Rhythm of Worship

Sometimes a Light Surprises

2011-07-14T05:14:00.000-07:00

For the past two summers, as we have traveled back east to see family, we have also tried to share our music wherever we can. This past summer we had one event scheduled. We knew that we were leading worship at Hilton Head Presbyterian Church on July 3 but we did not have any other events planned.

After a week at Hilton Head, SC with my family we drove down to Richmond Hill, GA (just outside of Savannah) to spend a few days with my sister-in-law Carrie and her family. On the way there Allison and I were both commenting on the fact that we wished we had found a place to play for the next Sunday, July 10.

A few hours after we arrived at Carrie's house, I went for a run at a nearby park. As I was pulling in I noticed a banner hung near the entrance to the park which read "New Covenant Presbyterian Church." Immediately I thought, "I bet this is a young PCA church plant." After my run I drove back to the banner and noticed a smaller sign with more information on it. I called the phone number that was displayed and began speaking to the pastor of this new church plant. Within about 20 minutes we had a plan for Allison and I to sing a few prelude songs and a couple of songs during the Offering... the next morning!

The next morning rolled around, Allison and I drove the five minutes to the church, shared our music, enjoyed a great service, and met a number of great new people. The pastor, his wife, and I are all friends on Facebook now, and I'm sure we'll continue to stay in touch.

In additon, the pastor taught a Sunday School class before the worship service and he talked about the life and ministry of John Newton, who wrote "Amazing Grace." As he talked about Newton, however, he also shared about one of Newton's best friends, William Cowper. Together Newton and Cowper wrote hundreds of hymns. Allison and I love the hymns of William Cowper and have written new melodies for three of his lyrical compositions: "O For a Closer Walk with God," "God Moves in a Mysterious Way," and most recently, "Sometimes a Light Surprises." Allison and I sang our rendition of "Sometimes a Light Surprises" during the Offering that morning.

Another cool story took place in Birmingham, AL as we spent a few days visiting Allison's mom and stepdad. We were looking for some place to play while we were here, a midweek service or something. Allison's mom lives right down the road from a PCA church that we have connections with so I decided on Wednesday afternoon to drop by and just see if we could share some songs that evening. I spoke with Steve, the worship leader at the church and a friend of mine of about 7 years. Steve suggested that we share some songs at their worship team rehearsal. I mentioned to him about our latest CD and some of the newer songs we've been writing, including Cowper's hymn "Sometimes a Light Surprises."

Soon after I left, Steve met with his pastor who is currently preaching through the book of Habakkuk and mentioned to Steve that their was a hymn by William Cowper that he would love to sing on Sunday that would tie in well with his sermon text. Steve responded by saying, "Is it 'Sometimes a Light Surprises' ?" Steve had never heard of the hymn until about until his earlier conversation with me!

We shared a number of our songs at the worship team rehearsal later that night, and we had the privilege of teaching the team "Sometimes a Light Surprises" and then listening to them play it! It was a really special moment. They will be singing it during the Offering this Sunday.

I love God's providential surprises.

*The photograph at the top is from our vacation. It is picture of sea oats on a day trip to Daufuskie Island, SC.

Bus to Baton Rouge

2011-06-27T19:09:00.000-07:00

I referenced this song this past Sunday. It is a beautiful picture of the fond and the painful memories of home. Lucinda is a brilliant songwriter. Her album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road won a Grammy Award in 1998.

Bus to Baton Rouge
Words and Music by Lucinda Williams, 2001

I had to go back to that house one more time
To see if the camellias were in bloom
For so many reasons its been on my mind
The house on Belmont Avenue
Built up on cinderblocks off the ground
What with the rain and the soft swampy land
By the sweet honeysuckle that grew all around
Were switches when we were bad

I took a bus to Baton Rouge
I took a bus to Baton Rouge

All the front rooms were kept closed off
I never liked to go in there much
Sometimes the doors they'd be locked 'cause
There were precious things that I couldn't touch
The company couch covered in plastic
Little books about being saved
The dining room table nobody ate at
The piano nobody played

I took a bus to Baton Rouge
I took a bus to Baton Rouge

There was this beautiful lamp I always loved
A seashore was painted on the shade
It would turn around when you switched on the bulb
And gently rock the waves
The driveway was covered with tiny white seashells
A fig tree stood in the backyard
There are other things I remember as well
But to tell them would just be too hard
Ghosts in the wind that blow through my life
Follow me wherever I go
I'll never be free from these chains inside
Hidden deep down in my soul

I took a bus to Baton Rouge
I took a bus to Baton Rouge

Right Hand of the Father: Rediscovering the Ascended Life of Jesus (Introduction)

2011-06-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

One could argue that twenty-eight percent of the New Testament has the ascension of Christ as its central event and theological emphasis, yet it remains the most silent doctrine in modern evangelicalism. Two questions readily come to mind: “Why?” and “So What?” I will not spend too much time unpacking the former question; but with a pastoral heart, a theological mind, and an artistic fervor I will spend the rest of this book answering the latter.

For years I only thought of Jesus in either past or future-tense terms. What I mean is my concept of Jesus was either as a crucified Savior who died on a cross to pay for my sins or as a white-robed horse rider coming back one day to take his children home. The doctrine of the atonement is vital to our faith and my understanding of it matured over the years. Likewise, my concept of Jesus’ return gained greater clarity through seminary training and exposure to other views of “end times.”

However, I still lacked one very important perspective of Jesus: his present ministry at the right hand of the Father. In all of my years as a Christian I don’t think I ever heard a sermon, a lecture, a Bible study, or a song on the doctrine and implications of the ascension of Christ. I had become well versed in Jesus' birth, his earthly life, his death, resurrection, and return; however, his ascended life was mostly a vague concept.

I’m guessing that, for most people, talking about what Jesus has done and will do would be easier than describing where he is and what he is doing right now. That is why I am writing this book. As I have pondered, read, prayed, written, and sung about the ascended life of Jesus over the past six years, I have come to see the richness, the irony, and the neglect of this important Christian doctrine and reality. I have come across narratives, psalms, exhortations, hymn fragments, early creedal statements, titles, and activities that I had never seen or understood in quite the same way. I have read commentaries on various passages that reveal a bias for the cross and the resurrection even though a clear reading and simple exegesis would reveal the ascension as the writer’s theological orientation.

I have noticed how the church still recognizes and pours much time and energy into the birth and resurrection of Christ each year during Christmas and Easter without any intentional planning or celebration for Ascension Sunday or Pentecost Sunday. My own personal library would reveal numerous books and chapters on the Christian life, the cross and the resurrection to the relative neglect of the doctrine of the ascension.

When one starts to put all of this together it’s no wonder why the present, ascended life of Jesus is such a vague, if not, foreign concept in the average Christian’s mind; yet, the irony is that it was central to both the New Testament authors and to the early church.

One place we see this is in the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the young Timothy. He is writing to encourage Timothy with wisdom and insight about a life of ministry. Midway through his correspondence he makes this statement: “Without question, this is the mystery of our faith.” And then he quotes what scholars believe to be an early hymn fragment; in other words, part of a song that the early church likely sung:

Christ was revealed in a human body
and vindicated by the Spirit.
He was seen by angels
and announced to the nations.
He was believed in throughout the world
and taken to heaven in glory. (I Timothy 3:16)

There is a poetic beauty and symmetry and a theological richness to this early hymn fragment. The series of couplets describe Christ’s incarnation; his revelation to this world; the presence of unseen realities; and, interestingly, his ascension to heaven. What is not described here is the cross, the resurrection, or the return of Christ. These are all vital to the faith, but in this early lyrical and creedal statement the life of Christ is summed up in his birth and his ascension.

How did we lose the doctrine of the ascension in the modern evangelical church? How did something so fundamental to our faith become obscured and neglected? I do not have all of the answers to those questions nor will I try to answer them. What I am completely passionate about, however, is the church rediscovering this neglected, yet fundamental doctrine of our faith. I long for pastors, professors, worship leaders, artists, and small group leaders to really take hold of expressing and imparting the ascended life of Jesus in their local churches, seminaries, and communities.

When I am leading worship or a small group study, sometimes I will mention that we should “learn to read the Bible in 3D.” What I mean by that statement is that I long for a person to use his or her imagination when reading Scripture. I long for a person to place oneself within the narrative and try as best as one can to understand the cultural and historical context.

I will try to do this with the hymn fragment from I Timothy 3:16 that I shared above. Ask yourself:

- Why did Paul choose to insert part of this song that the early church was singing?
- Did Paul start humming this song while he was writing his letter to Timothy?
- Had he gathered in a home church that day where that song was part of the worship?
- Who wrote the song in the first place and what was the inspiration for it?

With those questions in mind, imagine this scenario. Some scholars believe that this hymn fragment came from the “School of Stephen,” a body of teaching from Stephen one of the first Christian deacons and leaders, “a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5), and the first Christian martyr. Now imagine some young songwriter sitting under this teaching. Maybe this individual had gathered in a home church on a Sunday to worship, heard someone teaching on the life of Christ, and went home to pen the lyrics to a new song.

Now imagine the Apostle Paul attending a home church somewhere (e.g., in Antioch, Ephesus or Philippi) and singing this new song that had begun to circulate among the early followers. Paul learns it and begins to sing it as part of his own personal worship and devotion. Then, one day, he decides to write a letter to a young leader in the church by the name of Timothy. About midway through his letter he decides to incorporate part of the lyrics to this song that we now have a record of and that is part of the inspired canon of Scripture.

Why do I share all of this? I do so partly to demonstrate how to approach the reading of Scripture with an informed imagination and creativity; however, I do so mainly to elucidate the following points about the role of art:

- Art helps open our eyes to the beauty and paradox of the Gospel.
- Art informs our theology; theology informs our art.
- Art becomes part of the language of our community.

No doubt, when sung, this early hymn fragment from I Timothy 3:16 helped stir the hearts and the minds of the early followers. Interestingly, in a relatively didactic correspondence to Timothy, the Apostle Paul chooses to incorporate a song to bring closure to his pastoral, ecclesial, and theological train of thought. And finally, these ancient lyrics had clearly become part of the affirmation of faith of the early church. In other words, in this early church community these lyrics had become part of the language for describing the “mystery of our faith.”

For this book I have decided to incorporate my own song lyrics for these same reasons. In my passion for helping believers today gain an “Ascended Christ” consciousness, I know that putting memorable words and melodies on people’s lips will only help my endeavor. Music is powerful. If people not only read the pages in this book, but begin to incorporate these songs into both personal and corporate worship, then the ascended life of Christ will slowly start to become part of the language of a given community of believers.

Including these songs is not a marketing ploy; it is actually the expression of a value I share deeply with my Anglican brothers and sisters: lex orandi, lex credendi – the law of prayer is the law of belief.

In other words worship, liturgy, lyrics, prayer, doctrine and belief are all closely connected. Our experience of worship is part of what forms and informs our faith and belief; thus, incorporating songs to be sung corporately in worship is a vital and intentional part of the organization and vision of this book. Hopefully, singing songs about the ascended life of Jesus will aid in the clarity and edification of both head and heart.

We desperately need to tell a larger story in modern evangelicalism, one that includes the present as well as the past and future realities of our faith. It is my hope and prayer that this book would be a step in that direction.

Faulkner and Faith

2011-05-16T20:15:00.001-07:00

I have long loved this excerpt from Faulkner's Light in August. It is a description of the Reverend Gail Hightower's (character in Light in August) thoughts on the Sunday evening prayer meeting. When I first read it several years ago it captured my own boyhood experience of the Sunday night service.

I don't want to add much reflection. I just want to share this excellent piece of writing...

"Sunday evening prayer meeting. It has seemed to him always that at that hour man approaches nearest of all to God, nearer than at any other hour of all the seven days. Then alone, of all church gatherings, is there something of that peace which is the promise and the end of the Church. The mind and the heart purged then, if it is ever to be; the week and its whatever disasters finished and summed and expiated by the stern and formal fury of the morning service; the next week and its whatever disasters not yet born, the heart quiet now for a little while beneath the cool soft blowing of faith and hope."

Straight from My Journal 13 Years Ago to the Day

2011-02-23T09:50:00.000-08:00

I was thinking this morning that I was right upon 13 years of moving to Ocala, FL for my first full-time position as Director of Worship & Outreach at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church. For those of you who know or remember, this move followed two months of occupational therapy in Aiken, SC after I severed nerves, tendons, and an artery in the palm of my right hand.

This journal entry (which I've transcribed without any editing) marks 13 years of God's faithfulness. I realize it may feel a bit personal, but for a while after the accident I didn't even know if I would be able to play the guitar again. So I rejoice when I remember making that drive down to Florida to take that position, and I am so grateful that I have been able to lead worship for over a decade now. I hope this encourages you to recount how God has been faithful in your own life.

Monday, February 23, 1998
Ocala, FL / First Entry / 3:30am

Once again, I am sitting in my rust-colored chair, but now I am in Ocala, FL! Wow, it really doesn't seem that long ago when I was sitting in this very chair in Birmingham, AL at Ski Lodge Apartments, journaling about beginning Graduate school. And now, here I am, almost 2.5 years later and I am in Ocala, FL about to start a new career - a new direction - as the Director of Worship and Outreach at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church. I drove today - really yesterday - from Birmingham. I got to the house at about 9:45pm Sunday night. The house is awesome! I can't believe it. There's so much space! I immediately unpacked the car and was so wired that I literally just now stopped to journal and go to bed! I've been going at it for about 5 hours! I think it's time to crash. Well, this was my first entry in my new home in Florida. May the Lord bless my time here and may my music ministry bear much fruit with his direction and power.

13 Things I've Learned in 13 Years of Full-Time Worship Ministry

2011-02-22T08:37:00.000-08:00

I recently shared this list with an online group of worship leaders from all over the country...

For what it's worth here are some things I've learned as a full-time worship leader in a local church (not a para-church ministry or as hired worship leader from time to time). I literally wrote this in about 5 minutes... right off the top of my head... just felt like it's stuff we should talk about.

1. You have 3 basic hats to wear: (a) to some degree you need to be able to think like a theologian, (b) labor as an artist, and (c) shepherd like a pastor.

2. If possible, it's best to have a mid-week rehearsal (something other than Sunday morning!) where you separate the band and the vocalists.

3. Invest in your worship team members... use part of your rehearsal to ask "how things are going," and/or to talk about various worship topics. Take your team to lunch on occasion... sometimes the whole band and sometimes a few people that you really feel like you need to connect with... because you pick up that they have some real needs, etc. You might be the one person on staff who understands the unique struggles of artist/musician types: insecurity, some need of approval of talents, comparing oneself with others, etc. TALK about that stuff! And your family issues... a LOT of artists have family issues!

4. Be you. Don't try to be someone you're not... if you grew up listening to hard rock and love to play the electric guitar, do it! If you love jazz, go for it... if you're a choral director, celebrate that. Don't ever think that there is ONE type of "legitimate" worship leader.

5. If you're married, your spouse is your GREATEST confidant and partner... listen to him or her... be in agreement with him or her before you make any BIG decisions.

6. People LOVE it and usually respond very positively when you are vulnerable... be a little more vulnerable than feels comfortable... that's usually when you really strike a chord.

7. Invest in emerging musicians/artists. Since about 2006 I've invested in one high school student a year. Someone who: (a) has a demomstrated level of skill, (b) a real heart and passion for worship & music, (c) shows a trajectory for continuing on in music.

8. It's totally fine for women to lead worship.

9. Create good/regular communication patterns with your pastors(s) and staff. Have mentors... have at least one person in your life that you could tell anything! Spiritual isolationism is a recipe for disaster. Lead or be a part of a small group.

10. Take a day off. If you don't you will surely burn out.

11. Money will be an issue. You will, most likely, not make a lot and will have to learn to tithe by faith AND pay bills, etc.

12. Always be learning.

13. Balance the creative, the technical, and the relational... kind of like #1 - but it's really important.

From Christmas to Epiphany

2011-01-09T18:21:00.000-08:00

We introduced this new song this past weekend at Valley Springs Church. I thought it would be appropriate as a part of the liturgy for the First Sunday after Epiphany which has historically been known as "Baptism of the Lord" Sunday. Though I didn't grow up celebrating the season of Epiphany, I have found it to be a rich and natural extension of the incarnation, allowing the meaning of Christmas to linger for many more weeks (not ending abruptly on December 26!).

The feast of the Epiphany is celebrated in the western church on January 6, marking the end of the twelve days of the Christmas season. Epiphany is the third and final feast day of the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany cycle of the church year.

Epiphany is a Greek word meaning "manifestation, showing forth, revelation." This feast proclaims our faith that in Jesus, God is revealed to all people - not just to an inner circle or a chosen few, but to all people, in all places, and throughout all time. The Epiphany and the weeks following are a time in which we reflect on several "manifestations" of Jesus, as he was recognized as the Messiah (or Christ) by many different people.

Through Scripture readings on the Sundays after Epiphany we hear about Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist (Luke 3:21-22) and the visit of the magi, or wise men, who followed the star to Bethlehem at Jesus' birth (Matthew 2:1-12). We share the amazement of the guests at the wedding party at Cana, as Jesus performs his first miracle by turning water into fine wine (John 2:1-11). And we see Jesus' glory shown to three of his disciples on the mountain, as he is transfigured before them in a blaze of light (Mark 9:2-8).

