The Dark Secrets of Stolen Praise

It is the great hidden desire of those of us who lead worship. We want to keep some of His praise. And we want it because it tastes so delicious.

The honeyed satisfaction of appreciation; The sugary warmth of acknowledgment; The rich taste of respect; The golden sweetness admiration.

You know it is wrong. You know you can’t keep it. You know it isn’t yours - it’s His - but you’re left wanting more. And more. And more.

It starts so innocently because you love God, of course, but also because you don’t think you’ll be any good at it. And at the beginning you’re not; you make heaps of mistakes; you’re nervous; you’re convinced of your impending failure and embarrassment. But He doesn’t hang you out to dry - in the middle of all your faults and lack of understanding and myriad of mistakes, God meets with His people. They worship Him. His Spirit leads people into an encounter with Him and lives are changed and faith raised and hope is stirred. And you feel genuinely humbled, overwhelmed even. God in His grace does what only He can do.

Then you get better; more confident, more consistent. And how the people appreciate it. “Thank you”
“Bless you for all you do”
“You are such an encouragement”. People are nice aren’t they?

Of course there are a few people who don’t like what you do or how you do it, but isn’t there always?

Then you end up leading so often and with such consistency that people refer to you as “The Worship Leader”. “The Worship Leader” “The Worship Leader”. And that is who are, that is your role.

And it is then you begin to feel guilty. You know that some of this isn’t just encouragement. You know that you are treasuring your role tightly. You know it isn’t right.

But you’re not stupid - you do not seek to boast (that could look bad), you do not swan around like the big shot (that would be crass). You keep doing what you’re doing. You keep asking God for help - cause you don’t want it to end, you love being a worship leader. The worship leader.

You get a bigger and better theology. Smarter to what we should sing and why we should sing. And you call it growing or developing or maturing. You take up the cause of ‘justice’. But inside you’re stagnating. Your heart is festering with pride and guilt of pride.

And God, being God, still meets with people.

Perhaps as time goes on you grow and improve and become so experienced in all this stuff that people outside of your church notice what you’re doing. Other churches; conferences; events. They want you to lead worship for them. You, for them.

You. Not someone else. You.

And you tell yourself:

“These people need me”
“God has anointed me for this special ministry”
“He has opened all of these doors”
“I have something special”

And you don’t feel guilty anymore. The shame is so huge it would crush you to live with it. So you let it go. You don’t feel guilty - you feel entitled.

Eventually you don’t just ignore the misplaced praise of others. You become complicit in it.
You see your name in lights. You do the interviews. You read the glowing reviews. You believe the bullshit.

And that is exactly what it is. A stinking, rotting dung heap. Wrapped up with spiritual words and water tight theology. And you drag this pile of sewage with you wherever you go.

And God, being God, still meets with His people because - even when you are so misguided that you cannot remember who you are or why you’re here.

-

What I’ve written hasn’t been a stinging criticism of modern worship. Not this time anyway!

It is me. It is who I’ve been; who I am; who I might be.

And it is you. Who you’ve been; who you are; who you may become.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can defer.
We can let the truth of His word and the power of His Spirit take hold. Truly transforming us - on the inside first. And all that putrid faeces can be washed away. Or, if you’re on your toes, it may never even grow at all.

We tread carefully.
We lean on grace.
We give it all to Him. The Lamb.

It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship.
John 4:23-24

"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!"
Revelation 5:12

Numpties #3

The Bullingdon club

Numpties #2

Bankers

Numpties #1

People who wear these scarves.

The First 100 Days

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Fox News Fear Imbalance

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

A little bit jealous...

The Yanks have now got Obama, and we are going to get this "lightweight".

In the words of Swiper the Fox "Oh Mannnn!"

dg

The Wind Blows.....

“The wind blows wherever it pleases”

It does not respect our plans; The months and years of investing and preparing might be cast upon the breeze. Even the nature of our dreams and our deepest desires are subject to its course. What we build in concrete and steel, the wind can rip out in an instant

It does not respect our reputations; All the favour we have earned, every person we’ve impressed, every piece of respect we’ve gathered and admiration we have garnered is all prone to be lost on the whim of the wind.

It does not respect our traditions; Though our systems work and our methods are reliable, they will not last forever. We are lucky if they last a season. And blessed if they last a generation. If our hope is in tradition, then that hope will be crushed. That is certain.

It does not respect our ambitions; It lifts the least likely. It loves the weak. It thrives in innocence. The ambitious are held at a healthy distance. Those who seek power and position are shunned. You cannot worm your way into the will of the wind.

It does not respect our achievements; You cannot impress it. You cannot convince it of your value. You cannot dazzle it with style. It will not be bought or swayed or persuaded. It has no need for money. It does not need fame to get things done.

It does not respect our worries; Fear is not a word it understands. It has no comprehension of anxiety. It never panics. The wind will not pay the toll, it will break the barrier. What we rule out as preposterous it rules in as realistic. We can only begin to imagine what it is capable of doing. No eye has yet seen it.

“The wind blows wherever it pleases” - John 3:8

20 Dollars

For just $19.95 a month you can become the best worship leader in the world....

I kid you not.

dg

Hallelujah?

B*&%$@^s!

