Part 6 in this series is brought to us by Kendra…

“He to rescue me from danger, bought me with His precious blood”

This hymn is rich with meaning and so doctrinally sound but poetic at the same time, I will do my best to expound upon this line. The first part, “He to rescue me from danger” I think speaks of rescuing us from eternal separation from God - hell. What could possibly be more dangerous that that? It also made me think about how terrible hell must be for God to give such an incredible sacrifice just to spare us from that penalty. There is also the “danger” of living this life outside of a relationship with God and the only way we can have relationship with the Father is through the Son and through His blood.

In the next line “bought me with His precious blood” the word “bought” stood out to me and I wanted to dig a little deeper to see what that really means. Here is how the dictionary defines it:

bought - to acquire the possession of, or the right to, by paying or promising to pay an equivalent, redeem; ransom.

There it is, we have been bought and if there was any question as to whether we are our own it is answered right there. If He bought us with His blood then we are His, He acquired the rights to our lives, He took possession of us by of the sacrifice He gave on our behalf. Read the rest of this entry »

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Mark and I attended a very interesting and entertaining concert last night, Bon Jovi with Chris Daughtry as the opening act. Mind you, we would never have purchased tickets for this show as I think Bon Jovi is one of the cheesiest rockers out there but we were not going to turn down free tickets and a suite with free food and drinks. We went with the mindset that it was probably going to be pretty bad but a chance for some great people watching and another opportunity to see what we can receive, redeem and reject from the experience. So with that being said here is some feedback on the show:

Daughtry’s music was good, not great, in the words of Randy Jackson, “it was just alright for me dog”. The songs were clean and rockin but I realized after each one of them ended I had no interest in hearing them ever again so that’s never a good sign. The thing I liked the most about them was their humility and their camaraderie as a band. It seemed like they were just a group of close friends getting to live out a dream playing in front of a packed crowd of 18,000 and loving every moment of it. They were fun to watch and their sound was tight so all in all I give their entertainment factor a C+.

Read the rest of this entry »

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I love this blog by the way, I have been reading so many great articles and it has been a fascinating journey into the minds of a lot of men and women that I really admire. One of which is Mark Driscoll. He is provocative, authentic, truthful and full of sass who is constantly turning out great quotes that get you thinking. In reading through an article he wrote about the dangers and shortcomings of the “megachurch” one quote really stood out to me.

“The major blind spot of megachurches is that they tend to be very effeminate with aesthetics, music, and preaching perfectly tailored for moms. Manly men are repelled by this, and many of the men who find it appealing are the types to sing prom songs to Jesus and learn about their feelings while sitting in a seafoam green chair drinking herbal tea—the spiritual equivalent of Richard Simmons. A friend of mine calls them “evangellyfish” with no spiritual vertebrae.”

Article from Christianity Today called “Men are from Mars Hill” posted 7/04/2006

Wow, that certainly sums up a few churches that I have been to and explains the lack of true masculinity and the over abundance of estrogen found there. I’m happy to say that I think our church strikes an incredible balance in appealing to both men and women from the ambiance, to the worship to the preaching and has found a way to be sensitive but not wimpy, passionate but not flaky and masculine but not chauvinistic. When I read the line about singing prom songs to Jesus it gave me such an image of what I don’t want the worship songs I write to evoke. I don’t ever want my worship to be a big cheesefest with ewwy gooey lyrics that don’t translate into any actual life experience and I think communicating our love to God and His love towards others deserves a bit of forethought and integrity in the delivery. Again, I don’t think that we are in danger of singing worship songs that would appeal to the spiritual equivalent of Richard Simmons, certainly not with Kyle & Aaron at the helm, but it was more of a heart and mind check for me when writing lyrics. Do they sound like they could be playing in the background of some tacky 80’s teen flick or do they sound like a passionate lover pouring out the deep cry of her heart to her true love? Even as I’m writing this I want to tell myself that if I did say something lame and hooky to God, He sees my heart and would know the true source of the words but since scripture says “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” I better check my heart to see if its producing shallow and juvenile puppy love songs or deep expressions of a life lived in true intimacy with Jesus.

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