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The Communion Liturgy at New Life Downtown

Every once awhile, I am asked what our liturgy is at New Life Downtown. Our service flow (in general) can be found HERE. But the most 'liturgical' part of the service-- i.e. the part that uses the ancient prayers, practices and sequence-- is when we come to the Lord's Table.

While I am an ordained Anglican priest, I serve as a pastor at New Life Church, a non-denominational, charismatic church, where I have been on staff for over 14 years. Fortunately, a trademark of Anglican worship is its adaptability to different contexts. 

Almost all these words are from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The only tweak I've made is in the way I announce forgiveness in the 'absolution' section. We have the band on stage during all of the below, providing a soft, worshipful bed of music. Once the invitation is given (the last section of the communion liturgy), the worship leader begins the song she has chosen for that week. From Easter to Advent, this is the longer section of musical worship, where we sing 4 songs.

Below, the bold are the 'movements' or sections of the Eucharist liturgy; the italics are an abbreviated version of the instructions I give.

-------------------------

CONFESSION (All):
Take a moment and let the Holy Spirit nudge you about ways that you can surrender, ways that you can turn away from self-reliance and toward a dependence on God. Now, let us pray this prayer together:

Most merciful God, 
We confess that we have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved You with our whole heart;
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

For the sake of Your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; 
that we may delight in Your will, and walk in Your ways, to the glory of Your Name.

Amen.

[UPDATE] WORDS OF ABSOLUTION/FORGIVENESS (Me): 
May the Father of all mercies cleanse you from your sins and restore you in His image to the praise and glory of His name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

[UPDATE] THE PEACE:
The peace of the Lord be with you! Now turn to one another, and pass on the Lord's peace, speak His life and His love to one another.

EUCHARIST PRAYER:
Me:             The Lord is here
All:              His Spirit is with us.

Me:             Lift up your hearts.
All:              We lift them to the Lord.

Me:             Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
All:              It is right to give Him thanks and praise

WORDS OF INSTITUTION (Me):
On the night he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread; and when he had given thanks to you, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, “Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.”

After supper he took the cup of wine; and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and said, “Drink this, all of you: This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.”

MEMORIAL ACCLAMATION (All):
Christ Has Died, Christ Is Risen, Christ Will Come Again.

THE EPICLESIS-- 'Come, Holy Spirit' (Me)
Stretch your hands forwards as a Kingdom of priests:
“We pray you, gracious God, to send your Holy Spirit upon these gifts that they may be the Sacrament of the Body of Christ and his Blood of the new Covenant.” 

Lift your hands up in surrender:
“Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace; and at the last day bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom.” 

THE INVITATION (Me):
“The gifts of God, given for the people of God. Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.”

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Do the Words We Use in Worship and Prayer Really Matter?

[I have discovered from my recent tweets about the language of our worship and prayer that while many agree, several are confused. Some wonder why this fascination with the old and the traditional. Others think I'm simply an unlikely champion of the "good ole hymns." In an attempt to provoke more discussions amongst yourselves-- worship leaders, worship teams, songwriters, etc-- I have formulated the three most frequent objections I've heard...and I've attempted a response. If my response is severe, it's because I believe the issue is.]

"Worship songs" are not just "expressions of our hearts to God", they shape what we believe about God. In the first 1600 years or so, few dared to write "their own songs" for congregational worship. The first prayers and songs of the Church were Psalms (prayers they learned as Jewish children) reframed around Christ. By the end of the 1st century we see a few creedal formulas surface, many of which are quoted in Paul's letters. Later, when more songs and liturgies were written, they were carefully worded by theologians like John Chrysostom in the 4th century (whose liturgy the Orthodox Church still sings!) and much later, Luther in the 16th century. For many centuries after the Reformation, songs written for public worship had to have words taken directly from Scripture. Today, we are loose about it. We sit down-- and I say "we" because I have been guilty of this-- and try to write a song based on what's in our hearts, what we want to say, what my Church wants to sing...all of which may be OK if they are subservient to the larger question, "What is true about God?" Still, some insist...

1. "It's the Heart that Counts."
Tell that to Nadab and Abihu-- you know, the guys who offered a "strange fire" and got struck down in Numbers 3. Or Uzzah, the guy who struck dead for touching the Ark that was sliding off a cart it should never have been on because David did not "seek the Lord about the prescribed manner." Where did we arrive at the notion that God does not care about the way that we worship? Or that all that matters is our heart? What only adds to the muddle is the confused notion about what the "heart" is. We have been shaped by the Romantic Era so that when we hear "heart" we think "intention" or "desire." But in the Scripture the "heart" is the seat of the will. It is where action comes from.

But here's the real question: Are you sure that your words and your heart are two separate things? Can you sing "bad" words but have a "good" heart? Jesus seemed quite clear that our words always betray what's in our hearts. Perhaps our words in worship reveal what we really believe about God in our hearts. This is point of the whole Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi thing. It's the conviction that the way we worship is the way we believe is the way we live. It's not just a clever Latin phrase from a long time ago. Is it an accident that along with the rise of "popular worship songs" devoid of the words and content of the Creeds and Confessions of the Church has come the rise of a new religion, Moralistic Therepeutic Deism, that many think is "Christianity"? Have our words of prayer and worship become so generic that most of what we sing can be just as easily sung to Simba the Lion King or, better yet, Oprah's 'God'?

The Bible also tells us that our heart is desperately wicked. Scripture and the historic creeds and confessions of the Church (that were either based on Scripture or were themselves the basis for selecting the Canon of Scripture) are like iron stakes, driven into the ground on either side of a young tree. Without them, our worship grows crooked.

