I have heard Grant share about Compassion and give an invitation to sponsor a child several times now as part of meetings where he sings and speaks. I love how he asks people to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit rather than just calculate if they can afford to sponsor a child or people being guilt-tripped into sponsoring (which I am always afraid of when appeals like that are made). It’s really about simple obedience to God, yet that seems so hard for us some times, like it was in my case:

When Grant came to El Paso the first time a couple of years ago and I heard the Compassion invitation for the first time, he handed out child profiles to everyone in the room and invited people to pray for the child they were holding while asking God if He would have them sponsor a child at this time or not. I have to be honest: I was calculating our finances in my head and decided we couldn’t afford it, rather than listening to the Holy Spirit, so I handed the child packet of a little Colombian girl back after the meeting.

Well, two days later, when Grant did another child packet handout at a different meeting, guess what….. Out of the 200 something profiles he had with him, we got the same girl again. God knew how to get my attention… My husband and I didn’t need any more convincing and I decided to sponsor 6 year old Dersa from Colombia and it’s been one of the greatest things we have ever done. I don’t have a story like Zach where we got a miraculous pay raise or anything – finances are still tight – but we have been blessed beyond measure by getting to know Dersa and my two boys have learned invaluable lessons about caring for people and learning about a different culture. We would rather go without ‘things’ than give up sponsoring Dersa. She’s become part of our family.

Thanks Grant, for introducing us to the wonderful work of Compassion International and for (quite literally) bringing Dersa into our lives…

Birgit West, El Paso, TX

After I spoke and sang at “The Gathering” -
a Sunday evening college meeting as part of Heritage Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, MI on 8/14/11 – a college student named Zach wrote to me on Facebook message. Here’s what he wrote …

Hi,

I was one of the people that decided to support a Compassion kid when you were at [my] church [gathering]. I have a cool God story that happened in the following week that you may like to hear.

So, I decided to commit to supporting a boy in Africa through Compassion. Didn’t think much of it, I just knew it was what God wanted me to do. The description of my boy reminded me exactly of myself when I was younger. That’s how I knew he was the kid for me to help.

Well, at the end of this past week my boss gave me a bonus, and the amazing thing was it was a few dollars more than the yearly total I had committed to supporting this kid.

Its amazing to see how God works. Thank you for coming to our church group. What you had to say definitely had an impact on how I view helping others, and [from] just talking in our small group tonight [it is apparent that] many others were impacted as well.

Thanks and God bless,

Zach

Thanks for sharing Zach!

To find out more for yourself about the work of Compassion, and perhaps discover your own cool God story, take this link:

http://www.compassion.com/sponsor_a_child/default.htm?referer=101609

The first important step for me has been to recognize honestly that I am unable to. How could I possibly think that my perspective of such a thing could ever be balanced and correct? I have been swimming in the toxic soup of ultra consumerism all of my life and drinking heartily. I cannot see my own indoctrination. How could I? I have long ago lost the ability to see the difference between my wants and my needs.

I say that I believe God can supply my needs but, honestly, I rarely let Him. Maybe I never have.

“Pure and perfect worship in the sight of God is to care for orphans and widows in their trouble and to remain uncorrupted by the world.” James 1:27

I am corrupted. How corrupted I cannot be sure and is hardly the most productive question to ask myself. I can never know.

But recognizing my own inability to make so-called “correct” choices regarding my needs and wants is freeing me and enabling me to inch closer to surrendering that part of my selfish life to God. I am no longer looking for balance that I will never find, but instead trying to get out of the way and allow God to make His choices through me.

“Be Thou my vision, O’ Lord of my heart.”

God sees things entirely differently to how I see them. I cannot look at another person and judge whether my balance between wants and needs is any better or worse than theirs. I cannot know whether I am only allowing myself the needs that God sees as healthy or not.

When I am considering an object that I want ownership of, I cannot decide whether it is a legitimate need or merely a want. But when I am faced with a choice, I can be conscious of who my Lord is, the example He sets and seek His guidance; hopefully allowing God to make His choices through me.

