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.

7. Adding to (or subtracting from) much-loved hymns. A popular activity of worship leaders is to “modernize” famous hymns by cutting out verses, adding choruses, and simplifying melodies.  Sometimes my initial excitement at singing a hymn turns to disappointment when I realize we’re singing one of these watered-down versions.

6. Worship instructions. Worship is a very personal activity. Given the diversity of believers (their personalities, cultural backgrounds, and current spiritual needs and situations) there is little reason to think a song will evince the same emotions and responses among worshipers. A song that makes one want to jump for joy may make another want to sit and pray, and still yet another may want to reflect on God’s goodness. Personally, I think there is very little need of any worship instructions at any time. Certainly the last place they belong is in the song itself. Requests to sing or lift up hands are, in general, a distraction for me.

5. Nonsensical or vague lyrics. Clarity is important.  I want to sing lyrics that have easily-discerned meanings.  It is difficult to mean in my heart lyrics I don’t understand (such as saying “yes, Lord; yes, Lord; Yes, yes Lord!” when never explained what I am to say “yes” to.

4. Repetition. Probably the most endemic of the list.  Worship is not just about the heart; it is also about the mind.  I find it difficult to repeat the same words 5, 7, or even 10 times.  Even the best of lyrics eventually begin to lose their meaning.  Singing lyrics fewer times would also allow more songs to be sung during worship.

3. Dishonesty. Some songs make claims (in first-person narrative) that no believer can honestly make.  For example, consider a song I enjoy: Matt Redman’s “Blessed Be Your Name.”  The song states that “every blessing You pour out I’ll turn back to praise.”  Who can honestly sing this?  I certainly will not give God praise for all of His blessings.  I know I should.  But not one day goes by that I miss blessings of God, either because I am not looking for them or because I attribute them to my own (or others’) actions.  Worship should be a time of brutal honesty.

2. Unbelief. The number of well-known praise songs that actively undermine belief in blessings promised us in Scripture is shocking.  A common example is the request for the Holy Spirit to come into the worship experience (“Come, Holy Spirit, Come!”).  There is simply no excuse for such lyrics when we’re promised in Scripture that the Holy Spirit is present when believers gather together.  Another example is Keith Green’s “Create in Me a Clean Heart,” from Psalm 51.  Even though these lyrics come virtually straight out of the Old Testament, they explicitly undermine belief in God’s promises in the New Testament.  As Christians, we are a new creation – complete with the life of Christ inside of us.  We do not need a new heart.  We already have Christ’s!  David, when writing this Psalm, obviously was not living under the new covenant, nor had access to Christ’s life inside of him.  But surely we should not give up our wonderful position on this side of the Cross!

1. Self-Aggrandizement. This, I think, is the most serious worship issue I’ve noticed.  Occasionally, some songs make the worshiper seem as the consistent and reliable partner and paint God as capricious and unreliable.  Such a description is antithetical to worship.  Take, for example, Ten Shekel Shirt’s “Meet With Me.”  The first verse is: “I’m here to meet with You/ Come and meet with me/ I’m here to find You/ Reveal Yourself to me.”  While the lyrics may seem innocuous, the subtext of the song is that the worshiper has fulfilled his or her role – now it’s time for God to fulfill His. And He may or may not.  Another example is Jeff Deyo’s “We are Hungry.”  Deyo writes, “Lord, I want more of You/ Living Water, rain down on me/ Lord, I need more of You/ Living Breath of life/ come and fill me up// We are hungry/ We are hungry/ We are hungry for more of You/ We are thirsty, Oh Jesus/ We are thirsty for more of You// We lift our holy hands up/ We want to touch You/ We lift our voices higher/ And higher and higher to You.”  Notice again the focus on the worshiper as the consistent seeker.  God, on the other hand, has been withholding Himself from us!  The entire focus of this song is on the worshiper, not on God. Our desire is elevated almost to holiness, while God again is presented as waiting with a bagful of blessings withheld for only those who seek and desire enough.  Humility of the believer before a holy and gracious God is absent when self-aggrandizement is present.

“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.”

Bucket #1: Everything tastes better with ranch. It’s true. Don’t fight it. It is a fact of life. In fact, I’m pretty sure that when God told Moses that He would bring the Israelites into a land “flowing with milk and honey” He was referring to Buttermilk Ranch dressing.

Ah, a ranch fountain! Now that's a party!

Ranch is easily the best dip for all sorts of foods, better even than the dips traditionally associated with the particular food. For example, what’s better for mozzarella sticks than marinara sauce? Ranch. What taste’s better with french fries than ketchup? Easy – ranch! The same is true as a salad dressing. Ranch easily bests every common salad dressing on the market today without even breaking a sweat. Trust me, nieces of mine, save yourself the trouble of choosing sub-par condiments and salad dressings and thus not enjoying your dinners. Order ranch first!

