Vintage21 Church has five services across three campuses in both Raleigh and Durham. Yesterday I had the privilege to visit both Raleigh campuses – appropriately titled Raleigh West (117 S. West Street) and Raleigh East (110 S. East Street). It was exciting to see and hear both campuses worshiping God through song, and I was reminded of the beauty of the Advent hymns we sing. These songs often become rote tradition, and lose their meaning amidst the noise of the secular celebration of Christmas. You’ll hear “Oh Holy Night” in between “Jingle Bell Rock” and “White Christmas”, and over time it feels like a song of tradition instead of a hymn of praise.

Hearing the church sing these songs with fervor and joy quickly brought these back to their proper place of worship. As we continue this season of Advent, consider the words we sing. Are we responding with joy at the good news of Immanuel – “God with us”?

The footage below was taken with my phone at the Raleigh East and Raleigh West campuses. Make sure to check back to worship.vintage21.com each day this week as we prepare for the fourth sunday of Advent!

Previous Advent posts:

• Advent: More Than A Manger
• Christmas: The Worst Cover Song Ever
• Redeeming Christmas
• Advent Has Begun!
• Mighty God or Helpless Babe?
• Jesus, The Everlasting Father

]]> http://worship.vintage21.com/2010/12/vintage21-church-advent-week-three/feed/ 1 http://worship.vintage21.com/2010/12/december-5-2010-vintage21-west-campus/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=december-5-2010-vintage21-west-campus http://worship.vintage21.com/2010/12/december-5-2010-vintage21-west-campus/#comments Sun, 05 Dec 2010 21:45:51 +0000 Matt Stevens http://worship.vintage21.com/?p=1776 Vintage21 Church celebrated the 2nd week of Advent this past Sunday at Vintage21 Church’s West Campus. We’re continuing our study of Isaiah’s prophecy in verse 9:6, in which he said the Messiah would be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. To study the name Mighty God, @PastorTyler Jones preached from Hebrews 1:1-3.

Call To Worship
Today we celebrate the second week of Advent, and continue our series on Isaiah’s prophecy found in Isaiah 9:6. How can Jesus be both Mighty God and helpless infant? Our Call to Worship this morning contrasts the mighty power of God in Jesus and the humble role he played in becoming our sin (2 Cor. 5:21)

Leader: “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7)
People: “Whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.” (Hebrews 1:2)
Leader : “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2)
People: “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” (Hebrews 1:3)
All: “And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”

Let us now worship Jesus, Mighty God, through song.

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
Words by Charles Wesley, 1745
Music by Rowland Pritchard, 1830
Arrangement by Red Mountain Church

“Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.”

To Us A Child Of Hope Is Born
Words: John Morrison, 187
Music: Bruce Benedict, 2009 cardiphonia.org

This hymn arrangement by Bruce Benedict is one of many amazing songs he’s written, sung and produced. As Worship Director at Christ The King Church here in Raleigh, NC, Bruce leads their congregation in rich liturgies each week. His influence and friendship is valuable to me, and his support is invaluable as we go through our Calvin Grant process. His arrangement of this hymn is so beautiful, several band members said “Can we just play it exactly as it’s recorded?” That is essentially what we did.

This advent hymn is based on Isaiah 9:6, thus making it a theme song of Vintage21 Church’s advent series on the same passage. The recording below was taken from the 6:00 pm service at Vintage21’s West Campus on December 5, 2010. You can find Bruce’s recording of this hymn and others here. Follow @cardiphonia on Twitter!

Sermon: Isaiah 9:6 and Hebrews 1:1-3
@PastorTyler Jones

Death In His Grave
Words and Music by John Mark McMillan
This is not an Advent hymn, but was requested by Pastor Tyler as we study the topic of “Mighty God” in Isaiah 9:6. The following quote, taken from his sermon, explain why we sang this song on this Sunday of “Mighty God”:

He is all the beauty of God, He is all the forgiveness of God. He is all the love of God. He is all the pursuit of God. He is the light of the world. Jesus is the glory of God. Here’s the dumbfounding thing that we must conclude with. 2 Corinthians 5 says that he emptied himself of this glory. He set it aside, and he became the opposite of this glory. He became my lust, and he became my hatred. He became our genocide and he became our rape. He became our most broken things. He became our sin. Why would he do that? How does that resonate in your heart to such a level that you leave different than when you came? In response, we’re going to sing a song, “Death In His Grave”. The words of this song so articulate what Jesus has done.