I hope this encourages you to consider celebrating the Epiphany season more intentionally. If you are a worship leader or involved in worship planning or if you simply want to engage more fully, I'm including some of the texts we used in our worship this past weekend for the First Sunday after Epiphany: "Baptism of the Lord."

CALL TO WORSHIP / Luke 3:21-22 (NLT)
One day when the crowds were being baptized, Jesus himself was baptized. As he was praying, the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit, in bodily form, descended on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.”

RENEWING OUR BAPTISM / Directory for Worship (Presbyterian Church in America)
We acknowledge ourselves to be sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving his displeasure, and without hope save in his sovereign mercy.

We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God,
and Savior of sinners, and we receive and rest upon Him
alone for salvation as he is offered in the Gospel.

We resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon
the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we will endeavor to live as
becomes the followers of Christ.

We promise to support the church in its worship and
work to the best of our ability.

We submit ourselves to the government and discipline
of the church, and promise to study its purity and peace.

PRAYER / Revised Common Lectionary Prayers, 2002
God, your voice moves over the waters.
Immerse us in your grace,
mark us with your image,
and raise us to live out our baptism,
empowered by the Holy Spirit
and the example of Christ our Lord,
in whose name we pray. Amen.

SONG OF RESPONSE
Breath of God, Breathe / Words and Music by Paxson Jeancake, 2010

Holy in me, all that I need; righteousness, divine.
God now unseen, living in me; you raise the dead to life.

Breath of God, breathe; I want to receive everything, all you say you are.
Counselor, teach me; Comforter, reach me; Spirit of Jesus, fill my heart.
Breath of God, breathe; Breath of God, breathe.

I know all is in vain when I try to maintain a strength that's not my own.
Come and fill me again with your Spirit within; remind me I am yours.
Remind me I am yours.

Highlights from 2010

2011-01-01T10:53:00.000-08:00

It's been a great year! Allison and I count it a joy and a privilege to write and share music together. In just six months we've sold around 400 books and CDs! That's with VERY limited touring! Here are some highlights from 2010:

January - after reading a blog post I begin to write "Wide Awake"; consider recording a new collection of songs

February - decide on River City Recording here in Roseville; begin laying down scratch tracks and rhythm tracks for our new project

March, April, May - in the studio tracking guitars, keys, and vocals; mixing and mastering is finished; photo sessions

June - audio master, artwork, and basic design sent off to Discmakers for duplication; Wide Awake is released

July - play a house concert in Birmingham, AL; play at Hilton Head Presbyterian and New Covenant Presbyterian in South Carolina; connected with a marketing agent who really liked our music and encouraged us to share "Wide Awake" with a broader market

August - house concert in Paradise, CA

September - outdoor concert at Jericho Coffee

October - share our music in Cancun, Mexico leading worship for over 300 missionaries in Latin America; connect with a pastor who wants to translate "Right Hand of the Father" into Spanish

November - play at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs, CO

December - busy with Advent & Christmas services!

Allison and I love the hymns of William Cowper and have written new melodies for two of his songs on previous projects ("O For a Closer Walk with God" on The Rhythm of Worship; "God Moves in a Mysterious Way" on Ascension). In the Spring we wrote a new melody for Cowper's hymn "Sometimes a Light Surprises." We considered including it on Wide Awake, but for various reasons we decided to save it for our fourth project. Our congregation has embraced it, and it has become a regular part of our repetoire at Valley Springs.

We have also written a new song on the Holy Spirit, and we have several lyric ideas that are in seed form right now. We look forward to another fruitful year of writing and sharing our music. I would also love to write a book on the doctrine and implications of Christ's ascension - an often overlooked and neglected festival in the church year. We'll see! Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we continue to seek the Lord's leading in our lives. God is good.

Happy New Year!

Paxson & Allison

The Triumph of Irrationality

2010-12-10T09:17:00.000-08:00

Last week I saw the film The Next Three Days with Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks. Russell Crowe plays the part of a husband whose wife is sentenced to life in prison. The film explores the measures one will pursue and the risks one will take for love. In one poignanat scene Russell Crowe's character (a professor in a community college) is discussing the book Don Quixote with his students. Probing the book's thesis Crowe's character asks, "What is this book about? Could it be that rational thought destroys the soul? Could it be about the triumph of irrationality?"

This scene comes at a point in the film when Crowe's character realizes that his only option is to break his wife out of jail. I won't say anymore... if you plan to see the movie I don't want to give anything else away!

I loved this movie though. I went for a run afterwards and continued to think about the story and that line in particular, "the triumph of irrationality." Isn't that in fact what we celebrate during this season? Does it seem rational that a virgin would give birth to the Son of God? Does it seem rational that God would clothe himself in human flesh and walk among us? Would human wisdom and rationality lead us to believe that God would die on a cross and then rise three days later? This is the very dilemma that the apostle Paul addresses in his letter to the Corinthians. He writes:

"The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. As the Scriptures say, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.'" (I Corinthians 1:18-19, NLT)

The incarnation does not seem rational and yet it is one of the core tenets of our faith. I shared with our church this past Sunday that the saddest thing for me would be to look back one day and say, "Wow, I lived a safe, rational life." By God's grace I want to lead a risky life of faith, going places and doing things that others, at times, may think is "irrational." Isn't this the kind of life we're called to lead?

When Allison and I decided to pack up and move to California (before we had even sold our home in Atlanta!) our family back east had some concerns. All we could say was, "This is what exercising faith looks like for us right now in this moment."

Amidst all the commercialism I pray that this Christmas season you might consider the irrationality of the incarnation. For, as Paul acknowledges, "This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God's weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength." (I Corinthians 1:25, NLT)

This is the mystery, the beauty, and the paradox of our faith. We serve a God who loves to do the unexpected. Where is God calling you this season? What steps of faith might God be moving you towards?

Celebrating the Festivals, Broadening the Story

2010-10-22T03:40:00.000-07:00

Allison and I were recently in Cancun, Mexico leading worship for over 300 missionaries to Latin America. We were a part of an area retreat sponsored by Mission to the World (MTW) and held every four years to renew and refresh the missionaries. Each day we had a morning and an evening session where we would worship and hear a message. During one of the morning sessions the speaker commented:

Ask most church-goers in North America, "Why did Jesus come to earth?" What will everybody say? "Jesus came to earth to die on the cross to save us from our sins so that we could go to heaven."

That answer is not wrong, it's just not complete and it's mostly stuck in the past (what Jesus did) without much of an understanding of the present (what Jesus is doing right now). It's part of the Story, but it's not the whole Story.

Jesus came to earth to die on the cross (to atone for our sin), to rise from the dead (as the Firstfruits of the Resurrection), to ascend to heaven (completing his mission on earth), to reign at the Father's right hand (instituting his present, cosmic Lordship and intercession), and to send the Holy Spirit (our Advocate and power for mission and ministry here on earth).

So, the question that I keep asking myself is, "Why are most Christians stuck in the past when it comes to understanding Jesus' mission?"

I spoke to the pastor that made the comment above. I told him, "You know, we're not helping people when it comes to a fuller understanding of Jesus' mission." What I meant was, as church leaders and worship planners, are we at least celebrating the festival of the Ascension on an annual basis? Do we put as much energy into celebrating the Ascension as we do for Christmas and Easter? How many sermons are preached on the Ascension? How many worship leaders are selecting songs about the Ascension in their worship sets? How many songwriters are crafting original songs about the Ascension?

If we want our people's answer to the question, "Why did Jesus come to earth?" to be broader, we need to at least demonstrate and model in worship that there is more to the Gospel Story than just the cross and the resurrection. The opportunities are there, but are we as church leaders providing our people with language that enlarges their understanding of the Story?

What if the Jews decided one day that they would no longer celebrate the annual Feast of the Passover? What do you think would happen over decades and centuries of neglect? More than likely they would lose the language and memory of the story of the Exodus. That is not too far removed from what has happened in North America. At least in most evangelical churches we have lost the festival and we've lost part of the Story.

So, while we were in Cancun I challenged those 300 missionaries, in addition to Christmas and Easter, to at least begin celebrating the the Ascension and Pentecost each year. And then see what happens.

Song Stories: Beauty from Ashes

2010-10-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

This is the final post in a series entitled, "Song Stories." For more information about our music and our ministry please visit our website http://www.rhythmofworship.com/ or find us on Facebook (Paxson and Allison).

I had just shared a new song with Allison, which she liked, so I decided to share the chorus of another one. I started singing, "You bring beauty from ashes, turn mourning to gladness..." When I finished she said, "Well, that's interesting because I've been working on a song with a similar idea." She started singing, "Close to the heart of my Jesus..." I really loved her lyric and melody and instantly knew we were on to something. We basically felt like we had a verse and chorus going, but something was missing.

Over the next couple of days Allison wrote the pre-chorus sections, "To the weak and the lonely..." She wanted to be pretty straightforward and raw with these lyrics - no beating around the bush or writing esoterically. She just wanted to put it out there, and I think she wrote some great lines.

We have both become much more aware and involved with issues surrounding justice and mercy since we've been in California. On a number of Monday evenings throughout the year our church feeds and houses around 70 homeless people in our Worship Room and Chapel. Every few months Allison and I sing and share with the guests. We bring our two girls, Laura Camille and Mallory with us so that they, too, will develop an awareness of and heart for such people. We have also tried to raise awareness about human trafficking and are currently seeking ways to fight this injustice as a church.

Beauty from Ashes
Paxson and Allison Jeancake

Close to the heart of my Jesus, close to the heart of my God

Close to the Spirit who leads us, close to the ones that he loves

To the widow and children, the needy and hungry
The orphan who's left on the street

You bring beauty from ashes, turn mourning to gladness
You are the God that we praise
Oh, Lord how we need you, we want to see you
Bring beauty from ashes today

To the weak and the lonely, the one without money
The slave to the sin of this world
To the poor and the sorrowed, the helpless and thirsty
The prisoner who knows he is free

One of the First Christian Hymns

2010-09-13T08:46:00.001-07:00

Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith:

Christ was revealed in a human body
and vindicated by the Spirit.

He was seen by angels
and announced to the nations.

He was believed in throughout the world
and taken to heaven in glory.

- I Timothy 3:16

As I was planning worship last week, I decided to choose a portion of Paul's letter to the young Timothy as an affirmation of our faith. The text (I Timothy 3:16) is thought to be an early hymn fragment. It is a beautiful, poetic articulation of the "mystery of our faith." From a literary point of view it consists of 3 antithetical couplets, affirming the reality of two spheres: heaven and earth. The two spheres are the setting for the actions which follow in the hymn. Each action on the earthly plane is matched by a corresponding event in the celestial realm. According to Ralph Martin, "the meaning seems to be that, by this divine epiphany of the Incarnate, the two spheres of existence are brought together."

It is interesting to note what the early hymn writer did and did not include. You find no mention of the Cross or the Resurrection, though the early church would certainly affirm both as vital to the faith. What you do find, however, is an explicit affirmation of the Incarnation and the Ascension. According to Martin, "The effect of His coming and His exaltation is seen in the acknowledgment of His lordship upon earth as the gospel is preached and men believe; and in the celestial sphere His triumph is attested by the homage of the spirit-powers and His supreme place in the heavenly court 'in glory.'"

For the past five years or so I have studied, read, and articulated my own thoughts regarding the doctrine of the Ascension. Though it is a highly neglected doctrine in the modern evangelical church in our current day and age, I find it interesting that it was a vital part of the worship and hymnody of the primitve church.

We do not know who wrote this hymn. According to Martin, it is "likely to be the product of some Hellenistic Jewish-Christian community, of which the school of Stephen is the most illustrious example in the pre-Pauline period." I know that is a mouthful of terms! Basically what Martin is describing is an early Greek-speaking Christian community, before the writings and evangelistic journeys of Paul, shaped around the teaching of Stephen, the first Christian martyr (Acts 7).

Imagine an early house church worshiping on the Lord's Day, Sunday, the day of the week on which Christ arose. They would not have a New Testament Bible in their hand so they would be relying on the teachings of the early Apostles and leaders such as Stephen. They devoted themselves to prayer, to the breaking of bread, and to fellowship (as Acts 2:42 recounts). And they would be articulating this new faith in Christ (Christology) in song and in creed. All of this "pre-Pauline" worship and development of the faith would be somewhere between 30AD and 50AD, the period when this early hymn would have likely been written. So by the time Paul is writing his letter to Timothy around 60AD, the primitive church would have been singing this as a part of their common worship. Having Paul include this hymn fragment in his letter is basically like him putting his "stamp of approval" on its theological content.

The reason I find all of this fascinating is because these early hymns are a like a window into the worship and songwriting of the church as it is first developing; and, they shed light on what the early church deemed as fundamental to the faith. As a worship leader and songwriter, I want to listen to and be formed by both of these observations.

The Rhythm of Worship

2010-08-18T03:30:00.000-07:00

I thought I would go back and write about the title track of our first CD, The Rhythm of Worship. I think the inspiration for this song began while I was taking a course in seminary that John Frame was teaching called, "Pastoral and Social Ethics." As a part of that course we studied the Ten Commandments, as they pertain to and inform ethical decisions.

I remember studying the Fourth Commandment, in particular, and Dr. Frame sharing his belief that the rhythm of the Sabbath (one day of rest in seven) was a creation ordinance. In other words, the Sabbath didn't begin with the law of Moses, nor was it meant to be an observance for one nation; it is a part of the very fabric of creation itself. It is something innate to humanity. We are created with a Sabbath rhythm - a day in seven for rest, for worship.

I loved the primal quality of that belief. It took me to another place, to another innate, somewhat primal feeling I have when I visit the Atlantic coast - a place that has been a constant in my life. Standing before the seemingly eternal rhythm of the tides, the vast beauty and mystery of the ocean, the wind and the melodious sound of seagulls overhead - I am awakened to something deep within me. Worship does the same thing. Singing corporately with the body of Christ awakens something innate. Something true. Something transcendent.

I've been reading Pat Conroy's latest novel, South of Broad. He is by far my favorite writer because his words also awaken something in me and remind me of our sense of place, our sense of home and what we know. His books are soaked with a love of the South Carolina lowcountry. In the Prologue to South of Broad he beautifully describes his connection with the city of Charleston. He writes...

"My soul is peninsula-shaped and sun-hardened and river-swollen. The high tides of the city flood my consciousness each day, subject to the whims and harmonies of full moons rising out of the Atlantic. I grow calm when I see the ranks of palmetto trees pulling guard duty on the banks of Colonial Lake or hear the bells of St. Michael's calling cadence in the cicada-filled trees along Meeting Street. Deep in my bones, I knew early that I was one of those incorrigible creatures known as Charlestonians."

Elsewhere, speaking of the Ashley River, he writes...

"A freshwater river let mankind drink and be refreshed, but a saltwater river let it return to first things, to moonstruck tides, the rush of spawning fish, the love of language felt in the rhythm of the wasp-waisted swells..."

I don't know where Pat is, spiritually, but I resonate with him when it comes to his love of words, language and the Carolina coast.

In the song The Rhythm of Worship I was trying to capture the rhythmic, transcendent quality of worship and the tides. Interesingly, this was the last song I wrote for this project so it came in pretty late in the game as far as the recording process. We had actually finished all the drum tracks and didn't want to spend the time and money adding drums to this song. It turns out, however, that from a production point of view, it was totally the right call. I like the more primitive sound of the udu and the djembe. They seem to fit the whole vibe and expression of the song more than an acoustic drum kit would have.

This song reminds me that we worship a lavish Creator who has surrounded us with the beauty of all that he has made. And each of us has a deep, innate desire to call upon, cry out to, and worship this amazing God.

The Rhythm of Worship
Paxson Jeancake

Standing before this ocean, this sea of so much more
I can feel the rhythm of what I was made for
Longing for this motion, and all I want to do
Is yield to this rhythm and fall into You

Lord I'm resting and responding, I'm becoming like You

I'm expressing and immersing my life into You
In the rhythm of worship, in the rhythm of worship
In the rhythm of worshiping You

As I yield to these waters, I drift away from this shore
As the waves crash around me and cleanse me once more
I can feel the sun surround me and the wind upon my face
The current underneath me, the rhythm of your ways

Song Stories: Holy Things

2010-08-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

These most recent posts will be song stories from our new CD, "Wide Awake." For more information about our music and our ministry please visit our website http://www.rhythmofworship.com/ or find us on Facebook (Paxson and Allison).

This was the last song I wrote before moving to California. Our church in Atlanta really embraced it and my pastor commented, the last time we led worship for that congregation, that it was his favorite song of ours. It is a great song to sing during the sacrament of The Lord's Supper. I have always been please with how the "whole is greater than the sum of the parts" with regard to this song. The lyrics, the melody, and the harmonization all seem to work well together in conveying the sense of mystery that characterizes this simple song.

I love all of the dynamics of corporate worship: hearing the Scriptures taught, singing together, sharing a meal, praying for our local body and for the world. These are simple yet profound things that we do together; things the church has participated in together since the beginning (see Acts 2:42). However, when these simple acts are done in the name of Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit, they take on a holy character. As we faithfully participate in these acts in a rhythm that God set up from the beginning (one day in seven), we are shaped and formed by them. Corporate worship relocates our often dislocated lives. I believe it was Charles Spurgeon who said that worship "restores our sanity."

