rest of the day. If God is not first in our thoughts and efforts in the morning, He will be in the last place the remainder of the day." E.M. Bounds
17. "God's cause is committed to men; God commits Himself to men. Praying men are the vice-regents of God; they do His work and carry out His plans." E.M. Bounds
18. "The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God's standing challenge, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not!'" (J. Hudson Taylor)
19. "No learning can make up for the failure to pray. No earnestness, no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply its lack." E.M. Bounds
20. "The little estimate we put on prayer is evidence from the little time we give to it." E.M. Bounds
21. "It is necessary to iterate and reiterate that prayer, as a mere habit, as a performance gone through by routine or in a professional way, is a dead and rotten thing." E.M. Bounds
22. "Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Christian on his knees." William Cowper
23. "If the church wants a better pastor, it only needs to pray for the one it has."
24. "Seven days without prayer makes one weak." Allen E. Vartlett
25. "Prayer is the real work, Evangelism is just the mopping up."
26. "You may as soon find a living man that does not breath, as a living Christian that does not pray." Matthew Henry
27. "Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer." John Bunyon
28. "He who has learned to pray has learned the greatest secret of a holy and happy life." William Law
29. "Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness." Martin Luther.
30. "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God." Brother Lawrence
31. When asked how much time he spent in prayer, George Muller's reply was, "Hours every day. But I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk and when I lie down and when I arise. And the answers are always coming." Source Unknown.
32. “The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.” Samuel Chadwick
33. “I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach.” Charles Spurgeon
34. “The man who mobilizes the Christian church to pray will make the greatest contribution to world evangelization in history.” Andrew Murray
35. "If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.” (Robert Murray McCheyne)
36. “One day George Mueller began praying for five of his friends. After many months, one of them came to the Lord. Ten years later, two others were converted. It took 25 years before the fourth man was saved. Mueller persevered in prayer until his death for the fifth friend, and throughout those 52 years he never gave up hoping that he would accept Christ! His faith was rewarded, for soon after Mueller’s funeral the last one was saved.”
37. On persevering prayer: "I look at a stone cutter hammering away at a rock a hundred times without so much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the 101st blow it splits in two. I know it was not the one blow that did it, but all that had gone before."
38. "Eighteen-year-old Hudson Taylor wandered into his father's library and read a gospel tract. He couldn't shake off its message. Finally, falling to his knees, he accepted Christ as his Savior. Later, his mother, who had been away, returned home. When Hudson told her the good news, she said, "I already know. Ten days ago, the very date on which you tell me you read that tract, I spent the entire afternoon in prayer for you until the Lord assured me that my wayward son had been brought into the fold." Our Daily Bread, July 19, 1989. [Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) was a famous missionary in China. He was founder of the China Inland Mission which, at his death, included 205 mission stations with over 800 missionaries, and 125,000 Chinese Christians. He spent 51 years in China].
39. Spurgeon's "boilerroom." Five young college students were spending a Sunday in London, so they went to hear the famed C.H. Spurgeon preach. While waiting for the doors to open, the students were greeted by a man who asked, "Gentlemen, let me show you around. Would you like to see the heating plant of this church?" They were not particularly interested, for it was a hot day in July. But they didn't want to offend the stranger, so they consented. The young men were taken down a stairway, a door was quietly opened, and their guide whispered, "This is our heating plant." Surprised, the students saw 700 people bowed in prayer, seeking a blessing on the service that was soon to begin in the auditorium above. Softly closing the door, the gentleman then introduced himself. It was none other than Charles Spurgeon. Our Daily Bread, April 24.
