Quote Library

e. e. cummings on Identity

2011-11-23T08:43:00.000-08:00

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

e. e. cummings (source unknown)

quoted by Brennan Manning in the preface to

Abba's Child (2002 edition)

Ken Medema - If This Is Not a Place

2011-03-30T08:41:00.001-07:00

If This Is Not a Place - Ken Medema

Peter Rollins

2010-09-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

"If you seek God because you want eternal life, you're not seeking God, you're seeking eternal life. If you're seeking God because your life lacks meaning, you're searching for meaning, not necessarily this encounter with the Divine. It's like somebody who has just come out of a relationship and they're looking for somebody else ... anybody. And everybody keeps away from you because they know that you don't love them, you want them to fulfill some need in you."

~ Peter Rollins

Mars Hill Bible Church podcast

8/29/10

Harold Best on Musical Expression and Faith

2010-01-24T13:46:00.001-08:00

If in making music or listening to it I assume that faith will bring substance and evidence to the music, so as to make it more "worshipful," I am getting into real trouble. If I truly love the music -- that is, if I have chosen a church that uses "my music" and I am deeply moved by it -- I can make the mistake of coupling faith to musical expression by assuming that the power and effectiveness of music is what brings substance to the evidence of my faith. ... Once this happens i may even slip fully into the sin of equating the power of music and the nearness of the Lord.

~ Harold Best
Unceasing Worship, p. 30

Harold Best - Corporate Worship and Artistic Action

2009-10-12T09:11:00.001-07:00

We make and offer art because we worship, we should not make it to lead us into worship. We can carry the above concepts into the weekly corporate gathering. Since Christians come to such gatherings as continuous worshipers, it should now be obvious that it is erroneous to assume that the arts, and especially music, are to be depended on to lead to worship or that they are aids to worship or tools for worship. If we think this way, we fuel two untruths at once. The first is that worship is something that can start and stop, and worse, that music or some other artistic or human device bears the responsibility for doing the starting or the facilitating. The second is related to the first: music and the arts have a kind of power in themselves that can be falsely related to or equated with Spirit power, so much so that the presence of God seems all the more guaranteed and the worshiper sees this union of artistic power and Spirit power as normal, even anticipated. This thinking lies behind comments of this kind, "The Lord seemed so near during worship time." "Your music really helped me worship." And to the contrary: "I could not worship because of the music." These comments, however innocently spoken, are dangerous, even pagan. Senior pastors, ministers of worship and worship teams must do everything to correct them. If we are not careful, music will be added to the list of transubstantiation, turned into the Lord's presence. Then the music, not the Holy Spirit, becomes the paraclete and advocate. God is reduced to god and music is raised to Music. Thrones are exchanged, lordship reverts to its fallen hierarchy, and conditioned reflex replaces faith.

~ Harold Best, Unceasing Worship, p. 119

Eugene Peterson on Worship and Feelings

2009-03-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

“If Christians only worshipped when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship that went on. Feelings are important in many areas, but completely unreliable in matters of faith. ...
“Living in the age of sensation, we think that if we don’t feel something, there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different, namely, that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act which develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God which is expressed in an act of worship. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured.”

~ Eugene Peterson

from A Long Obedience (page unknown ... my source:

www.blogs.messiah.edu/worship_community/2007/02/26/278 )

2009-01-12T08:40:00.000-08:00

Lives of continued worship cannot but be lives of continued prayer, since continuing worship is itself a continued and continuously varied conversation with the One who lives within us. It should be an unbroken continuum, a breathing in and out, a full articulation of all that we are in Christ throughout all our days. Living in Spirit and truth, walking the course of my days in the beauty of holiness, undertaking every action as a living sacrifice is, in its way, conversation with the Almighty. So this question comes to me: As I think of the mix of things that comprise my day, can I truthfully and unabashedly say that any one of them is in itself a prayer, another way of saying, "My Lord and my God"?

~ Harold Best, Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the Arts (2003, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL), p. 99.

