Linktastic!

Normally I don't often dedicate a post to links, but it's been over a month since my last post and it's time for me to play a bit of catch-up. So today's post is plumb full of links directing you, dear reader, to some things I've really been enjoying recently and wanted to share with you.

Doctrine and Doxology: Why we must fire boring teachers and preachers - Carl Trueman is always saying something awesome. He's always seeing and saying things from a different perspective that washes over a subject like a fresh breeze. This article from Reformation 21 is fantastic. The reason I call my blog Sound Doxology is exactly what he explains in this article; namely that doctrine and doxology are linked, and you can't have one without the other. But as great as this article is, I recommend everything Carl Trueman writes.

Seeds Family Worship - These guys do an incredible job at putting Scripture to music. A couple years ago I wrote about how most songs written for children in the church are either putrid or just stupid and we are in major need of children's songs that have good quality in both music and content. Well the Seeds guys are doing it extremely well.

John Stott Has Died - I was saddened to hear this news. God used John Stott to greatly increase my understanding of worship. Stott was really the first person I read who clearly conveyed that the more we know God the more we will worship God. I've had this quote of his on my blog since I started it a few years back:

"All true worship is a response to the self-revelation of God in Christ and Scripture, and arises from our reflection on who He is and what He has done….The worship of God is evoked, informed, and inspired by the vision of God….The true knowledge of God will always lead us to worship."

Worship Leaders – Prepare Like a Preacher - Good things are always happening at Cardiphonia. I found this article to be wonderful, and as always there are fantastic resources that go along with it.

Speaking of Cardiphonia, as I was linking to the site I ran across the latest post The Rise of Digital Hymnals. (See, I told you good things are always happening there...) I am a huge, mega fan of Digital Hymnals. I've been telling you about Indelible Grace and Red Mountain Music for a while now, but Bruce has collected and linked to a few more!

Reflections on the Psalms - I'm half-way through this book by CS Lewis and I already want to recommend it. Reading this book has caused me to fall more in love with the book of Psalms. After a chapter or two I can't help but close the book and start reading the Psalms.

The Wingfeather Saga - Andrew Peterson, in my opinion, is a master wordsmith. His lyrics in his songs pierce my heart in ways no other songwriter has done before. So it's no surprise that his books do the same thing. He's written three books so far, with a fourth on the way. I just finished the third book and the story rejuvenated my soul. This really doesn't have much to do with congregational worship, but after reading his last book, I was driven to worship in light of the beauty and truth of God.

Gospel Focused Leadership with Dr. Richard Blackaby - This one-day event will be taking place at Wornall Road Baptist Church (my church) on Saturday Aug 20 from 10AM to 3PM. Includes worship and prayer as well as leadership from Dr. Blackaby on "getting our hearts, minds and God's people onto God's Agenda." The cost is free and lunch is provided. If you live in (or are nearby) the Kansas City area this would be a great opportunity for you and/or your church leaders to rest and reorient around the gospel.

Around the Table - This is my new blog that both my wife and I contribute to. (It's also likely the reason why I haven't posted here lately...) Essentially it is a blog about food and fellowship and life around the dinner table. We share recipes and stories and hopefully it will inspire you or make you laugh.

Finally, I thought I'd link to what's become my most viewed post (by far): The Effeminate Worship Leader. I knew this would strike a nerve when I first posted it (both positive and negative) but I didn't really expect the amount of traffic it has generated, and what it continues to generate. I've thought about re-posting it and updating it a bit, but after re-reading it I don't know if I have much else to say about it in this format. I am always open to having a dialogue about these kinds of things though.

So that's it for now! Hopefully some of these links have interested you as much as they have interested me.

The Fall

Over the past couple of weeks I've been working on a project writing songs to assist in family worship. The songs are meant to aid in teaching theology to children without watering down truth or compromising the gospel through legalistic moralism. I hope to discuss this project in a bit more detail in the future but that being said, I want to share with you one of the songs I've written for the project.

This song is intended to teach about the Fall. The themes are sin, original sin, our response to sin, and God's response to sin through judgment and salvation all wrapped in the story we find in Genesis 2 and 3. Enjoy!

The Fall by Rich Tuttle

The Fall

When God made the world He had a plan, made a man and a woman, named Adam and Eve
He gave them a job, “Glorify, multiply, but don’t eat from that middle tree
The Tree of Knowledge of Wrong and Right, if you eat it you will surely die.”

The serpent walked right up to Eve and said, “Do you really believe
that God meant what He said that you would die?”
Then Eve saw that the fruit looked good. The serpent said, “You really should
just eat the fruit and open up your eyes!”
And she listened to the snake, she took the fruit and then she ate,
and turned to Adam and said, “Take a bite.”
Then they felt the shame
and God called their name

He said, “What have you done?
You disobeyed and now you’ve laid the foundation for a painful life,
full of anguish and toil and strife.

“Now every child that’s born to you will pass this curse and bear it too;
a wicked nature, born to sin and die.”
Now every nation, tribe, and tongue will be afraid and be on the run
‘cause God is watching with His holy eye.
And He made for them some skins, to show what happens when you sin.
Blood must be shed from an innocent life.
But not all hope was lost, ‘cause God had planned the cross.

To the serpent God had news for him; Good news for us but his news was grim
A promise made and this is what God said,
“Though the woman took your crooked deal, her seed will come and you’ll bruise his heel,
but that’s ‘cause with it He will bust your head!”
And on His promise He made good, Jesus came to our neighborhood and for our sin
His perfect blood was shed!
And He removed our shame
then God called our name.