It is so easy for us to become disoriented as we go through our week. Corporate worship feeds us and reminds us of God's purposes and Kingdom values. The songs, the creeds, the prayers, the meal, the words - all "holy things" which build us up and spur us on, week after week.

I used much of the language from the book of Hebrews for this song. The language of Hebrews 12 reminds us of the profound mystery that we are not worshiping alone, but somehow when we meet together, we join the worship of heaven itself. What a profound mystery. What an amazing truth.

Holy Things
Paxson Jeancake

We come again to the throne of grace

To heaven's courts, to holy praise

And by the blood we now draw near
With holy things, holy fear

With holy hands lifted high, holy prayers that arise
Holy meal that we share, holy words we declare
Holy people redeemed, holy things, holy things

Holy God, consuming fire
Lamb of God, our one desire
Son of Man, Ancient of Days
We offer you the sacrifice of praise

Song Stories: God Is For Us

2010-08-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

These most recent posts will be song stories from our new CD, "Wide Awake." For more information about our music and our ministry please visit our website: http://www.rhythmofworship.com/

For the first six months that we lived in California we stayed in a garage apartment at the home of a wonderful family in our church. We moved into our home in February of 2009. I'll never forget that day. On the one hand I was so excited to be moving into our new home; on the other hand, I knew how long that day was going to be and how much work was before us! We had stored virtually everything we owned in Atlanta for six months...and now it was ALL showing up on a truck that morning to be unloaded and unpacked!

Well, at the end of the day, after my last trip back and forth from our house and the church, I thought to myself, "This wasn't so bad; this wasn't too overwhelming." Immediately, I felt the Lord say, "I'm for you." It's not every day that I hear the Lord speak something into my heart like that, but when he does it is powerful.

I think I wrestle with believing that the Lord really loves me as much as he says he does in his Word. That night, coming home from the church, he was encouraging me with the truth from Romans 8:31, "If God is for us who can ever be against us?" I knew that experience would turn into a song one day.

God Is For Us
Paxson and Allison Jeancake

When we're gripped by doubt and fear
And the only voice we hear is guilt and shame, accusation, lies
When we feel all alone, like there's no where to turn
When temptation is knocking on our door

That's when we call your name, let your love cast out our shame
Know that voice of our Savior rising near

God is for us, God is for us
There's no need to fear, he knows us each by name
God is for us, smiling over us
There's no need to fear, he knows us each by name

When our enemy draws near and our faith disappears
When we feel defeated, overwhelmed by life

Song Stories: Heaven's What We're Made For

2010-07-19T08:03:00.000-07:00

These most recent posts will be song stories from our new CD, "Wide Awake" released in June. For more information about our music and our ministry please visit our website: http://www.rhythmofworship.com/

This is another song that emerged from reflecting on the implications of Christ's ascension and taking seriously Jesus' words in John 14 - that he is in a real place called heaven and that he is somehow preparing that place for us. I think the chorus for this may have first come to me in Atlanta (during a staff meeting of all places!). It didn't get fleshed out however until we moved to California. The verse lyrics evolved a good bit over time. Spurred on by Randy Alcorn, N.T. Wright, and Nathan Bierma (who have all written excellent books on this topic), I wanted to describe heaven in more physical terms than we tend to think.

When we really consider the doctrine of the ascension, we are challenged to wrestle with the matter of unseen spiritual realities. Most of my adult life has been a journey of rediscovery, cycling over and over again through the pattern of being faced with uncertainty, exercising faith, and then seeing God's resolution. Though it requires us to take risks, it makes for an exhilarating and rewarding life. When I was 25, by faith, I left behind a career path in molecular biology to pursue a calling to full-time worship ministry. At 36, by faith, I moved my family across the United States, following a steady, decade-long pull to northern California.

Faith calles us not to a lifestyle of safety and comfort, but to one of risk and movement. We are, in fact, pilgrims here on earth. This present earth is not our true home. We are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth. Having this perspective on life is what helps fuel our faith. We can hold loosely to the things of this world as we anticipate a glorious future and seek to experience that future right now. When we hold loosely to our things, when we live light and streamlined, we can more readily say yes to the call of God.

Heaven's What We're Made For
Paxson Jeancake

One day we'll walk the streets of heaven

The place prepared for us, we'll see
Beauty we've been waiting for will find us

Greater things, by faith, we now believe

Heaven's what we're made for, heaven's what we're made for

A hope in what we do not see, a beautiful reality.

Waiting for the streets of gold, all your wonders to behold
Longing now for something more,

'Cause heaven's what we're made for

Heaven's what we're made for

One day this world will pass before us

One day all things will be made new
All our tears, wiped away forever

Free from sorrow, we will worship you

Song Stories: Right Hand of the Father

2010-06-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting a new song story each day leading up to the release of our new CD "Wide Awake." For more information about our music or our ministry please visit our website: http://www.rhythmofworship.com/

I believe the basic verse lyric and melody for this song started in my office at home; however, the chorus came to me one day while running at Miner's Ravine - a beautiful trail in Roseville for running, biking, and walking. I remember coming down a particular hill and rounding a corner to head towards the trail terminus at Sierra College Boulevard as the melody and lyric for the chorus hit me, "Open up the heavens let us see..." I was working on that in my head the whole second half of the run!

This song was readily embraced by our congregation and is right up there with "Wide Awake" as one of my favorites on this project. One thing I love about this song is the reference to Stephen, the first Christian martyr whose story is recorded in Acts 7. I remember asking Allison if this reference worked. I wasn't sure if it was too specific...she loved it and we both agreed to keep it. I'm so glad we did. It lends itself to a great lyrical teaching moment during worship - in much the same way that certain obscure or "odd" sounding hymn lyrics become powerful when their meaning is revealed.

But this lyric took on even more significance during the month of March at our church. I had chosen this song as a part of our worship one weekend not knowing that a young adult would lose his life during a tragic skiing accident...his name was Stephen. We were singing it at our Saturday night service and as we were finishing it Allison pointed to the line "like Stephen to behold you with our eyes." It didn't hit either of us until that moment. On Sunday morning, after we sang it, I told the congregation that this line was originally referencing the first Christian martyr, but that now it has taken on added meaning, referencing one of our own sons in Christ who is truly beholding the Lord with his own eyes. I think singing this song that weekend was cathartic for our congregation. The family wanted Allison and I to sing this song at Stephen's memorial service.

Right Hand of the Father
Paxson Jeancake

At the right hand of the Father sits the risen, ascended Son

In returning he is bearing scars of grace and scars of love

Open up the heavens, let us see just a glimpse of holy majesty
Like Stephen, to behold you with our eyes
Risen one, ascended Lord on high

At the right hand of the Father sits the holy Lamb of God
Death defeated, he interceded; pleads for us now from his throne

At the right hand of the Father, standing now to welcome home
Sons and daughters, every martyr not ashamed to be called his own

Song Stories: Wide Awake

2010-06-08T16:55:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting a new song story every other day or so leading up to the mid-June release of our new CD "Wide Awake." For more information about the CD or our ministry please visit our website: http://www.rhythmofworship.com/

I was reading a pastor's blog one afternoon right before I was to meet with the worship leader for our high school ministry (Mia). One line about how God is "always wide awake" really stuck out to me. I got out my guitar, started strumming some chords and before I knew it I had a bit of a verse and chorus.

I quickly recorded these cryptic ideas into my little dictaphone just before my friend Mia arrived. Little did I know that this would become one of my favorite songs and that it would really resonate with a lot of people at our church. It also provided a metaphor for trying to express the "present reality of God" - a sentiment that had become so powerful for me with regard to the implications of Christ's ascension, but that I had not been able to creatively articulate.

It was Allison's idea to carry over some of the same words from the first verse into the second, but with a more positive orientation. And I think she came up with the second pre-chorus, "Finding greater dreams, finding greater things, brings my heart alive" which is one of my favorite lyrics on the whole project. This song proves that inspiration can come from anywhere at anytime, but you have to be ready to receive it.

Wide Awake
Paxson and Allison Jeancake

When I rise each day I can drift away
And slowly lose my joy in you
I forget your grace and begin to place
All my hope in what I see

Lost in lesser dreams, lost in lesser things
Bring my heart alive

I want to be wide awake, I want to hear you call
I want to know you more, be my all in all

Speak into my heart, speak into my life

I want to live everyday full alive

I want to be wide awake

I want to be wide awake, Lord, to you

When I rise each day, help me know your way

And find my greatest joy in you

Your amazing grace is the only place

Hope is more than what I see

Finding greater dreams, finding greater things

Brings my heart alive

Song Stories: Lead Us to Heaven

2010-06-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting a new song story every other day or so leading up to the mid-June release of our new CD "Wide Awake." For more information about the CD or our ministry please visit our website: http://www.rhythmofworship.com/

This was one of the first songs I started writing after we finished our second recording, Ascension. I vividly remember the context in which this song first started to emerge. We were on vacation at Hilton Head Island in South Carolina (where I have gone since I was a kid). I had gone for a morning run on the beach and cooled off in the ocean afterwards. Coming out of the water to head back to our condo I started singing, "The dust of the earth is on the throne on high." That is part of a quote that greatly intrigued me while studying about the ascension of Christ.

The full thought by John Duncan is: "The dust of the earth is on the throne of the Majesty on high." John "Rabbi" Duncan was a Scottish theologian of the nineteenth century. His statement is based on Ephesians 2:4-6: "But God, being rich in mercy...made us alive together with Christ...and seated us with him in the heavenly places."

This truth is further affirmed in the Heidelberg Catechism (Question/Answer #49):

Q. How does Christ's ascension to heaven benefit us?
A. First, he pleads our cause in heaven in the presence of his Father.
Second, we have our own flesh in heaven—a guarantee that Christ our head will take us, his members, to himself in heaven.

Other hymns also affirm this truth. Arise, My Soul, Arise has the line: "Five bleeding wounds he bears, received at Calvary." Crown Him with Many Crowns has the line: "Crown him the Lord of love; behold his hands and side, rich wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified" (Note the physical and present tense aspects of those lyrics).

This whole idea of "the dust of the earth" being on "the throne of the Majesty on high" was so profound for me because I used to think of both Jesus and heaven in more ethereal terms. The doctrine of the ascension caused me to think seriously about the present, physical nature of Jesus and heaven which the Bible describes.

Originally I played around with a little more movement, melodically, for the opening line. Allison felt like it needed to remain simple, keeping a kind of rhythmic feel so that it really opens up with the next lyric: "Where the Son radiates the Father's love." That line, by the way, is based on Hebrews 1:3: "The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command."

Most of the lyrical content of the chorus is based on Paul's plea to "set your sights on the realities of heaven where Christ is seated in the place of honor at God's right hand" (Colossians 3:1). The second verse is based on what is known as the Sursum Corda. The Sursum Corda (Latin for "Lift up your hearts") is the opening dialogue to the Eucharistic Prayer in the liturgies of the Christian Church, dating back to the third century. The phrase is often used responsively in which the worship leader says: "Lift up your hearts." Then the people respond: "We lift them up to the Lord."

Obviously, this song has a variety of lyrical inspiration, and I probably gave you way more than you wanted to know! But I hope you realize that we songwriters take what we do seriously and really try, creatively, to impart profound and edifying truth.

Lead Us to Heaven

Paxson and Allison Jeancake

The dust of the earth is on the throne on high
The dust of the earth is on the throne on high

Where the Son radiates the Father's love

Lead us, Lord, to the throne above

'Cause we can hold this world too close, lose sight of our home
We can hold this world too close, lose sight of our home

So lead us to heaven, to the throne of grace
Set our hearts on one holy place

Where Jesus is reigning, holding everything
Joined in the worship of our King, lead us to heaven

Lead us to heaven

Lift up your hearts, we lift them to the Lord

Lift up your hearts, we lift them to the Lord

Where the Son radiates the Father's love

Lead us, Lord, to the throne above

Song Stories: Always and Forever (God You Are)

2010-06-03T10:56:00.001-07:00

I'll be posting a new song story every other day or so leading up to the mid-June release of our new CD "Wide Awake." For more information about the CD or our ministry please visit our website: http://www.rhythmofworship.com/

I think this song evolved more than any other on the project. It started off with a pretty simple chord progression and me singing lead. As we approached the studio sessions I felt like Allison needed to sing lead on a couple more songs, this being one of them. It was a great call. She gives this song a really bright feel. She also tweaked the melody for the bridge and gave it more of a lift. I waited until the ninth hour to write the second verse, but it completes the natural progression of the song. The basic idea is that each and every day (dawn to dusk), through every circumstance of life (trials and blessings), God is faithful, he never changes.

Always and Forever (God You Are)
Paxson and Allison Jeancake

As the morning daws to start a brand new day
As the evening stars put your glory on display
We lift our eyes to you Most High, joining now we say

Holy is your name, faithful everyday
Always and forever, God you are
Your glory never fades, your mercy will remain
Always and forever, God you are

When the storms arise and trials come our way
When the blessings flow with measures of your grace
We lift our eyes to you Most High, joining now we say

All creation's longing for that final day
Until your returning, still we will say

New CD, "Wide Awake," to be released in June!

2010-05-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

We are excited about the release of our new CD, "Wide Awake." This project began several years ago as Allison and I started writing new material in Atlanta. After we moved to California in September of 2008 we found fresh inspiration on the west coast and began introducing new songs every month or so at our church. We entered the studio in February and are now anticipating the June release of our third recording. We can't wait to share these new songs with you! We'll keep you posted!

Click here to check out our website where you can find out more about the project or how to book us for a visit to your church or community!

Here are some words about the project...

In March of 2008 the Lord began to impress the word “go” on my heart. I shared this with my wife Allison and before we knew it we were interviewing at a church in Roseville, California. We moved out here in September of 2008 from Atlanta with a couple of new songs, but most of the songs on this project were written on the west coast. Taking the leap of faith to move to northern California was both exhilarating and challenging, but it is during such times that we often feel most alive. We never want to become complacent in our faith, but it can be a daily struggle to overcome this tendency.

Allison and I collaborated much more on this project than on our previous recordings, and we both tried to write lyrics that honestly reflect our journey of faith. Some of the songs are a continuation of my reflection on Christ’s ascension, some are new expressions of mercy and justice, and some are simply a cry of the heart. We hope that these new songs will become part of your own personal worship expression, your own longing to be wide awake, living every day fully alive.

Yielding to Providence

2010-04-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

Allison and I have been working on a recording project for the past couple of months. It's been a great experience this time around. It seems that before each session I'm anxious about how things will go, and each time my expectations have been exceeded. The most recent occurence happened last Saturday. We were supposed to go in to lay down all of our vocal harmonies. On Friday I started losing my voice! We walked into the studio on Saturday morning and the enginner (Rich) said, "Bro, you're not going to be able to sing." I was sent home so that I wouldn't get him sick! I couldn't believe the timing. I was like, "Lord, what is going on! You know we only have a short window to get these vocals done and my voice goes out!"

I kept reminding myself that all throughout this process God has been opening doors, making decisions clear, and bringing the right musicians in to play. So, I was trusting that this was happening for a reason. Just before I left Rich looked at me and said, "This could be a blessing in disguise."

I texted Allison around 3:30 in the afternoon to see how things were going. She texted back, "Great! We had the 'doubles' that we needed from you without you having to be here to sing them! All you have to do is sing harmony on a few songs!"

When you record vocals you sing your part several times...both to kind of "cut and paste" to produce a great lead vocal track and also to have if you want to "double" your part to create a fuller sound. It turns out that my alternate tracks were good enough to use as doubles! This serendipitous discovery probably would not have happened if I had been healthy that day. We would have literally wasted time by having me record these doubled vocals.

And by me NOT being there, the engineer and producer were able to maximize their time with Allison and get some GREAT harmonies! It was the right way for things to happen, and I realized why I was sick that day.

As I have been learning over and over...God is for us. He governs everyday of our lives, and he has a perfect plan for each of us. I don't know when, but someday I hope to really get this and learn how to simply yield to his providence. But then again, stories like these just make him look all the more glorious.

Wide Awake

2010-01-20T12:20:00.000-08:00

This is our first song of 2010! The inspiration for this came while reading a pastor's blog last Thursday (January 15). As I was reading I came across this line: "This morning I woke up and once again needed to be comforted by the fact that God is always wide awake and working all things out for our good and his glory."

I loved that phrase, "God is always wide awake." I already had the idea of awaken on my heart and mind as a lyrical idea. Over Christmas we shot a video of five different people sharing testimonies about a recent season in their life. One man shared how his prayer had become, "Lord awaken my heart again." I loved the honesty and simplicity of that prayer.

So, after reading the blog I picked up my guitar and started playing around with some melodic and lyrical ideas. The song started out with the lyrical idea of describing how God is always wide awake (like the quote stated), "You're always wide awake..." That idea didn't seem to work so I changed the lyric to, "I want to be wide awake." That seemed to have more traction. I quickly hummed what I had into a dictaphone that I keep with me virtually all the time just in case I get a song idea and need to record it quickly.

