Foundation (Essentials Blue)

For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

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In the beginning, God was the Creator. He kicked off His story with the creation of “a cosmos of astounding complexity, beauty, immensity and intricacy,” [1]. We, humanity, were created to be living testaments to His glory, to engage in a relationship with Him, and to offer ourselves as a sacrifice to His worth, to glorify Him as King. Like Father, like son, and the children of God received an urge to create, whether it be in works of art or exploration, or sadly even in the creation of chaos. In our incomprehensible brilliance pride got the better of us and we broke ourselves away from God, introducing sin into the world. At this point a vast expanse opened up, a gulf, a chasm, a distance which we all but dove into headlong.

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And so the eternal tug-of-war began. We were not intended to exist apart from God, and we feel this in many ways. Relationships fall apart, the wronged cry out, something is missing in this world, in our lives. The distance that we created facilitates the echoes of His voice, calling us back into communion with Him. Lovingly upon the cross Christ died as Savior, and later rose from the dead, “[emerging] from the tomb, introducing a world full of new potential and possibility,” [2]. Rather than sitting back and letting us live with the death that we wrought, God acted to bring the presence of His Kingdom into our corrupted world; through His Kingdom God can reconcile us to Him, redeem us to the state of being that we lost in the Garden.

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That is how we move towards the end of this story — New Creation. In the meantime we as humanity are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus, impacting the lost, equipping the found, restoring the broken. As worship artisans and creative influencers we can give a voice to the echoes within each of our hearts; we can reflect the image of God to creation and the beauty of creation to God; we can tell the story of God’s salvation so that the world can hear its truth; we can create the space and the expectancy where God will meet His creation and restore our broken lives, placing us back in perfect union with Him.

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Upon that foundation, we as humanity may become fully alive to God’s presence in this world and his purpose for us in it.

1. Dan Wilt, Essentials In Worship Theology (New Brunswick: The Institute Of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University), 10.

2. Tom Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 116.

Connected (Essentials Blue)

For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

When you read a good book, and I mean a really good book, ya know, one of those books that you just know will still be read in like a hundred years or something, or even one of those books that you’re still reading that was written a hundred years ago or something, that’s like the same thing. But when ya read one of those really good books you just sit back and–well at least I just sit back and think Wow. Like I just read Frankenstein again, ’cause I had already read it a while ago, and whew! is that book good. First, it’s got a monster. Monsters can always make for good books, but the thing is, this monster isn’t one of those phony monsters you’ll see in those phony bestsellers that make no sense. This monster thinks and does deep things and well I never really saw him as a monster anyway, but, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about.

The point is: you read those really good books and the thing that makes ‘em so good is how everything gets all connected in the end. Not even just people or events and stuff, but those themes and meanings, everything comes full circle and you can’t help but think how good those books are. I feel like that picture connects

to our studies; I see the Christian story a little more like that. One of those vast epics that transcend time and place to connect with everyone, everything, everywhere; I love that. So Dan Wilt‘s been taking us through this foundation, and we started with those echoes we hear, we feel, we chase. A beautiful glimpse; a fulfilling relationship; a spiritual drink; a just cry [1]. We feel those things deep within our souls and it doesn’t stop there. This connects

to our glorious God in the personality that he’s chosen to reveal to us. We cry for justice because our God is King, and He reigns on high; we thirst for spirituality because our God is Savior, and He acts to bring us into the story that He has woven; we relate to fulfill because our God is Trinity, and He established a “divine dance” [2] into His character as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; we catch a glimpse of beauty because our God is Creator, and He chose to create us and this world [3]. We see those things in the interactions between God and humanity and it doesn’t stop there. This connects

to our nature as humans beings just like the echoes that we chase. We are the ImageBearers — God the King; we are the Salvific Storytellers — God the Savior; we are the CommunityBuilders — God the Trinity; we are the SubCreators — God the Creator [4]. In our nature, reflecting His image, we see how God has connected it all, made a great big story out of it all. To be human, we “gaze in love and gratitude at the God in whose image [we] were made… [We] discover more of what it means to be fully alive,” [5]. We get a chance to connect

with each other and connect

with God.