40. "Prayer does not influence God. Prayer surely does influence God. It does not influence His purpose. It does influence His action." S.D. Gordon
41. Prayer "is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings." Chrysostom
42. "Prayer is the greatest of all forces, because it honors God and brings him into active aid." E.M. Bounds
43. Prayer should not be regarded "as a duty which must be performed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty." E.M. Bounds
44. "I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything but it came at some time; no matter at how distant a day, somehow, in some shape, probably the least I would have devised, it came." Adoniram Judson
45. "Our prayer must not be self-centered. It must arise not only because we feel our own need as a burden we must lay upon God, but also because we are so bound up in love for our fellow men that we feel their need as acutely as our own. To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them." John Calvin
46. "We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties." Oswald Chambers
47. "Faith in a prayer-hearing God will make a prayer-loving Christian." Andrew Murray
48. "The battle of prayer is against two things in the earthlies: wandering thoughts, and lack of intimacy with God's character as revealed in His word. Neither can be cured at once, but they can be cured by discipline." Oswald Chambers
49. "Prayer breaks all bars, dissolves all chains, opens all prisons, and widens all straits by which God's saints have been held." E. M. Bounds50. "A life growing in its purity and devotion will be a more prayerful life." E. M. Bounds
51. "Four things let us ever keep in mind: God hears prayer, God heeds prayer, God answers prayer, and God delivers by prayer." E. M. Bounds
52. "Prayer is the acid test of devotion." Samuel Chadwick
53. "As is the business of tailors to make clothes and cobblers to make shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray." Martin Luther
54. "Prayer is my chief work, and it is by means of it that I carry on the rest." Thomas Hooker, Puritan
55. "The true church lives and moves and has its being in prayer." Leonard Ravenhill
56. "We can do nothing without prayer. All things can be done by importunate prayer. That is the teaching of Jesus Christ". E. M. Bounds
57. "Prayer wonderfully clears the vision; steadies the nerves; defines duty; stiffens the purpose; sweetens and strengthens the spirit." S.D. Gordon
58. "The secret of all failure is our failure in secret prayer." The Kneeling Christian
59. "...True prayer is measured by weight, not by length. A single groan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great length." C. H. Spurgeon
60. "If you want that splendid power in prayer, you must remain in loving, living, lasting, conscious, practical, abiding union with the Lord Jesus Christ." C. H. Spurgeon
61. "Little praying is a kind of make believe, a salve for the conscience, a farce and a delusion." E. M. Bounds (Emphasis added)
62. "The word of God is the food by which prayer is nourished and made strong." E. M. Bounds
63. "If the spiritual life be healthy, under the full power of the Holy Spirit, praying without ceasing will be natural." Andrew Murray
64. "We do not pray at all until we are at our wits' end." Oswald Chambers
65. “The great people of the earth today are the people who pray! I do not mean those who talk about prayer; nor those who say they believe in prayer; nor those who explain prayer; but I mean those who actually take the time to pray. They have not time. It must be taken from something else. That something else is important, very important and pressing, but still, less important and pressing than prayer.There are people who put prayer first, and group the other items in life's schedule around and after prayer. These are the people today who are doing the most for God in winning souls, in solving problems, in awakening churches, in supplying both men and money for mission posts, in keeping fresh and strong their lives far off in sacrificial service on the foreign field, where the thickest fighting is going on, and in keeping the old earth sweet a little while longer.” S.D. Gordon (Emphasis added)
66. “Up in a little town in Maine,things were pretty dead some years ago. The churches were not accomplishing anything. There were a few Godly men in the churches, and they said: 'Here we are, only uneducated laymen; but something must be done in this town. Let us form a praying band. We will all center our prayers on one man. Who shall it be?' They picked out one of the hardest men in town, a hopeless drunkard, and centered all their prayers upon him. In a week, he was converted. They centered their prayers upon the next hardest man in town, and soon he was converted. Then they took up another and another, until within a year, two or three hundred were brought to God, and the fire spread out into all the surrounding country. Definite prayer for those in the prison house of sin is the need of the hour.” Dr. R.A. Torrey
67. “Therefore, whether the desire for prayer is on you or not, get to your closet at the set time; shut yourself in with God; wait upon Him; seek His face; realize Him; pray.” R. F. Horton
68. “Time spent alone with God is not wasted. It changes us; it changes our surroundings; and every Christian who would live the life that counts, and who would have power for service must take time to pray.” M.E. Andross
69. Make time to pray. “The great freight and passenger trains are never too busy to stop for fuel. No matter how congested the yards may be, no matter how crowded the schedules are, no matter how many things demand the attention of the trainmen, those trains always stop for fuel.” M.E. Andross
70. “There is no other activity in life so important as that of prayer. Every other activity depends upon prayer for its best efficiency.” M.E. Andross
71. “…the man on his knees has a leverage underneath the mountain which can cast it into the sea, if necessary, and can force all earth and heaven to recognize the power there is in 'His name.'” M.E. Andross
72. When prayer has become secondary, or incidental, it has lost its power. Those who are conspicuously men of prayer are those who use prayer as they use food, or air, or light, or money." M.E. Andross
73. "If the Christian does not allow prayer to drive sin out of his life, sin will drive prayer out of his life. Like light and darkness, the two cannot dwell together." M.E. Andross
74. "We must begin to believe that God, in the mystery of prayer, has entrusted us with a force that can move the Heavenly world, and can bring its power down to earth." Andrew Murray
75. "...[the] power of prayer can never be overrated. They who cannot serve God by preaching need not regret. If a man can but pray he can do anything. He who knows how to overcome with God in prayer has Heaven and earth at his disposal." Charles H. Spurgeon
76. "Prayer is a spiritual law which cooperates with the mind of God. It has more in it than merely petition. It clothes itself in reality and power, with the force of God Himself. It is an attitude of spirit and mind. Language is secondary in true prayer." Gossner.
