His Blood Shall Over All Prevail

I love the last two lines of this stanza by Toplady:

The Sinner's Rest
Augustus Toplady, 1740-1778

Oh, that I now the voice might hear,
That speaks my sins forgiv'n;
His Word is past to give me here
The inward pledge of heav'n.
His blood shall over all prevail,
And sanctify the unclean;
The grace that saves from future hell,
Shall save from present sin.

What Baseball Can Teach Us About Christian Living

As Spring Training is now under way and Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season draws ever closer, I found this article by David Prince on What Baseball Can Teach Us About Christian Living to be an enjoyable read.

Baseball requires a kind of moral courage that keeps persisting in the face of inevitable repeated personal failures. - See more at: http://erlc.com/article/what-baseball-can-teach-us-about-christian-living#sthash.XHchCiUI.dpuf

A Bleeding Christ Is All They Plead

The God of Grace Delights to Hear
W.W. Horne

The God of grace delights to hear
The plaintive cry, the humble prayer;
Nor shall the weakest saint complain
That he has sought the Lord in vain.

With power to Jacob's seed He speaks;
His Word the heart asunder breaks;
While grace the rage of sin controls,
And deep repentance melts their souls.

"Seek ye my face," Jehovah cries;
With joy the contrite heart replies,
"Thy face I seek; with power descend,
From every foe my soul defend!"

A bleeding Christ is all they plead,
And all that guilty sinners need;
In whose dear name their fervent cries
Before the Lord like incense rise.

Keith Getty on Improving Congregational Singing

By now, I'm sure many of you have already seen the helpful reminders from Keith Getty on improving congregational singing, but if you haven't, I encourage you to read what he has to say in this piece on The Gospel Coalition worship blog:

Five Ways to Improve Congregational Singing

"That's My King!" - S.M. Lockridge

Yesterday morning, while preaching on the Kingship of Jesus Christ, I quoted a brief excerpt from the now famous sermon on the same theme by S.M. Lockridge. If you're familiar with this sermon, then you know that just quoting it (especially by a white man like me) doesn't do it justice. You need to hear it from Lockridge himself to get the full effect. So, I thought I'd post it here for those of you who may have never heard it before (I'm using the video just so you can see his actual words as you listen). And believe me, it's well worth the six minutes it takes to hear this!

 

The Voice of Silence

Silence Has a Voice
Justin Wainscott

Silence has a voice.
Sometimes it whispers;
sometimes it roars.
It can sound like snow,
or it can sound like thunder.
But make no mistake,
it speaks - speaks
to those who have
the ears to hear.
Shhh! Can you hear it?

Paul Clark on "Media and Worship - Careful Consideration"

My friend, Paul Clark, has a great article on his blog regarding media and worship that is worth reading. Here's just a snippet:

Lest you think I am just a non-comformist, old fashioned stick-in-the-mud who refuses to keep up, I am, after all, writing this on a blog, ok?  Twenty years ago none of us had ever heard of the term, “blog.”  Give me a little credit here.  This is not some kind of a “burn your cellphone” rant.  Rather, my appeal to the church is for us to think about the implications, ramifications, and long-term impact upon our culture of these “advances” and more particularly, I would call for serious consideration of how embracing their use affects our worship, and how it might impact the spiritual lives of the worshipers.  Certainly, very careful evaluation as to how technology effects worship when it is used in the gathered worship event itself must be a concern for church leadership.  The field of media ecology has evolved into a field of study of which more Christian leaders, and particularly worship ministry leaders, must take note. 

[...]

I am not necessarily advocating an abandonment of technological devices in our gathered worship.  Like anyone I could provide a significant list of ways technology can and does contribute to the worship environment.  What I am positing is a need for prayerful, careful consideration of any and all technologically induced and produced materials in worship.

To read the entire article, click here.

And for those of you in and around Jackson, Tennessee, you might be interested in joining us at First Baptist Church the next few Sunday nights as we consider how we should think about and use technology in appropriate ways as followers of Jesus Christ (including in worship).  We will be led by Dr. Ben Mitchell and Dr. Justin Barnard, and the topics for each night are listed below.

Following Christ in the Age of Twitter (with Ben Mitchell and Justin Barnard)

First Baptist Church | Jackson, TN

Sunday Nights at 5:00 PM

2/9    "Saved, Saved, Saved: Technology's Promise and Problems" - C. Ben Mitchell

2/16  "Gadgets @ Hearth & Home: Technology and Family Life" - Justin D. Barnard

2/23  "Help! I’m LinkedIn and My iPad is Driving Me Google" - C. Ben Mitchell

3/2    "PowerPoint Praise? Technology and Church Life" - Justin D. Barnard