The next morning I returned to this song idea and began to craft the lyrics to the chorus, then the verse, and then the pre-chorus section. It was Allison's idea to make the second verse and pre-chorus a more positive spin on the first verse and pre-chorus. We played it this past Sunday during communion at our church.

Wide Awake
Words by Paxson and Allison Jeancake, 2010
Music by Paxson Jeancake, 2010

When I rise each day I can drift away,
And slowly lose my joy in you.
I forget your grace and begin to place
All my hope in what I see.

Lost in lesser dreams, lost in lesser things,
Bring my heart alive.

I want to be wide awake, I want to hear you call;
I want to know you more, be my all in all.
Speak into my heart, speak into my life,
I want to live everyday fully alive, I want to be wide awake.
I want to be wide awake, Lord, to you.

When I rise each day help me know your way,
And find my greatest joy in you.
'Cause your amazing grace is the only place
Hope is in more than what I see.

Finding greater dreams, finding greater things
Brings my heart alive.

Always and Forever (God You Are)

2010-01-01T07:52:00.000-08:00

Always and Forever (God You Are)
Words and Music by Paxson and Allison Jeancake, 2009

Like the morning dawns to start a brand new day;
Like the evening stars put your glory on display,
We gather here to worship you, joining now we say:

Holy is your name, faithful everyday,
Always and forever, God you are.
Your glory never fades, your mercy will remain,
Always and forever, God you are.

All creation's longing for that final day;
Until your returning, still we will say:

In this song I'm trying to convey the eternal nature of God and how his faithfulness, his glory, his mercy, are all unchanging. He is always and forever God. And like the heavens declare the glory of God, we proclaim his character through our worship.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Christmas

2009-12-17T08:37:00.000-08:00

Every year when Advent rolls around I have mixed emotions. On the one hand I love to sing the rich carols, hear the familiar texts, and take in the sights and sounds of the season. On the other hand, I always feel like the expectations for a worship leader are so high, and it's easy to become consumed by planning for a big "program" and lining up musicians and scheduling extra rehearsals.

However, when it all starts to come together, all the hard work does pay off. For our Christmas event this year, we decided to go with a number of testimonies from people within our congregation. Our Advent theme has been, "Where Heaven and Earth Rejoice." We've been looking at the canticles in Luke's Gospel: Zechariah's song, Mary's song, and the Angels' song.

To bring things home a bit, we wanted people to share their story, their "song." So we asked three individuals and one couple the following questions:

(1) Where have you experienced loss in a recent season of life?

(2) Did you reach a crisis point?

(3) Where did you find hope?

(4) Where/How did you meet Jesus in the midst of this crisis?

(5) What has the body of Christ meant to you during this season?

(6) What does Christmas mean to you now?

The stories are powerful, everyone gave honest answers to the above questions - no sugar-coating, no perfect resolution, just real stories. I'm looking forward to our services this weekend, and I pray that God is glorified and his people are encouraged through story, song, and the Word. If this happens, all the planning, all the rehearsals, and all the hard work will have been worth the effort.

God Is For Us

2009-11-28T06:54:00.000-08:00

God Is For Us
Words and Music by Paxson and Allison Jeancake, 2009

When we're gripped by doubt and fear,
And the only voice we hear
Is guilt and shame, accusation, lies.

When we feel all alone,
Like there's nowhere to turn;
When temptation is knocking on our door.

That's when we call your name,
Let your love cast out our shame;
Know the voice of our Savior rising near.

God is for us, God is for us;
There's no need to fear he knows us each by name.
God is for us, smiling over us;
There's no need to fear he knows us each by name.

When our enemy draws near,
And our faith disappears;
When we feel defeated, overwhelmed by life.

When we moved into our new California home in February (after living in a garage apartment for six months!), all of the belongings that we had in storage in Atlanta arrived on a big truck. Needless to say I had mixed emotions. I was excited to be moving into our own home, but I was not looking forward to all of the unpacking.

At the end of the day, as I dropped the last box of books off at the church, I had one of those "God moments." I was thinking to myself, "Wow, this day actually went pretty smoothly. It wasn't overwhelming, nothing was damaged, everything worked out very well." As soon as I had that thought it was like the Lord spoke to me and said, "I'm for you."

Wow. I knew immediately and profoundly what those few words meant. I think one of my biggest struggles is really believing that God loves me as much as his Word says he does. I have trouble believing in my heart that God is truly for me, that I'm worthy of his love because of Christ's merit and because I'm his child. That rainy day in February, he reminded me of that transforming truth.

I knew it would make it's way into a song one day. Recently I sat down with my guitar and my bible opened to Romans 8:31-34 ("If God is for us, who can ever be against us?"). Within minutes an idea began to emerge that I felt was worth pursuing. When I reached what is the pre-chorus, the words and the melody came together ("That's when we call your name..."), and I felt like I had something special.

I feel like this song honestly conveys the way we feel at times, but with a desire to know our Savior's voice rising above the taunts of the enemy and our own doubt and unbelief.

Open Up the Heavens (7): Our True Citizenship

2009-11-26T08:35:00.001-08:00

“But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God...And he told them, ‘Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!’”

- Acts 7:55-56 (NLT)

The Conviction of Things Not Seen

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1, ESV, emphasis mine).

All that we have been talking about - the present spiritual realities of Christ’s priesthood and kingship, the Holy Spirit’s empowerment and filling, and the place of heaven – require a strong degree of faith because these realities remain unseen. It dawned on me one day how logical the flow of Hebrews is for its original audience. After the author of Hebrews describes Jesus as our High Priest and the heavenly realities we have come to when we gather and worship, he then offers a definition of faith and spends an entire chapter citing tangible examples of those who believed in the unseen. In his commentary on this section of Hebrews William writes:

Faith is shown to be a quality of response to God which celebrates the reality of promised blessings and the objective certainty of events announced but as yet unseen. This understanding is substantiated by a catalogue of persons and events which the preacher views from the perspective of faith in action. The demonstration of the effective power of faith under the old covenant verifies the character and possibilities of faith for the Christian community.1 (emphasis mine)

I believe that in our current day we are simply consumed and infected by materialism. If we can’t see it, we don’t believe it. When we rediscover the doctrine of the ascension, we are challenged to wrestle with the matter of unseen spiritual realities.

The faith that the author of Hebrews is describing is not blind faith, however. It is a faith founded on solid biblical truths. Thus, faith calls us to saturate our lives with God’s word, to delve deeply into its meaning and the realities it describes. Furthermore, we can’t simply manufacture this faith. It is a gift of God that comes through a conscious immersion in his word and from the power of the Holy Spirit. As we discussed earlier, the Holy Spirit is the one who guides us into all truth (John 14:17, 26).

Most of my adult life has been a journey of rediscovery, cycling over and over again through the pattern of being faced with uncertainty, exercising faith, and then seeing God’s resolution. Though it requires us to take risks, it makes for an exhilarating and rewarding life. When I was 25, by faith, I left behind a career path in molecular biology to pursue a calling to full-time worship ministry. At 36, by faith, I moved my family across the United States, following a steady, decade-long pull to northern California.

Faith calls us not to a lifestyle of safety and comfort, but to one of risk and movement. We are, in fact, pilgrims here on earth. This present earth is not our true home. We are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth. Having this perspective on life is what helps fuel our faith. We can hold loosely to the things of this world as we anticipate a glorious future and seek to experience that future right now. When we hold loosely to our things, when we live light and streamlined, we can more readily say yes to the call of God. These thoughts are affirmed by the author Hebrews at the end of his catalogue of faithful men and women:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us (Hebrews 12:1, NLT).

At this point I would simply like to encourage you to take stock of your life and lifestyle. After reflecting on all of the Scriptures and all of the implications about the ascension, I would like to ask the following questions:

· Are you able to live as one who has a real confidence and conviction in things unseen?
· Are you able to picture and know Jesus not just as someone who lived long ago and who will come back some day, but as someone who lives now and who is actually doing things, for you and for the church?
· Do you live in the power of the Holy Spirit, or do you rely on your own strengths and talents?
· Do you think about the biblical images and realities of heaven, and are you developing a longing for these realities as Paul encourages us?
· Are you holding loosely enough to the things of this world that you could readily say yes to what God’s call, whatever that may be?

It has been my experience that faith happens incrementally. God moves us from one degree of faith to another. The more we exercise our faith muscles, the stronger we become.

In 2001, I competed in my first sprint-distance triathlon. It was a 600-yard open-ocean swim, an 18-mile bike, and a 3.1-mile run. After that initial race, I entered another sprint competition and cut 15 minutes off my first time. In 2008, I set my sights on an olympic-distance triathlon (0.9-mile swim, 26-mile bike, 6.2-mile run). I kept a training log and after four months I swam 15,400 yards in the pool, biked 529 miles on the road, and ran 297 miles on trails! When the competition arrived I was ready. I finished in 2 hours and 23 minutes, faster than the goal I had set for myself. After the race I found myself saying, “I think I could do a Half Ironman!” About a month later, that’s exactly what I did!

A Half Ironman is a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike, and a 13.1-mile run. I entered the lake for the swim at 7:30am and crossed the finish line at 2:00pm! If I had tried to do a Half Ironman in 2001, I would have killed myself! But with each increasing level of competition, my body was able to rise to the occasion with sufficient training. The same is true of the life of faith. The exhilaration from taking small steps of faith leads us to greater and greater levels of risk and confidence in God.

The Sacrifices that Please God

In this final section I want us to think a little bit further about the implications of our status as pilgrims, temporary residents here on earth. Towards the end of his letter, the author of Hebrews writes:

For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come. Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name. And don’t forget to do good and to share with those in need. These are the sacrifices that please God (Hebrews 13:14-16, ESV, emphasis mine).

Since we are looking forward to a home yet to come (a new heaven and a new earth), we can live extravagantly here on earth. I don’t mean “materially” extravagant, but lovingly extravagant lives! Like exercising faith, holding loosely to this world frees us to offer sacrifices of praise as well as sacrifices of love and mercy. William Lane writes:

The praise of God…must be complemented by a life-style characterized by generosity and brotherly love. These related aspects of the pilgrim disposition are linked together by the category of sacrifice. Through Jesus, the sufficient sacrifice for sin, Christians offer to God the sacrifice of praise and the well-pleasing sacrifices of love and the nurture of others. Without the praise of God, acts of kindness and of sharing would be little more than joyless humanitarianism. Without the acts of kindness and of sharing, the praise of God would be empty formalism. Both praise and love are indispensable to the life of the Christian pilgrimage.2

For a long time I have found it so interesting that God often corrects poor worship with a call to deeds of love and mercy. For example, in the book of Amos God tells the people of Israel:

I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5:21-24, NIV)

What does this passage say to us today? What are the various “offerings,” the religious things that we do that the Lord simply cannot stand? I think that a spiritually indulgent lifestyle that seeks only to fill oneself and satisfy oneself is part of what God is describing here. To put it in more tangible terms, when worship is just about our own edification without an outward conviction to love and serve our world, we are missing something.

True worshipers bring a sacrifice of praise to God and they have a concern for and take action in looking after the poor. This is simply reflecting the Father’s heart for those in need. Like the journey of faith, our family has been on a journey in first seeing and then responding to poverty.

Last Christmas we visited my sister and her family in Colorado Springs. As a part of that trip we took a tour of the Compassion International Headquarters. The moment I walked in and looked around at the various sculptures of Jesus with a child on his lap, or with arms outstretched welcoming the children running to him, and the verse from the Gospels that says “When you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me,” I had to take a big gulp to hold back the tears. The presence of God in that place was palpable. I brought home a bunch of brochures and books, but more importantly, a heart that was primed to actually do something with regard to the poor, the orphan, the widow, the least of these.

Around the spring of this year I was at a conference at a local church. In the lobby of the church there were a number of ministry booths, one of which was a booth for Compassion International. I had wanted our family to sponsor a child ever since our visit to Colorado Springs so I chose a little girl from the Philippines who is the same age as our oldest daughter and whose birthday happens to fall in the same month as both of our girls. We have been writing to and sending financial support to this littler girl for a number of months now.

Interestingly, Allison and I co-wrote a song this summer called “Beauty From Ashes.” I brought a chorus to Allison one day and said, “What do you think?” She said, “Well, that’s interesting because I’ve been working on a song on that same theme.” She began to sing what is now the verse for the song, “Close to the heart of my Jesus; close to the heart of my God; close to the Spirit who leads us close to the ones that he loves.” We quickly combined my chorus, “You bring beauty from ashes, turn mourning to gladness, you are the God that we praise…” with her verse and before we knew it we had a song going! Allison wrote lines for pre-chorus sections, and we sang the song in our church within a week or so.

The congregation has really embraced this song and really sings it out every time we include it in our worship. I think a large factor in the fervent expression of this song is that it captures the Father’s heart for the poor, the outcast. It’s simply hard to go wrong when you write on this theme!

We are going to cast vision during the Advent season for this local community in the Philippines where the little girl that we sponsor lives. We are going to challenge our congregation to support the other 31 un-sponsored children in that village. Our vision is to bring the mercy and justice of God’s kingdom to one specific area of the world by:

· Offering financial and relational support to children in poverty.
· Partnering with the local church in that village that is connected to the ministry of Compassion International.
· Planning a mission trip to that village in the future and meeting the children and the people face-to-face.

These are the kind of kingdom dreams, the kind of sacrifices that please God. We simply can’t go wrong as individuals or as a congregation when we begin to reach out and do what we can for the least of these.

I will close with these words from Paul’s letter to the church at Colosse. They have become such formative words in my own life. I hope they change and encourage you as well:

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth…Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father (Colossians 3:1-2, 16-17).

1 Lane, Hebrews, 147.
2 Ibid., 174-175.

Right Hand of the Father

2009-11-25T09:18:00.000-08:00

Right Hand of the Father
Words and Music by Paxson Jeancake, 2009

At the right hand of the Father
Sits the risen, ascended Son.
In returning, he is bearing
Scars of grace and scars of love.

Open up the heavens let us see,
Just a glimpse of holy majesty.
Like Stephen, to behold you with our eyes,
Risen One, ascended Lord on high;
Risen One, ascended Lord on high.

At the right hand of the Father
Sits the Holy Lamb of God.
Death defeated, he interceded;
Pleads for us now from the throne.

At the right hand of the Father
Standing now to welcome home
Sons and daugthers, every martyr,
Not ashamed to be called his own.

This is one of our newest songs inspired by Christ's ascension. The specific text for this song is Acts 7:55-56. There we find a young man by the name of Stephen. It is interesting to me that just before Stephen is killed he sees "the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God's right hand." There are a number of references to Christ "seated" at the Father's right hand. This verse, however, refers to Jesus as "standing." It is thought that Jesus is taking this posture as Stephen's heavenly advocate, welcoming home this first Christian martyr.

We sang this song recently at our church and a very interesting thing happend. As we finished singing and our pastor came up to preach, he announced that our CDs were available in the book center. By the end of the second service they were all gone! I have had to replenish the stock of CDs in the book center three times because of this one song! It definitely struck a chord with the people at our church. Hope you enjoy it.

If you would like the music to the song please email me at: pjeancake@comcast.net.

You can also visit our website to purchase a copy of the demo CD, Holy Things. Visit http://www.rhythmofworship.com/ and search under "Store."

To reflect more about this theme read the posts in the blog series, Open Up the Heavens.

Open Up the Heavens (6): Our True Assembly

2009-11-25T06:28:00.000-08:00

“But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God...And he told them, ‘Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!’” - Acts 7:55-56 (NLT)

In addition to the present ministry of Christ and the present empowerment and gifts of the Holy Spirit, rediscovering a robust doctrine of the ascension leads us to consider how the worship of heaven intersects our worship on earth.

If Christ is in a physical, glorified body in a real, physical place called heaven, what is that place like? How does Scripture describe it? How should the worship of heaven inform our worship here on earth? How are the two related? These are just a few of the questions that come to mind when we think about the doctrine of the ascension and its implications for worship. The twelfth chapter of the book of Hebrews has long intrigued me. The author writes:

You have not come to a physical mountain, to a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind, as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai…No, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:18, 22-24).

I’d like to list all of the present realities the author says we have come to:

· Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
· Countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering.
· The assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven.
· God himself, who is the judge over all things.
· The spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect.
· Jesus the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people.
· The sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness.

That is quite a list of present realities! I’d like to share a comment by William Lane, a mentor and close friend of Michael Card. In his commentary on Hebrews, Lane writes:

The vision of arrival at the City of God poses for Christians a crucial issue: What is real? What is real to you? So long as Christians live as if the real is what can be touched, tasted, and grasped with the senses, as opposed to the realm of the spiritual which must be grasped by faith, they will not mature. Our attitude toward reality tends to reflect another aspect of the materialism which effects us so profoundly. If something lacks materiality, so that it cannot be grasped in a tangible way, we tend to dismiss its reality…Hebrews affirms that the greatest expression of reality is God and the assembly of those who gather in his presence.1

This is where the rub between faith and materialism really comes into play. Are we going to believe by faith that there is another reality that we cannot see, but is nonetheless real? Or are we going to dismiss the present reality of heaven because we are so infected by materialism and simply cannot truly acknowledge or believe in things we cannot see? Nathan Bierma captures the lure of materialism well in his book, Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. He writes:

Easing our grip on the material goods and work routines with which we anesthetize ourselves to the transcendent…we may get a glimpse of heaven itself, and reach for its glory without relenting.2

To me this is the question. This is the question we must settle when it comes to the present ministry of Christ, the present empowerment of the Holy Spirit, and the present sphere of heaven. Are we going to exercise childlike faith in unseen realities or will we continue to remain anesthetized to the transcendent?

