My friend, Alan Knox,  who will not be named in this post, told me about a new seminar being offered by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina called, Worship Leader Boot Camp: Special Edition (Leading Worship with Limited Resources). Which purportedly “takes the popular Worship Leader Boot Camptraining event, offered throughout North Carolina last year, and changes the direct application of the biblical and leadership principles through practically helping churches with limited resources to engage technology and new ways of thinking to lead worship with only one or two, or perhaps no instrumentalists.” (1) — whatever that means.

By the way, since the seminar is 30$/person plus hotel, “Limited Resources” does not mean limited funds but zero to a few talentless instrumentalists (though one probably begets the other).

I have decided that I am going to be a good Christian and undercut my brothers and sisters in North Carolina. For the low price of 20$/person, I will teach you how you can truly worship with limited resource in just 4 simple verses. But wait! That’s not all, if you read this post now, I’ll throw in an extra Scripture verse that proves my bias! Speaking of scripture, let’s see if we can glean some wisdom in its pages on how to Worship with a few talentless instrumentalists.

1. Consider killing your son, but don’t (Abraham and Isaac – Genesis 22)
2. Learn to program a PERL array of hashes (Holy Array – 1 Chronicles 16:29)
3. Make a footstool (Holy Footstool – Psalm 132:7)
4. Be IN God’s spirit (True Worshiper – John 4:23)

And finally, the extra Scripture I promised you comes from Song of Solomon 8:8. Commonly referred to as the “proves everything and anything verse”. Since this is only a 20$ seminar, you’ll have to look it up on your own.

I trust you found this exciting course in Leading Worship with Limited Resources helpful. Be sure to check out my next course, How to Kill Your Enemies and Still Love Them.

I’ve written about Beyond the Box Podcast before and I’ve mentioned it casually in a few other posts. A few weeks ago they released a new episode titled Distracted By Jesus?. This episode was actually part two of a two-part discussion, but this part had something in it that I had never once considered. Steve discussed some of his experiences as a former music leader for a church. They wanted to incorporated new music during their Sunday meeting. Steve discovered something that many of us have seen but I have never realized. Music divides the church!

Ever wonder why you have an early morning meeting with “Traditional” music and an later meeting with “Modern” music? Well, the older people don’t like the modern music and the younger people don’t like the traditional music. Some people have tried to incorporate both types of music in their meetings. That way they please everyone… but does that just end up annoying everyone?

Think about it, you’ll hear older people complaining about how the newer music is not reverent enough, not respectful… or they just do not “get it”. And the younger generation wants something more hip and upbeat, traditional hymns just bore them. But for the past 200+ years, we’ve traditionally played music during the Sunday morning meetings. We have to play something, right?

I’m not sure that removing music would help, I’m sure that would divide as well. To be honest, I do not know what is the best answer, it seems like no matter what you do, it will cause disunity among the church. I think the ultimate problem is that the people who would be upset are not considering the their brothers and sacrificing their own taste. I think an attitude of sacrifice comes from maturity in Christ. What are your thoughts?

In the book of Luke, Luke records Jesus saying, “Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.” (Luke 6:47-49)

In a recent OpEd in the WSJ by Dr. Albert Mohler about homosexual marriage, Mohler starts by saying, “The Christian church has faced no shortage of challenges in its 2,000-year history. But now it’s facing a challenge that is shaking its foundations: homosexuality.”

So, I wonder, what is Mohler’s foundation? It doesn’t appear to be Jesus.

I know Mohler is a follower of Jesus… I am merely using him as an example of two things. 1) We ought to be careful of the words we use when we try to spark emotional reactions from people and 2) We ought to be able to discern hype when we read it. In fact, I seriously doubt Mohler actually believes that homosexuality is shaking the foundations of Christianity.

Alan Knox asked me to write a guest post for his blog, so after much deliberation, I decided to write about “Weekend Christians” and how it seems like we encourage people to belief one day is more important than another, yet we expect them to act the same on all days.

Check it out, let us know what you think!

Eric Carpenter from A Pilgrim’s Progress thinks something is missing from Scripture and I agree.

When we read the bible, it’s fascinating to find that something is missing that we probably would not expect. What’s missing? The answer is that when the church gathers together, preaching is missing.

His writing is probably much better, much softer, much more humble than I could write about the same topic. You can tell he has put a lot of thought into this idea. The idea that there is no model for “preaching” when the Church gathers together.

As I do, Eric, rejects the belief that Acts 2-4, 20:7, Timothy 4:2 or even the Old Testament can be used to support our modern tradition.

So, what does this mean? How should we respond to this idea?