To Us A Child Of Hope Is Born
Words: John Morrison, 187
Music: Bruce Benedict, 2009 cardiphonia.org

O Come, O Come Emmanuel
This traditional Advent hymn beautifully portrays the tension of this season. We sing longingly “Come, Emmanuel” and also “Rejoice”. The beauty of Advent is the existence that we can rejoice at the saving grace of Jesus the Messiah as we long for his return.

Drums: Joshua Snyder
Bass: Josh Phillips
Keys: Scott Andrews
Lead Guitar: Steven Suits
Vocals: Heather Pond
Vocals, Synth: Kevin Donnelly
Vocals, Guitar: @MattStevensNC

Join us tomorrow as we prepare our hearts for the third Sunday of Advent. @PastorTyler will preach on the name “Everlasting Father” from Isaiah 9:6.

Leagues is the new band of @ThadCockrell and @MikeSimons. Thad, Mike and @JoshBain all became involved around with @V21Church around the same time, and soon after that formed bands to lead worship on Sundays. Their leadership, production and songwriting have had a beautiful impact on the music of Vintage21. Some of the favorite songs sung at Vintage21 were written or co-written by Mike and Thad: Into The Arms, Holy Is The Name, When You Are Not Enough. In addition, their arrangements and approach to old hymns and contemporary songs have brought new life to such songs as How Great Thou Art, Oh To See The Dawn, It Is Well, and more. I’m thankful for the friendship of Mike, Thad and Josh, and thank God often for bringing them to Vintage21 Church. Many of you feel the same way, and now we can tangibly thank them, showing them the love and support they’ve given the church.

Although Thad has moved to Nashville, he and Mike have formed Leagues (@LeaguesMusic) with drummer Jeremy Lutito (@jeremylutito) and guitarist Tyler Burkum. They’re playing this Saturday at the V21 building. It’s a free show, but donations are being taken up to fund the recording of an album. Here’s a recording from their first show in Nashville several months ago. It was recorded on someone’s phone, but even so I’m impressed and can’t wait to hear them on Saturday:

In addition, they’ve volunteered to lead worship on Sunday at the West Street campus of Vintage21 Church (same building as the concert). I’m thankful for their humility and service, and am looking forward to worshiping with them on Sunday. You won’t want to miss this; definitely invite your family and friends to both the concert and church services on Sunday.

We have an opportunity as a church to support these two musicians who have blessed the church in many ways. Let’s get behind this effort as Mike and Thad use their gifts to love the church and the city.

Invite your friends and family using this Facebook link.
If you can’t make the show, give donations to fund their album here.

Follow @LeaguesMusic on Twitter.

@JoshBain

The local expressions of Jesus’ church each have a unique context in which they worship Him. There are unique hardships, unique people, and particular idols worshiped in that city, town or neighborhood. The music of each local body can and should be an expression of that particular gathered community. Due to our commitment and involvement in Vintage21 Church, it’s rare that many of us experience the songs or liturgy of other churches. Therefore, when Bruce Benedict (@Cardiphonia) of Christ The King Church included me in an email posing a songwriting project, I jumped at the chance.

Bruce’s proposal initially came on his blog Cardiphonia, and I encourage everyone not only to read this post but bookmark this site. It’s a rich resource for any follower of Christ in learning the purpose of the church and our role as worshipers.

Here is Bruce’s project: Write a new song based on Samuel Stone’s hymns on the Apostles’ Creed, which were written to put the words of the Apostles’ Creed into the hearts of the church. For this project, our song could be a slight re-working of Stone’s hymn or a new song that maintains the purpose but is loosely based on the initial text. Although I was excited about this, it took me a day or two to visit the site and sign up for a hymn. There were two Articles of the Apostles’ Creed left, one of those being “was crucified, dead and buried.” Perhaps this was one of the last two points due to it’s unpopularity or difficulty as a theme, but I was actually excited about this topic and particular hymn. A frustration with the modern evangelical expression of church is that there’s a discomfort that quickly comes with sitting in the depths of Christ’s sacrifice and/or the desperate need of our sin. Before you begin a treatise on the Risen Lord, please know I’m with you. We are called to proclaim and live in the hope of Jesus Christ, who is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. This is in reference to the feeling that every song must contain a bright, happy ending, when we have an entire service together. If we only sang one song each Sunday then yes, it would need to contain the entirety of the Gospel. I believe that one song can be a confession of sin and need for a Savior, followed by a song declaring the sufficiency found in Jesus. A beautiful aspect of corporate worship is that those needing to cry out can do so among the family, and be encouraged in return by their brothers and sisters.

