ASCC Blog

Worship Wars | Classics Series

[2 MIN READ]

The following blog is the newest installment in our Classics Series, where we revisit posts from days gone by. This blog was originally posted in April of 2013.

“I sure hope we have great worship today. Hopefully, such-and-such is playing or singing today. When they play or sing, they help me worship so much better…” And so went the conversation in my head as I rode to church in years past, and then when said person wasn’t there up front or “x” song was sung, my whole worship “experience” derailed. “MY Sunday—ruined!” Now, truly, some Christian music leaders really help us turn our hearts to the immeasurable riches of Christ through song, but they aren’t the Holy Spirit.

Many of the Sundays we come to worship we bring enough distractions within ourselves to go around. We’ve got to fight for a quiet and poised heart (there's at least one true war we need to fight in worship). It doesn’t help when we build up the success of Sunday worship on our own personal preferences and agendas. Triune praise is the agenda of Sunday worship. The people, namely Jesus, we recognize through worship on Sunday really does matter. The vehicles of that music matter albeit less. Some prefer no instruments; others prefer the louder the better, and a myriad of preferences exist along the continuum, often labeled the worship wars. How congregations worship truly does matter, and we will indeed talk about it over the months and years. 

But let’s bear in mind that a difference in opinion about worship order or style starts in the heart. Let’s take care to guard our hearts and posture our affections toward Jesus alone every Sunday and not on our preferences.

The Absurdity of "Observing" the Sanctity of Human Life | Classics Series

[2 MIN READ]

The following blog is the newest installment in our Classics Series, where we revisit posts from days gone by. This blog was originally posted in January of 2013.

How far have we come as a society when we have to remind ourselves that human life is something full of dignity?

I wish it didn’t have to come down to this. I really wish there wasn’t an observance like this today. How far have we come as a society when we have to remind ourselves that human life is something full of dignity? Who gets to decide whether one human life is more worthy than another? The Lord God does.

But, if you have decreed God dead or relegated God to merely the realm of personal belief, then you only have god in a pantheon of many. It doesn’t really matter then who calls the shots because there is no one, clear authority. Abortion, racism, classism, ethnic cleansings, euthanasia, gang violence (and the list goes on) are not new phenomenon in our country or world. These social ills happen as a natural consequence of our utterly lost and broken condition as sinners. We sinners are capable of some dastardly things. However, let us be reminded that “as people sinned more and more, God’s grace became more abundant” (Romans 5:20). We can actually celebrate the fact that being in Christ actually starts the restoration of our original dignity as humans. So, in a sense, every Sunday can be a holy observance of what is true dignity.

Shalom.