I recently traveled to Hungary and did some more teaching on worship. Details and photos HERE.

One of the exercises I often lead in groups like this is that of writing one’s own worship definition. We undertake this exercise after we have spent time examining critical scripture passages about worship. Though all the students read the same scriptures and we talk together about their meanings, the resulting definitions are as diverse as the individuals in the room.

This time around, I had a first. One girl, named Zsófi Vizi chose to DRAW her worship definition. The idea in itself is wonderfully creative and even more so when you see how she did it.

Take a moment and examine her imaged “worship definition” and see if you can pull out some foundational thoughts about worship and where in scripture they are found.

(Click this small image to see a larger version)

An excerpt from a Facebook dialogue I’ve been having with a friend:

In the past, I haven’t voted at all. Mainly, that’s because I just don’t think that who’s in office really matters that much to what God wants to accomplish on the planet.

Though this stance may have its holes, it at least takes away the tension of having to find THE candidate with ALL the correct views. These people don’t exist, as you [my conversation partner] pointed out.

I’ve been reading “The Presence of the Kingdom” by Jacques Ellul. He was a French theologian (I think he died in the 1990’s). The book was written in the 1940’s. He makes several points about being a Christian.

One of these points is that [he believed] the Christan’s main goal is to be a SIGN of the presence of the kingdom of God and of Christ… (more…)

Watch this:

OR click HERE.

I’m making a trip to Hungary on July 19. I’ll share five short talks with Sófár (a gathering of worship leaders from the Hungarian reformed church). Here’s the bio of me they posted on their website. Have fun reading it!

In prep. I’ve been writing a lot and reading some, too. I was just dipping into “Unity and Diversity in the New Testament” by James D.G. Dunn in search of his thoughts on early Xian worship. Unlike other books of its weight and girth, Dunn’s work is written so that it is accessible to most.

This morning I was reading chapter seven: Patterns of Worship. In a nutshell, Dunn describes what little we know (directly) about the earliest worship in the first generation of Christians. Below are some key points he makes in this chapter:

1. It is not completely clear what Jesus’ posture was toward the worship of his day.

We know from scripture that Jesus was in the temple, but not how often he went. Of course, at least once, he was unhappy with the nature of the goings on in the temple (see cleansing of the temple). Likewise, we know Jesus went to synagogue, but not how often he attended. It seems from the evidence that Jesus primarily attended synagogue to teach his own message, rather as part of his ritual worship experience. Ultimately, we CAN gather that Jesus was generally of the mind that certain things were of the “old age” which was passing away. This includes things like: temple sacrifice and ritual purity. Additionally, Jesus challenged the pervasive Jewish views on Sabbath, fasting, and even prayer.

Dunn makes the key point, however, that ultimately, what we gather from the text about Jesus’ views on worship is quite ambiguous. This fact makes sense of the next key point…

2. Almost from the very beginning, Christians developed “divergent interpretations and practices” of worship. (more…)

Recently, I was flipping through a book on spiritual formation before I lent it to a friend and I found this:

Apparently, these were quotes from “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas à Kempis (a different spiritual formation book) that struck me as important. As I’ve been re-reflecting on them, I thought I’d post them here for anyone else who might also find them important.

The Imitation has always been one of the most influential books on my own spiritual growth and perhaps if you’ve never read it - or never even heard of it - you might be enticed to explore it a bit.

These are the quotes I drew out at one point several years ago:

“A true understanding and humble estimate of oneself is the highest and most valuable of all lessons.” Book I, Chapter II

“Whenever a man desires anything inordinately, at once he becomes restless.” Book I, Chapter VI

“But devout conversation on spiritual matters greatly furthers our spiritual progress, especially with those who are heart and soul with us in the service of God.” Book I, Chapter X

“We could enjoy much peace if we did not busy ourselves with what other people say and do, for this is no concern of ours.” (no reference given)

“The beginning of all evil temptation is an unstable mind and lack of trust in God.” Book I, Chapter XIII

“None is sufficient in himself; none is wise in himself; therefore we must support one another, comfort, help, teach, and advise one another. Times of trouble best discover the true worth of a man; they do not weaken him, but show his true nature.” Book I, Chapter XVI

I am particularly struck by the one about enjoying peace by not busying ourselves with other peoples’ words and actions. I’ll have to chew on this one some more. I think I’ve got some work to do.

I just enjoyed a couple beers at America’s first sports bar, the Bull and Bush English Pub in Denver.

Not only that, I enjoyed some great conversation with a new friend named Dan. We shared about art, worship, community, church, and everything else tangentially connected with these things.

