Gospel Prism

Our home groups are working through the Old Testament book of Judges. The fourth study is “Deborah: The woman leader” and includes this question: How does Deborah’s career modify the “strong conservative” and “strong liberal” views of women’s leadership? Thus, the complementarian and egalitarian views may be broached. A good resource for explaining the views is this, the website for the Council of Biblical Manhood & Womanhood. A trip to that site showed me that one of the churches within Sovereign Grace Ministries (of which my church, Wellspring, is a part), recently had a conference related to this topic. Speakers included CJ Mahaney, Craig Cabaniss, and Rick Gamache. Check out the summaries and grab mp3s here.

I love this book.  I wish it had been written about 15 years ago when I first started leading wrship through song.  It would have given much, much wisdom in doing so.  This book is not just for worship leaders, but for Christian leaders in general (minus the practical sections on music).  Bob Kauflin does a great job of balancing the biblical theology of worship with the practical nature of leading worship through songs as an individual, with a team, and with your pastor.  He also gives some great personal and practical stories that are so familiar to many of us who lead worship through song.

Bob addresses the necessity of musical skill, but the idolatry of musical skill.  He makes certain that the Gospel is at the core of every worship leader and worship pastor.  And he skillfully weaves the necessity to see that “worship” is not merely singing, but a part of one’s whole life (as seen in the chapter “And to Live for God’s Glory”).  Hi section called “Healthy Tensions” are geared toward Worship Leaders, but in many ways these chapters can be utilized by any leader of any ministry because the focus of such tension is upon the Gospel itself, as Bob writes:

But the best way to maintain this tension [between transcendence and immanence] is to continually meditate on the Gospel.  God’s transcendent holiness and justice required the sacrifice of the Son of God to be satisfied.  At Calvary we stand in awe of perfect righteousness, holy justice, and unerring judgment.  We can offer no excuses or justification for our sin.  We’re completely at the mercy of our sovereign Creator and King.  Yet the gospel assures us that our sins have been completely atoned for.  We’re no longer God’s enemies.  We’re his adopted children. (p. 162)

From a practical standpoint, Part Four called “Right Relationships,” is by far the best resource out there for worship leaders.  There is nothing more practical for a worship team member or leader than relating to each other, relating to the church, and relating to the pastor.  He has a whole section of receiving criticism and receiving compliments and blessings.  There isn’t a worship leader around who couldn’t benefit from this section.  I love his section on “Handling Song Suggestions” where people will come and say, “Why don’t we sing this song at our church?” (p. 224)  And the chapter entitled “Your Team” alone is worth the price of the book (this seems to be a recurring cliché that’s used in book reviews, which I will unashamedly use here as well).  In this chapter Bob covers so many great topics such as rehearsals, commitments, roles, musical growth, theological growth, etc. that you really do find so many great practical helps as a worship leader, you can’t help but smile with glee.

Again, I wish Bob had written this book years ago, but I sure am glad it is finally out.  Thanks to Bob Kauflin for a resource that will bless the church for many, many years.  For more of Bob, see his blog.

As if abortion wasn’t bad enough, it seems Planned Parenthood, one of the leaders of abortion on demand, has systematically targeted African-American children for abortion. The reasoning behind such tactics? The national office of Planned Parenthood gave the following statement:

The (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) revealed that a shocking number of teenage African-American girls — nearly half — carry a sexually transmitted infection,” reads the statement. “This compares to an overall average rate for all teenage girls of at least one in four.

“The largest increases in the teen birthrate were reported for non-Hispanic black teens, whose overall rate rose five percent in 2006. In addition, African-American women are more likely to die of breast cancer than the general population.”

Hmmm…rather than teaching these kids about the dark realities of promiscuity (something Bill Cosby is now campaigning the African-American community about), Planned Parenthood’s solution is to abort more African-American children. Finally, the African-American community, activists, and churches are beginning to take notice that abortion is not a ‘white’ social issue, but rather a tragedy of unprecedented proportions.