When does a word move from being an innocent collection of syllables and to becoming inherent source of offence?

How does a word become so loaded with insult and crudity that it becomes totally intolerable in the presence of many people?

Why can't some people stand even a "darn", whilst others will drop the F-Bomb before every noun?

Is swearing a sin?

Last night I sat down to watch the first episode of 'The Wire' on DVD which I have been very much looking forward to. Every review I have read has been full of superlatives - no reviewer has been able to praise it enough. As it is an ultra-realistic portrayal of drug dealing and policing in Baltimore I expected some swearing but I was quite taken a back by the quantity of expletives on offer. Now although I don't enjoy hearing it, I can tolerate it. My wife cannot. Although she was not watching it she was in the same room perusing the internet, and commented, more than once, that this was perhaps too much and I should turn off. Is she right?

Quite frankly, I blame my Mother.* 

I am one of the few people I know who has any recollection of their mother swearing. (Apparently most mum's don't want their kids to pick it up or something). 

I can just picture the scene now:

We would be having a pleasant family meal at the dinner table with the 6 o'clock news muttering dimly in the background. Then the presenters would move to an item concerning the NHS (nurses' pay, hospital funding etc.) and on screen would pop up the Tory Health Secretary explaining why they were cutting this or not raising that... and our pleasant evening supper would be broken by my dear mother with "That is .....(insert expletive)....., He/She is such a .....(insert expletive).....". 

Consequently my tolerance of swearing seems to differ from many Christians. I meet people all the time who think that swear is to sin. Full stop. No excuses. Wash your dirty mouth out with soap. 

Yet more recently I've begun to notice a lot of Christians who are almost "pro-swearing". They will insert a "sh*t" or a "cr*p" into casual conversation and even, when feeling particularly brave, the F-Bomb. The reasoning being two fold: a desire to be free from laws/rules/religious attitudes and more truthfully, a penchant for the shocking or controversial.

As it happens I don't 'value' swearing. 

I once heard it referred to as "the last refuge of an inarticulate mind". And that has stuck with me. 

Yet perhaps because of my Tory-Minister-Baiting upbringing (which I am grateful for!) and a more laid back approach to life, I would certainly class myself as a 'stub-your-toe' swearer. Sometimes extreme situations require extreme words. Yet if it can be avoided, which it clearly can, why do I bother?

I don't swear at church, or work, or in front of my children or my grandparents - does that make me a hypocrite?

The most important thing, I believe, is awareness of others. I have no problem with offending people, as regular readers will have noticed, but equally I have no interest or pleasure in offending either.  

There needs to be give and take. We each have a capacity to choose the extent of our offence by another person's swearing - and that is often determined by where it occurs, when it occurs and the intentions behind it. Yet many do not exercise any choice whatsoever. After they have been inflicted with the crude and evil words they rush home to have a shower to rid themselves of the obscenities! 

I can remember watching a program once about the 'C' word. (Yep, that 'C' word!). They made a really interesting observation that the working classes and the upper classes have a quite a high tolerance of swearing whilst the middle classes have a painfully thin tolerance threshold. The point they made was that the middle classes are in some moral panic to distance themselves from the crude and pugnacious Proles whilst the upper classes didn't really give a 'stuff'' (Or a 'toss').  A sweeping generalisation for certain - but a thought worth considering.

So, I fully intend to watch the remaining 12 episodes of Season 1 of "The Wire" -  but there are two things I will bear in mind:

1. I have never met anyone who wished they swore more. 

2. It is entirely possible to never utter an expletive in your life whilst being the most offensive and ignorant person on the planet.

Where do you stand on 'eff-ing & blinding'?

dg

*sorry Mum!

Bandits

Did you ever want to be overrun by bandits;
To hand over all of your things and start over new?
While we were out hunting for food
Our house was being robbed
I caught an apple and she caught a fox
So I caught a rabbit but she caught an ox

So upon our return, we found everything gone
Which for us was no loss
And we started over
With a rabbit and an ox

So they came down from the north
Carrying all they owned
With a basket full of food and clothes
They were stopped by a weekend raid
Traveling the woods one day
They tried to put up a fight, but lost
So we asked for them to stay
With us on their way
To have a drink and rest
And regain their strength

Did you ever want to run around with bandits;
To see many places and hide in ditches?
It's not always easy, it's not always easy
When the winter comes and the greenery goes
We will make some shelter

Three Hour Ceasefire

Happy New Year!

There is no mystery about who was responsible for the economic slump we are in, although the list is long. Clever fools at the banks, as vain as they were greedy, who messed around with the financial system like Victor Frankenstein messing around with body parts. Credulous or corrupted politicians, who believed the puffery of these financial mad scientists or hoped to get jobs from them later, and allowed increasingly brazen forms of embezzlement to be legalised in the form of bonuses and outrageous overvaluation of phoney assets. Marketing geniuses who persuaded us that we were always just one purchase short of happiness, and that it was perfectly normal to spend money we didn't have to make it. Us, because we believed them. The governments of developing countries, who instead of investing the cash we had given them for their goods (China) or their resources (Russia, Nigeria, the Gulf) at home, lent it back to us and our rulers so that we could live our splurgey, bingey lives and simultaneously fight unnecessary wars.

From the Business section of today's Guardian......