I really want to see some kind of arts/worship collective in Denver. Not a bunch of ‘worship leaders’ (in the old/current sense) talking about how to make church services cooler. There is plenty of that already going on.

Really, I want to figure out how to connect artists - xian, non-xian alike - to one another and invite them all to share their thoughts (really, their ) about spirituality, life, and relationships. And, I want to see this happen at varying levels of community. And, I want to see it happen outside of what is traditionally called “church”.

We’ll see what happens. I’m really not sure how it will look. All I know is that I feel the impulse to pursue such a thing. With the partnership with people like Dan, it could happen.

My friend Ryan wrote a great post yesterday on being missional and being a disciple.

In essence, he says that the term or idea of “missional” has evolved to the point that recently there are men and women who one might call “fans” of missional. Using this term from Willard, Ryan says, in essence, that many have decided it is really cool to hang out in pubs, cuss a blue-streak, and visit art galleries in the name of ‘being missional’, while often any real growth in discipleship of Jesus is minimal, at best.

I agree with Ryan. In fact, I have found myself, at times, acting as a ‘fan’ of missional. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t really have a problem with hanging out in pubs or swearing or visiting art galleries often. If you know me, you know this is true. But, recently, I’ve noticed in myself the need to become a better disciple.

Perhaps, a positive way to say it is: “I’ve grown (and grown well) recently in my missional posture and now it’s time to attend to the ‘student’ side of my relationship to Christ.” (more…)

One of the most interesting things about moving one’s family to a new location is the way one is forced to view things from a new perspective.

Denver, for us, is a new city and a new culture. Though it is still part of the same nation as Pasadena and much more culturally similar to California than to the midwest (or so they say), Denver is still rich with diversities that can make even the simplest life-decisions more complex.

Like, for example, what to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

If we had been in Southern California this last Sunday p.m., I have no doubt we would have headed to Long Beach Marina to escape the 112 degree temps of Pasadena. To her great joy, Nathalie would have tempted the skin cancer demons far too frivolously. I would have read the paper and some other book, which I’d been trying to get to.

But being more than 1,000 miles from any ocean, we headed to the park. At least they have fountains.

It was 85 degrees and sunny (most of the day) and Nathalie was needing to find somewhere that donning a bikini would not seem so strange to onlookers. I simply needed a quiet place for a peaceful nap.

We found what we were both looking for in Cheesman Park (I know, nice name). [And, for some interesting - and spooky - park trivia, check THIS!] Cheesman is only about 2 miles from our house and on the cusp of the city center.

Personally, I have never HAD to visit the beach. I have learned to like it over time, even though the sand gets everywhere and it is impossible to avoid the fear of premature wrinkles and skin cancer. So, for me, the afternoon was perfectly sweet. And I didn’t get any grass in my shorts.

California girl was a little less excited, however, I know she found aspects of our park experience to be enjoyable and relaxing, too.

Nathalie Nudist.

The Cheesman Memorial Pavilion.

The Front Range of the Rockies in the distance.

Eric’s nappin’ spot.

In the future, I look forward to exploring more of the official parks of Denver, which seem - to this new comer - to be at least as numerous as the official beaches of Southern California.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned (making the sign of the cross). It’s been 67 days since my last post.

Really, nothing significant has happened since April. This is why I’ve found it difficult to come up with something interesting to share at worshipartist.net. Sure, I could have noted the mundane moments of my life, but who really wants to read that?

At any rate, I felt it was time to re-engage my spiritual discipline of blogging - perhaps weekly (I don’t want to push it). But, before I can do that, I should at least mention some of the banal life-events since my last post. As difficult as it will be to drum up something interesting, I’ve got to try. Here goes…

April 4 : Peter and I made it to Denver in two days and successfully delivered car #1 (the Jeep) to a temporary location until car #2 would join it in June.

April 8 : Upon return to Pasadena, I realize that Nathalie and I have less than one week to pack our entire apartment since we are traveling the last 10 days before the truck comes on April 26.

April 15 : Nathalie and I join my parents in Maui to celebrate their wedding anniversary and to enjoy our last vacation of this sort without a little runt.

April 26 : I lead worship for the Fuller Seminary Prospective Students session at 9 a.m. Meanwhile, Nathalie receives the movers at the same time and 4 guys load all our stuff onto a huge truck and head off eastward toward the Rockies.

April 27 : We move into a temporary 1 bedroom apartment with our handful of belongings. We try sleeping on a double size air mattress and soon realize it is bad for a pregnant woman. Luckily, we acquire two twin mattresses from some friends and create an impromptu king-size bed (still not the most comfortable thing to get up from in the middle of the night). Our nightstands are two upside-down boxes, our chair is an IKEA Poang cushion with no frame, and everything else is borrowed.