If you think this is just an exaggeration, read this account and you’ll see the darkness and prejudice of pro-abortion Planned Parenthood:

But an investigation, undertaken by students at the University of California at Los Angeles newspaper, The Advocate, revealed troubling responses from Planned Parenthood staffers when asked by an actor, posing as a “donor,” if he could earmark his contribution for abortions for “black babies” only.

In one example, Autumn Kersey, vice president for marketing at Planned Parenthood of Idaho, is asked whether a donation can be specified “to help a minority group … like the black community, for example.”

“Certainly,” Kersey says in a taped response in which she sounds genuinely encouraged by the offer. “If you wanted to designate that your gift be used to help an African-American woman in need, then we would certainly make sure the gift as earmarked for that purpose.”

The caller responds: “Great, because I really faced trouble with affirmative action, and I don’t want my kids to be disadvantaged against black kids. I just had a baby; I want to put it in his name.”

Kersey responds, “Absolutely.”

The “donor” proceeds to proclaim that “the less black kids out there the better,” followed by, “understandable, understandable,” by Kersey, who laughed as if he were joking.

“Excuse my hesitation, this is the first time that I’ve had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I’m excited and want to make sure I don’t leave anything out,” she is recorded saying.

Kersey’s and other statements were culled from calls to Planned Parenthood clinics in six states. In each, the staff person answering the call expressed an interest in taking the donations despite the caller’s overtly racist commentary.

It’s true! It’s true! In order to increase blog traffic, we’ve decided to change the name of this blog!

… oh … wait … oh … okay …

It was reported here, prematurely, that the blog’s name was changing to Why We’re Not Emergent. That’s not gonna happen. While I’m confident that I am not emergent, well, I’m just not so sure about Sam.

Instead, I recommend reading the book, Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be). This was a giveaway at T4G last week.

John MacArthur has a good article on ways in which parents provoke their kids, rather than leading them to grace.

Some of you know that I just got back from back to back trips to South Africa, Mozambique, and then to Together for the Gospel in Louisville, KY.  I am definitely tired of airplanes and aiports, that’s for sure.  In South Africa, I attended a Hands at Work in Africa conference and had the blessing to worship together with believers from many different countries.  Here are some pics from the conference:

Some guys were worshipping. I exposed the windows so that the guys were silouetted.

We stayed at the game farm where you could see giraffes out the window.  This was an early morning shot.

This was the shot right out of my window.

And then we went to MOzambique to care for some orphans and work with Hands in Moz with Carlos Giua.  Here are some shots of Moz:

One of the decript buildings in Beira.

It’s a beautiful country.

Some of the volunteers we partnered with and the kids.

Look at the anticipation and wonder in this little boy’s face.  We were just making balloon animals.  These kids were all that were left of their homes.  They had no parents and they were living in their homes led by 10 year olds!

I’ll blog some details about the trip later.  If you want to see more pics, you can go here.

Yeah, where is Sam? Well, right now he is probably in Mozambique, headed to South Africa. On Saturday he should arrive back here in the good ol’ SF Bay Area. But if you catch a glimpse of him, don’t blink; on Monday he’s scheduled to fly out to attend Together for the Gospel in Louisville, Kentucky.

His fingers are probably ready to pound out a few of his patented, multi-page posts. Prediction: expect to see posts on Africa, t4g, what he’s been reading, and the NY Yanks to burst out in gush, maybe next week(end).

Become a friend of Sovereign Grace Music on Facebook and get instructions on how to download the latest album, Come Weary Saints - for free! Act quickly; the deal expires tomorrow!

I’m listening to CWS now and it is gooooooood.

Have you read the Old Testament account of Jonah? Have you read or purchased a Jonah story book for a child?

Consider this.

The punchline to the article: “In Removing the Fear from the Story of Jonah, Children’s Versions Remove the Gospel, Too” [sic]. The writer’s advice: “Forget about cleaning up Jonah. Instead, tell the story the Bible tells. It is the story God wants your children to hear.”

Here’s a book I’m not likely to read. Why?

Well, first it is not endorsed by Al, Mark, CJ, or one of the Johns. Remarkably, not even JI has commended it. Second …