Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Podcasting

Up until now Kainos has largely been an underground alt worship community - we have had no advertising of any kind. At least in part because we wanted to see what happenned...

Now, this is going to be our first wave of advertising and generating buzz. I think I am breaking the first rule of buzz creation, since I just told you what I was doing....but if you know a principle and knowingly violate it, that's not breaking the rules, that's good tactics. I learned that watching the Unit last night.

Each week Jason, our resident guru of digitailia, produces a podcast on itunes. If you have itunes you can search in podcasts for Kainos, or you can go to Kainos' website and subscribe there. If you don't have itunes, then you can just go to the website, or via the title link, and listen to a feed in internet explorere there.

Thanks y'all - hope you like it. Comment if you do, comment if you have any problems...

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Monday, November 12, 2007

Tozer on Worship

Not only should worship be passionate, but it should be explored, discussed and felt deeply and with much conviction. This is extremely evident in AW Tozer’s book, Whatever Happened to Worship. Through a series of printed sermons, Tozer lays forth an aggressive consideration of the current state of congregational and personal worship and offers the church a beautiful way forward in our worship of God.

Tozer very much believes that there is a correlation between worship and Christian service. While some people would say that if the church will worship more, “no one will do anything” (19). In fact the opposite may be true. Tozer believes that everyone will do more and do it with a deeper understanding of the meaning behind Christian deeds. This is an important observation for Christian leaders, whose responsibility it is to equip the saints for good works. Accordingly, the pastor who helps his congregation to give them selves to worship will see his congregation give themselves to the work of the kingdom of God.

I really appreciated Tozer’s comparison of the Roman empire’s demise to the church’s demise in worship. Many times, Christians blame outside influences for the weakness in their local church’s worship. Often there are complaints of not being able to compete with music video channels on television, or with local concerts. I believe it is a sad day when our worship becomes a part of a competition! Tozer points any blame for internal worship decay directly onto the church as it deviates from it’s original purpose. When a church behaves like a social club or a current events forum (96), the worship will not be all that God dreamed of for His church.

This book is a concise discussion of the current state of worship in the western church, we would do well to heed it’s observations, warnings and instructions. As a pastor Tozer had a strong desire to help his church experience true worship and this comes across clearly in this book. He encourages Christians to give up whatever is holding them back, whether it is from sin or mere inhibition, and to worship our Creator with spirit and truth.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Worship Journal 8

Many times people say we should join God on mission to the redemption of all creation. This is what God is doing, so it should be what we, as Christians are doing. I just read, however, a reasoning why. Why does God work for the redemption of all people? In John Piper’s book, Brothers We are Not Professionals, he says God’s main purpose in existence is to glorify Himself. So, everything He does can go back to this root – God is working for the redemption of the world, because it will glorify Himself. If this is true, then worship is the way that we can most closely join God in His mission! This is the first time that I have thought of worship in this way – joining God in honoring God – that’s really an new and awesome thought to me, and I’m not sure yet what implications that’s going to have on my life…

Monday, November 05, 2007

Worship Journal 7

I have finished the Tozer book and have a lot of thoughts about it. He seems to have this
old school fire to his writing, the kind you don’t see very much anymore. I was really interested in his statements about God saving us for/to worship. It makes sense that God would do things to enable us to worship him, since God’s main purpose is to glorify Himself.
Tozer also manages to talk about fear and mystery being important elements for worship.
Like we should be kind of close enough to the edge of something great that it makes us nervous, but not terrified. Good stuff, I think, but the way Tozer says a lot of stuff there doesn’t leave a lot of room for discussion.