[Worship Mythbusters is a series of posts debunking possibly damaging thinking about worship, worship leading and art/creativity/music in the church]

MYTH: Artist types cannot lead and what they do is not leadership–especially in the church.

Worship leaders seem to fit the profiling for the most part of being artistic types. This seems to be conventional wisdom in the church world, but for those of you scratching your head because you do not see the bubble of Evangelical Christian subculture please bear with me. Read the rest of this entry »

WMB is a series of posts here on my blog.

The Myth of Proposition over Experience in Worship

Why is it that in our evangelical church culture we seem to put the beauty of music, art and other expression of our faith and worship below reason? Where in scripture does this occur? In reading the Psalms and other poetry of the Bible we see imagery and drama as part of our expression of faith and yes, even theology.
Read the rest of this entry »

Happy New Year to my friends, family and readers of RKWL! What a whirlwind 2008 has been as the first year in our new southern California life as a family. From 2008 the following is a snapshot…

• Kids finish first time being homeschooled for the 2007-08 and enter public schooling. So far so good.
• Both kids get braces. Ouch. Ouch.
• We sell our house of five years we owned in Redding, CA for a decent price in this economy. Miracle.
• I become even more geeky. We have router issues at home now.
• My wife starts a business, or two.
• I  pass my 4oth year in 2008! Ouch.
• Blogging favorites like Worship Mythbusters and a new blog at Tehilla Music started.
• I performed the wedding for my good friend Zach Tanksley.
• My daughter entered High School, and now leads worship with me.
• We are “post minivan” now as a family.
• Cigars are nice. Ahhh.
• iPhones are nice, too.
• 20th year in ministry passed me by. Wow.
• New friends. Missing old friends.
• A quiet small family Christmas.
• Need for long sleeves reduced to half. New sandals, anyone?

For 2009? Let’s roll…

WMB is a series and this is Part 3, a final wrap up for  Monday’s post & Wednesday’s post…

The Myth of a painless offering of worship.

I believe that worship, speaking even of and specifically about our weekend gatherings, is not painless. Of course I do not mean that it is “painful” but that it is a myth to think we are entitled to worship without cost.  Yeah, I used the word “painless” as a way to address our demand in our culture for ease.  The goal it seems is to ease our lives, when sometimes things we do that cause pain actually advance us.  Exercise is a perfect example of this. Read the rest of this entry »