The hymn Samuel Stone wrote to accompany Article IV is entitled “My Savior! I Behold The Life”. My favorite stanza is one that pictures Jesus’ body laying in a tomb, language not normally found in modern evangelical songs:

My Saviour, I behold Thy grave
In that still garden’s awful gloom,
I see Thee lying there to save
My soul from an eternal tomb

@JoshBain and I wrote and recorded this hymn in a few hours this past Monday evening and Tuesday morning. We made few changes to Stone’s original lyrics, but did write a traditional chorus using the last line repeated in each stanza of the original version. The new lyrics are below. You can find a recording of this song and all of the arrangements from this project here.

My Saviour! I behold Thy life
I watch the smile fade to tears;
I mark the spiritual strife,
Thy human woes, Thy human fears

I watch the agonizing hour,
I see Thee by Thine own betrayed,
Alone in Pilate’s power,
Scourged and scornfully arrayed,

Was ever grief like Thine,
Or debt of sin so vast as mine?
Because You lived and died
We can be purified

I see Thee fainting on Thy way,
Reviled and mocked of all the throng,
That sin in every taunt they say
The sharpness of Thy crown of thorn:

Was ever grief like Thine,
Or debt of sin so vast as mine?
Because You lived and died
We can be purified

My Savior, I behold Thy death,
I hear Thy cries, Thy plea of love
I hear the victory cries beneath,
And see the heavens dark above

Was ever grief like Thine,
Or debt of sin so vast as mine?
Because You lived and died
We can be purified

My Savior, I behold Thy grave
In that still garden’s awful gloom,
I see Thee lying there to save
My soul from an eternal tomb

David was someone who couldn’t help but learn this lesson, and his writing in the Psalms teaches us of the futile end of hoping in anything other than God. If I had to sum up David’s life in one sentence, it would be Psalm 37:23-24: “The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.” David had more cause than most in history to draw worth from his past accomplishments. As a boy, he defeated their most powerful enemy. As a young man, his accomplishments of fighting and leading surpassed that of the king himself. He penned some of the most beautiful poetry in the world. Yet any time he strayed from the path of the Lord, distress, sorrow and defeat overtook him. Granted, God took him on a quite a journey in which David went through great trials. Yet David believed “he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.” While he would not have chosen the path of hardship God took him through, David learned the only place fullness was found.

This mistaken love affair with ritual, tradition and comfort is pervasive in the Western evangelical church. Try entering a 150-year old church and changing anything at all, even trivial things such as paint color and most of the time this effort would be met with great resistance. Oftentimes church plants are initially made up of people whose opinions and beliefs were rejected at their old church. While this can be healthy in the case of someone who is making a stand on a core issue (e.g. Jesus is the Son of God, the authority of Scripture) this is not often the case. In most cases people are trying to make change not for the glory of God but for their own comfort or agenda. Ask most church planters that are several years into planting how many people from the core group are still around, and what role they’re playing. In most cases you’ll see that those people have moved on, usually with bitterness or frustration. This is often due to misplaced eagerness and allegiance in a group that is talking about planting a church. We learned early on at Vintage21 that there is only one thing to place our hope in – the Triune God we worship. All other things, including the means by which we worship and practice as the church, are on the table for growth and change as the Spirit leads. Had we staked our flag on “how Vintage21 does it” we not only would have begun the downward spiral of bitterness, defensiveness and infighting, but we would have dishonored and disobeyed Jesus. The church is not our object of worship but the means by which we worship the triune God. The rituals and traditions within church exist to point us to God as the object of our worship.

Would love to hear any thoughts you have on the place of ritual and tradition in the church. Have you seen healthy examples of this being used to glorify God?

Know Your Congregation
When asked what pastors should look for in hiring a worship leader, @MikeCosper of Sojourn Church responded “The primary thing you want is someone who is going to approach the task pastorally, who is going to think about the life of the community they’re in, the life of the city that they’re in. What are the idols? What are the issues that need to be called out and spoken to? And then they can skillfully respond to those pastoral needs by making selections for Sunday, for songs for scripture readings, for the worship practices of the church that re-orient the lives of the church people towards the God of scripture.” To know the congregation means to be involved, know the heart of those you’re in community and life with. This requires a pastor’s approach, which humbly loves them with the love of Jesus.