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

By Grant Norsworthy

I’ve got a bighearted, well-studied, Christ-following, Bible-believing friend.  He passionately and tirelessly works in college student ministries. I admire him and like him a lot, but we don’t always agree on every issue about God. We’ve had some great discussions and at least one theological argument.

Recently he wrote a description of some of his work and happenings with the student ministry. It was his newsletter to a bunch of people who either support or are interested in the work. Part of his letter really caught my attention:

“Throughout the course of the semester in my conversations both with young Christians and non-Christians I noticed that students were wrestling with the question of how can we be certain the Bible is the word of God and thus I asked … a local pastor, to come and address this question. We advertised on campus and had about 60 students attend as [the pastor] gave proofs from history and archeology demonstrating that the Bible does stand up to criticism as well as allowing time for questions. Many of these students were not [college Christian group] members or connected to [the campus Christian group] in any way shape or form but appeared to be seriously wrestling with this issue considering [The Bible’s] validity and many Christian students I talked to were encouraged to know that what they believed actually does stand up to secular criticism.”

I could not help myself. In response, I wrote this …

I was intrigued by the description about showing the college students how they can be certain that the Bible is the Word of God. I’m not trying to be combative, but I’d like to offer a couple of thoughts for your consideration:

- In Genesis 15:4 we can read that when Abram was looking at the stars, the Word of God told him that his descendents would outnumber them. When that happened, the Bible would not be in a physical form for many, many years.

- In the New Testament (Luke 5:1), we can read in the Bible accounts of how people would sit around Jesus and listen to the Word of God. They were listening to Jesus, not a reading from the Bible that, again, was not in physical existence yet.

- The start of the book of  John (a text that was written before the Bible was compiled) tells us that the Word of God is Jesus Himself and was always with God and, in fact, was (and is) God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1. And, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” John 1:14a

- It seems to me that The Bible and the Word of God are not the same thing, even according to The Bible itself.

- I believe the Bible is the written expression of God’s Word; which is Himself. Or, more simply, the Bible is the written Word of God. It’s the best text we have that reveals who God, or the Word is.

- Jesus Himself is God and is The Word Of God.

- Jesus Himself is more than my limited understanding of the text in the Bible and more than the text itself.

- It sounds to me like the invited pastor’s presentation was about how we can be sure the Bible is a valid historical document. which it certainly is. This is an interesting and worthy topic of discussion I am sure, but it is not the same as giving people cause to be “certain [that] The Bible is the Word of God.” Being certain that the Bible is a valid historical text is NOT the same information as being certain that The Bible is the Word of God.

- The Bible is MUCH, MUCH more than a valid historical document, but it is my strong conviction that our printed text – The Bible – is not equivalent, interchangeable, or equal to the Word Of God – God Himself.

- It is my conviction that knowing the Bible is NOT the same as knowing and being known by Jesus – the living Word of God.

- It is possible that being “certain” that I know God because I know my Bible could actually distract me from knowing Jesus the living Word.

- People believing they were “certain of the Word of God” when they were actually absolutely immoveable from their interpretation of scripture has been the cause of much disunity and confusion in the body of Christ, people turning away from Jesus because of our infighting, and violence, carnage and death besides. For example: Leading up to and during the American Civil War, both north and south were absolutely convinced that the “Word of God” supported their position on abolition AND continuation of slavery respectively. A bloody war was fought as a result. There are countless other examples.

- While Jesus was on earth there was a group of people- the religious leaders of the day – who were certain they knew God because they knew scripture. Jesus is recorded in the Bible as saying to them, “You have never heard God’s voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life … yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” John 5:37-40

- What Jesus communicated at that time, I believe He is still communicating to us today.

- “I need more than the words on the page. The words are good, but the author I crave” from the song “Jesus Loves Me (I Need More)”.

