New solo project from John?

[greenchili]

Sorry about the avatar Sue - I'll try to get that fixed soon. My brother knows how to do it so I'll drop by his house tomorrow maybe.

Yeah you should be able to crop that picture. Your head does not seem to take up too much space.

[greenchili]

Billy Graham School of Mission's Dr. Thom S. Rainer has written a book about 5 categories of people and their willingness to accept the gospel. It is a great sociological study.

Sounds interesting..

What's the name of the book?

Here's a link to some:

http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cf ... XIZEIJguVg

Hello McFly. Is this the book you were referring too?

"Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them"

[brent]

One of the three. That would be a great place to start.
Sorry. I was plugged into my 1500 jiggawatt guitar amp, with the 6' diameter speaker, going sterile.

[yamasaaaki har har]

Billy Graham School of Mission's Dr. Thom S. Rainer has written a book about 5 categories of people and their willingness to accept the gospel. It is a great sociological study.

For the record it was Brent who said that... I don't know how "yamasaaaki har har wrote" got there. Sounds like that must be an interesting book.

(Not that it matters at all, but just to clarify...)

[BForm]

Man, I wish I had been a part of this one from the beginning. Now I have too much catching up to do. I could talk all day about the state of the American church and what needs to be done. Let me just say briefly that I have a lot of trouble with the philosophy that says we need "new" methods to reach a "new" audience. I used to believe that but just don't anymore. Scripture tells us what we need to "do" to reach the world around us and it doesn't change from generation to generation. The problem is that the church isn't holy, loving, compassionate, united, etc. In other words we're not reflecting the Glory of God. For that reason, the world does not believe that the "Father sent the Son" (John 17).

I wanted to include a quote that directly relates to Brent's last post. If we want to see how God writes worship music, read the Psalms:


What Miserable Christian�s Sing

From: The Wages of Spin
By: Carl Truelove


The Psalms: �Only in the Psalms do you have the full range of human emotion that allows you, however desperate you feel, to go in and offer words of praise to God.�

On why Psalm singing has disappeared from the modern church:


"I�m not certain about why this should be but I have an instinctive feel that it has more than a little to with the fact that a high proportion of Psalms are taken up with lamentation with feeling sad, unhappy, tormented and broken. In modern Western culture these are simply not emotions which have much credibility. Sure people still feel these things, but to admit that they are a normal part of one�s everyday life is tantamount to admitting that one has failed in today�s health, wealth and happiness society. But in the Psalms, God has given the church a language which allows it to express even the deepest agonies of the human soul in the context of worship. By excluding cries of loneliness, dispossession and desolation from its worship, the church has effectively silenced and excluded the voices of those who are themselves lonely, dispossessed and desolate, both inside and outside the church. It has implicitly endorsed the banal aspirations of consumerism, and generated an insipid, trivial and unrealistically triumphalist Christianity.

In the last year I have asked three very different evangelical audiences what miserable Christians can sing in church. On each occasion my question has elicited uproarious laughter, as if the idea of a broken hearted, lonely, or despairing Christian was so absurd as to be comical. And yet I posed the question in all seriousness."

Ouch!!! This quote makes me look at "worship" music in an entirely different light.

[greenchili]

One of the three. That would be a great place to start.
Sorry. I was plugged into my 1500 jiggawatt guitar amp, with the 6' diameter speaker, going sterile.

You're the Doc. Doc.

Billy Graham School of Mission's Dr. Thom S. Rainer has written a book about 5 categories of people and their willingness to accept the gospel. It is a great sociological study.

For the record it was Brent who said that... I don't know how "yamasaaaki har har wrote" got there. Sounds like that must be an interesting book.

(Not that it matters at all, but just to clarify...)

Odd... I wonder how that one happened.

[charl]

Riffing off Bform:

�Only in the Psalms do you have the full range of human emotion that allows you, however desperate you feel, to go in and offer words of praise to God.�

And the Blues. You can't forget the Country Blues (though I'll agree that later incarnations have lost much of that).

I agree that it is indeed the substance that makes much of christian music unlistenable. I hate the songs that are "I love you jesus you have such pretty hair" types as I call them. You can almost hear retching inherent in the recording.

It has implicitly endorsed the banal aspirations of consumerism, and generated an insipid, trivial and unrealistically triumphalist Christianity.

Good quote.

As for declining membership, this was/is not necessarily a bad thing, but we have allowed it to become so by our reaction to it. The kitschy carnival-like aura of the western christian sub-culture trying desperately to attract with anything but the gospel does not really do any favours for itself.

[yamasaaaki har har]

Yama, could you shorten up your avatar? It's kinda long and I'm constantly scrolling back & forth.

Ok, the avatar problem's taken care of now. Hope that's better.


Now back to the original topic...

[executioner]

The whole Bible is great, but I feel Psalms is probably one of the best parts of the Bible; It just shows the pain and trails that we go through as Christians and it puts it on our level. I read the Psalms probably more than any other book from the Bible.
The last CD that Rez Band put out was called "Lament" and it is their best album by far. It is somewhat of a concept album and follows a struggling Christian through their trails.

[winterlens]

The whole Bible is great, but I feel Psalms is probably one of the best parts of the Bible; It just shows the pain and trails that we go through as Christians and it puts it on our level. I read the Psalms probably more than any other book from the Bible.
The last CD that Rez Band put out was called "Lament" and it is their best album by far. It is somewhat of a concept album and follows a struggling Christian through their trails.

It does a handy job of explaining the pain of Christ, too. A great deal more of the Psalms than we usually admit are Messianic (Ps 18, 23, 24--though Handel got this one right, 88, 89, 118, to name a few off the top of my head that don't often garner that kind of distinction).

One of the most profound insights to me in the Psalms has always been how vividly the nature of the Godhead is revealed. Some of my own thoughts (extended from here) are http://uppertank.net/ethanm/personal/writing/Psalms.pdf . A few small bits about praise in there--but I guess this is mostly off-topic.