If we do acknowledge these things then the next question is, “So what does it mean for us when we gather to worship that we are surrounded by a heavenly city, thousands of angels, God, Jesus, and a great assembly of saints?” I love this quote by Annie Dillard in her book, Teaching a Stone to Talk:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.3

This quote makes me think about the end of Hebrews 12:

Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:28-29, emphasis mine).

Verses like this keep a tension between the fact that we are called to come boldly to God’s throne of grace; however, we are still to worship him with holy fear and awe! We can’t escape these divine tensions in Scripture. There is something about the nature of corporate worship, as it pertains to us coming into the present realities of heaven that should evoke a holy fear and a holy joy, at the same time.

It is at this point that we can learn from our Orthodox brothers and sisters. The following quote was taken from the website of St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in New York. It is a great window into their beliefs about worship and liturgy, heaven and earth:

Let the Christian consider well when he enters the church that he is entering another heaven. That same majesty of God which is in heaven is also in his church, and on this account the Christian must enter with reverence and awe.4

The Orthodox faith takes seriously the claims in the book of Hebrews and exhorts the Christians to “consider well when he enters the church that he is entering heaven.”

In the next post of this series we will look at what it means to live on earth as a citizen of heaven.

1 William L. Lane, Hebrews: A Call to Commitment (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 1985) 169.
2 Nathan L.K. Bierma, Bringing Heaven Down to Earth (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2005) 39.
3 Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk (New York: Harper Perennial, 1982) 52-53.
4 Website, St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church.

Open Up the Heavens (5): Our True Advocate

2009-11-04T13:16:00.000-08:00

Like Jesus’ office of High Priest and present ministry in heaven, the role of the Holy Spirit is also often misunderstood and minimized. Unfortunately, the third person of the Trinity carries a lot of unhealthy and misguided connotations based, I believe, on a limited amount of information about his role in the church and individuals.

The focus of this blog series has been on rediscovering the doctrine of the ascension; however, the next major event in the story of redemption was Jesus’ sending of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. As I have been preparing for and reflecting on this portion of my essay, the word economy keeps coming to mind. There is a holy economy in the way the Trinity functions.

Jesus came to earth and put on flesh. He lived a life as a carpenter, began his ministry, gathered his disciples, invested in them, died on the cross, made atonement for sin, rose from the grave to bring new life, and ascended to heaven to take his place next to the Father. His work on earth accomplished, his work and ministry in heaven continues. And one of his first tasks in his present role in heaven was to send the Holy Spirit. Luke records this promise at the end of his Gospel:

And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven (Luke 24:49).

Jesus is in a real body in a physical place called heaven. As we saw earlier, he is doing things in heaven. In terms of his priestly role, Jesus is praying and interceding on our behalf; he is our mediator and our true liturgist or worship leader; he is a heavenly architect, now preparing a beautiful place for us, a city which will descend to earth when he returns. However, the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ presence and power with us here on earth. With this in mind, let’s go right to the Scriptures and discover the richness and variety of his roles.1

· He gives and restores life (Gen 2:7, Psalm 104:24-30; Ezekiel 37:1-14; Joel 2:28-32; Romans 8:9-11).
· He calls and commissions workers for the service of Christ (Acts 13:2; 20:28).
· He guides servants where and when he wants, to do as he desires (Acts 8:29; 9:15; 10:19-20; 11:12; 16:6; 1 Corinthians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:12).
· He inspired the writing of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21), instructing the church in Christ’s message (John 14:26; 1 Corinthians 12:3).
· He bears witness to the power of the Good News in signs and wonders (Acts 14:3; Hebrews 2:4), and teaches the truths of the bible to God’s people (Acts 1:16; Hebrews 9:8; 10:15-17; 1 Peter 1:11-12).
· He bears witness to Jesus and brings him glory (John 15:26; 16:14).
· He convicts people of their sinfulness and need for the Good News (John 16:8) and warns people against hardening of their hearts (Hebrews 3:7-11, 15).
· He bestows gifts upon God’s people (I Corinthians 12:4-11), and he energizes and equips them to share the Good News, serve the Lord, and work for the kingdom of God.
· He affirms believers’ salvation (I Corinthians 6:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:13) and their identity as children of God (Romans 8:9, 14:17).
· He gives Christians power over sin (Romans 8:1-4), power to live a fruitful life (Galatians 5:22-23), and power for ministry (I Corinthians 12:1-31).
· Believers are to be continuously “filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18), and though they experience the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit, they can please God by yielding to the Spirit’s guidance and power (Galatians 5:16-18).
· He enables Christians to understand God’s thoughts and ways (I Corinthians 2:9-16).
· He gives spiritual gifts to believers to help the church grow (I Corinthians 12).
· He leads and empowers Christians’ worship as they use the gifts that the Spirit has given them (I Corinthians 14:26-33, 39-40).
· He guarantees that believers will receive all the blessings that God has promised (2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; Ephesians 1:13-14).
· He helps believers and prays for them in their human weakness (Romans 8:26).
· The goal of the Spirit’s work is to make believers like Christ (Romans 8:28-29).

Listing out all of these biblical references of the varied roles of the Holy Spirit greatly expands our understanding of this vital member of the Trinity. Unfortunately we often live without a true awareness or understanding of his empowering presence. I want to be more intentional about seeking the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. I want to study and pray through this above list so that I am not missing out on all that God has for me and for the church, and all the various ways he desires to use his people as instruments for bringing his kingdom to bear on earth.

Clearly, when we gather together for worship we should come with an expectancy that God is going to make himself known, that the Holy Spirit will be among his assembled people in a special and powerful way.

Thinking back to the summer that I led worship at a church in my hometown, I remember that the people gathered each week with a sense of expectancy. Admittedly, at times it can feel like something is trying to be conjured up, but often there is a real sense of God’s presence and a freedom about the whole service. In more charismatic settings, the movement from one element to the next is not as neatly ordered as in other traditions and, at times, this openness offers the space for transcendent moments to occur.

I admire the churches that really try to remain true to what the apostle Paul has to say about corporate worship in his first letter to the Corinthians:

Well, my brothers and sisters, let’s summarize. When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you.

No more than two or three should speak in tongues. They must speak one at a time, and someone must interpret what they say. But if no one is present who can interpret, they must be silent in your church meeting and speak in tongues to God privately.

Let two or three people prophesy, and let the others evaluate what is said. But if someone is prophesying and another person receives a revelation from the Lord, the one who is speaking must stop. In this way, all who prophesy will have a turn to speak, one after the other, so that everyone will learn and be encouraged. Remember that people who prophesy are in control of their spirit and can take turns. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace, as in all the meetings of God’s holy people…So, my dear brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy, and don’t forbid speaking in tongues. But be sure that everything is done properly and in order (I Corinthians 14:26-33, 39-40).

It is interesting to note that among the early Christians, church meetings were not led by professional pastors or worship leaders like today. Instead, everyone shared with the others what God had given them for strengthening the church. I’m not necessarily advocating that we do away with church staffs! I like my job and would like to keep it! However, it is important to listen to this text and discern its import for today. In all the talk about worship in most of the circles in which I interact, I don’t think the topic of I Corinthians 14:26-40 has ever come up for dialogue; and yet, it is one of the most poignant and lengthy discussion about the dynamics of corporate worship in the New Testament!

These observations beg the question, “Why don’t we create more space for the Spirit to speak through the laity of the church, to hear a word from God for the people of God?” One of the roles of the Spirit that we articulated earlier is to lead and empower Christians’ worship as they use the gifts that the Spirit has given them. What would our worship services look like if we really took this text and this particular role of the Holy Spirit seriously?

In his commentary on 1 Corinthians 14, Simon Kistemaker offers some very practical considerations. He writes:

When Paul writes that something is revealed to one who is sitting in a worship service, he does not say that God verbally addresses this person. God works through his Spirit in the lives of his people at worship, home, or work; this is a truth to which every believer can testify. The Holy Spirit often instills within us either a firm conviction of God’s truth, a vivid impression of reality, or a distinct understanding of a current problem. The Spirit clearly prompts and guides us to speak and act so as to fulfill God’s purpose. This divine guidance is revelatory for the individual recipient. In some instances, however, the recipient wisely keeps the information to himself or herself because it is not meant to be proclaimed. At other times, he or she is able to share it with fellow Christians for their edification and the praise of God. Whenever the Spirit of God inspires us to do or to say something, he wants us to promote the cause of Christ. And he desires that we carry out our assignment in harmony with his revealed will.2

I think Kistemaker well articulates the way the Spirit speaks to us through a firm conviction of God’s truth, or as a vivid impression of reality, or as a distinct understanding of a current problem. I think it is also significant that he points out that sometimes that revelation is kept to oneself, but sometimes it is to be shared in order to edify others and promote the cause of Christ. I appreciate the clear stance on spiritual gifts communicated by Sovereign Grace Ministries:3

In addition to giving us increased boldness and effectiveness in witness (Acts 4:31), prompting worship and thanksgiving in our hearts (Ephesians 5:18-20; Acts 10:46), increasing our growth in godliness (2 Corinthians 3:18), and strengthening our relationship with other believers (Ephesians 5:18, 21), the Holy Spirit also imparts supernatural gifts for the edification of the church and for works of ministry in the world.

1. All believers have and receive spiritual gifts.

[1 Corinthians 12:7: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”]

2. All of the gifts are supernatural. In Scripture, all of the gifts, from seemingly “natural” ones like mercy and serving to “supernatural” ones like healing, are all viewed as being from God and empowered by the Spirit.

[1 Corinthians 12:7: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”]

3. All of the gifts of the Holy Spirit at work in the church of the first-century are available today. Scripture suggests that the gifts are given to the church until Christ’s return, and there is no indication anywhere in Scripture that any of the gifts were intended to pass away with the early church.

[1 Corinthians 1:7-8: “so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”]

4. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are vital for the mission of the church and are to be earnestly desired and practiced.

[1 Corinthians 14:1: “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.”]

5. The purpose of the spiritual gifts is the glory of God and the edification of other believers.

[1 Corinthians 10:31: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”]

[1 Corinthians 12:7: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”]

When we really look at what Scripture has to say about spiritual gifts, one gets the overriding sense that the gifts are meant to bring edification for the common good. I think it is so ironic that the very gifts that are meant to edify often bring about division.

I think it is time for a fresh, sincere, biblical analysis of what the apostle Paul is trying to convey to the first-century church and apply those principles to our worship and ministry today, particularly for churches within the Reformed community. I think there is much to learn from Scripture on this subject as well as from other traditions within the body of Christ who have taken clear, bold, and biblical positions on this controversial topic.

In the next post we will look at how heaven and earth come together in the context worship.

1 NLT Study Bible, “Theme Notes” (Carol Stream, Ill: Tyndale House, 2008) 1834, 1945.
2 Simon Kistemaker, New Testament Commenary, “Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians,” (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1985) 510.
3 Jeff T. Purswell, Empowered by the Spirit: Room for Differing Views, “Strength for the Journey,” (Sovereign Grace Ministries, 2003) 20-21.

Open Up the Heavens (4): Our True Worship Leader

2009-10-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

In the first three posts of this series we've been "rediscovering" the doctrine of the ascension throughout Scripture. These discoveries lead us to some very important and relevant implications. If Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, in a physical body, in a physical place, doing things, one of the obvious questions is, “What is he doing?” The book of Hebrews is one of the richest places in Scripture to give us answers to this question. In this fourth post we will camp out a little bit in this wonderful biblical treasure and find out what our ascended Jesus is doing right now in the present heaven and how his present role should shape and inform our worship.

Because of the book of Hebrews we know that Jesus functions as our High Priest. Nowhere else in the New Testament is Jesus given this title. Certainly there are other passages that allude to Jesus’ priesthood. John 17, for example, is often referred to as Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer.” There we see Jesus’ intercessory function clearly portrayed as we see him praying for present and future disciples, the church. John 17 functions powerfully in giving us actual words and categories which Jesus is likely to be using and praying through for us right now in heaven. That is an amazing thought! In the book of Hebrews we first find Jesus designated as “High Priest” in 2:17:

Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people.

The author of Hebrews himself gives us the main point of his message in 8:1-2:

Here is the main point: We have a High Priest who sat down in the place of honor beside the throne of the majestic God in heaven. There he ministers in the heavenly Tabernacle, the true place of worship that was built by the Lord and not by human hands.

These two verses alone are so significant. They tell us three crucial things about Jesus and the ascension:

· He is our High Priest.
· He ascended, leaving earth, and took his place of honor in heaven.
· He is presently ministering in the true place of worship, the heavenly Tabernacle.

Interestingly, the word “ministers” comes from the Greek word, leitourgos which is where we derive the words “liturgy” and “liturgist.” So, we can think of Jesus as our true “liturgist” or “worship leader.” He is doing things of a priestly, liturgical nature in heaven. We can’t go too far in describing what all of these various function are, but the book of Hebrews gives us a lot of insight as we see how Jesus fulfills the role of both priest and sacrifice.

Let’s look at some of these passages in Hebrews that describe his priestly characteristics. I will distinguish those facets of his role as priest that have continuity with the Aaronic priesthood, those that are like that of Melchizedek, and those that are unique to Jesus:

Continuity with Aaronic Priesthood

· He was made in every respect like us (2:17).
· He understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testing we do (4:15).
· He is required to offer gifts and sacrifices (8:3).
· He offered blood for the sins the people had committed in ignorance (9:7).

Like that of Melchizedek

· He was chosen by God (5:5).
· He is a priest forever (5:6).

Unique to Jesus

· He has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood (8:6).
· He mediates for us a far better covenant with God, based on better promises (8:6).
· He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven (9:11).
· He offered himself as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time (10:12).
· He sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand (10:12).
· He rules over God’s house (10:21).

In light of all these various roles and descriptions about Jesus as our High Priest, it is important that we listen to the author of Hebrews’ exhortation:

Dear brothers and sisters who belong to God…think carefully about this Jesus whom we declare to be God’s messenger and High Priest (Hebrews 3:1).

I have long been familiar with Jesus’ designation as High Priest and have at times considered its true meaning; but honestly, it has only been within the past few years of my Christian journey that I have begun to think carefully about this Jesus who has ascended, who is seated at God’s right, and who is ministering right now.

I want all of the passages above to sink deeply into my heart and mind and really become formative in my life. I want to know at a deep level that Jesus was made in every respect like me, that he understands my weaknesses because he faced all of the same testings that I do. I want the reality of his being chosen by God as a priest forever, with all of its implications, to sink deep into soul.

I don’t want to think about Jesus just in past or future terms, but I want to know that right now he is ministering in heaven on my behalf, that he is interceding on my behalf. When the enemy throws assaults at me, whispering accusations into my heart, I want to readily remember and recall the fact that my High Priest is at the Father’s right hand reminding me of my true position as his son. I want to know that in the midst of life’s various trials and circumstances, when I’m anxious about our finances, or my job, or my family, my High Priest rules over the house of God. He is in control of heaven’s affairs; surely he can take care of me.

I think this is some of what the author is Hebrews is trying to convey when he says “think carefully about this Jesus whom we declare to be God’s messenger and High Priest.” Think carefully, lest our hearts become evil and unbelieving, turning away from the living God (3:12). The author of Hebrews also exhorts us to “warn each other every day, while it is still ‘today,’ so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God” (3:13). The word for “warn” is the Greek word, parakaleo. It is where the word “Paraklete” is derived in referring to the Holy Spirit.

In Romans 15:4 Paul writes, “The Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.” And in John 14:26 Jesus tells the disciples, “When the Father sends the Advocate as my representative – that is, the Holy Spirit – he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.” The word for “encouragement” in Romans is the Greek word, paraklesis; in John 14:26 the word for “Advocate” is parakletos.

Putting all of this together, the lesson we can learn from Hebrews is that it takes the power of the Holy Spirit to really enliven within us the truths about our ascended Jesus, our High Priest. This is one of the reasons why it is so important for us to gather together at least weekly in worship: to place ourselves in a context where the Holy Spirit can give us great encouragement through the promises of Scripture so that our hearts do not become hardened and unbelieving.
On our own, thoughts about a heavenly High Priest that we cannot see is difficult. However, with childlike faith and humility and with our Advocate, the Holy Spirit, confirming and empowering biblical promises in us, we can begin to really grasp and be transformed by such present heavenly realities.

Of course there is a lot to ponder in terms of how Jesus’ role as “liturgist” and “worship leader” should affect our worship, practically and theologically. The author of Hebrews writes:

For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying,

I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise (Hebrews 2:11-12. ESV).

When he says “I will tell your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise,” the author of Hebrews is quoting from Psalm 22. As we have seen before, he is prophetically seeing David’s words as fulfilled in Jesus. So Jesus, as our true liturgist, is the one who both brings God word to us, and he is a voice among us, offering praise with us.