77. “What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use— men of prayer, men mighty in prayer" E.M. Bounds
78. "Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work." Oswald Chambers.79. "It is not enough to begin to pray, nor to pray aright; nor is it enough to continue for a time to pray; but we must patiently, believingly, continue in prayer until we obtain an answer; George Müller
82. “The trouble with nearly everybody who prays is that he says ‘Amen’ and runs away before God has a chance to reply. Listening to God is far more important than giving Him our ideas.” Frank Laubach
but sing the praises of God." (1882)
Friday, August 1, 2014
What to Do When Your Church Barely Sings
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What to Do When Your Church Barely Sings
Spend some time with members of a Khosa church in South Africa and you will quickly discover how wonderfully they sing.
No instruments. No microphones. One individual leading, the rest following. Many hands clapping.
And how they join their voices in full-throated praise!
This article is not written for them. It’s written for a traditional Western church.
Westerners are accustomed to professional-quality and performance-oriented music. And for better or worse, this affects what Christians expect musically when we walk into the church gathering.
Unless a church deliberately pushes in an alternative direction, we expect the music to demonstrate the same quality of performance as what we hear on the car radio or through our MP3 ear buds. Anything less can sound clunky, tacky, even embarrassing.
What’s more, there are few places in contemporary Western culture where people learn to sing together. Maybe at a Christmas event? Or in the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field?
Church leaders underestimate how deliberately they must push against these cultural trends to get their church singing; to teach them that the untrained but united voices of the congregation make a far better sound than the Tonight Show Band; to teach them that singing loudly in the presence of other people is not awkward; to teach them that all our emotions don’t have to be individually spontaneous to be worthy, but that there is place to guide and conform our individual emotions to the group’s activity.
If church leaders want congregations that will really “speak to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19), they will have to work at it. They will have to try things that might seem strange or unnatural for people who are accustomed to sitting quietly and watching the performance on stage.
Here are a few tips, many of which, no doubt, fall into the realm of prudence.
1. Teach the congregation the importance of worshipping God in song.
Just as Christians must be taught the importance of prayer and other spiritual disciplines, so they must learn from Scripture how God intends for them to sing. When the Word of God dwells in us richly, singing is the natural result (see Col. 3:16).If God sings over us in happy song (Zeph. 3:17), we who reflect our Creator should sing in return.
2. Encourage thoughtful, purposeful singing through private and public prayer.
How easy it is to honor God with our lips while our hearts are far from him (Is. 29:13; Matt. 15:8)!So pray privately and publicly against thoughtless and hypocritical singing.
3. Make sure the congregation knows why they are singing the chosen song.
If it’s a prayer, briefly remind them. If it’s a song of commitment, point that out. If it reflects the preached message from God’s Word, make that clear.Songs that are chosen just because they are favorite songs of the song-chooser are often not well-sung. Although congregations are generally compliant enough to sing whatever song is suggested, they will sing it more enthusiastically if they know why they are singing that particular song.
Help them to care about singing “in spirit and in truth.”