Harold Best on Participating in Culture

2009-01-12T08:36:00.000-08:00

Serving Christ while participating in culture in an elegant and reforming way can mean a thousand things in as many places. It can mean shoveling muck and bringing clean water to a barrio. It can mean writing a new praise chorus for a storefront congregation. It can mean translating the Scripture one more time for one more faraway tribe. It can mean taking old hymns and old ways and breathing new life into them. It can mean preaching simply yet eloquently, fearinly yet sweetly. It can mean praise songs cavorting with hymns, and drums conversing with organ sounds. It can mean complete freedom in the Lord and stupendous discipline finding common ground. It can mean Bach, blues, Monet, street art, child dance and ballet, homiletics and storytelling, barn raisings and homeless shelters, all found within the normal conversation of the believing church. Elegance, for the Christian, is simply a thousand actions washed in the blood and carrying the sweet savor of Jesus' love. It is, above all, the seamless garment of worship and witness.

~ Harold Best, Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the Arts (2003, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL), pp. 92-93.

Meaning

2008-09-23T08:12:00.001-07:00

"If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."

~ C. S. Lewis

Unity in Worship (Tozer)

2008-09-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same [tuning] fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.

~ A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (1948), p. 97
with thanks to Chip Stamm (http://www.wqotw.org/)

Harold Best on God's Transcendent Work

2008-08-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

God has never waited to do His work until His people come up with exactly the right methods, the best sermons, the most magnificent sanctuaries, the greatest music and art, and complete purity of heart. Otherwise, He would wait forever. If He chooses, He will speak truth through the mouth of a jackass and then turn right around and inspire a true-blue prophet to speak with sublimest poetry and spiritual force. God simply works even while He is accused of inconsistency, preferentialism, snootiness, or bad taste.

~ Harold Best
Theology, Music, Seekers and Sensitivity

article posted on his web site

Isaac Watts on Worship

2008-07-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

The Great God values not the service of men if the heart be not in it: the Lord sees and judges the heart; he has no regard for outward forms of worship, if there be no inward adoration, if no devout affection be employed therein. It is therefore a matter of infinite importance, to have the whole heart engaged steadfastly for God.

~ Isaac Watts (1674-1748),
Discourses on the Love of God

Worship and Service

2007-10-22T14:17:00.001-07:00

"There are two definitions in the Hebrew for worship. One is a bowing and bending of the knee, and the other is labor and service. Take any given Sunday morning. You’ve got a band on stage that is working hard to play their instruments, to make sure they’re playing accurately. Chances are they’re not lost in the rapture and the beauty of God. They’re focused on making sure their guitars are in tune. But that, in God’s eyes in the Hebrew word, qualifies as worship. It’s labor and service.
"On the flip side of the stage, if the people out there are hearing the words, their hearts are embracing the words; they’re getting lost in the emotion of the music, and they’re worshipping through bowing and bending of the knee. It’s comforting to know that I can do this work. I can make sure the guitars are in tune and warm up my voice, and God sees that as pleasing worship."

~Aaron Shust

John Willison on church leadership

2007-09-17T06:58:00.000-07:00

Short of loving Jesus Himself, the one thing I'd say is to love the Church, His Bride. Carry the Church in your heart -- all the different kinds of people. Think about her during your day. Love her. Protect her. Honor her. Don't let anyone use her, abuse her or say anything bad about her. Make your decisions for the betterment of the Church -- your songs, your lists, your personnel and your training of others.
Only let people who truly love the Church serve the Church and lead the Church.

~ John Willison, The Heart of Worship Files,

The One Thing, p. 43

Chesterton on our loss of appreciation for wonder

2007-08-27T06:41:00.000-07:00

A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough... It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again," to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again," to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

~ G. K. Chesterton

Unity

2007-08-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

When you destroy unity in the church you rip the heart out of the body of Christ.

~ unknown.

Homer on wisdom and counsel

2007-08-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

"When two go together, one of them at least looks forward to see what is best; a man by himself though he be careful, still has less mind in him than two, and his wits have less weight."

~ Homer, The Iliad

Francis Shaeffer on evidence

2007-07-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

The world has a right to judge whether we are Christians or not by the way we show an observable love to all true Christians, and therefore our love for each other as true Christians must be evident to the world. Furthermore, Christ tells us in John 17 that the world has a right to judge whether the Father has sent the Son on the basis of whether the world sees love among all true Christians.