Admittedly, this takes a little while to sink in, but for me personally, there is something very freeing in this whole reality. The pressure is off, so to speak, if Jesus is ultimately the one proclaiming God’s name among us in worship. It is also incredibly encouraging to know that he is singing with us! I can’t see these realities, but as I listen for the Holy Spirit, and as I read and meditate on these truths, I begin to really believe and understand them.

In some real way, the worship of heaven intersects our worship on earth, and Jesus, not me, becomes the real worship leader in our assembly. To put this in more tangible terms, Jesus is the worship leader at Valley Springs Church. He is the voice speaking through his people, proclaiming God’s name and Gospel promises; he is one of the voices among his people each Sunday singing (part of me wonders what his “voice” sounds like, is it the melody, harmony, or something we have yet to hear!).

By faith and with the help of the Holy Spirit, these truths should astound us. Careful consideration of these present realities should greatly shape and inform our orientation to corporate worship.

In the next post we'll reflect on the Spirit's role in worship.

Open Up the Heavens (3): The Hopeful Orientation of the Apostles

2009-10-16T18:58:00.001-07:00

In the third post of this series we'll look at the writings of Peter, Paul, and John who all speak into the reality of the ascended Lord Jesus who now sits at the right hand of the Father. The apostles needed to encourage the Christians who were being persecuted and the churches that were growing and spreading throughout the Mediterranean region; and they knew that the most encouraging thing they could offer was a robust vision of a reigning, ruling Jesus who is holding everything together. In his letter to the Colossians the apostle Paul tells the believers:

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you shall share in all his glory (Colossians 3:1-4).

I love this passage. To me it is such a reminder to keep my focus and orientation on what is true reality. Though I can now see books and a bed and a desk around me, the realities of heaven are still more real than what my eyes, alone, can see. Paul is exhorting these believers to set their sights on true reality: Jesus is reigning right now in a real place called heaven. And one day, we will share in all his glory. That is a reality worth hoping for!

For the apostle Peter, he too was writing to comfort the Christians going through severe trials and suffering. I love the way Peter opens his first letter, “I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (I Peter 1:1). Right off the bat Peter is making it clear that their current address is not where they find their true citizenship. A couple of verses later he writes:

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance – an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay…So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure trials for a little while (I Peter 1:3-4, 6).

Peter not only offers them great hope by speaking about their inheritance, but he further reminds them of Christ’s current position, “Now Christ has gone to heaven. He is seated in the place of honor next to God, and all the angels and authorities and powers accept his authority” (I Peter 3:22). Peter is making sure that, despite their trials and sufferings, Christ is in control! Although it may seem that Rome has ultimate authority, Peter is making sure their orientation is a heavenly one, not merely an earthly one based on what seems to be reality. Like Paul, Peter is reminding the believers of unseen realities.

You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls…It is all so wonderful that even the angels are eagerly watching these things happen (I Peter 1:8-9, 12b).

I love it that Peter acknowledges their lack of being able to see these realities; and yet, he speaks of a joy that is inexpressible, so wonderful that “even the angels are eagerly watching these things happen.” I love that.

It is amazing to read Peter’s letters to the suffering church. His writings are so mature and pastoral compared to the portrait of Peter in the Gospels. Personally, I believe that during the forty days before Jesus ascended, Peter had one “Ah-hah” moment after another. I’m sure Jesus taught the eleven disciples as he did for the two followers on the road to Emmaus: “Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). I would have loved to have sat in on those conversations!

In addition to Paul and Peter, the apostle John offers us some of the most powerful images of heaven and the ascended Christ in all of Scripture. He also gives us insights into what the ascended Jesus is doing in heaven as well as the Holy Spirit’s role here on earth. In the fourth and fifth chapters of Revelation John gives us incredible windows into the worship of heaven. You get the sense that John is grasping for words to describe what he is seeing:

Then as I looked, I saw a door standing open in heaven…And instantly I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne in heaven and someone sitting on it. The one sitting on the throne was as brilliant as gemstones—like jasper and carnelian. And the glow of an emerald circled his throne like a rainbow. Twenty-four thrones surrounded him, and twenty-four elders sat on them. They were all clothed in white and had gold crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder. And in front of the throne were seven torches with burning flames. This is the sevenfold Spirit of God. In front of the throne was a shiny sea of glass, sparkling like crystal (Revelation 4:1-6).

John goes on to describe the rest of the company of heaven and the Lamb and the songs of worship that are being sung forever and ever. It was quite an amazing and mysterious vision, most unlike anything we have yet encountered on earth. John’s Revelation was written about thirty years after Paul and Peter wrote their letters; however, his impact on its recipients would be very similar, to encourage the believers that, ultimately, God will prevail. He is on his throne and his followers are called to persevere and maintain their witness, spurred on by a grand vision of unseen realities and a secure and victorious future.

In John’s Gospel we receive further insights into the current “job descriptions” of our ascended Jesus in heaven and our Advocate here on earth, the Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ long discourse with the disciples following his institution of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus offers some very comforting words and gives us clues to what he is doing right now in heaven:

Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am (John 14:1-3).

I think it is by no coincidence that, by faith, we believe that Jesus is in a real realm, the present heaven, and he is continuing his earthly skills and vocation as a carpenter by constructing a holy city for us! This is the type of passage that is a bit hard to truly imagine because we have so many barriers to thinking in literal, physical terms when it comes to Jesus’ present ministry and the nature of the present heaven.

Platonic philosophy has cast a long shadow on Western civilization, and has made it hard for us to really believe that spiritual realties have a physical nature about them. Platonic, Greek philosophy basically believed that the material, physical world was corrupt and the eternal, world of forms was good. Along with Hollywood portrayals of heaven and sentimentalized song lyrics, no wonder we tend to imagine spiritual realities as non-physical, formless, vaporous, and cloud-filled. Things that are material are too “earthy” and therefore couldn’t be a part of heavenly realities.

This is clearly not the biblical picture, however. I would challenge us to begin to think much more physically about heavenly realities. Right now, our ascended Lord Jesus is in a physical, though glorified body, most likely with tools in his hand, constructing a city…for us!
John also describes our Advocate here on earth. Though Jesus was telling the disciples that he is going to leave, he has to return to his Father, he will send a representative:

I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you (John 14:25-26).

In the same manner that we believe, by faith, in a risen, ascended Lord Jesus, ministering and constructing and praying for us right now; we also believe in another unseen reality, the Holy Spirit. Jesus told the disciples that the “Advocate” would be his representative here on earth for us. He will never leave us; he will lead us into all truth; he will be with us; and he will live in us (John 14:16-17). Those are great promises and a great encouragement. The Holy Spirit is our source of wisdom and guidance as we live on earth as citizens of heaven.

In the next few posts we'll begin to reflect on the implications of the ascension and how they should shape and inform our worship. First we'll look at the book of Hebrews, understanding how Jesus is our true worship leader.

Open Up the Heavens (2): The Center of Luke's Writings

2009-10-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

In the second post of this blog series entitled "Open Up the Heavens," we're continuing to look at the doctrine of the ascension as it is found in Scripture. In the previous post we looked at the ascension as "The Prophetic Vision of the Psalms" and focused on Psalm 24. In this post we're looking at how the writer Luke seems to have placed the ascension at the center of his two-volume work, Luke-Acts.

At some point in my journey of discoveries about the ascension, I came across an obscure little footnote for a journal article written in 1980 by Kenneth Wolfe. The title of the article was “The Chiastic Structure of Luke-Acts and Some Implications for Worship.” Immediately I was intrigued and went to the theological library at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. There I found and printed off the article. It was another piece of evidence I would collect and chew on in my discoveries of the riches of the ascension.

According to Wolfe, the ascension is at the center of Luke’s two-volume work. The movement of the Gospel of Luke is toward Jerusalem and the ascension, and the movement of the book of Acts is outward from Jerusalem and the ascension to Judea and Samaria, and eventually to Rome. Here is the outline of Luke-Acts as Wolfe describes it:

A Birth of Jesus in the Context of World History and Roman rule (Luke 1-2)
B Jesus in Galilee (Luke 3-8)
C Jesus in Samaria and Judea (Luke 9-18)
D Jesus in Jerusalem (Luke 18-23)
E Jesus’ Ascension from the Mount of Olives (Luke 24 & Acts 1)
D’ Church in Jerusalem (Acts 2-7)
C’ Church in Judea and Samaria (Acts 8-9)
B’ Church throughout the Gentile World (Acts 10-20)
A’ Preaching of the Gospel by Paul extends as far as Rome (Acts 21-28)

This outline and perspective on Luke-Acts seemed so utterly clear. I remembered from seminary that whatever is at the center of a chiasm is very important to the author. Thus, if Luke had this chiastic structure in mind when he wrote his two-volume work, and if he placed the ascension at the center of this chiasm, then the ascension, for Luke, was of great importance

Think about it this way. As an author, Luke has placed the ascension at the center of his body of work that represents roughly one-quarter of the New Testament writings. That is significant! In light of that, why is it that the ascension has become such a neglected biblical subject? In what is commonly known as the “travel narrative," Luke begins with the following statement:

As the time drew near for him to ascend to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem (Luke 9:51-19:10).

Interestingly, even though Luke makes it clear that Jesus’ reason for traveling to Jerusalem is so that he can ascend to heaven, commentators will go right to the cross and the resurrection and gloss over the ascension.

Another key passage in discerning the flow and movement of Luke's writings is found in the book of Acts just before Stephen is martyred:

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand. And he told them, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!” (Acts 8:55, 56)

Thus, the last thing Stephen saw was the ascended Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father. After this event, the church scattered. These two passages (Luke 9:51 and Acts 8:55, 56) are important mile-markers in the overall flow and movement of Luke-Acts. For Luke, the ascension was what Jesus had on his mind as he set out for Jerusalem, and the ascended Jesus was who Stephen saw before the church spread out from Jerusalem. Clearly, Jerusalem and the ascension were important for Luke, theologically and geographically.

I believe the Mount of Olives was also an important geographic location. It is from the Mount of Olives that Jesus descends into Jerusalem at what is known as his “triumphal entry.” And it is from the Mount of Olives that Jesus ascends to heaven. When all of this is coupled with a statement by the prophet Zechariah, an interesting detail about the future emerges:

Then the Lord will go out to fight against those nations, as he has fought in times past. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:3, 4).

This is part of an eschatological chapter in the book of Zechariah speaking of the day when the Lord will rule the earth. This is most likely a chapter describing the new heavens and the new earth. And it seems to reveal that when the Lord returns, he will descend upon the Mount of Olives. This is not too far fetched when one remembers what the two white-robed men said to the disciples as they watched Jesus ascend:

“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!” (Acts 2:11)

I am not one to take eschatological language too literally, but this seems pretty clear. Thus, it is quite possible that when our Lord returns to make all things new, he is going to come back to this specific geographic location, the Mount of Olives.

In the next post we will look at the ascension as "The Hopeful Orientation of the Apostles."

Open Up the Heavens (1): The Prophetic Vision of the Psalms

2009-09-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

These reflections have been brewing for about four years now. In 2005 I wrote a song called “King of Glory” that began my journey into and fascination with the doctrine of the ascension. I have been so profoundly impacted by the doctrine and implications of the ascension for several reasons.

First, I think the doctrine of the ascension is a highly neglected doctrine in our current day and age although it is a prominent theme throughout the Scriptures. It is not a doctrine with which most Christians have studied, heard, or read about to the same degree as Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection.

Secondly, a robust doctrine of the ascension causes us to think seriously about present spiritual realities. I think this has been one of the most profound implications for me personally. The doctrine of the ascension has caused me to think deeply about what Jesus is doing right now! It has literally shaped and formed the way I think about and pray to Christ. A robust belief in a glorified, bodily Jesus at the right hand of the Father has also led me to a more robust doctrine of heaven. Furthermore, a strong belief in an ascended Jesus in a real place called heaven has allowed me to see the economy of the Trinity and, thus, understand more clearly the nature and role of the Holy Spirit, who empowers us for ministry here on earth. These are truly holy things. The ascended Jesus, heaven, and the Holy Spirit are the present spiritual realities to which the doctrine of the ascension leads us, and they have profound implications upon our worship.

Thirdly, the doctrine of the ascension forces us to believe, with childlike faith, in these present realities that are unseen. It takes nothing short of simple childlike faith to really believe that Jesus is in some way and in some sense at the right hand of the Father, in a real place called heaven. Such childlike faith allows us to takes risks here on earth because we know our true citizenship is in heaven.

When I began meditating on Psalm 24 when I was writing the song “King of Glory,” I stumbled upon a very interesting commentary. The author stated that, regarding Christ’s ascension, the disciples saw his “going.” However, Psalm 24 is like a prophetic window into his heavenly “arriving.” Wow, I had never understood that psalm text in that way before that moment. Suddenly the language, “Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up you ancient doors” made so much more sense.

In one sense the psalmist is describing the ascent of a conquering king bringing his subjects to his kingly palace. But in another sense, this passage is speaking prophetically and is describing the heavenly doors through which the true King of glory would one day enter. Having accomplished his earthly mission, the Son would return home, bearing scars in his hands and side. A heavenly host of angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven singing together in a chorus of praise would usher him in.

There is precedence for such an interpretation of the psalms. On the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, Peter stands up before the crowd and gives a sermon on the events taking place. After quoting from Psalm 16 Peter states:

"You can be sure that the patriarch David wasn’t referring to himself, for he died and was buried, and his tomb is still here among us. But he was a prophet, and he knew God had promised with an oath that one of David’s own descendants would sit on his throne. David was looking into the future and speaking of the Messiah’s resurrection. He was saying that God would not leave him among the dead or allow his body to rot in the grave" (Acts 2:29-31, emphasis mine).

If the apostle Peter understood Psalm 16 to be a prophetic vision of Jesus’ resurrection, then we have firm ground to stand upon in understanding Psalm 24 as a prophetic vision of Jesus’ ascension.

In the next post we will look at the ascension as the center of Luke's writings.

Renewal in the American River Canyon

2009-07-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

This past week I discovered yet another beautiful facet of northern California - the American River Canyon. A few weeks ago I bought a Falcon Guide at Barnes and Noble called Best Easy Day Hikes: Sacramento. One of the hikes listed is the "Mountain Quarry Railroad Trail" in the Auburn State Recreation Area. I had been wanting to run on this trail but never found the right opportunity.

Wednesday morning I went to watch Laura Camille at her week-long soccer camp. While there I met and had a great conversation with a guy from our church. We talked about "guy stuff" and when I left the park I just couldn't bring myself to go directly to the office. I was really sensing that I just needed some process time...and I needed it outdoors! So, I dropped by the house quickly, picked up the Falcon Guide and my camera and headed "up the hill" to Auburn. Once I began to descend into the canyon in my car I could already feel myself being refreshed and renewed by the scenery around me. I parked, found the trailhead and began about an hour and a half journey that my soul had been so thirsty for experiencing.

We just finished the second week of a new sermon series (and art gallery) entitled "God's Good Earth." We have been hearing and singing about our role as inhabitants, stewards, and recipients of so many incredible riches in God's good creation. In less than two hours in a beautiful, natural setting my mind and soul felt so refreshed. I couldn't capture enough images. The whole time I was going "Wow, that's gorgeous!" I took the trail down to the American River and followed the old railroad trail, passing old trestle abutments now overgrown with oak scrub and inscribed with the dates they were poured - 1915, 1921. The trip was one of natural and historical discovery.

Sometimes we simply need to create space for reflection and discovery in God's good creation. We were created with a innate rhythm for labor and rest. When was the last time you took an outdoor "sabbath" for your soul? Maybe it's time.

Interesting fact...the hightest bridge in the photo above is the location of Vin Diesel's "car launch" in one one of early scenes of the movie "XXX" (Columbia Pictures, 2002).

2009-06-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

Wow, a lot has happened since my last post! For starters, most everything we own arrived in California on February 16, the day after our church had a huge 20-year anniversary celebration. So, February and March were spent moving and settling into our new home. April was a busy month. We celebrated Holy Week and Easter and hosted Allison's mom, sister and niece who flew into Sacramento the day after Easter. They stayed with us for about 10 days. It was a great visit. In May we celebrated the Ascension and Pentecost and hosted my dad who stayed with us for about four days. The picture above is from our day trip to San Francisco.

Definitely the most exciting part of this day trip was the serendipitous run-in with Mick Fleetwood (of Fleetwood Mac) while visiting the famous Record Plant recording studio in Sausalito! That's me in front of the studio in the picture below. Coincidentally, this is where Fleetwood Mac recorded their Rumors album back in 1977. After almost running over Mick in the very narrow dirt "parking lot" of the studio, Allison and I were given a full tour. Needless to say, that ranks as one of the top five cool experiences of our lives. In addition to all the various things going on at the church, Allison and I have been writing some new songs, and I'm starting to think about a third recording project. We have about four songs that we've written since we've been in California and three that we wrote after our second project, Ascension, while we were still in Atlanta. And there's one song that I wrote a while back in Nashville that I've always wanted to record. We've been making demos of the new material and have played most all of them in the context of worship at Valley Springs.