What am I doing to celebrate Australia Day in Nashville, TN, USA?

1) Seeing “Australia Day” on my calendar,

2) Bouncing some Australia Day themed discussion with Facebook friends,

3) Missing Aussie family, friends, warmth, air and oceans,

4) Noticing that we’re running low on Vegemite,

5) Working on a very Aussie-sounding, gritty pop/rock pc3 song, and

(dah-dadadah-da-da-da-dah!)

6) Asking wife Brooke to please cook that leg of lamb (that’s in the freezer being saved for a ‘special occasion’) for dinner tonight! She said she would! (Good lamb is hard to find and very expensive in the USA).

7) Posting this Facebook Note as a blog

“It’s awesome you’re all here.” Gesturing to the striking footwear of one of the students, I exclaim, “Awesome boots you’re wearing!”

Then, getting more serious I continue. “Today I want to teach you the real meaning of the word awesome and it’s going to be awesome! Awesome is a word we use to describe something that fills us with a sense of awe. When something overwhelms us with feelings of wonder, reverence, respect and a touch of fear, it is awesome. Got it? Awesome. Have an awesome lunch break!”

This is a very BAD example of teaching. It’s terrible, in fact!

I firmly believe we “worship leaders” and musicians are doing the same terrible teaching with the way we misuse the word worship: worship service, worship song, worship leader, worship center, worship band, worship experience, worship pastor, worship… musician.

The original meaning of the word awesome is all-but lost because of overuse and misuse in recent years. In the same way, the intended original and powerful meaning of worship may be nearly lost to us too, but with immeasurably more dire consequences. And we are the ones creating much of the confusion. In fact, we just might be the main reason why the church is so confused about what it means to worship in Spirit and in truth!

“True worship is to be so personally and hopelessly in love with God, that the idea of a transfer of affection never even remotely exists.” A.W. Tozer

Just a few hundred years ago, the word worship actually was stated as worth-ship. It means to ascribe worth to something or someone. True worth-ship of God is shown as I surrender my life: my pride, my selfishness, my willfulness, my rights to lead my own existence. Surely our highest hope as we teach and lead as worshiping musicians is to direct people to the true and original meaning of worship: The worship that is my life surrendered to ascribe worth to Jesus the Christ.

“Therefore, bothers and sisters, in view of God’s great mercy, offer yourself as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, and let that be your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1)

Nowhere in scripture is the word worship used as an adjective – a describing word – as we most often use it. Neither can I find in the Bible where the word worship is used to define the act of passionately singing songs to God or a meeting of believers. Yet, in the vast majority of occurrences, that is how we use the word: incorrectly educating those who hear us, and ourselves, with a misunderstanding of worship.

“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.” Voltaire

You might be saying to yourself right now, “Oh, that’s just semantics. The word worship can be used in a variety contexts. It’s not a big deal.” Really? I believe we must acknowledge that the way we speak is of utmost importance.

Whether we recognize it or not, our words change the way we think. And the way we think changes the way we live. We would do well to remember that, like the small rudder that steers a large ship, my tongue steers me! (James 3:4-5) “The mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (Matthew 12:34). And …

“If anyone would consider himself a worshiper, yet does not keep a tight reign on his tongue, he deceives himself and his worship is worthless.” (James 1:26)

We must measure our words more carefully. Let’s start with WORSHIP!

After all of our “worship leadership”, it is clear, by the way most Christians speak, that we wrongly believe that worship is when I sing songs to God, or perhaps it is what happens when I meet with other Christians – usually on a Sunday morning in a “worship service”. Many of us are unintentionally educating a future generation to believe that worship is when there’s a band on a stage and words about God on a screen.