April 30 : I fly to Denver, meet the landlord to get the keys, and spend the night in our empty house.

May 1 : Nathalie arrives in Denver. It snows.

May 2 : The truck with our stuff arrives and we spend half the day unloading the truck (well, okay, we just directed mostly).

May 3-4 : We unpack and set up our kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom and sleep on our own mattress for a couple nights.

May 5 : Nathalie flies back to Pasadena. I continue unpacking.

May 6 : I return to Pasadena.

May 8 : We hang out with Nathalie’s mom in Pasadena.

May 9 : We attend a Pre “Baby Shower, Goodbye Party, Give Nathalie Gifts Party” in order to create a blue colored cocktail for the actual shindig on May 31. The result? The Blue Herron (really, just a Blue Hawaii with a better name).

May 10 : Our Fuller community hosts a going away party/baby shower for us and we have a great time beginning to ’say goodbye.’

May 12 : We meet with our CRM director, Gary.

May 13 : Our baby gets an echo-cardio gram and receives a ‘normal’ bill of health concerning its heart and circulation.

May 13, 14, 16, 17, and 20 : We have sundry meals to say goodbye to friends.

May 15 : I spend several days recopying my Masters Thesis which only exists in hard copy form after having my hard drive crash several months ago.

May 21, 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.: I lay down some keyboard tracks for Fuller student Jeff Bonhiver’s Masters’ Thesis recording project in Reseda.

May 22-25 : We enjoy our last (for a while) vacation in Palm Desert with some good friends for Memorial Day weekend. The friends are good, but the weather is abnormally chilly, at least as far as the desert goes.

May 26-28 : I finished recopying and editing my 80 page thesis, including adding 10 pages and reviewing my research for my next writing endeavor. I make a back-up copy.

May 29 : The Fuller Housing office has a party to celebrate Nathalie and allow students and staff to say ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye’ to her as she transitions to a part-time/tele-commuter role after 3 years of working in the office.

May 30 : We unexpectedly travel to Upland to help the Haraksins put their house together after their contractor makes a late finish on their house remodel (our party is at their house the next day!).

May 31 : We attend the spectacular “Herron Baby Shower, Going Away Party, Give Nathalie Gifts Party” at George and Tracy Haraksin’s house in Upland. Here, we are reminded how many great friends we have, how much we will miss them all, and how ‘until next time’ is a much better phrase than ‘good-bye’.

June 1 : We have a late lunch with our friends the Bills and prepare to drive to eastward once again the next day.

June 2-3 : Nathalie and I drive car #2 (the Jimmy) to Denver via Las Vegas, NV, Green River, UT, and Grand Junction, CO.

June 4-11 : We set to work and complete the set up of our rental house in Denver.

June 8 : Peter Schrock becomes the first California guest to stay in the Herron Hotel and Cafe.

See what I mean? Our lives have been completely boring. I’m only hoping that now that we are settled in Denver, something will happen so we don’t sit around twiddling our thumbs.

The morning of our second day driving to Denver, Peter and I got up a little early to visit Bryce Canyon National Park. We were staying in Tropic, just a short number of miles from the Park.

The Canyon opened to the public at 8 a.m. and we arrived at about 8:10 a.m. There was only a lone woman photographer and middle-aged French couple at Bryce Point - the place we chose to view the Canyon.

In a matter of a few short minutes, everyone left the point and it was just Peter and me with our cameras - solitary amidst the immensity of this natural phenomenon.

(click pic to enlarge)

There was a large cliff to the southwest of the Point and Peter decided it would be good to walk out on it to see what he could see, gather some dirt samples (nerd), and take some pics from in the midst of the hoodoos (I’ll link to his pics once he’s posted them).

I must admit, I got a little nervous when he had climbed down and started walking out on the cliff. You’ll see why when you check out this picture I took of him… Can you find Waldo, er - uh, Peter?

(click pic to enlarge)

It was a great start to our last day of driving. In fact, the feeling was a bit indescribable. To feel the chill of the air at 8,300 ft., to behold the silence as the sun rose, to be virtually alone in such a grand place, to hear my voice echoing as it rolled around the nooks of varied rock formation; all this was a monumental experience everyone should try to attain at least once in a lifetime.

Just when we thought it couldn’t be any better, a cheap and relaxed breakfast at Cowboy’s Buffet and Steak Room just outside the Park entrance set us up for our last 600 miles.