4. Choose “congregational” rather than “performance” songs.
Here is a general (not absolute) principle: The more a song depends on the musical accompaniment and cannot be sung by a couple of children in the car on the way home, the more performance-oriented and less congregational it probably is.Congregational songs tend to have singable and memorable melodies. Just because a Christian artist has created something wonderful does not mean it is appropriate for the congregation.
The melody may not be very melodic. It may be too high, too low, or wide of range. It may be too rhythmic, perhaps syncopated in a way that’s difficult for untrained singers. It may be too complex through bridges, tags or multiple keys.
Such music might sound wonderful with the recorded accompaniment. Maybe the praise band can perform it just fine. But the more a congregation needs the musicians up front to get through a song, the more you can expect them to mouth the words while watching the band do its thing.
5. Please, oh please, turn up the lights.
Keeping stage lights bright while dimming lights among the people turns the people into an “audience” and everyone on stage into performers. It makes the whole event mimic the movie theater or the concert hall.Keeping the entire room lit up, however, suggests that everyone is called to participate in the “performance” before an “audience” of one—God.
6. Please, oh please, turn down the musical accompaniment.
You don’t want your electric guitars or your organ, your drums or your microphoned choir, to drown out the sound of the congregation singing. We might even say the loudest sound in a room should be the congregation.Lead singers might sing loudly on the first verse of a song, but then pull back a touch on subsequent verses.
Good accompaniment accompanies. Facilitates. Encourages. It does not attract or overwhelm.
If a small group or choir is leading, they should be an aural microcosm of the congregation. Let their volume be natural and without too much amplification. If they have prepared the hymn in rehearsal, they will “lead” by their sound.
7. Consider the dangers of performance rehearsals, “excellent” music and heavy instrumentation.
There is a place for musical rehearsal. But why are you rehearsing? To what end?Musical rehearsals often involve the insertion of creative elements that make for good performances but not for congregational singing. Musicians and singers should use any rehearsal time to ask themselves how to best facilitate congregational singing, not be impressive.
The common focus on “excellence” and “quality” can, ironically, distract musicians from seeking to serve the congregation because "excellence" is unthinkingly defined in terms of performance.
What would it instead mean to aim to facilitate excellently, not to perform excellently. By the same token, elaborate instrumentation can sometimes squelch congregational singing. Mere and acoustic instrumentation tends to help singing.
8. Look for a balance between new songs and old songs.
On the one hand, people sing well when singing an old and beloved song. On the other hand, old songs can wear out, which can lead to thoughtless singing.On the one hand, songs that are new to a congregation (whether recently composed or not) are harder to sing. On the other hand, a congregation’s musical repertoire should grow as the congregation grows in maturity and depth.
Congregations, like people, go through different seasons, and new songs help it to grow through those seasons. All these hands mean that helping people to sing well involves both new and old songs, and figuring out the balance for your church.
Never be closed to learning new songs, whether they are newly composed or old songs that are new to you. And teach those new songs more than once.
9. Use songs that represent a broad range of human experience and emotion.
If all a church’s music is exultant and gladsome, much of your church’s singing will be inauthentic and affected. How true to life are they lyrics of “I Hear the Words of Love”: “My love is ofttimes low/My joy still ebbs and flows/But peace with Him remains the same/No change my Savior knows.” Or that frank admission from “Come Thou Fount”: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it/Prone to leave the God I love … .”A church’s hymnody, like the Psalter, should have words for happy Christians, sad Christians, tempted Christians and all the in-between Christians. Along these lines, a congregation is served by having a repertoire of 300 songs rather than 30.
Life is complex and diverse. So should our worship be.
10. Vary the way a song is sung.
Just as a preacher might speak the same words with a different tone between one Sunday and the next, adjusting for the mood of the day or the sermonic context in which the words are spoken, so a song might be led differently at different times.The dynamics of the accompaniment might vary. Maybe the volume rises; maybe it falls. Maybe that third stanza is sung quietly, maybe vigorously. Maybe a key change, maybe not. Maybe a cappella, maybe not.
Certainly the text of a song should shape the mood of the accompaniment, but so can the mood of the church’s life or the place it occurs in the church service.