More devoted believers might go so far as to recognize that their private times of singing, praying, fasting, Bible study or perhaps even when they do something kind for someone in need, also qualify as worship. I am sure these are valid expressions of worship, but isn’t worship even more than that? Our lips show we have little idea of completely surrendering our lives – being “living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God…” letting that be our “…spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1)

“A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on the mountaintop nor in the Temple. … Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” (John 4:21 & 23)

As Jesus’ words reveal, we are now in the time when worship is not and must not be restricted to our times in a church building nor contained within our mountaintop experiences. Are we not teaching in opposition to these sacred words when we hang a sign above the door saying “Worship Center” or have letters on our street sign that say “Worship Service at 9am and 11am”? If I step up to a microphone, guitar slung around my neck, strum a chord and instruct the people by saying, “Let’s begin to worship!,” whether I realize it or not, I must concede that I have taught, “You were not worshiping before now and you will stop when I finish.” We have inadvertently taught that worship does not happen at other times and in other places.

Yes! Let’s keep singing songs of praise and adoration to God. Yes! Let’s gather together as a community of believers. Let’s do it more often, for longer and more passionately! But let this be the worship we lead, teach and demonstrate: worship that doesn’t switch on and off but that is constant, ongoing and all pervading. Let’s lead and teach Romans 12:1 “living sacrifice” worship that is 24/7/365, and 366 on a leap year! This will not be possible, however, as long as we misuse the word “worship” to describe our on-off-on-off music and meetings.

(This article was originally published in “Worship Musician Magazine” in August of 2010 – an excellent magazine that I think should be named “The Worshiping Musician”. See www.christianmusician.com for details.)

“Show Us Your Groove”‏

Rick Cua’s column by Grant Norsworthy

The Boy, The Bed & The Bass

Groove is about what you choose to play. NOT what you can play. Groove is about creating parts of a coherent picture that, when combined with the other instruments’ parts, creates a complete picture that moves and engages people. Whether I am playing bass, acoustic guitar, singing or leading the band, the picture I think about is my three-year-old boy Max jumping up and down on mummy and daddy’s bed. If the song is uptempo, the picture or ‘movie’ is in real time. If it’s a slower, more emotive song, it’s slo-mo. It really helps!

Max – my bounding, joyful little man – is the melody and the lyric; he must be the main focus of the arrangement. The audience or congregation recognizes, connects and sings along to the lyric and the melody. (This is especially important in the context of congregational singing). The mattress is the bass and drums; just like my mattress has a mummy’s side and a daddy’s side, so the bass and drums are really two halves to one whole. And just as the mattress is the foundation that springs Max into the air, the bass/drum unit is what provides the foundational groove of the song and makes the listener feel and move to the music. After that the guitars, keys, and anything else are just blankets, sheets, and pillows that add color and shade and make a more enjoyable over-all experience (and for the record, guitarists and keys players, no one can enjoy a bed without a pillow).

The Mattress

The most essential component of any song’s groove is that the bass and drums work tightly together to create a solid foundation for the melody. Just as a mattress malfunction would sideline Max’s trampoline time, a sloppy bass/drum combo quickly drains the feel and movement of a song. Bassists! We need to be in good, communicating relationship with the drummer. Musically, the drums and the bass should think and play as one.

The first step for bassists is to begin to view the kick drum as essential emphasis to your bass rhythm. Hitting your note at exactly the same time that the drummer hits the kick gives your playing punch and creates a tight sound that the audience can feel. That will not be possible while bass and kick are playing sloppy notes in random rhythmic disorder. It’s good to play particular, agreed kick/bass patterns and to communicate ahead of time with the drummer about where and how patterns might change.

Having the notes from kick and bass together is an imperative starting point, but we don’t have to play the same rhythms all the time. But if your bass rhythm is going to be different than the kick, it should be intentional and purposeful in that it achieves some effect that supports the melody and builds groove. Communicate with the drummer and come up with parts and repeated patterns and rhythms. Without this type of liaison it’s hard to create a connection with the other musicians and with the listeners, the groove dies tragically, and the melody is left with no mattress to bounce on.