[A big thanks to Joey deVilla for the picture].

• PR (proportional representation) is, in general, a terrible electoral system.  PR may be suited for national legislatures (although I think it’s a bad system for electing anyone), but the Democratic Party should be ashamed of itself for designing a nomination process based on PR.  The point of a nomination process is NOT to express all viewpoints, or to give as many factions within the party delegates; the point is to nominate a presidential candidate, to choose one winner.  A PR-based nomination process is sheer idiocy.
• A state party nomination system, designed to reflect the choice of the party members of a particular state, should reward the candidate who wins that state with the most delegates.  A system that produces the result in Nevada and Texas is a broken one (where Obama lost the popular vote but won more delegates than Clinton).
• Institutions matter.  The Obama campaign played the game shrewdly – capitalizing on the rules of the game and the delegate math.  Clinton could (and should) have done the same.  But the electoral system shaped this outcome, and, as usual, the politician the best understood the system and the incentives inherent in the structure of the system  came out on top.
• In passing, the WP article cites David Axelrod, a chief Obama strategist, as forming the strategy of campaign based more on “personality than policy.”  A wise move when your candidate is Obama and you are campaigning against Hillary Clinton, not because Clinton is good at policy, but because she is so unlikeable.  The big question is: Will the same strategy work against a much more personally-appealing candidate in John McCain?  Goodness, I hope not…

I must clarify something up front: it isn’t as if we are going without television programing this week; we’ve been catching up on our favorite shows like The Office and Scrubs but by watching them online rather than on the television. My brother-in-law also loaned us the first season of Lost, through which we have slowly been making our way. So, in a sense we’ve been watching plenty of TV. Still, this experiment has had noticeable effects on our lives: the largest and most important of which is that we’re happier.

This is, of course, the main question. I am a firm believer in shalom – not the normal translation of “peace” but in the fuller translation of well-being and safety. In other words, we were created by God to live in certain ways, and when we do, we are happier and in a better state – shalom. As strange as it may sound, the television steals something from me and my wife. We would sit and switch channels, dissatisfied by the lack of entertainment yet caught in the attempt to find it. We would begin watching TV during dinner and would often continue until we had to turn it off in order to complete a few short tasks before bed, like sending an email, doing a load of laundry, or washing some dishes. It wasn’t wrong. I’m not even sure it is a moral issue at all. But I believe it was unhealthy for me, as if I was not made to spend my time in that way.

Since the TV made the long trek into the musky purgatory of the basement, I’ve noticed several changes around the home. For starters, E and I are more active. We’ve gone on several walks, played frisbee, and almost went on a bike ride (a flat tire deflated that plan). I actually spent some time working on the bikes to get ready for the ride. For someone who avoids routine maintenance like the scourge of civilization that it is, getting up the energy to work on something that isn’t completely broken is like trying to eat only one donut hole – nearly impossible.

Another pleasant result from the TV ban is that my wife and I talk more. When the TV is on, it is difficult for me to have a conversation. I get distracted too easily. We’ve replaced the TV with other activities (like, again, walking) that are much more conducive to holding a conversation. Conversations with E are joys not be missed.

And finally, no TV means I have plenty of time to read books and online goodies like feeds and posts and to blog – and what could be better than that?

I like him even more after Tuesday night’s victory in New Hampshire. While Obama was vacuously spouting about how “yes, we can!” create change and Hillary was thanking New Hampshire for helping her find her voice, McCain spoke about his philosophy of governance, about the moral responsibility of serving his country, about the need to fight against Islamic terrorists, and about America’s potential greatness. In the speech, above all else, McCain sounded humble, a virtue rarely seen in politics.

I found the end of the speech particularly inspiring:

I learned long ago that serving only oneself is a petty and unsatisfying ambition. But serve a cause greater than self-interest and you will know a happiness far more sublime than the fleeting pleasure of fame and fortune. For me that greater cause has always been my country, which I have served imperfectly for many years, but have loved without any reservation every day of my life. And however this campaign turns out — and I am more confident tonight that it will turn out much better than once expected — I am grateful beyond expression for the prospect that I might serve her a little while longer. That gratitude imposes on me the responsibility to do nothing in this campaign that would make our country’s problems harder to solve or that would cause Americans to despair that a candidate for the highest office in the land would think so little of the honor that he would put his own interests before theirs. I take that responsibility as my most solemn trust.