11. Where possible, arrange chairs or pews with some facing each other and not just the stage.
Singing is a “team” effort, and often the only part of the worship that is a visible expression of togetherness. This is one way to remember the fact that Paul says to “speak to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19).There is nothing wrong with closing one’s eyes when singing, to be sure, but the picture painted by Paul sounds like people are looking at one another! Church is not the place for a turbo-charged quiet time.
12. Consider the room’s acoustics.
Bad acoustics hurt congregational singing probably more than you realize.Are the floors entirely carpeted? Limit carpet to the aisles. Are there acoustic tiles on the ceiling? Remove them and replace with solid plaster. Heavy curtains? Take them down. Fully padded pews? Any chance of removing all padding except the seat?
If your worship space is unusual in any way and needs help, maybe hire a professional acoustician to consult for what you can do to improve the reverberation time and limit unpleasant echoes.
Warning: Acousticians will always assume you want “to improve the acoustics” in terms of what is projected from the platform. Many ask for an auditorium with “dead” acoustics in the audience so that coughing and extraneous noise is not heard during a concert. But you must inform them that you want improved congregational singing. Worship is not a concert, and the congregation is not an audience. Let them be heard through live acoustics. Why do people like to sing in the shower? Because the acoustics amplify our sound.
13. Perhaps place musicians and singers to the side for a season.
Every room and congregational culture is different. Placing musicians and singers to the side might in some circumstances hinder congregational singing because the congregation needs stronger leadership.But if your congregation has fallen into a performance culture and orientation, where feasible, considering placing song leaders to the side. There was a good reasons some older churches placed their choirs in the balcony—so that they would be heard and not seen.
When the song leader's stage presence yields a performance culture, God is less seen and heard.
14. Model enthusiastic singing.
Whether the elders, staff and deacons are sitting on a platform or in the congregation, they should model enthusiastic and appropriately-loud singing. Off-key singing is better than no singing.The pastor who is still looking over sermon notes during the singing is saying by example, “Singing in our worship is not that important!” In a culture that sometimes equates masculinity with the stoicism of a Clint Eastwood-like character, modeling enthusiastic singing is especially important for male leadership.
15. Print the music, pick songs with good parts, and look for other ways to promote musical literacy.
Musical literacy is not what it used to be, thanks to declining music education in schools. But even if 10 percent of the church sings the parts, everyone’s singing will be invigorated.People talk about the advantages of “looking up,” which reading an overhead screen requires. But why then is it that all the churches looking at screens don’t seem to sing as well as an older generation of churches staring down at their hymnals?
Perhaps it’s time for churches to think about hymnals again, or at least to start printing music in their bulletins. Pick music with good parts, and make sure any choir or song leaders sing the parts.
16. Hold a singing class.
Following the example of the composer of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” Lowell Mason, who created “Singing Schools” in the church, Justin Leighty, a member of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, offers his own church a monthly hymn singing class.They meet the first Sunday of every month for 45 minutes before the evening service. Attendees are grouped by their parts like a choir, and they practice music basics: “This is a quarter note; this is a whole note. Here’s where the tenor line is: When it goes down, you go down, when it goes up, you go up ... etc.”
17. Occasionally sing a cappella (unaccompanied).
Maybe the third verse; maybe the fourth. Or maybe even a whole song, with a piano or guitar starting the piece and then bridging transitions.And don’t waste your a cappella singing on melody-only songs; sing it when there are parts that are good and well-known.
A cappella singing helps the congregation to hear themselves and rely solely on their combined voices to sing at a volume that says they believe what they are singing! Slow the tempo down a bit and free the congregation to engage every part of their body, soul and spirit in the song.
18. Regularly remind the congregation that they are the primary instrument in corporate worship.
If they don’t sing with gusto, musical worship won’t happen.That doesn’t mean acting like a cheerleader at a pep-rally: “OK, let’s really sing … I want to hear you … I know you can sing louder!” Such leadership detracts from the seriousness of the music and doesn’t treat their singing as a genuine spiritual expression of love, thanksgiving and praise.
Ultimately, congregational singing should be as natural as words of awe before an unusual sunset or words of mourning with a hurting friend. Still, congregations must be taught that it is their responsibility to sing and to teach one another through song. They must be taught to gather expecting to sing.
David Leeman, Mark Dever,and Matt Merker contributed to this article.