~ Francis Shaeffer,

The New Super-Spirituality (1972), p. 24

The All-sufficiency of Jesus - from a different angle

2007-06-19T14:18:00.001-07:00

If we are not convinced God has given us enough, we will have an incessant need for others to affirm us. We will want others to give us praise, we will crave money, and we will wish to be viewed as the best, the most talented, and the most likely to succeed. Most people never get far beyond their accolades in the high school yearbook. Why? Because they look for what others have to offer to make them feel significant instead of finding their identity in Christ. However, to receive from others, we have to prove ourselves and dance to their dance. To be in a position to receive from God, we accept all he has done, just as we are.

~ Bob Roberts, Jr., TRANSFORMATION:

How Glocal Chuches Transform

Lives and the World,

(pp. 82-83).

Bob Roberts, Jr. on Relevance

2007-06-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

People are not turned off by Jesus Christ. They are turned off by us! They do not see the peace, hope, and integrity that they see in Jesus of Nazareth. Instead, they see hypocrites and religious bullies ...

~ Bob Roberts Jr. Transformation: How Glocal Churches

Transform Lives and the World.

Faith = Trusting God

2007-05-29T06:25:00.000-07:00

The difference between faith as "belief in something that may or may not exist" and faith as "trusting in God" is enormous. The first is a matter of the head, the second a matter of the heart. The first can leave us unchanged; the second intrinsically brings change.

~ Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

(Colorado Springs: Multnomah Publishers, 1990, 2000, 2005), 27.

(Manning's endnote references Marcus S. Borg,

Jesus, A New Vision: Spirit, Culture,

and the Life of Discipleship

(New York: Harper & Rowe, 1987), 35.

Love with no agenda

2007-05-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

As the book of James says, “God shows no favoritism.” So we don’t either.

Oftentimes the Christian community has sent the message that we love people and build relationships in order to convert them to the Christian faith. So there is an agenda. And when there is an agenda, it isn’t really love, is it? It’s something else. We have to rediscover love, period. Love that loves because it is what Jesus teaches us to do. We have to surrender our agendas. Because some people aren’t going to become Christians like us no matter how hard we push. They just aren’t. And at some point we have to commit them to God, trusting that God loves them more than we ever could.

~ Rob Bell

Velvet Elvis, p. 167

Napoleon on Christ

2007-05-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

"I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force! Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this very hour millions of men would die for Him."

~ attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte

source: Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What,

C. S. Lewis on worship

2007-04-26T13:40:00.000-07:00

"It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men."

from Reflections on the Psalms

Self-centered worship

2007-02-05T06:39:00.000-08:00

"We’ve made worship self-centered--instead of God-centered; We lobby for what we want, with statements like: ‘I didn’t like the songs’, or ‘I didn’t like the sermon’. It’s as if we’re worshipping 'worship' instead of worshipping God."

Geoff Bullock, "Beyond Self-Centered Worship"

(quoted by Bob Burroughs, Monday Morning E-mail, February 2007)

Blogger's note: Though both spellings are correct (according to the dictionary), I have always personally preferred the suffix-added "worship" with the single final consonant rather than the double. Bullock (or his editor) obviously prefers the double. My thoughts on this quote may be found at www.momosmusings.blogspot.com.

The Climate has changed

2006-09-05T07:56:00.000-07:00

"The kids have already passed us and are waiting, once again, for us to catch up. They have their garage bands and iPods to be their own disc jockeys and ‘make’ their own music--self-teaching themselves guitar, watching American Idol, and all we seem to be offering are the same old tired band, orchestra, choir, and show choir groups--with little new or innovative to capture their attention and interest. We should be going to where they are and help them improve their music--without making them come to us."

~ noted music educator Bennett Reimer

quoted by Paul Hill in Bob Burroughs' Monday Morning Email

(found at www.creatormagazine.com)

With a nod to Rudyard Kipling

2006-08-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

Kipling's famous poem "If..." begins "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs..." The funny because it's so close to truth parody goes like this:

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs
... then you obviously don't understand the situation."

~ attributed to any number of notables.

Objecting to New Trends in Worship

2006-07-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

There are several reasons for opposing it. One, it's too new. Two, it's often worldly. ... The new Christian music is not as pleasant as the more established style. Because there are so many new songs you can't learn them all. It puts too much emphasis on instrumental music rather than godly lyrics. This new music creates disturbances making people act indecently and disorderly. The preceding generation got along without it. It's a money-making scheme, and some of these new music upstarts are lewd and loose.

