pedo mellon a minno

Phew!

What a busy weekend it has been... thursday nite practice for 9am service, friday night practice for SNL, Sat afternoon special training w Ps Derek Levendusky, SNL w ps Derek, Sat night pract for Orchard gig, Sun morn 9am service, 7pm gig w Andrew, 9pm gig w Z3 at Orchard. Not quite the thing i should be attempting to maintain in the long run... i'll get grouchy, stiff and old.

Oh.... i thought i thoroughly enjoyed the orchard gig tonight- both w Z3 and w Andrew (this fascinating guitar specialist, luthier and worshipper). Best of all, the 'audience' was largely made up of old friends who decided to drop by. Thank you for the support, ya'll! I liked the intimate musical interaction of guitar and tin whistle between Andrew and myself, especially since we hardly rehearsed (wonder if running verbally through songstructure counts). But it was neat, cos we got to express our love for God, and our dependence on Him in song, albeit we couldn't preach outright about Jesus nor the Cross.

Hopefully the people in the midst of the passing crowd who paused for a moment to stop, listen and think had something planted in their hearts. That's beyond us, and its the Holy Spirit's work. :)

And oh, lately i've been browsing through the "latest" in contemporary worship music (CWM- touted the next biggest "industry" in religious music)... There's this whole concept of a "worship artist" that's beginning to sound precariously packaged and marketed by forces outside of simple and honest worship-in-spirit-and-in-truth values. Surely the worship movement as such is not an end in itself, nor is it to write the next "big" worship hit; nor to have ministry success rated according to album sales. The worship movement exists because of a generational hunger for intimacy and truth before the Creator; and its end is the Christ-life lived out in full, affecting and infecting their generation for a tsunami change of life values- evangelism and missions. The mission movement MUST be the result of the worship movement.

"to love souls is not the most important criteria; to love God is" Hudson Taylor (paraphrased)

Worship is not so much a "for me" phenomena, as it is solely reserved for the King of Glory, our Creator God. To miss the point and Object of devotion is to miss the forest for the tree.

"the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits." Daniel 11:32b
We know God, and are strong, and hence do exploits; Not to do exploits and hence strong, to know God.

Are we putting the cart before the horse?