The Importance of Telling the Story

I recently got back from a trip to Pennsylvania with my wife and her parents.  We enjoyed Christmas Day and the days following with lots of different family and friends.  It was cool to get to know my wife's family better.  One of the things I took note of in all the visiting with people was the importance of story.  

While driving somewhere, Grandma pointed out where she used to live and talked about working on the farm and all sorts of stories about growing up, sometimes repeating the same ones multiple times in one day :)  We heard about how she barely had any time or pain in labor giving birth to her sons, and about the time Uncle Jim fell out of the car as a child, and about the Model T FOrd her dad bought her when she was 13 or 14 years old.  Bill talked about going hunting with Pappy and how Pappy fell asleep in the tree stand and almost fell out.  Don remembered with Grandma about the time he was 2 or 3 and disappeared into the woods in lots of snow and a 100 person search party had to go out and find him.

Lots of these stories I heard over the Christmas weekend intertwined into a common family history that everyone knew and felt connected to in one way or another.  To really be a part of the family you've got to know some of these stories, and if you haven't heard them, then someone is eager to tell them to you.  I think God used this heavy dose of family stories to emphasize to me how critical story is for people to really be connected and informed and to feel like they are a part of something.  I certainly feel like I'm more a part of my wife's family as I become familiar with more of their stories,  and certainly get to know them better through that interaction.  

Of course my thinking about this leads to the bigger picture which is the importance of God's story.  We have to know certain stories if we are to really feel connected to His Kingdom and be an active part in it.  If we're trying to connect the dots of how history as well as the present world around us can fit with being a believer and follower Christ, we really need to see how our existence and purpose is connected to that bigger story of God that continues to unfold.

Like I mentioned, I feel more like a part of the family and know them better as a result of spending time with them and hearing their different stories.  How much more then, might we feel connected to God's family and know Him better if we spend our time getting together to hear, remember and connect with His story.  Think about the fact that most of those stories found in the Bible, which are the foundation of our faith, are available to us because someone kept on telling the stories. To continue to know them and remember them is what grows us and sustains us as children of God, and often times reminds us when we've forgotten.  Perhaps the formal worship gathering is the time should most often remember the big picture of creation, the fall, God's interaction with lots of different people, Christ's coming and all that He did (and is doing), His Church.  Then our different times of fellowship is when we share stories about how we saw God at work and about the ways He has made Himself know to us in different circumstances.    Finally, like my wife's family and their stories, we ought to be eager to tell the stories of God to those who haven't heard them so that they might have a chance to become a part of God's family and have a story of their own about how they came to know the Author of Life.

Bach's St. "Matthew's Passion"

I have been working may way through Bach's "St. Matthew's Passion" for the last couple weeks, listening to a popular recording of it as well as spending some time in the lyrics (translated from the original German).  I must say I am absolutely blown away so far.  I have been extremely moved by the complexity of the multiple choirs, soloists, orchestras all working together to connect so well melodically and dynamically with some incredible lyrics.

I found a blog today that had a post on this Passion piece.  There was a really cool story about how this tremendous work from Bach did not receive much attention after his death. However, another famous composer, Felix Mendelssohn, found "St. Matthew's Passion" 70 years after Bach's death.  Felix was Jewish.  His parents had made a superficial conversion to Christianity for social/political reasons, but he was not a believer.  In the process of going through "St. Matthew's Passion," and then later  performing it in Berlin, Mendelssohn was deeply moved on a spiritual level.  It was his exposure to Christ through Bach's work that led to his eventual faith in Jesus.  At that point there was not much to learn from the mainstream church of the day, so Felix had the Bible and Bach, and eventually a few good Christian friends to help him grow in his walk with Christ.  Seems like a pretty good set of teachers to me.

How incredible is it that God used Bach's musical work to share the gospel with another tremendous composer from a later generation?!  As a musician and songwriter I am encouraged by this story, but even more just as a believer, I am in awe of God's faithfulness and creativity in bringing the lost to Himself.

One last thing to share.  Mendelssohn talked about the Bible as being "fresh and true, and the method of expression always as good and fresh as it could possibly be.”  His encouragement was that music inspired by the Word should also be as good and fresh as it could possibly be. I think that principle can be applied to whatever means we use to try to express God's word to others.  Its easy for us to just settle in the things we do in our ministries or in our art as Christians.  This story makes a great point of what kind of impact a quality piece of Gospel-centered art can have.  I am certainly challenged to create or be a part of things that are good and fresh for the glory of God.  

Worship and the Forces of Evil - Part 4

I happened across an article a while back that speaks to the spiritual warfare worship topic in regards to worship. It gave me some worthwhile considerations that I haven't really touched upon in my posts. Here's an excerpt...




"But worshipers, who by faith see what God has done, declare Him the present king over their lives and their spheres of influence. And in those spheres, He rules. Even as you who read this article speak His name and declare His praise, His domain expands. It expands as the church’s praise moves out of halfheartedness into wholeheartedness. When the woman at the well became a worshiper and declared God’s greatness to her town, the boundaries of the kingdom grew.


The implication is that when Christ is enthroned in our praises, someone else is dethroned, someone who is called “the ruler of the kingdom of the air” (Ephesians 2:2) and who thinks it all belongs to him. And now you know why there’s a battle. The relationship between worship and warfare is twofold: first, worship is the issue behind the fight, and second, worship empowers warfare."



(from The Adventure of Worship by Gerrit Gustafson - Chosen Books, 2006)



Click here to read the rest.

Stability and Our Everlasting God

A while back I wrote about waiting upon God for our strength. More recently I've been learning about stability in the teachings of St. Benedict and it seems like a continuation or a practical guide in being able to wait upon the Lord no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in.

Saint Benedict says, "The one thing we can hold onto is the certainty of God.  Our stability is a response to that promise that reassures us that He is faithful and that we should never lose hope in His mercy" (Rule of Benedict 4.74).

Jane Tomaine, the author of St. Benedict's Toolbox, says that "In a nutshell, stability is the action of staying put, remaining steadfast and faithful to the situation in which God has placed us."  So often we try to change our circumstances rather than embrace them and trust that God is working in them according to His perfect will.  If things don't go the way we want them to, we tend to think that something is wrong or that we need to abandon ship in one way or another, whether that be in a job, a relationship, or our spiritual life.  Our culture says keep your options open, don't get tied down, if it doesn't work out your way just cut your ties and move on.  Instead, Benedict's challenge is to see your circumstances as the place God has for you, and to truly be present in those circumstances, whether they are desirable to us or not.  In our self-centered, individualistic culture, we need to remind ourselves that it might not always be about what we're getting out of it, but rather what we can give in a situation.  "Stability is staying put there, knowing that Christ is at our side to help us."  That is where our faith is tested and refined. That is where real strength rises from. 

 

I shared the song Everlasting God by Brenton Brown at the end of that post I mentioned. I came across Lincoln Brewster's version of this song and thought it was really great.  There's a great momentum and enthusiasm in it I think, and sometimes we need some help to get to that place in the midst of practicing stability and waiting upon God.  When you find yourself in that place of annoyance, pain, doubt, confusion, challenge; hum that catchy line as a reminder "strengh will rise as we wait..."  The coolest part of this song for me is at the end where his son (I think) reads from God's Word from Isaiah, where the lyrics to the song come from. The faith of a child put to music.  I pray that you are waiting upon God for your strength today and filled with a passion for His glory.