Watch the interview with Mike Cosper here.

Do Not Seek Easy Approval
Spurgeon and his congregation created their hymnbook out of necessity. This is a good rule of thumb for changes and additions to a congregation, as opposed to the this-is-available-therefore-we-should-use-it approach, which has churches chasing the latest technological implementation to keep attracting churchgoers. The hymnbook project was undertaken by Spurgeon’s congregation only after finding flaws in their current system. What assessment is in place for finding out whether or not the songs resonate within the congregation and allow them to worship God? If you rely only on the opinions of family, close friends and the people who pat you on the back after the service, you’re following the path of the Emperor, and you’ll soon find yourself out-of-touch with the congregation. Don’t let Nashville decide what songs are best for your congregation, either. Find people who will give honest feedback – both those with musical experience and those who represent the average congregant. Open up avenues of feedback through Member gatherings, online tools such as The City, Facebook, and Twitter. As with any poll or statistic, consider how representative the feedback is of the congregation before making drastic changes.

Open Up Your Context
Where do you find new songs? In the first few years of @V21Church I looked three places – a few hymnals, several other churches within Acts 29, and within our congregation as we wrote our own songs. As more worship leaders joined in, bringing with them songs from different places, our library was broadened, deepened and improved. Many churches in the West simply look to the latest CCLI hits, and other traditional churches stick to old hymnals. In all the above examples we’re missing out if we do not broaden our search context. God has written songs, is writing songs, and will write songs through believers within the Church.

Broaden Your Subjects
An endearing and amazing quality of the Psalms is the range of emotion contained within them. While worship pastors and leaders often state this, it does not seem that our library of songs reflect a depth contained with the Psalms or Spurgeon’s hymn book. As we examine the liturgy of Vintage21 Church through our @CICW Grant, mainly using Bryan Chappell’s elements of Christ-Centered Worship, we’re noticing what elements are represented in our corporate worship and which are scarcely noticeable. Let us not introduce new songs from one dimension, whether it’s dynamics, instrumentation, lyrics, singability or subject matter. Choosing based on subject matter can end up as a checklist of elements found in Scripture, while the songs themselves may not resonate or serve the congregation. When a pastor has an understanding of the congregation and listens to the Holy Spirit, the question of “What song should we sing?” will be answered by God. If certain subjects, Psalms and elements are not easily found in available songs, pray to God for songs surrounding these. I love this explanation by Spurgeon of why they wrote songs: “the fact that of certain difficult Psalms he could find no version at all fitted for singing, and was therefore driven to turn them into verse himself.”

Reading Spurgeon’s preface reminded me that we should not rest in this effort, as the songs we sing are of great importance to representing God and the response of His people. This declaration by Spurgeon should mark our planning and liturgy each week:

“We have not been able to fall in with modern scruples, but have rested content with ancient precedents. We have not cast about for models suggested by the transient fancy of the hour, but have followed the indications given us in the Word of God and in the long-established usage of the universal church; desiring to be obedient to the sacred precept,  ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom: teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.’”

What resources do you use in finding or writing new songs? If you’re a worship leader or pastor, what approach have you found works best in choosing songs for your congregation?

As church musicians and worship leaders, we strive to humbly submit to the leadership of the Holy Spirit…on Sunday mornings. Before this, are we looking to the Spirit for leadership, or planning from our own strength and creativity? Admittedly, while rehearsal for me involves prayer, there’s often a sense in my heart that I’m doing the work in planning. In fact, while we as bands pray that our rehearsal in itself would be worship, many times it doesn’t feel like it. I’m not advocating that we seek an empty-minded state of pure joy, where we “feel” God without any thought or work in planning; this would be poor stewardship by the musicians. Leading others in worship takes rehearsal as individuals and bands, and arrangements are the result of creative collaboration.