1. Tom Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 3-51.

2. Berten Waggoner, “The Divine Dance,” Inside Worship Magazine, February 2004, 4-6.

3. Dan Wilt, Essentials In Worship Theology (New Brunswick: The Institute Of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University), 7-25.

4. Wilt, 29-34.

5. Wright, 148.

Up The Ante (Essentials Blue)

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

Funny thing about language: all it can do is [contain]. Words are concrete, and they have to be, else they wouldn’t be useful. If a language had no particulars, no denotative meanings, it would be lost on humanity. We couldn’t use it. So we’ve created languages that [define] what we need them to and [confine] what we apply it to. Which is lucky for us, because we like those [boundaries].

Just [bracket] it up, stick it in there where it won’t get messy. We put our [thoughts] right there, stuff our [emotions] over there, squish our [relationships] in those tiny little squares on the side of a fridge and in the end everyone is happy because all we’re dealing with is a bunch of little [boxes]. Nice and easy, [comfortable].

But what happens when we try to stick something vast and incomprehensible, beyond our ability to truly ever understand into something that looks like this:

[god]

Well that’s tough. There is a God who doesn’t deserve to be contained but we will eternally struggle in our attempts to adequately represent His personality for others and ourselves. There is a God sitting across the table, having dealt the cards and split the chips, looking each and every one of us in the eye, asking if we’re ready to take it up a notch, to up the ante.

So what’s it gonna be then? Speak now or forever hold your peace ’cause we could retreat, pull back into our [boxes], clean up the mess and keep it all [safe]. Or we could dive deep into the mysterious unknown, be met by the merciful and just character of God, and find out what this life is really all about.

Creative License (Essentials Blue)

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

When I first came into worship, it was from the musical end of things. There wasn’t any lofty or magnanimous spiritual pull, slowing drawing me into that place where the heavens opened up and angels sang in immaculate chorus and down descended the Lord Himself to let me know that I was, in fact, doing the right thing. Honestly, it just seemed like a cool thing to do at the time. In retrospect I really had absolutely no idea what I was getting into.

I got into it, though, from the musical end of things. I had always been drawn to music and didn’t even realize for some time how much I truly enjoyed it. Wind ensembles, pit orchestras, honor band and All-State ensembles, band contests and festivals, jazz band, lounge combo groups, open-mic nights; I’ve done and am still doing all of it because without me even realizing it, music had become a passion, a love. It made me come alive.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Howard Thurman

Jesus came into this world to offer us and all of humanity true life. Following Jesus isn’t intended to drain the color from our existence or to make our actions and relationships insipid, but on the contrary to make those colors deeper, vibrant and those interactions lasting, full. Every individual that composes the Body of Christ has within them their own entire set of passions that God put there when He created them, and He intends to use them. Too often we end up separating what we enjoy from what we do for the church when we should see that the two will often coincide.

I feel that Christians, and more specifically those who would call themselves “artists,” think that they have to ask for permission to create, that they are required to ask for creative license. But we are called to create. Human beings were created in the image of the Creator, so what else would come so naturally to us as creation? And unlike much of the secular creative medium, Christian creation and its beauty would be–should be–a proclamation of the beauty and majesty of He who enabled it, a testimony to the truth of the living God. It was relieving to read that creativity is “not an option or luxury for the Christian, but rather a necessity” [1].

So as a musician, I write songs. I have yet to write anything that would be deemed a “worship song,” but nothing that I have written doesn’t have in some way a connection to the themes of the Christian message. I sing of trial and struggle; I sing of faith and trust; I sing of epics and journeys; I sing of good and evil; I sing of love and hope, and I sing of God for it is God who blessed me with the ability to sing.

1. Dan Wilt, “Living Creatively in the Image of God,” Inside Worship Magazine, June 2003, 9.