I've also been writing an article that will be a chapter in a book that is scheduled to be published in the Fall. It's a book honoring John M. Frame who has been teaching and serving the church for 40 years. Frame is a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando and the author of a number of books, including two books on worship. I was asked to write an article entitled, "Frame's Contributions to Contemporary Worship." It's supposed to be thirty pages in length and right now I have about thirty-five so I need to do some further editing. The deadline for submission is July 4. As with any big project, it's been a bit of a challenge trying to balance writing with work, family, life, etc. I am very honored to be a part of honoring Frame's life and ministry, but I will be relieved to have this behind me.

The image above is of California Poppies. I took a number of photographs one day along the Miner's Ravine Trail in Roseville. I've been running on this trail a lot recently. It's a beautiful, natural environment in which to run, and it's just a few minutes from our house.

We have a new website now too. However, I'm trying to transfer the rhythmofworship.com domain. Until then, you can get to the site by going to: http://www.rhythmofworship.webs.com/.

O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing

2009-02-22T13:18:00.000-08:00

This is an arrangement for "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing." I just changed the time signature (from 3/4 to 4/4) and added a simple riff as an intro and turnaround.

Holy, Holy, Holy

2009-02-06T19:42:00.000-08:00

This is footage from this past Sunday at Valley Springs. This is an arrangement for the great hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy." We recorded this arrangement on our "Ascension" CD.

A Round of Blues

2009-02-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

This is footage from the last Sunday at our church in Atlanta. I had Tommy Dodd join us that morning. Tommy is a fabulous pedal steel guitar player. He played on several tracks on our "Ascension" CD and played at our church on a few occasions. I wrote the music for this song one night while messing around with a simple guitar riff. The lyrics are adapted slightly from Psalm 100. I had Tommy play in a Texas blues style on this song. I love the parts he comes up with! It was a lot of fun. The audio and video are from a Sony recorder placed on a tripod in the multi-media booth upstairs...very low-budget!

Joyful Noise

Based on Psalm 100/Music by Paxson Jeancake, 2008

Make a, make a, come on a make a joyful noise. Make a, make a, come on a make a joyful noise all the earth.

For the Lord he is good and his steadfast love endures; for the Lord he is good and his steadfast love endures.

So enter his gates with thanks and come through his courts with praise; enter his gates with thanks and come through his courts with praise and

Exhilaration: Lessons from Triathlons

2009-02-04T10:02:00.000-08:00

On May 31 of 2008 I competed in my first Half Ironman competition. I had competed in several other triathlons, but not one of this distance. A Half Ironman consists of a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike, and a 13.1-mile run. Finishing this race was the culmination of a life change that began about 8 years ago.

Allison and I were visiting her family in Mobile, Alabama over Christmas in 2000. I had become a bit frustrated with a pattern I had developed: skipping meals during the day and eating a lot at night with virtually no regular exercise. I wasn't in bad shape, but I knew that I was developing a lifestyle that was not healthy. I had picked up the book, "Body for Life" at a bookstore in Mobile. When we returned to Atlanta, I signed up for a membership at the local YMCA in Atlanta and began to make a change. In 12 weeks I dropped around 15 pounds, developed a healthy diet, and exercised regularly.

I have always been a runner, and I have always enjoyed biking. So, that spring I thought, "I'd love to do a triathlon." In September of 2001 I finished my first sprint distance triathlon in Pensacola, FL. It was about a 600-yard open ocean swim, an 18-mile bike, and a 3.1-mile run. The swim felt very surreal - imagine swimming in the ocean at 7:30AM with about 300 or so people kicking you in the head with their feet and hitting you from behind with their arms. All of this, while going against the tide for the first 200 yards, trying to focus on a buoy in the distance, and ignoring the lingering thought that a shark might bite you!

Well, after that race, I was hooked. I entered another triathlon in Panama City, FL in April of 2002 and cut my previous time by about 15 minutes! For the next 6 years we were busy working, raising a family, recording CDs, and writing a book; thus, there wasn't a whole lot of time to train for a triathlon. But I had long wanted to go to the next level and complete an Olympic distance triathlon (.9-mile swim, 25-mile bike, 6.2-mile run). Finally, in January of 2008 I began the training process. I kept a journal for my training. After 4 months I logged 15,000 yards in the pool, over 500 miles on the bike, and over 300 miles running. I competed in the Turtle Crawl Triathlon on Jekyll Island in Georgia in May of 2008 - I beat my goal by about 7 minutes, completing the race in 2 hours and 23 minutes. I felt so good afterwards I thought, "I think I could finish a Half Ironman." In a few weeks, that's exactly what I did. At the end of May I competed in the Rock 'n Roll Man Half Ironman in Macon, GA. I entered the lake at 7:30AM and crossed the finish line at 2:00PM. I was exhausted, but I felt great! The experience was exhilarating.

The thing I have learned through all of this is that patience and perseverance yield satisfying results. After 12 grueling weeks back in January 2001, I realized that a good diet and regular exercise really does make a difference. I took it to the next level and finished a triathlon. Within another year, Allison and I finished recording our first CD - it took 18 months of hard work. But I had learned a valuable lesson from training for my first triathlon: patience and perseverance yield satisfying results. It was such a good feeling when our first shipment of CDs arrived on November 13, 2003.

I continue to dream big. Our family moved to California in September. We are at a great church and see God working in amazing ways. More than muscles, over the past 5 months I've been exercising faith, and I've seen God do more than I could ask or imagine.

Sometimes we simply get lazy and comfortable in life. We find ourselves in unhealthy patterns, and we simply forget how to exercise faith. Training for a triathlon requires the rigorous exercise of a number of different muscle groups: arms, legs, shoulders. The Christian life requires the regular exercise of faith in a number of different areas of life: finances, relationships, time.

Personally, I never want to become complacent. I never want to think, "I could never do that." Or worse, "God could never do that." He can. He does. Do you have dreams for your life? Have you exercised your faith lately? Try it. It's exhilarating.

Am I a Soldier of the Cross

2009-01-21T08:46:00.000-08:00

I have always loved this arrangement by Wade Williams for "Am I a Soldier of the Cross."

We played this hymn as an offertory this past Sunday. The hymn is based on a passage from Paul's letter to Timothy, urging him to "endure suffering along with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus." It is also our response to Jesus' call to "take up your cross and follow me." The Irish melody serves the lyric well.

Am I a Soldier of the Cross

Words by Isaac Watts, 1724; Traditional Irish Melody

Am I a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb? And shall I fear to own his cause, or blush to speak his name. Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease? While other fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas.

Are there no foes for me to face, must I not stem the flood? Is this vile world a friend to grace, to help me on to God? Sure I must fight if I would reign; increase my courage Lord. I'll bear the toil, endure the pain supported by thy Word.

Thy saints, in all this glorious war, shall conquer though they die. They view the triumph from afar, and seize it with their eye. When that illustrious day shall rise, and all thine armies shine In robes of victory through the skies, the glory shall be thine.

Anticipation Art Exhibit

2008-12-19T15:03:00.000-08:00

I recently walked through the art gallery at our church and took pictures of a sampling of the works on display. The overall theme for this exhibition is "Anticipation." Each artist shared a bit of the inspiration for his or her work. I will include some of their own words next to their work. I hope you enjoy.

Colin Shannon is the photographer who took the above image while on a recent missions trip to Nigeria. He writes, "Even in the buildings, you sensed partnership with the people. Buildings, many old from decades past, are adorned with scripture enscribed on their walls; testimonies of faith in Christ, that he will guide and protect them."

This picture is part of a collage that Colin Shannon and Steven Wagner-Davis arranged. They titled the work "If You Only Knew" for this central image in the collage. They wrote, "We noticed similar looks in many faces. Although not always accompanied by a smirk, it was obvious that the children each had a story they wanted to tell, if we would just ask."

"The idea of creating words from metal came from my wife. She wanted some words of positive encouragement - words that everyone could enjoy. The colors have become a large part of the word. The tone of the word can change with color, just as the meaning of the word can change with usage. - Steve Wilson

Tonia Triebwasser, a writer and painter at our church writes, "This collection of paintings is a result of my struggle with time - my timing versus God's timing. In theory, I believe God is ordering the time and circumstances for my daily small deliverances as much as He ordered the cosmic time for the deliverance of mankind through the womb of Mary with the birth of Jesus. But do I really believe this? If I do it doesn't follow that I should live with a constant sense of racing the clock. Unlike Mary, I have balked and questioned what seems to be a reordering of the natural flow of life's seasons. The war I have painted, is the war I very much want to quit fighting: a war in which winter seems to have arrived before summer; a war which I imagine has required me to blitz through the splendor of a golden autumn. I want to be done with it. I want to enjoy a perennial spring.

This first piece above is entitled, "Summer Pushing Out Winter."

"Winter Resisting Spring"

"Spring Fever"

"Autumn Reluctantly Waiting"

Kristine Mays, our Galley Administrator, creates amazing wire sculptures. Here is what she shared about this piece entitled, "God Became Man."

"Formed from hundreds of pieces of wire, my sculptures become something familiar both physically and emotionally as the human form emerges. I create sculptures with the thought of capturing the soul - the essence of a person. And so in creating this work, several ideas came together - one being drawing attention to God captured in the shell of a baby - the word becoming flesh. I also thought about how God, in all his power and glory chose to become vulnerable and intimately involved in humanity because he so desperately wanted us to know and experience his love for us.

The Landscape of the Heart

2008-12-17T19:01:00.000-08:00

A few summers ago my family spent a week at Hilton Head Island in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. Each morning I would wake up, drink a cup of coffee and either head out for a run or a bike ride. One particular morning I went for a bike ride down the beach with my camera pack, eager to get some great photographs of the sea oates and sand dunes. I biked for several miles, however, and soon entered the Port Royal Sound. I was surprised that as I biked into the more isolated, marshy landscape of the sound, the constant mantra of the tides dissipated into an eerie silence.

The terrain shifted from movement and current to stagnant waters, rock, and a more elemental presence. Still filled with beauty, but a bit more wild in its appearance. In the midst of this marshy environment stood two trees. I was captivated by their elemental beauty and the stark contrast with the sea oates and tidal rhythm in which I had been previously immersed. I took several shots of these trees and felt a kindred emotion with this somewhat primitive landscape. It was a lonely place, but its beauty was inescapable. It connected with me emotionally, intuitively, beyond words or simple description.

Often, the landscape of the heart is marked by barrenness and idolatry, but we never talk about it. It is a landscape we would rather avoid. We much prefer the background noise of a busy life to the eerie silence of loneliness, lamentation, and self-absorption.

After listening to friends and fellow worship leaders pour out their hearts in loneliness, frustration, or despair; after hearing of yet another fallen ministry leader; after reflecting on my own wilderness journey, I am convinced that we are simply not in touch with the barren and idolatrous landscape of our own hearts. And thus, we need to learn how to cultivate the heart of the psalmist. We need to learn how to find God in the midst of all circumstances of life. We need language that is deep enough and honest enough for the full range of human emotion.

From the darkest of lament to the most exuberant of praise, the psalms portray the lyrical record of lives lived in perpetual response to God. In the psalms we are given a vocabulary strong enough to articulate our deepest desires and emotions. Through the psalms we can learn how to express ourselves honestly, but healthily, in the midst of the various circumstances of life. This is one of reasons why, in our present day, we need a more robust use of the psalms in worship: to help us develop a richer expression of praise and lament, doubt and adoration, joy and tears.

I wish I had known this language more deeply as I began my first full-time position as a worship leader. Ironically, my first year in full-time ministry was filled with a deep sense of loneliness, a burdening sense of inadequacy, a naïve understanding of people and church politics, and an unhealthy need of approval.

All of this combined with a traumatic and devastating hand injury, a long distance relationship, and no real sense community often led me down a path of learning how to numb my pain and escape from my circumstances. So often I had a real choice before me: I could either choose to find satisfaction in God alone, or turn to something else for comfort. Unfortunately, I often chose the idol of escape.

The sad thing is that, most of the time, I wasn't in touch with the emotional landscape of my heart enough to know why I felt so restless; nor did I have a biblical language to meet me in my restlessness. And, quite frankly, I simply did not want to sit in my pain long enough to find the voice of God.

What I desire to see happen in the body of Christ is for worship to become more than just an hour on Sunday. My desire is to see worshippers, not just raising their hands in the congregation, but pouring out their praise and their lament on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. I want to see the full gamut of expression become second nature for the body of Christ. We need to make the connection from the corporate gathering on the Lord's Day to our private lives of worship the rest of the week. Getting there is going to require us to get in touch with landscape of our hearts, particularly, the barrenness (lamentation, addictions) and the idolatry (ambition, stardom). As William Cowper once penned:

“The dearest idol I have known, whate'er that idol be; help me to tear it from thy throne and worship only thee.”

I hope that we can learn to be more transparent and let the Lord search the deep places of our hearts. I hope that we will begin to sit still enough to hear the voice of God amidst the various landscapes of the heart. Hopefully, through the psalms, we can begin to know these places emotionally and intuitively. May we learn how to be still and gaze upon our Redeemer. May the Lord be with us on this journey into the heart of the psalmist, into the heart of worship.

Once Again

2008-12-17T08:15:00.000-08:00

This is footage from one of our morning worship services during the third week of Advent at our church in California. Our theme for the Advent season is "Anticipation." Journeying through the story of the Bible, we have looked at anticipation through the eyes of Naomi and Ruth (during the period of the Judges); through the eyes of Isaiah (before the exile); and, this past Sunday, through the eyes of Daniel (during the Babylonian exile).

The theme of exile really spoke to me as I was planning the weekend services. At one point I turned my attention to Psalm 137, a psalm which captures the emotional state of the people Israel while in a foreign land. As I read through the text I thought of a song I wrote about fourteen years ago while living in Nashville. The song (entitled "Once Again") is about what I would describe as spiritual exile. Though we may not find ourselves in a place of geographic exile, I think we can all resonate with feeling distant from God. This song is an honest and vulnerable expression of a wayward heart, longing for a renewed fire and passion.

Once Again

Words and music by Paxson Jeancake, 1995

A restless heart, I've run so far I'm miles from home. Can't find my way, and I don't know just where I've gone. 'Cause you once were close, but now you seem so far away. Lord, am I lost? Please show me the way.

'Cause I'm just singin' but Lord I'm not feelin' your love; I'm going through the motions one more time. And I need your fire, Lord, to take me higher again; I need your fire to burn inside my heart once again.

There was a time, a time when my heart was whole; But now it seems that it runs between you and this world. And winter waits as autumn colors fade away. And so our lives face seasons of change.

Thanksgiving at Lake Tahoe

2008-11-28T21:57:00.000-08:00

The girls and I spent Thanksgiving with Mark and Maggie Little (a young couple from Valley Springs) and their family at Lake Tahoe. Mark and Maggie are from the South so we immediately bonded when we first met them back in September. Maggie lived in Destin, FL. Mark grew up in Birmingham. We found out that Mark's mom taught at the same elementary school with Allison's mom in Birmingham.

We drove up after a busy day of work on Wednesday as everyone was trying to finish up Advent preparations before the Thanksgiving holiday. To get to Lake Tahoe you have to drive through the Sierra Nevada mountains. Needless to say, on a rainy, potentially snowy evening, we decided to take the Peterson's four-wheel drive SUV. We figured that would be much safer than my Mazda Protege. We did encounter some snow flurries as we got closer to Lake Tahoe. We arrived safely somewhere around 7:45pm. We stayed at a house Maggie's family rented at King's Beach on the North shore of Lake Tahoe.

In the morning I fixed a nice hot cup of coffee, grabbed my camera and went outside to begin taking some photographs...I would spend the rest of the day taking pictures from the beach area that was right outside our back door. It was a great location. We ate a wonderful meal, took a walk later in the afternoon, and basically enjoyed a great day with some new friends that feel like family.

King of Glory

2008-11-28T10:19:00.000-08:00

This is footage from "Christ the King" Sunday (November 23) at Valley Springs. I thought our song "King of Glory" would be appropriate, thematically, for that Sunday. The song is based on Psalm 24. We recorded it on our "Ascension" CD, released in 2007.

King of Glory

Words and Music by Paxson & Allison Jeancake, 2007

Who shall ascend the mountain? Who shall stand in the holy place? One King alone is worthy; one Name atones for every race.

Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up you ancient doors. Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up you ancient doors.

For the King of glory, strong and mighty; Lord so holy, King of Glory.

Holy Things

2008-11-17T21:12:00.000-08:00

Holy Things
Words and Music by Paxson Jeancake, 2008

We come again to the throne of grace,
To heaven's courts, to holy praise.
By the blood we now draw near,
With holy things, holy fear.

With holy hands lifted high, holy prayers that arise.
Holy meal that we share, holy words we declare.
Holy people, redeemed; holy things, holy things.

Holy God, consuming fire;
Lamb of God, our one desire.
Son of Man, Ancient of Days;
We offer you the sacrifice of praise.

This is footage from our first service at Valley Springs. This was the last song I wrote in Atlanta. It's based on passages from the book of Hebrews. I've long been intrigued by the language of Hebrews 12:22-24 in particular, that we "have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering" (ESV).

I recently led worship for and spoke to our High School ministry (U4IC, pronounced "euphoric"). My talk was entitled, "Worship: A Way of Life on Earth, a Foretaste of Life in Heaven." In some mysterious way we join heavenly realities when we gather to worship. I tried to convey the sense of mystery in the composition of the song itself. It works nicely during communion.