This brings us to the amazing life followers of Christ are called to: we work with everything in us to bring glory to God, while being unable to glorify God apart from the work of God through us. We should “work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23), yet our hearts must constantly submit to and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit within us. In this sermon by C.H. Spurgeon, he uses preaching as an example, giving all glory to God, who works through us:

“If you had looked at the jaw-bone of the ass in Samson’s hand, you would have said, “What! heaps on heaps with this!” No; bring out some polished blade; bring forth the Damascus steel! NO; but God would have all the glory, and, therefore, not with the polished steel, but with the jaw-bone must Samson get the victory. So with ministers; God has usually blessed the weakest to do the most good. Well, now, does it not follow from this, that it must be the work of the Spirit? Because, if there be nothing in the instrument that can lead thereunto, is it not the work of the Spirit when the thing is accomplished? Let me just put it to you. Under the ministry dead souls are quickened, sinners are made to repent, the vilest of sinners are made holy, men who came determined not to believe are compelled to believe. Now, who does this? If you say the ministry does it, then I say farewell to your reason, because there is nothing in the successful ministry which would tend thereunto. It must be that the Spirit worketh in man through the ministry or else such deeds would never be accomplished. You might as well expect to raise the dead by whispering in their ears, as hope to save souls by preaching to them, if it were not for the agency of the Spirit.”

If this is true, if ministry is only possible by the work of the Holy Spirit in us, we should live this way from beginning to end. Stop planning on your own strength and asking God to lead us when Sunday morning comes around. With all our lives we should seek the Spirit, instead of compartmentalizing when we step aside to allow the Spirit to lead us. Plan, write, rehearse, lead and worship all being led by the Spirit. This is not something to add to your schedule or philosophy, but is the reality of the life of the believer; “who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:4).

I’d love to hear any thoughts you have with this, verses to support or refute, or your own experience in planning a Sunday service.

The common belief behind a Call to Worship is that the leader calls the people to worship, and at that point our worship of God begins. While there is some truth to this, it’s not the deepest level of reality. Without God’s initiation, we would not know Him, let alone worship Him. He made us, breathed life into our bodies, loved us, pursued us after we sinned against Him, saved us by his substitutionary death on the cross, and sent His Spirit to sanctify us until we are brought into His presence. While a worship leader or pastor is issuing the Call to Worship, it’s God calling us through His Scripture, by His Spirit through that worship leader, and it’s God’s Spirit in us that stirs our heart to respond. This is a picture of Trinitarian worship – that God is both the leader and recipient of our worship. Like most things dealing with a Triune God, it’s difficult to comprehend. This quote from James Torrance provides a helpful synopsis:

“The Trinitarian view of worship is that it is the gift of participating through the Spirit in the incarnate Son’s communion with the Father. That means participating in union with Christ, in what he has done for us once and for all, in his self-offering to the Father, in his life and death on the cross. It also means participation in what he is continuing to do for us in the presence of the Father and in his mission from the Father to the world. There is only one true Priest through whom and with whom we draw near to God our Father. There is only one Mediator between God and humanity. There is only one offering which is truly acceptable to God, and it is not ours. It is the offering by which he has sanctified for all time those who come to God by him (Heb. 2:11; 10:10, 14).” - James B. Torrance, quoted by D.A. Carson in Worship by the Book (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Zondervan, 2002), 42.

While our practice does not change – the worship pastor still issues the Call to Worship – it changes the foundational mentality of this element for both parties. It does not allow the congregation to place the worship pastor on a pedestal as the priest that ushers them into God’s presence. (For more on this, check out an article by @bkauflin). For the worship pastor, this removes the false notion that you are the leader of the worship, a position occupied by Jesus. You are a worshiper, and God is calling you to worship just as He is calling the congregation. Continue to call them to worship but do so humbly and joyfully, remembering this news:

“With the Call to Worship, God’s people are invited to participate in the wondrous praise that already and eternally enraptures the hosts of heaven.” – Bryan Chappell, Christ-Centered Worship, p. 160

Most worship leaders would not claim to be the priest that ushers people into God’s presence, and they would probably say that ultimately God calls us to worship Him. However, our practices betray us. We often take on the burden to muster up praise for God through song selection, emotion, melody, and creativity. We mistakenly view God as a distant deity that issued a call for us to worship Him 2,000 years ago, but we see it as a ancient document preserved under a piece of glass, and today it’s up to us to continue calling people. The word of God is living and active (Heb. 4:12), the Spirit is active (John 14:16-17, Romans 15:13), and Jesus intercedes on our behalf (Hebrews 8:1). God is calling us to worship Him, and this element of the service should reflect this. One way to do so is by using God’s words found in Scripture. Any words we then speak should be prayerfully and humbly used, communicating the underlying belief that God is the one calling us today.

What are your thoughts on a Call to Worship?