So, my friends, we celebrate one victory tonight and leave for Michigan tomorrow to win another. But let us remember that our purpose is not ours alone; our success is not an end in itself. America is our cause — yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Her greatness is our hope; her strength is our protection; her ideals our greatest treasure; her prosperity the promise we keep to our children; her goodness the hope of mankind. That is the cause of our campaign and the platform of my party, and I will stay true to it so help me God.

Thank you, New Hampshire. Thank you, my friends, and God bless you as you have blessed me. Enjoy this. You have earned it more than me. Tomorrow, we begin again.

You can get the full text of the speech here.

I agree with those pedaling these changes in county government that the current system was biased against non-urban voters. At-large elections were not representing interests of the northern Linn County. But Plan 3 was not the only option.

Plan 2 would also have instituted a district form of representation; candidates for supervisor position would have had to run for the district in which they live. Citizens, however, would get to vote on all races, not just their own district race. Plan 2 would have been a good compromise between minority representation of rural voters and straight majoritarian government.*

Here are some issues I have with Plan 3 and the special election:

- The special election was held on a Tuesday in late-July; no candidate elections at the local or state level were held at this time. The result was that county turnout totaled less than 15% of the county’s eligible population. Changing election rules is a very important part of making democracy succeed. Proponents of all plans knew full well that staging this special election at this time would virtually guarantee extremely low turnout. The election should have taken place on traditional election days, when more Linn County citizens would be at the polls.

- Plan 3 supporters claimed (in numerous radio advertisements) that the plan was needed in order to combat the “downtown power structure.” Frankly, I can’t imagine that the “downtown power structure” is the source of many of the county’s problems. If anything, the downtown isn’t powerful enough. What the county needs, in my opinion, and what Iowa needs, is public and private capital investments in downtown areas. We need new business and new buildings to ensure that Cedar Rapids and Iowa cities in general keep growing and modernizing. Not doing so lowers the quality of life in the area. Jobs will move to other areas of the country; the city and county will lose tax dollars, and incomes will fall. I fear that this change in county government will give to suburban and rural members of the county the ability to put the brakes on major development and infrastructure projects.

- Districting now becomes a crucial issue in government. Now the county is not just divided by political party, but also geography, pitting urban interests against suburban and rural. District lines are always somewhat arbitrary; it will be interesting to see who benefits from drawing the lines. Cedar Rapids, with 122,000 of the county’s 201,000 residents, should control 3 of the 5 supervisor districts. I am curious to see which political party will benefit the most from this system. It seems like the system would lead to semi-permanent 3-2 advantage for the Democrats, who will take CR’s 3 districts, leaving the remaining 2 to the Republicans. If district lines are not drawn over municipality lines, however, this may not be the case. Districting is the key to see if urban or rural interests will dominate, and if the Democrat or Republican party will benefit.

Institutional change almost always has unpredicted results. How this county government change will affect policy and representation has yet to be seen. I hope it works out well; though I think county voters have made a mistake. In the next few years, we should pay close attention to how the new county government will respond to important issues like landfill space and Highway 100 construction.

* In case anyone was curious, Plan 1 was to maintain the status quo system of electing supervisors at-large. Plan 1 received 2.3% of the vote; Plan 2 received 41.4%; Plan 3 received 56.3%. All Cedar Rapids precincts (but two) were carried by Plan 3; every rural and suburban precinct was carried by Plan 3.

Church shopping is very similar. First impressions are important, after all, some churches are lemons. But perhaps you just need to spend more time being around the church to understand its character. Other times you could love the first experience with a church but slowly being disinterested as you spend more time there. The trick is to know which churches to stick it out with and which ones to part with amicably as soon as possible. I have no idea how to do this.

I would appreciate any guidance you might have as to selecting a church. What aspects are most important to you? Have you found any tell-tale signs of a church that warrants a further look? What about non-obvious signs that this may not be the best spiritual environment?

I just finished my second year of graduate school. Although I live in the City of Five Seasons, I have sorely missed the fifth season for the past four months or so. There was always more homework than time available; even when I was not doing homework, I knew there was so much that needed to be done. But summer is here now, with the stresses of classwork slowly fading away. For me, summer is also my shot at the fifth season.

Here’s a short list of some summer activities I plan on enjoying this summer:

Reading – just because I want to. Perhaps reading outside, or on the porch.

Grilling – the only real way to cook: over the open flame.

Walking around my neighborhood with my wonderful wife.

Sleeping in.

Going down to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings. This is especially enjoyable when E and I stop by the Sykora Bakery for a tasty pastry treat.

Vacationing anywhere.

Joke: What is purple and next to Ireland?

Answer: Grape Britain!

Oh man! Fantastic! I love jokes about grapes. And geography.

*Nesper is a local CR company that specializes in the making of advertising signs. My opinion is based solely on their humor, but I say give ‘em a look see if you’re in the market for some sign fabrication.