The Essential Arsenal

A lot of times bassists seem too distracted with licks and runs, high notes and fancy stuff and neglect their role in the groove of the music; they’re too preoccupied with trying to be a pillow or a blanket and forget that they need to be half the mattress that supports the whole song. A song is often best served by the bassist playing just the bass note of the chord played as whole notes, half notes, quarter notes or eighth notes. Although runs and more complex rhythms might tickle your ear, many songs sound better if the bassist uses solid evenly spaced, evenly weighted notes.

This means that before you do anything else on bass – walking, flurries, taking a jaunt up the neck, anything – you should work with a metronome or drum machine to get solid eighth notes into your repertoire. However simple eighth notes might seem to you, they are often the right choice for a really good, deep groove. Much can be accomplished in the emotion of a song by changing how the bass is subdividing the rhythm. For example, switching from whole to eighth notes to elevate a chorus shifts gears in the intensity of a song in a very significant way that the rest of the band and the listeners will feel.

The Musician’s Goal

In the end the bassist needs to be a servant to the song as a whole, which in turn fulfills the goals of best serving the band, the people we play for and our Creator. Focus on getting a solid relationship with the kick drum and practicing effective quarter and eight notes first. Once the two halves of the mattress are working together, the rest of the song can get moving and grooving.

From Rick Cua’s “Show Us Your Groove” column in Christian Musician Magazine

One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

One of the most popular songs in recent years for corporate worship is “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”. Congregations all around the world sing it. On a recent trip to Asia, I heard it sung in Thai. I would be surprised to find a church music team that has never played it. It’s pretty likely that you, the reader, know the song and have probably sung it time and time again.

I am personally thankful to Martin Smith and Delirious? for first writing and recording this wonderful song. It’s incredibly effective and powerful. In SONICFLOOd we play it almost every time we perform. I love playing it and singing it. While singing that song, I have often felt a wonderful closeness with God and a very real sense of His love for me. It usually leads to a great ‘moment’ where we in the band stop playing and the congregation takes over – singing passionate praises to God.

But very recently I realized something that, to me, was quite shocking. During those times that I was singing of His love, I was doing something that Jesus never asked me to do! In all the recorded words of Jesus in the Gospels, He never once asks us to sing of His love, or has anything to say about singing songs at all. One of the most practiced things that followers of Jesus love to do, He never asked us to do!

While never teaching us to sing about His love, Jesus very clearly, in many different ways and over and over again instructs us to be His love in the world. He tells us to love one another (John 13:34-35), to love our neighbor (Matt 22:39), even to love our enemies (Matt 5:43) and to show love to “the least of these” (Matt 25:40).

Jesus teaches that, after loving God, loving the people around us is the most important thing. And that everything about honoring God –”all the law and the prophets” – stem from our love for God and others. (Matt 22:40) He also shows us that our love should be unconditional and self-sacrificial. (Matt 15:12-14) All this while saying nothing about singing of God’s love.

It is good to sing songs of praise and to worship God through music – I do it and encourage others to do it as my vocation! And there are many places in the Scriptures that give examples and show the value of singing and playing our worship. And I can imagine the saints truly will sing of God’s love forever in heaven.

But we must be careful. It is much easier to sing about God’s love than to truly be God’s love. It is far too easy to let singing be the most obvious outward expression of our love for God when it is our lavish, selfless and outrageous love for people – even the unlovable – that should define us. It may even be possible that singing about God’s love could be an idol that distracts us from how to actually be God’s love.

Let us check ourselves. Better than that, let’s invite the Holy Spirit to check us. Yes! Let’s sing of God’s love, but let’s allow God’s healing Spirit to flow through the act to draw us to full obedience to be God’s love.

Closing Prayer: “Dear God, Thank you for the gift of music and for allowing me to sing of your love. But please forgive me for being less than completely loving towards You and the people around me. I ask you to show me clearly where I have gone wrong – whom I have offended, what apologies I need to make, whose forgiveness I should seek. Please transform me into a true worshiper, shown not by what I sing, but by how I love. Thank you. Amen”