~ an American pastor (quoted by Matt Redman in

Worship Leader magazine, May 2006, p. 20)

date of the quote ... 1723

Worship - Boredom (Winn Collier)

2006-07-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

God is the one who always has initiated the relationship between God and His people. If worship is primarily something we make happen, then worship is centered on us. If worship is centered on us, it is small -- God is small.

And this small god is one we use for our own devices. Worship becomes centrally what we "feel," what we "want," they style we like. We race after worship experiences like addicts race after the back alley crack dealer. Rather than being captured by the Eternal One, we simply use His name for an emotional high. We view God as the one enabling us to "enjoy worship," another perk from the endless giver of all good things. We miss the audience of our worship. We forget we stand on holy ground in His presence. We forget we were created for His glory, not Him for ours. The god we worship is one of our own making, and nothing could be more boring than that.

~ Winn Collier in Relevant magazine

Worship and Service (Kathleen Norris)

2006-07-23T03:34:00.000-07:00

Church is other people, a worshiping community. The worship, or praise of God does not take place only when people gather on Sunday morning, but when they gather to paint the house of an elderly shut-in, when they visit someone in the hospital or console the bereaved, when the Sunday School kids sing Christmas carols at the nursing home. If a church has life, its 'programs' are not just activity, but worship. And this is helpful, because if the Sunday-morning service falls flat, it is the other forms of worship that sustain this life. When formal worship seems less than worshipful -- and it often does -- if I am bored by the sheer weight of verbiage in worship -- and I often am -- I have only to look around at the other people in the pews to remind myself that we are engaged in something important, something that transcends our feeble attempts at worship, let alone my crankiness.

~Kathleen Norris (Amazing Grace), quoted by Philip Wise

in the Newsletter of FBC, Dothan AL 5/24/2000

Worship practice

2006-07-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

Like a good game – or a good novel – worship enfolds us for a time into a way of seeing the world. It is the one hour in the week when an entire community acknowledges a world where God rules, where evil is named, where hope abounds, where the Spirit is on the move. Like a game, worship can only be learned by doing. A long afternoon of reading the baseball rule book will not help you execute a well-placed bunt.

~John D. Witvliet (Books and Culture)

Worship Experience

2006-07-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

It is far too easy, within the current upsurge of creative input in the realm of worship, to find ourselves chasing spiritual or aesthetic experience, as if the highest achievements of our whole pilgrimage on earth was to enter some kind of praise-induced ecstasy. I wonder sometimes whether it is worship we worship, whether what we experience in music and song is actually our primary motivation, rather than honouring God.

Fundamentally, authentic worship is about pursuing that which pleases God, not us. It is about lives lived in service to God and neighbour, lives which are "living sacrifices", which are engaged in God's work in the world.

~Steve Bradbury, Target Magazine

(I think this is a British publication, given the spellings.)

Praise comparison (Leighton)

2006-07-18T05:19:00.000-07:00

What are our lame praises in comparison with His love? Nothing, and less that nothing; but love will stammer rather than be dumb.

~Robert Leighton

Worship focus

2006-07-17T05:44:00.000-07:00

Worship ... is not a means to and end; it is an end in itself. God is the object -- the only possible object -- of our worship as believers. Lesser objectives, worthy though they may be in themselves, become idolatrous if they are the focus of our worship.

~ Paul A. Richardson, "The Primacy of Worship"

REVIEW AND EXPOSITOR, 85 (1988)

Uniqueness of the Worship Environment

2006-07-17T05:40:00.000-07:00

When we gather for worship, something utterly unique occurs ... It's not just about you and your conditions for fulfillment. It's about coming together with people who may not be of like mind with you, who are not just like you and with whom you may feel deeply uncomfortable. Where else in life is such a requirement made of us?

~Rev. Maggi Dawn, Chaplain • Kings College, Cambridge

in WORSHIP LEADER Magazine, Sept/Oct 2003, p. 21

Self-Centered Worship

2006-07-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

To pretend homage to God and intend only the advantage to myself is rather to mock God than worship Him. When we believe we ought to be satisfied rather than God glorified, we set God below ourselves and imagine that He should submit His honor to our advantage.

~Stephen Charnock (1628-1680)