Mar

Hearing impaired?

Fri Mar 9th 2012 @ 4:30 am

There’s an old story about a man who dreamed that an angel escorted him to church one Sunday. There he saw the keyboard musician playing vigorously, the praise team singing, the musicians playing their instruments with gusto. But the man heard no sound. The congregation was singing, but the sound was utterly muted. When the minister rose to speak, his lips moved, but there was no volume. In amazement, the man turned to his escort for an explanation.

“This is the way it sounds to us in heaven,” said the angel. “You hear nothing because there is nothing to hear. These people are engaged in the form of worship, but their thoughts are on other things and their hearts are far away. Ouch! As comedian Groucho Marx used to say, “I resemble that remark!”

And yet, for many of us, the praise and worship is one of the most important parts of our Sunday service. For some, it’s more important than the preaching part of worship. A huge percentage of those Christians who leave a church or join a church, do so because of their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the praise and worship. And that satisfaction or dissatisfaction is usually about the music: it’s too loud, it’s too boring, it’s too contemporary, it ‘s not contemporary enough, I’m sick of hearing the same songs week after week, I don’t recognize any of the songs, it goes on too long, it doesn’t go on long enough…and on and on.

So, my question is: is worship just about the music? Do I know what worship is…or at least what it should be? Do you? Does anyone? According to Barna Research (Here’s where I bore you with some statistics)

• The term “worship” means many things to many people. There is no single interpretation of the word that is common to more than one out of five adults in this country.

• Enjoying or appreciating praise and worship is not synonymous with experiencing the presence of God. Nearly two-thirds of regular attenders say they have never experienced God’s presence at a church service.

• The views of worship by born again Christians were not significantly different from those of other adults.

I have been told by many fellow believers that they have great difficulty getting “in the mood” for focusing on Jesus and the preaching if the music isn’t right…for them. Just the other night, a Christian brother told me he was leaving a particular Baptist church, of which he had been a member for years, because the new worship leader had introduced a more contemporary kind of praise and worship music. Is he wrong to do so? No. Is he right to do so? No again.

Picking a church to leave or join is decision that should take a lot of prayer…and based on more than just the music being played. It seems clear that many of us, including me, have become confused about the role that praise and worship music should play in our relationship with God. When Barna points out that over two-thirds of us have never experienced God’s presence in church…Wow! Maybe the angels aren’t the only ones who can’t hear our worship: maybe we are so busy thinking about other things on Sunday that we can’t focus on God. And maybe that’s why we don’t experience Him in our services: with or without worship music. Maybe the problem isn’t the music we play or don’t play. Maybe the problem is us.

Ya think?

Epilogue

William Temple’s masterful definition of worship: “For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose -- and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.”

Thought for the Day

Don't let yesterday's failure bankrupt tomorrow's efforts.

Turn the radio on

Listen to God & Ed’s Excellent Adventure on the Radio. Monday through Friday at 4pm on “The Word,” 98.5/99.3 FM. Or listen on-line at KLGO.net. It’s the place for Christians of all varieties to hang out and be loved, entertained and uplifted.

Semi-interesting fact

The penguin, unlike most birds, does not have hollow bones. For most birds the hollow bones provide a strong but lightweight skeleton for flight. The penguin’s bones are solid, providing weight for ballast. God doesn’t make mistakes.

Forward…Mail!!

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Joke du Jour

"Grandpa, I'm really proud of you," said the prim and proper young lady to her grouchy old grandfather.
"What's to be proud of?" asked the old man.
His granddaughter replied, "I noticed that when you sneeze, you've learned to put your hand in front of your mouth."

"Well of course I do," explained Grandpa. "How else am I going to catch my teeth?"

Cool Music

We’ve added more cool songs you’ve never heard on radio. Check the player on the upper right, click and brighten your day.

Questions I ask myself

If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose?

Really?? Actual News

What a pothole! A Chinese motorist had a lucky escape when his mini bus plunged down a sheer drop off a mountainside road - and was 'caught' by a passing lorry.

