Gratitude and Worship

I was given the opportunity to teach a couple classes on worship at the church where I am the worship pastor, naturally. Upon ending the first class, I opened the floor to any questions, one of which was "what is our motivation to worship?". A loaded question that caused me a bit of discomfort as I had never really considered this as deeply as was necessary for a competent answer. So I quickly answered "Obedience.", which is true ( if you discover there is a God, then discover this God is not you, then further discover this God requests your worship, to disobey is at it's very least illogical and it's severest, and I think more to the point, sinister.), but it is also incomplete in its scope.


The 2nd world war (probably should be in caps) was nearing an end (at least the European theatre) and the allied troops were drawing nearer to Germany when they stumbled across a strange prison like camp, with tall fences and razor wire, that could only be assumed was to keep people in and not out. Upon breaking in to the "camp" these war hardened soldiers witnessed a surprise that complicated the issue of depravity with relation to the depths that it could reach, hundreds of men barely clinging to life, starved, diseased, left to die by a retreating German army, and ignored to die by the neighboring villagers who, no doubt, could smell the erie scent of death in the air. This surprise startled the soldiers profoundly. The Jews left to die in these camps were startled by the presence of the soldiers, and were largely afraid of the men until the issue of the soldiers intentions was made clear by the sharing of provisions they were packing. Then fear gave way to a rush of gratitude, the lengths of which made many of the soldiers uncomfortable.


Gratitude, another motive for worship. This picture is apropos in that we, in our sin, were just as desperate as were they, and also our captor was no more gracious than was theirs. However always remember that your gratitude will never be seen as uncomfortable to God, because unlike the allied soldiers who stumbled upon the prison and prisoners by accident while in the throes of a larger mission, your liberation was the sole purpose of God's mission.

Irony of ironies....or is it?

Happy birthday Planned Parenthood, good news congress seems to be a bigger fan of yours than you are of parents....was that planned? It's interesting that you should be celebrating a birthday, being an organization that prevents so many. Hey, while we're on the topic I noticed on your website you say the fetus feels no pain, but then I noticed there are differing opinions. While all of this is startling it makes me think of what would happen if abortion was made illegal, or let's say the number of performed abortions were cut in half, and the current christian practice of adoption, or lack there of, would continue.....what would become of all those babies? That made me think of this verse. There is much that needs to be done, but let none of us point a finger of judgement until we've examined what we can do, and consider the cost.

Deeper and Deeper

Depravity is a well that can overwhelm you with its depth, sheer walls of jagged rock rising to the elevation of socially accepted behaviour where our adversary stands, bemused, and says "it puts the lotion in the basket". And there we stand fingers raw from clawing, nails torn, walls slick with our own blood, hopeless. There is no depth which God cannot reach to, just beyond the perch of the enemy He stands, call for His hand, He'll pull you to safety.

Humor, what the hell happened?

Upon viewing the movie Borat I was struck with the thought, what has happened to humor it wasn't always about putting people in awkward positions based upon false pretense....was it? Maybe not but it did start quite a while ago, it's not something that is relegated to this generation alone....Candid Camera comes to mind, although I'm sure there are others.

Add to that the tag line, originated by entertainment weekly (the journalistic Juggernaut that it is), about the movie being the funniest movie ever, and you have the perfect storm for disappointment....overtly racist and unsympathetic towards social injustice, Borat trudges on for what seemed like hours (especially a scene where in you get more than an eye full of eastern European man ass) and leaves you feeling as dirty as the hands of the narrator/host Borat himself.

It's true this type of humor has been around for a while, but I remember it having a tad more class

Trying to make sense of it all

Finding time to think through the ins and outs of this struggle....the larger struggle, can be tricky enough but while sorting it out things sometimes get complicated the struggle can be so broad this will serve as a journal of sorts. A terribly intrusive journal....or maybe it won't be intrusive at all, I may even ignore it all together like so many other projects I've started, and never finished...Laziness that's just one of my struggles.