continuous worship 2007: day 1 recap

September 18, 2007

The day began in a breakout session on songwriting with Joe Day, band leader of The Northern Conspiracy, one of the many bands here at Mars Hill. Also joining him in the Q & A at the end of the session was Brian Eckelberg of E-Pop and Joel Brown of Red Letter.

Here is the micro-blog for the songwriting breakout:

Writing songs for corporate worship

Must be our best
Songwriting is a craft that is cultivated

Inspiration: Where do we look? - Psalm 24:1-2
-Start with Scripture
-Personal experiences

Culture - view through Scriptures
-Time
-Process

Must be theologically sound
-Jeremiah 28
-Responsibility to write songs that are true
-Must be singable
-Revelation 4

The evening session started with Tim Smith’s new band, Ex Nihilo, rocking it. Truly amazing. The speaker was none other than Mark Driscoll. He spoke on “Worship & Idolatry.” Here is the micro-blog:

Worship is a worldview. Everything is worship.

Why do we worship?
-God created us to worship.

What is worship? Internal [NT] and external [OT]
-Romans 11:36-12:1
-Anything can become a religion
Three things make up worship:
1) Glory – organizing center to your life; what you cherish…
2) Present/dedicate – affiliate with tribes, causes, lifestyle
3) Sacrifice – take time, talent, treasure to certain things over other things; voting…

What is the purpose of worship?
-Receiving instead of giving
-Requires humility

What is good worship?
-God is our object of worship
-There is no moral value to musical styles
-Cultural elitism – self-righteousness over imputed righteousness

What is the opposite of worship?
-Not atheism, but idolatry
-Paganism/idolatry synonymous
-Romans 1 – you worship either the Creator or things created
-Morality/legalism is dealing with fruit sin rather than root sin
-Heaven and hell – we use our functional savior to get us from hell to heaven

How does idolatry enslave us?
-Take a good thing and make it a God thing
-Usually it is what we love, not what we hate
-Pleasure in things created never ultimately results in pleasure but rather pain; pleasure boomerangs into pain

How can we uncover our idols?
-Ask certain questions…

When do we worship?
-Worship is both gathered event and scattered lifestyle – Ephesians 5

How do we worship?
-We need a Mediator – Jesus
-Many churches choose false, functional mediators to get them to God – pastor, worship pastor, worship styles, buildings, emotions, community [participatory redemption]

Should we worship Jesus?
-Soft form of regulative principle – You should worship God the way He says you should worship him
-Hard form of regulative principle – You can only sing the Psalms
-Revelation is a doxological book more than an eschatological book; it ends in worship
-We must continually declare the name of Jesus in our gathered worship
-One of the distinguishing marks of a Christian is that we worship Jesus as God – distinctive from other religions
-Jesus clearly defines our team; everyone believes in God - not everyone believes in Jesus

Posted in Gospel, leadership, music, theology, worship