We just finished a series this month on the devil, and as I’m reflecting on the series, I was reminded of something that I wanted to touch on here. We opened our series earlier this month with Sympathy for the Devil, by the Rolling Stones. This past year we’ve also included songs like You Found [...]

Filed under: Reflections, Theology of Worship | 1 Comment »

Rachel’s grandfather passed away today.
He’s been battling cancer for about a year, and this week his health took a dive and seemed to really speed the process along. Rach and I have been talking all this last week about the strange juxtaposition between life and death that God seems to have our family walking through.
You [...]

Filed under: Reflections | 4 Comments »

One of the most common questions to my new hairstyle from this past weekend was simply, “What would make you do that?”
The answer is simple & complex at the same time. First of all, I needed a haircut. But more significantly, as I was studying and preparing for our current series at Grace called [...]

Filed under: Captive, Reflections, Services | 3 Comments »

Someone who goes to Grace was musing about a song we sang yesterday called “You Won’t Relent”, by Misty Edwards. The lyrics of the song are as follows:
You won’t relent
Until You have it all
My heart is Yours
I’ll set You as a seal upon my heart
As a seal upon my arm
For there is love that [...]

Filed under: Reflections, Song Study, Theology of Worship | 11 Comments »

At the conference I attended last Saturday, Joe Horness was teaching the main session and told a story about the famous painter Gustav Dore, who received a painting of Jesus from one of his students for him to critique. After a couple of moments searching for the right words, Dore remarked “If you loved [...]

Filed under: Art as Worship, Reflections | 1 Comment »

Last week I wrote about the dangers of giving Jesus “lip service”.  If you haven’t read, go back and give it a go.  It’s short.
One of the dangers I didn’t talk about is our natural reaction to that conviction.  I witnessed it during the last song two weeks ago.  Coming out of Derek’s sermon, we [...]

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The sermon this last Sunday was one the best messages on Palm Sunday I have ever heard. One of the things that Derek pointed out was that the same crowd that ushered Jesus into Jerusalem with shouts of adulation also abandoned him and even cried out for him to be crucified five days later. [...]

Filed under: Lent, Reflections | 1 Comment »

As a part of Lent, the staff at Grace have been submitting a blog post each day for reflection and meditation on the church website. I volunteered to take every Tuesday, and so for my part, I’ve been posting a video blog of a different cross-themed song each week.
This week things got away from me, [...]

Filed under: Lent, Reflections, Video | 2 Comments »

Every Tuesday during Lent, I’m posting a video blog with one cross focused song. It’s meant for you to use as a time of worship and reflection, connecting some great Christ centered lyrics to scriptures about the cross. In the previous three weeks, I’ve chosen The Wonderful Cross, Were You There, and How Deep [...]

Filed under: Lent, Reflections, Video | 4 Comments »

If you haven’t been following along, every day during the season of lent the staff at Grace have been posting a devotional to point us towards Jesus and the cross. I’ve decided that for my part, I’m going to be posting five worship times using five cross centered songs, intermixed with prayer and scripture. [...]

Filed under: Lent, Reflections, Video | 1 Comment »