Well, it’s a time to… umm… remember Jesus Sacrifice, you know, the wine grape juice representing his blood, and the bread wafers/wonderbread/croutons/whatever-is-easy-and-on-hand representing his… you know… body…

Is it just a symbol? (really?) Is there more to it than that? What does it all mean? (really?)

This is such a profound and meaningful experience. A wonderful gift that Christians have been given by Jesus to communicate so much! So much, indeed, that eventually Christians came to think of the bread and wine ACTUALLY BEING the body and blood of christ! (After all, he DID say “This IS my blood. This IS my body.” (didn’t he? (actually, no.. he didn’t.)) (triple parenthetical statement +15!)

My point here is that we evangelical types tend to take one of three stances on the issue:

1. Happily mystified
2. Completely confused
3. Overly simplistic and naive

It’s an issue I’ve been studying out for about a year. Grappling with to try and gather a sense of peace about the issue. I’m starting to get there. I’ve recently read a book (recommended by our sound guru) that cleared a lot of air for me. I’d like to formally recommend it to you all.

The Meal Jesus Gave Us: Understanding Holy Communion by Tom (N.T.) Wright is a quick read and was tremendously helpful for me. Michael Green wrote in the forward of the book:

“Nothing is more central to Christian practice than Holy Communion. Yet, curiously enough, little attempt is made to explain it. So many outside the Christian community are just puzzled by it, and many within the church go to Communion from habit but know very little about how it arose and what it means. This is the ideal book for both thypes of reader. It is written by one of th foremost New Testament scholars in the world, who has the enviable ability to write with engaging charm.”

The back of the book gives a nice summary:

…Tom Wright explains in clear and vivid style the background to the Last Supper, the ways in which Christians have interpreted this event over the centuries, and what it all means for us today.

If you lead worship and communion, you should read this book.

Here are some worship artists that I keep a pretty consistent eye on for new music.

• Passion (Matt Redman, David Crowder, Chris Tomlin, others)
• Brian Doerksen
• Delirious
• Hillsong’s United
• Jared Anderson (Desperation Band)
• Matthew Smith / Indelible Grace
• Tim Hughes
• Red Mountain Church
• Sovereign Grace Ministries

We have songs from a large variety of other sources and artists as well, but these seem to produce consistently excellent music. There are many other bands that produce consistently good music as well, but for whatever reason, I usually stick to the above, with a few exceptions.

Who do you go to for music? Do you write you own?

If I could pick only ten praise albums to choose songs for corporate worship from, they would be as follows:

1. Illuminate - David Crowder Band
2. The Cutting Edge - Delirious?
3. Sonicflood - Sonicflood (Jeff Deyo, really)
4. Offerings - Third Day
5. Live From Austin - Chris Tomlin
6. Blessed Be Your Name - Matt Redman
7. Enter The Worship Circle: First Circle - Waterdeep and 100 Portraits
8. The Best of Passion So Far - Passion Bands
9. ??
10. ??

See what I did there? I condensed what would have been about 6 other albums into a few best-ofs I also couldn’t come up with a 9 or 10 off the top of my head (that is to say, I couldn’t pick two from the 15 or so that came to mind… each with one or two songs on them.)

How about you?

1. The song is not public domain!
2. Some good thoughts on the flow of music in worship
3. Good thoughts about instrumentation and arrangements in music for worship.

Give it a read.

If you are interested in being a regular author here, let me know a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you are up to, and how you wish to contribute.

I’m also taking recommendations for resource site links so we can bolster that section, and if you’d like to promote your original music here, let me know as well.

Thanks for reading. You all make my day.

There are other great forums out there that we could go to and this one doesn’t seem to be adding much right now. We could either wait and let it grow, or shut it down and point people at the currently thriving communities, and focus on this site as a resource blog.

Thoughts?

“‘Great works’ (of art) and ‘good works’ (of charity) had better also be good work. Let choirs sing well or not all. Otherwise we merely confirm the majority in their conviction that the world of Business, which does with such efficiency so much that never really needed doing, is the real, the adult, and the practical world; and that all this ‘culture’ and all this ‘religion’ (horrid words both) are essentially marginal, amateurish, and rather effeminate activities.”

C.S. Lewis, “Good Work and Good Works” from (The World’s Last Night, and other essays).

Matt Redman has a post on his blog along a similar line, with a great insight: “excellence is often the fruit of endurance“. Keeping at something until you get it right.

Good stuff.