Yu Lin, from Nanyang, Henan Province, was on his way to collect his daughter from a friend's house when his bus skidded on a mud patch and careered over the drop."I could feel myself falling and it all seemed to be happening in slow motion like a movie. I thought to myself, 'That's it, you're going to die'," explained Wu. "Then all of a sudden there was a bump and I stopped in mid air as if I'd been caught by a giant hand."Astonished witnesses told police that Wu's bus had become wedged in the gap between the truck and the sheer bank in a million to one freak chance."Luckily the truck driver stopped instantly and the mini bus was stuck between it and the cliff and the driver could climb down to safety," said a Nanyang police spokesman.

US at night from space This spectacular image of the Atlantic coast of the US was taken by a 30-strong

crew aboard the International Space Station. Large metropolitan areas and other easily recognizable sites from the Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC area are clearly visible in the image that spans almost to Rhode Island. Boston is just out of frame to the right. Long Island and the New York City area are visible in the lower right part of the image. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are near the center. The space gear visible on the left are parts of two Russian vehicles docked at the ISS awaiting return to Earth during upcoming crew changes.

Red Hot Mama Sharon Simmons is competing against a slew of 20-somethings for a coveted spot on the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading team this May. She’s 55. Simmons, who has two grandkids says that she’s confident about her physical abilities. “On stage, I blend right in with women in their 20s, 30s and up,” she said. On her blog, Simmons calls herself a “Triple F: Fifty, Fit, and Fabulous.” To stay that way, she

competes in national fitness contests and has won nine first place titles in the past five years. Check out her performance in the Universe of Fitness competition in 2007, where Simmons was crowned 1st Place -- Fitness Model. So, why try out for the squad now? “I always wanted to try out. I got real close in my early 20s, but got busy raising my daughter,” Simmons says. The tryouts are less than three months away, but Simmons isn’t nervous. Every week, she trains with former Cowboys cheerleader, Audrea Cowen, who admits Simmons has a few hurdles in front of her. “The flexibility required to be a cheerleader is greater than what she needs for fitness competition,” Cowen said. But Simmons said she’s having fun taking on this challenge. If she makes the squad, she will become he oldest cheerleader in NLF history.

Welfare Queen Amanda Clayton,

a Detroit woman who made headlines after admitting that she still collected food stamps despite a million-dollar lottery win, has now been removed from the food assistance program. Officials from the Michigan Department of Human Services confirmed that Clayton officially will not receive $200 a month in benefits, MSNBC reported. The authorities found out that Clayton, 24, had still been using her welfare card to collect unemployment benefits each month, after winning $1 million dollars in the lottery last fall, through a report this week by WDIV-TV, a Detroit news station. Euline Clayton, Amanda's mother, had told the press that her daughter's wins had been decimated by tax payments, leaving her with only $500,000 to pocket. "I'm not saying it's the right thing to do," Euline Clayton toldThe Detroit News about her daughter's behavior. "But it's nobody's business, if she's not breaking the law."

Mansion owner brings back slavery A wealthy New York woman is facing criminal charges after being accused of keeping an illegal immigrant as an indentured servant and forcing her to live in a closet for nearly six years. Documents allege that Annie George, 39, and her now-deceased husband, Mathai George, hired an illegal immigrant from India. The immigrant, identified only as "V.M.," was promised about $1,000 a month in wages to live in the family's 34-room, 30,000-square-foot home,

known as Llenroc mansion, which houses a helicopter pad, 15 fireplaces, marble flooring, 24-karat gold gilded ceilings and a glass elevator. V.M. was tasked with taking care of the Georges' four young children, along with performing household duties in the mansion located about 20 miles north of Albany. New York's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Even if V.M. had been allowed to leave the residence at the end of a regular 40-hour workweek, she would have been entitled to a minimum, pretax income of $290 per week, or $1,160 per month. Instead, the "forced labor situation" (as described in the court papers) was even worse than the already-below minimum wage offer of $1,000 month. V.M. received 85 cents an hour, working 17-hour days, seven days a week, over the 67 months she was kept inside the George residence. All told, V.M. received only about $29,000 over the five and a half years she was forced to work for the George family. Immigration agents received a tip from the National Human Trafficking Resource Center last year and removed V.M. from the George's property. The U.S. Department of Labor conducted its own investigation and says V.M. is entitled to $206,000 in back wages.

Are you kidding me???

The number of new Bibles that are sold, given away, or otherwise distributed in USA is about 168,000 per day.

Groaner

What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire? Frostbite.

Point to Ponder

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Remember, Christianity is more about walking than about talking