Here are the recordings of the Opening Convocation sermon by Dr. Reggie Kidd and the Presidential Address from the January 2012 On-Campus Intensive Session.Read More
Roger wears two watches. Because he travels a lot, he sets the watch on his left wrist to whatever time zone he happens to be in. He sets the watch on his right wrist to the time zone “back home” in Switzerland, where his heart always is and where his family lives. Stability on the...Read More
I’ve led worship long enough to know the lure of technique-obsessed, Unitarian worship. I’ve seen it practiced over and over again. Along the way, I have learned to look for a different way, and to know the surprise and delight of the Trinity’s “grammar of grace,” where Jesus is our true worship leader.Read More
A few years ago I published in a couple of places a review that I had done about the Trinitarian quality of the most used contemporary worship songs in the United States. The study looked at the lyrics of any song that had appeared on one of CCLI’s twice-a-year list of the most used 25...Read More
Lent outlines the contours of the Suffering Servant’s servitude. Maundy Thursday – named, as it is, for the giving of the “new commandment” that we love one another as Christ has loved us – pivots on the occasion of the footwashing (John 13). Maundy Thursday’s washing and being washed creates in me a fresh hunger...Read More
A few years ago I took up samurai swordsmanship. It has not been easy, because the sword is not just about cutting stuff. It’s as much about how you move your body. My body doesn’t do Japanese well. When my sensei shows me what I look like to him, he bounces like Tigger and sways...Read More
The church I attend, Harvest Evangelical Free Church in Branson, Missouri, is doing something most members thought we never would: talking seriously about catechesis.Read More
Occasionally, an ancient writer hits you with a jaw-droppingly fresh insight. The first theologian to discover the power of the idea of Jesus as God's "New Song" was Clement of Alexandria in the early 200's: "I have called Him a New Song."Read More
The purpose of the Alternative Response to the Word is to communicate our response to God as a result of having heard and received God’s word in worship. It is an acknowledgement that we have truly listened to what God spoke to the community through the Scriptures and the sermon, and that as a result...Read More
This past Advent, I began chanting psalms in my daily devotions. I’m doing so using the eight ancient plainsong chant tones that have their origins in the Gregorian musical revolution of the middle of the 1st millennium, as recovered and restored in the late 19th century.Read More
Rouault comes upon this old clown “mending his glittering and colorful costume.” He sees the jarring contrast of “brilliant, scintillating things, made to amuse us,” on the one hand, and the infinite sadness in the man’s unguarded face, on the other. “I clearly saw that the ‘Clown’ was me, it was us. . . . This rich and...Read More
A “new song” celebrates God’s deliverance from exile. Sometimes the song is the deliverance. Singing transforms experiences and changes perspectives. Such is the case with Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1321) Divine Comedy…Read More
In the summer of 1999 when I was in the middle of writing With One Voice, the following summary article appeared in The Reformed Quarterly. For many of my friends the article served as an entrée into my thinking about the many voices through which our Singing Savior sings in his church. For a long...Read More
The following is an excerpt from Carla Waterman’s forthcoming book—All isWell: Feminine Graces in the Formation of Faith—available soon at www.lulu.com. This book explores five statements spoken by or to Mary, the mother of our Lord, “on the days when Gabriel is not conspicuous and the wise men have gone home.” The book seeks to...Read More