For the Mouths of Babes: Update

A while back I posted about the poor quality of children's music produced by Christians. Well here is some good news. Sovereign Grace Ministries is releasing a new children's CD. I've listened to the preview clips and from what I've heard they've done an excellent job. Bob Kauflin wrote about it on his blog and explained the reasoning for producing it. The people who wrote the songs for the album are some of the very same who are writing great songs for the church today.

Here's what the site has to say about the new CD:

To Be Like Jesus contains twelve worship songs that teach the fruit of the Spirit in a creative and memorable way.Through these songs kids will learn that Jesus is our perfect example of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,and self-control. More than that, they’ll discover that we can’t be like Jesus unless we trust in the power of his cross to forgive us and the power of his Spirit to change us.

Needless to say, you won't be finding this kind of explanation on the back of your generic, overpriced, mass produced, cookie cutter "HOTT 25 Worship Songs 4 KIDS!" CD anytime soon. I appreciate Sovereign Grace Ministries so much for writing songs from the church, for the church.

From (and For) the Mouths of Babes

A few Sunday’s back I led the congregation in the songs “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” by Martin Luther and “I Sing the Mighty Power of God” by Isaac Watts. The primary reason I chose these songs is a bit obvious by their titles; the Mightiness of God. Not only do the lyrics express the Mightiness of God, but the music enhances that idea with their majestic yet militaristic tunes. But as I was driving home from Springfield the night before, reflecting on the songs that would be sung the following morning, I felt I needed to explain the meaning of the words ‘bulwark’ and ‘Sabaoth’. After all, the song is almost 500 years old. But then I remembered who the intended audience was for both of these songs; children. I was struck by the thought so much so that I mentioned it Sunday morning and on a rather off-handed remark I asked that if these songs are the ‘high water-mark’ in congregational singing today and yet they were originally intended for children, what does that say about us today? I am still pondering that question and I am not exactly sure if my conclusions are solid. When I ask “what does that say about us today,” I believe it leaves us with a couple of challenges.

First, how do these songs compare to our children’s songs today? I don’t want to criticize the intention of those who compose our modern day children’s songs because I believe that many are very instructive in their simplicity for the very young. But unfortunately most children’s songs for today are only appropriate for ages 0-4. Such as “The B-I-B-L-E” and “Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man”. They fall in line with other nursery songs such as “The Ittsy Bittsy Spider”. The resources today for children’s music are a little better than wretched. The CD’s you find at your local Christian bookstore are horrendous. First you have the nice lady who probably taught kindergarten singing all her songs in a goofy baby-talk voice. This works for babies and dead people. Second you have the lullaby edition that contains dreamy, sleepwalky, instrumental hymns that only adults (who grew up in the church) know. The only purpose for these are to soothe your baby to sleep. And last but not least it is the top 25 “hot” worship songs from CCLI sung by 12 over-enthusiastic kids. Let’s just say that if this album came with two CDs, you now have an extra Frisbee in case the first CD goes into the neighbors’ yard. Obviously, there is a glaring hole in the quality of children’s music in the church today. Why do we have to dumb down our children’s music? Children learn at an incredible rate. They are sponges that soak up everything around them. If they are exposed early on to the truth then they can only grow from there. I’m not saying we need to get rid of all our modern children’s music, but let’s expand it, and improve it vastly! How would the church look today if the past generation of children grew up on songs like “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” rather than nursery songs until they entered youth group?

The next thing I notice is that though these hymns began as songs meant for children, they stood the test of time by matching beautiful truth with beautiful music. Obviously, ours is not the first generation to use these songs for congregational singing. They have been sung for hundreds of years. What that means for us (the church) is that we (the church, not the music industry) should be striving to produce similar music. Not similar in sound or style, but similar in substance and quality, musically and lyrically. Sometimes I wonder if the “worship” music industry is more of a curse than it is a blessing. If the blessing is the abundance of resources then the curse is that most of the resources are just pumped out for cash with little consideration for the local church. The reason I bring up the “worship” music industry is because there is such a stark contrast in the production of “modern worship” songs compared to the songs produced by Luther and Watts. Why did Luther and Watts produce these songs? Because they cared for the children in their congregations enough to instruct them in the truth. Why does the “worship” music industry produce new music? Yikes. That one is harder to answer because it not very clear that the local congregation is who they are writing for. I don’t think Isaac Watts would be comfortable referring to himself as a ‘worship artist’ and I have a hard time imagining Martin Luther being interviewed by CCM magazine and saying something like, “I was just sitting there with my lute and God just gave me this song. It was, like, the Spirit was totally there.” Get my point? These guys wrote for the church. They didn’t make an album and sell it. They didn’t go on tour to promote their songs. They saw a need and filled it and God blessed it. I wonder what would happen if poets and musicians invested themselves in theology and the local church? Or if theologians and pastors would take time to write some poetry? What if they teamed up to produce music for their local congregation, not to sell a CD, or to make a name for themselves, but to serve the church?

Side Note: I am not saying that a pursuit in the “worship” music industry is bad. But what I am saying is that it is very different to how the church has historically found her voice musically. It is hard for me to believe that the “worship” industry, modeled around popular music’s industry, is in the business of serving the church. Now, if we are talking about artists and musicians who are Christians creating music and art based upon Christ I have no problem with that! God is glorified through that vocation. The problem starts when the (usually highly subjective) art or music is mistaken for congregational worship songs. I know that every now and then, one slips through the cracks and winds up being a great congregational worship song, but in the end the “worship” industry is out to make money (and there’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself) and serving the church is secondary, if it is even a goal at all.

[In the future I’ll be posting more about the difference between today’s Christian songs, like the ones heard on the radio, and Congregational songs]