biscuits and gravy
everything deliciously lumped togetherSome thoughts on worship
This post has been on my mind for quite some time now. Most Sundays (regardless of the church I attend) are reminders of the poor quality of worship-song writing in our mainstream-evangelical culture. I frequently find myself distracted during worship, unable to sing a chorus again or compelled to skip portions of verses I dislike. Such distractions take my mind of God. I confess I’ve done more than my share of griping and complaining about praise songs. Although griping is enjoyable; I doubt it is beneficial for others or my own spirit. To make matters worse, I frequently wrestle with whether I or the song writer is to blame for my poor attitude during worship. “Maybe if I were just more aligned with the Holy Spirit, I would be able to worship authentically to this song too,” I sometimes think. And anyway, should Christians even be critical of other believers’ attempts to write and sing to God? This is at least an area on which to tread lightly – such criticism may not be mine to make. Because of these cautions, this topic has sat on the blog side-burner for quite some time.
Yet the same songs, choruses, and phrases that bothered me years ago still grate against me today. This post is an attempt to constructively lay out pitfalls in worship-song writing and leading that cause me to be distracted during worship. It is not meant to disparage any particular song or song writer. Perhaps if we, as Christians, are more reflective about what our worship should be, and what songs are beneficial and supportive of authentic, true worship, we might write just such songs. So the following is a list of seven factors I’ve noticed in common praise songs that detract from the worship experience for me. The list is arranged from the least-bad to worst offense.
Russo-Georgian war as a signal of balance of power shift?
That is the arguement of this fascinating article by George Friedman. The article is, by far, the most compelling and realistic (using both the regular and international relations definitions) description of the war, its causes, and its strategic and political ramifications for international relations. Here are a few blurbs:
“The Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia and the United States and Europe could not respond.”
…
“In other words, the Russians have backed the Americans into a corner. The Europeans, who for the most part lack expeditionary militaries and are dependent upon Russian energy exports, have even fewer options. If nothing else happens, the Russians will have demonstrated that they have resumed their role as a regional power. Russia is not a global power by any means, but a significant regional power with lots of nuclear weapons and an economy that isn’t all too shabby at the moment. It has also compelled every state on the Russian periphery to re-evaluate its position relative to Moscow. . . .
The war in Georgia, therefore, is Russia’s public return to great power status. This is not something that just happened — it has been unfolding ever since Putin took power, and with growing intensity in the past five years. Part of it has to do with the increase of Russian power, but a great deal of it has to do with the fact that the Middle Eastern wars have left the United States off-balance and short on resources. As we have written, this conflict created a window of opportunity. The Russian goal is to use that window to assert a new reality throughout the region while the Americans are tied down elsewhere and dependent on the Russians. The war was far from a surprise; it has been building for months. But the geopolitical foundations of the war have been building since 1992.”
