This could have been written yesterday!

Since the days of Pentecost, has the whole church ever put aside every other work and waited upon Him for ten days, that the Spirit's power might be manifested? We give too much attention to method and machinery and resources, and too little to the source of power. - Hudson Taylor

e. e. cummings on Identity

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)

Morris Driggers (@MoDrig3) has shared a Tweet with you: "MoDrig3: RT @bkauflin If people need vibey intros, gtr. effects, cool licks & low lights to engage w/ God, we're misleading, not leading them." --http://twitter.com/MoDrig3/status/81895838204440576

Ken Medema - If This Is Not a Place

If This Is Not a Place - Ken Medema

Peter Rollins

"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

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

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