Back East

2008-11-17T18:53:00.001-08:00

Allison and I were back in Atlanta last Wednesday through Saturday (November 12-15). We were leading worship for the PCA's Kingdom Discipleship conference held at the Omni Hotel and hosted by Christian Education and Publications. We had a great time as we were able to reunite with a number of musician friends from Atlanta; hear great talks by Chuck Colson, Christian Smith, and Anthony Bradley; and visit with family.

The plane trip into Atlanta from Sacramento was stressful. I arrived at the gate for my flight from Sacramento at 6:15AM and everyone was already boarding. I quickly began to loosen the strings on my Taylor 514 (because of pressure conditions in flight) before I boarded. I ended up having to gate-check both my Taylor and my Fender Strat. In a panic I begin loosening the strings on my Strat as well...the stewardess is asking for my connect flight...I don't know the number...another stewardess looks it up, "Flight 420," she says. I get my ticket to confirm, come back and say, "No, it's Flight 421." Wow. That was close. Who knows where the guitars might have ended up with the wrong flight number on the red gate-check tag. As I get into my seat, still a bit rattled, I look more closely at the flight information...it was Flight 420...Flight 421 was on the return trip! My worse nightmare! The whole trip from Sacramento to Denver I'm a mess...will I ever see my guitars again!

When I got to Denver, I was hoping to find my guitars waiting for me on the ramp to the gate. I am told that they don't do it that way anymore (except for baby stollers). Now you don't pick them up until your final destination...I'm freaking out! I go straight to the gate for the connect flight and tell the stewardess that she has to verify that two guitars are on the plane to Atlanta. I board, still in a mess, and after about ten minutes one of the stewardesses gives me a "thumbs-up," indicating that both guitars had made it on board. That makes me feel better. I literally almost started crying. Those guitars mean a great deal to me...for a number of reasons. So, I'm able to relax on the flight from Denver to Atlanta. I listen to my iPod, read a bit, rest a bit.

We land in Atlanta, I exit the plane, thinking that I will now see my two guitars waiting for me...they aren't there! I then find out that I have to pick them up at baggage claim! All I can imagine are my guitars bouncing around on a maze of conveyor belts, eventually dumping off onto a carousel, going round and round...assuming they actually make it that far! Now I'm freaking out again. I get to the carousel as fast as I can and literally watch every piece of luggage coming off the conveyor belt. My worst nightmare came true...I stand there until all the luggage has come out and everyone has come and gone. Now I'm in a panic...where in the world (literally) are my guitars!?

I tell a nearby employee that I gate-checked my guitars in Sacramento, and I haven't seen them since...where should they be? He points and says to try the "fourth office door on the right." I desperately begin to walk towards this mysterious door when a random girl comes up to me and says, "I think your guitars are by that door over there." Was she and angel? Did she see me board in Sacramento? I'll never know for sure, but within a few steps I could see my two guitar cases...finally!! They were cold, but intact.

Well, as crazy and stressful as that all was, the conference more than made up for it all. Allison, her mom, Laura Camille, and Mallory picked me up at the Atlanta airport. We all checked in at the Omni, went out to eat, and had a restful night. I was able to visit with some folks at East Cobb the next morning (our former church), as we had to load up sound equipment that we were using for the conference. After setting up the equipment at the Omni, I was able to relax and clean up before our rehearsal and sound check for the first session Thursday night. We were joined Thursday night by a number of our friends. We had a blast. It was great to reconnect, play, and lead worship together. Friday morning and afternoon, Allison and I led alone. Friday night we were joined by more musician friends. Again, it was great to reconnect and play with such close friends from East Cobb.

After we played, Anthony Bradley got up to speak. Allison and I know Anthony from a summer youth conference we used to lead worship for at Covenant College. Anthony and I had a funny exchange as he joked about how we were allowed to "be in front of adults now!" He said that it only took me writing a book and recording a couple of CDs, and him getting a Ph.D! Anthony is a professor at Covenant Seminary. His talk was very powerful as he described the life of the average teenager today and lamented the fact that most of them have no idea of what it means to live with a "kingdom" orientation. He attributed this, in part, to the idolatry of "living the American dream." Teenagers aren't encouraged to live with a kingdom mindset, they are pressured to get good grades and go to a good college so that they can live comfortable, successful lives. How tragic! Anthony's talk was a wake up call to everyone.

Well, we rested well Friday night. I was exhausted. We led for the final session on Saturday morning, ate lunch with my mom and a few friends from East Cobb, and then headed to the airport to fly back to California.

Wouldn't you know...we got stuck in Denver due to a delayed flight from Atlanta. I couldn't believe it. I had to call our assistant pastor at Valley Springs and inform him that I would not be able to lead worship Sunday morning. I was so frustrated with the airline, but it ended up working out okay. We received a $600 voucher, spent the night at a Doubletree Hotel in Denver, and evetually made it safe and sound to Roseville on Sunday afternoon.

All in all, it was a great trip. Despite the panics and frustrations of the plane flights, being able to reconnect with friends and family and lead worship for a significant conference on making kingdom disciples made it all worth it.

Resolution

2008-11-01T06:23:00.000-07:00

I want to pick up where an earlier post left off. A couple of blogs ago I described how Allison and I felt called to Northern California and how an interesting set of providences led us to Valley Springs Presbyterian Church. In this post I'd like to tell the story of some earlier events in our life together that first turned our hearts toward the west coast. Allison and I married nearly ten years ago. For our honeymoon we spent three nights in San Francisco, one night in Napa Valley, and three nights in Carmel. We even hiked at Big Sur. We loved the area and when we got back to Florida, I half-jokingingly told my pastor at the time that we needed to plant a church in Carmel! That sentiment was mostly selfish - Carmel is beautiful.

Towards the end of 2005, however, a very serious opportunity arose and Allison and I thought we might be moving to Berkeley, CA. In January of 2006 we spent several days with a church planter and his family in Berkeley and really developed a heart for the city and a growing desire to live in and be a part of the culture of Northern California.

For a variety of reasons, that opportunity did not materialize, and Allison and I were left with a number of unresolved questions and emotions. We weren't sure why God would give us a vision for an area and lead us so close to something, only to leave things feeling unresolved.

Fast forward to April of 2008. When David George and I met at the Worship of God conference in Franklin, TN, and I visited the church in May, everything found resolution. Allison and I began to realize why things didn't pan out the way we thought things would. We found ourselves feeling very confident that the Lord wanted us to be at Valley Springs Church.

It was with this strong sense of calling that we were able to live for several months with a number of large "question marks" in our lives. We put our house on the market, but we didn't know when it would sell. We didn't know where we were going to live once we made it out to California. We didn't know exactly how we would get there, nor did we know where and how we would store our belongings. These were just some of the questions we had - all this on top of trying to console parents; purge, clean, consolidate, pack, and show our house; pray for offers, prepare to leave, say goodbye, book flights, and plan a road trip!

I'll be honest, not everyone was excited as we were about our move and everyone had an opinion about how to do it. Our theme was simply to keep "forward progress," knowing that God had called us to California, trusting that he was big enough to take care of the details.

Interestingly, we had our first offer on our home within a week or so of it being on the market. We thought we had a great deal, but it fell through at the ninth hour. We were left a bit discouraged, but we kept trusting that it would sell. At some point we had decided that we would go ahead and move to Roseville the first of September so that Laura Camille could start preschool. We moved out west on faith, trusting that the Lord would provide a buyer for our home.

I arrived in Roseville on Monday, September 1; picked the girls up from the Sacramento airport on Tuesday; took Laura Camille to her first day of school on Wednesday; and had an offer on our home on Friday. The Lord is good. After we passed our inspection with a few minor repairs, our realtor told me verbatim, "You guys got a one-in-a-thousand deal on this house." God takes care of his children. He can sell a house in a bad market.

So, we've been living in Jon and Karen Peterson's garage apartment since September, and we love it! Jon, Karen, and Kylie (their youngest daughter) feel like family and our girls are having a blast!

We did officially close on our home on October 27. Currently, we are looking and making offers, waiting for God to provide us with our new home in California.

Though it often involves playing chords without resolution; making decisions without all the answers; and moving ahead without the full picture, walking with the Lord is a faith-filled adventure!

Anticipation

2008-10-31T00:29:00.000-07:00

I took this image last night right outside of our humble garage apartment. I love night photography. It opens up a whole new set of ideas, composition, and creativity. When you do night photography you have to have long exposure times, sometimes several minutes or more. I'm always filled with anticipation, waiting to see what the image is going to look like once I release the shutter. The outcome is always a surprise.

The season of Advent is right around the corner. As a way to observe the season creatively, our church issued a Call to Artists a couple of months ago on the theme of "Anticipation." We thought this would be an appropriate theme with which our various visual and literary artists could engage. I hadn't made any connections about my night sky image and the Advent theme or the call to artists...until this morning.

I liked this image as soon as I took it - something about the treeline, the stars, and the openness of the night sky. This morning I realized, however, the connection between this image and the birth of Christ. The Incarnation was a real, historic event signaled by a spectacular nighttime display and witnessed by a group of stargazers. The star of Bethlehem signaled that the Creator-God had put on flesh and become one of us.

This event had been anticipated for many, many years and was accompanied by a chorus of angels. It was as if the heavenly host could not contain their own excitement over this glorious event. One ordinary night, one amazing occurence.

There is another event, recorded in the New Testament, for which the sky is the backdrop. At the moment of Christ's Ascension the disciples are awestruck, gazing upward as the resurrected, glorified Jesus returns to his Father's side. This event is desribed in the Old Testament as well, but from a different point of view. To complement the earthly departure, Psalm 24 offers us a prophetic picture of the heavenly arrival of the Son. And like the outburst of song at his birth, a heavenly chorus also seems to have accompanied his anticipated return. Poetically, we hear of the "ancient doors" being lifted up that the "King of Glory may come in."

There is a final moment waiting. Anticipation still lingers in the air. This same Jesus whose star was witnessed by ordinary men; whose ascension to heaven was witnessed by the disciples, will come again on the clouds. Once more, the focus of the universe will be upward. One ordinary day. One ordinary sky. In the twinkling of the eye all will be changed. All will be redeemed and restored. It will be a day like none other.

Until then I'll keep gazing at the stars with my camera, anticipating each new exposure. Wondering what the next night time sky may bring.

On the Road with Americus

2008-10-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

Our trip began on Monday, August 25. Americus and I left Atlanta in the morning and had lunch with my college roommate, Keith Waller, just outside of Nashville. That was great. Keith and I were able to catch up for about an hour and a half before it was time to get back on the road. Our original plan was to stay with a friend in St. Louis, but Americus and I were making such good time we decided to push on through to Kansas City. We arrived at our hotel around 11:00pm. I think Americus stayed awake virtually all night, barking at times as someone passed by our door. It's nice to know that she's a good guard dog, but it didn't make for a very good night's sleep! We woke up the next morning and had to have my car jump started. A quick stop to buy a new battery and we were back on the road.

We passed the Topeka skyline mid-afternoon. That was the most exciting thing we saw for quite a while. I love photography, but I had not taken the first picture until we came upon these windmills. Instinctively, I pulled over, took out my digital Rebel and my Nikon 35mm and began taking pictures. It was great. I had not felt the thrill of photograhy for a while. It was good to get back into that rhythm. I ended up taking around 13 rolls of 35mm images and a good number of digital images as well. Interestingly, I enjoyed taking pictures with my 35mm more than with my digital Rebel. It just felt more natural in my hands and, currently, the lenses are better. My 35mm is a Nikon 6006. It was a college graduation gift. It's been a great, reliable camera.

We finally made it to Colorado that evening in time to have a hot meal at my sister Elizabeth's house in Colorado Springs. The next day she and I hiked part of a trail at the Air Force Academy before picking up her girls from school. We also walked around at "Garden of the Gods." That was really cool.

Americus and I left Colorado on Thursday and began the leg of our trip that I had been waiting to see since college. We drove south to Albuquerque and then west to Flagstaff. I had long wanted to see the desert landscape of the Southwest. It was great! My GPS actually took me off the interstate and, providentially, I was able to see some landscapes that I would have missed otherwise. At times I felt like I was right in the middle of a Clint Eastwood western. New Mexico and Arizona have a unique beauty. I had never seen landscapes like this. We passed the sign for "Winslow, AZ" and pulled into Flagstaff late Thursday evening. We stayed at the historic Hotel Monte Vista. Americus and I slept in the "Anthony Hopkins Suite." I'll admit, it was a bit creep, but a cool place.

On Friday I dropped Americus off at an animal hospital where she stayed over night. That allowed me to take in the Grand Canyon without having to worry about my dog. It was awe-inspiring. That's the only way I can describe it. And pictures don't even come close to capturing the size and grandeur of the canyon. I spent about 2 hours just taking pictures and getting some video footage. I actually walked out on a ledge that didn't have any railing. That was a bit scary, but a great thrill. My goal was to "photograph" the canyon and "experience" the canyon. The way I experienced it was by hiking 4.5 miles into it on the Bright Angel Trail. In one of the books that I had read in preparing for the canyon, the author said to note the coutenances of the hikers "ascending" the trail. It is much more grueling coming back up than it is going down!

I actually made it down to what is called "Indian Garden." When you see it from the 1.5-mile and 3-mile rest stops it looks like it is much further away than it is. By the time I made it back to the top it was about 6:00pm. I was exhausted and hungry. It sounds pretty gross now, but when I made it back to the hotel in Flagstaff I ate a hamburger, a chicken sandwich, fries, and a couple of tacos from a Jack-in-the-Box!

Throughout the trip I was very safe and smart - making sure I had plenty of gas, putting destinations into the GPS, etc. The only scare was when I realized I was in the middle of the Mojave desert, and I only had about a quarter of a tank of gas! Barstow was about 60 miles away, but I didn't know for sure if I could make it. Luckily, I came across some little town and was able to fill up. I had to buy Americus some bottled water though because the water from the sink in the restroom was too hot! We made it to Anaheim that evening. On Sunday I worshipped at the Anaheim Vineyard, a church I had wanted to visit for about ten years. A lot of great worship leaders and songwriters have come out of that church. That afternoon I took in some tourist attractions - Hollywood Boulevard, the Sunset Strip, Whiskey-a-Go-Go, and Mulholland Drive. At 8:00pm on Sunday night I put my feet in the Pacific Ocean at Venice Beach. Having driven over 2,500 miles I finally reached the other side of the country!

On Monday I left L.A. and drove up I-5 towards Sacramento. This was the last leg of an incredible journey. Americus did great and my guitars held up fine. We made it to Roseville safe and sound early that evening. I enjoyed a fabulous steak dinner and a good night's sleep. In one sense it was the end of a long trip; in another sense, it was just the beginning of an exciting new chapter of our lives.

Can't wait to see what's down the road.

Go West

2008-10-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

On August 25, 2008 I got into my car and drove from Atlanta to California with my dog Americus and three guitars. This journey was probably the biggest step of faith I have ever taken. For nearly six months our family has been making forward progress with only "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).

These intial blogs will chronicle this journey.

Our family recently moved from Atlanta, GA to Roseville, CA - just outside Sacramento. This journey began last March in the context of a Missions weekend at our church. During the weekend the word "go" seemed to resonate in my heart and mind. This inital impression was created by the combination of a series of messages on the book of Jonah, a couple of worship songs we were singing, and the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. A couple of weeks later this impression was further kindled in the context of a small group that my wife Allison and I were leading. Our group of about twelve (six married couples) met regularly on Sunday evenings to share a meal, build community, study the bible, and pray.

One night a girl in our group shared how she was feeling led to start her own culinary business. As she was telling her story and her sense of feeling called to a season of transition, I couldn't help but reflect further on the convictions that I was feeling. When Allison and I got back home that evening I shared with her how I, too, had been sensing that God was leading us into a time of transition. I shared with her how the word "go" was strong in my heart and that maybe it was time to leave the church that we had loved so much and invested in for eight years.

In April we found ourselves at a worship conference in Franklin, TN. On the second day of the conference I co-led a workshop on "Nurturing Artists." After the workshop I met a pastor from California who was looking for a worship leader at his church. We connected the next week and he shared a very interesting story. He told me how his daughter called him while he was at the conference and asked simply, "How's the conference going?" He responded by telling her that he had met this couple, Paxson and Allison Jeancake." His daughter responded by saying, "Dad, that's who I told you about three years ago." She had seen us lead worship at a conference in St. Louis in 2005 and thought, then, that we would be a good fit for the church.

This set of providences made us feel like God was in this and in May I went out for an inital visit to Roseville. I had a very enthusiastic first impression of the church. Allison and I came out together in June. We were extended an offer and one week later, on June 28, we accepted the call to Valley Springs Presbyterian Church. A week later we went on vacation to Hilton Head, SC. After several months of discerning God's leading in our lives, we were able to rest in our decision to move our family to Northern California - a place we felt drawn to for a number of years.

In the next post I'll recount our previous trips to Northern California and how we learned to walk on the edge of what is seen and what is unseen, what is known and what is unknown.

For more information about Paxson and Allison Jeancake visit: http://www.rhythmofworship.com/