2. "What We Really Need is the Spirit to Show Up."
Immediately I want to ask, "Which Spirit?" and "How will you know it's Him?" What this statement may reveal is a fixation on an experience. But Christians don't gather together so they can "experience God" as if it's a sanctified frat party. We gather to pay attention to God-- His presence in the Sacraments, His voice in the Scriptures, His Spirit in His people-- and to pay attention to one another-- our companions on the way of the cross. To say it's all about God "moving" in a service is to leave that up to a subjective experience of whether He "moved" or not. If we aren't careful we may think that as long as we danced/cried/shouted/were moved/etc then it doesn't matter if what was said or sung was actually about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is letting Experience define Truth instead of letting Truth define Experience. It's a bizarre non sequitur: "I feel it, therefore it is true." No one would actually say this, but our actions may indicate that we are more concerned with "what the experience of God is like" than "who the God of the experience is." Pardon me for being crude, but that's a bit like saying, "As long as the sex is good, I don't care whom it's with." And, indeed, that seems to be the motto of our culture. But if we are to be Christ's Bride and not Bablyon's Whore, we can't qualify a worship service filled with sloppy theology by how good it felt. Our worship must begin with the question, "What is true about God?" not "What do I want/need/expect to feel?"

Oh, and by the way, every time the People of God gather in Christ's name, the Spirit of God is there. You (plural!) are the Temple of the Holy Spirit. He is present when we gather. The discipline of gathering weekly to worship is one of learning to pay attention to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not to have a group sensation.

3. "We Need to be Free to Express Ourselves in Our Own Way."
Resisting the urge to refer again to the aforementioned Nadab and Abihu, I will say, instead, that you are free to do lots of things. You are free to worship a false god if you'd like. You are free, as Adam and Eve were, to try to be god-like instead of reflectors of the Image of God.

"Freedom" is another convoluted word, muddied by the Romantic Era and the American Revolution. "Freedom" in the American sense is quite different from "Freedom in Christ." Jesus didn't die to give us free speech; He died to set us free from the law of sin and death at work in us. Our culture has idolized autonomy and called it "freedom." We like innovation and not imitation because innovation is an expression of independence, and imitation is proof of dependence. But Biblical worship has nothing to do with the arrogant and the independent. If you insist on making this about "expressing yourself", you will find yourself more at home with the Golden Calf than with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. After all, the Golden Calf was an image Israel was familiar with, an "expression of worship" they knew and that made sense to them. You cannot fashion YHWH in your image; you are fashioned in His image, which is why there is a "prescribed way" to worship Him. It takes humility to say, "I don't really know how to worship." It takes humility to ask, as the disciples did, "Lord, teach us how to pray." And then to listen to the words of the Lord's Prayer and let those words shape the language of your prayer. Can we pray our own prayers and write our songs from our heart? Of course. But we would do well to let our language first be shaped by Psalms, Scripture, and the historic Creeds and confessions of the Church.

As children, we learned to speak by being spoken to. Our mother or father says, "Ball" and we watch their mouth and try to say it back to them. Then we say it with them. Soon we say it on our own. Then we speak on our own. But not with "our own words." That would be gibberish. We speak the words spoken to us. So with worship and prayer: Speak, sing, pray, the Word that has been spoken to you. Or as Paul wrote, "Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts" (Col. 3:16).

[I'm sure I'll write a follow-up post with some recommendations of books on Psalm-praying, or sources of the ancient creeds and confessions. But for now, the diligent can find them. Part of the education is in the search, right? :)]

What Makes A Worship Song Uniquely Christian?

[EDITOR'S NOTE: A few posts ago, I started the conversation about what our worship songs communicate about God and why that matters. Then, earlier this week, I was asked to write down some thoughts on songwriting for a booklet that will be distributed at a certain conference coming up in Australia. While I can't be certain what bits of what I sent will make it and what won't (it was rather lengthy!), here is an excerpt that I thought might be a nice follow-up to my earlier post of what is at stake in our worship lyrics.]

What do our songs and prayers say about God? If we were to construct our church’s theology solely based on the lyrics we sang, what kind of “God” would that be? And more to the point, could our lyrics be applied to a generic deity or is there anything uniquely Christian about the God they depict?

It is not enough to simply say “God” in our songs. Which “God”? The one Oprah describes, the one Deepak Chopra worships? People in America are filling in the blanks in their own minds of the “God” we’re talking about and the picture of God is often disfigured as a result. I can’t speak for what the view of “God” is in other countries and cultures, but one would think that in countries where many distinct religions abound—like in Malaysia, the country I grew up in—it only becomes more important that we are saying and singing things that are uniquely Christian. 

So, what makes a song uniquely Christian?

1.    Christo-centric
This is a fancy way of saying our songs should focus on Jesus the Messiah. We need to sing about His pre-eminence, how He co-created the world with the Father, how He left His throne in heaven and became a man, how He suffered death and was buried, how he rose again conquering sin and defeating the evil that has infected the cosmos, how He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father, how He will return in glory to judge the world and set it right and make all things new. (There. I have summarized what the creeds have said about Jesus!) 

And in saying all these things we should name Him. We can do better than a generic “You.” His name is Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the rightful King of the World. 

2.    Trinitarian
The Trinity is not a concept to be understood; they are Persons to be worshipped. But we are not helping that cause by not naming Them in our worship. And we make things worse when we get muddle “Who is doing what.” The early apostles went to great lengths to help us assign the right roles and functions to the right Persons of the Trinity (The Father as Creator, the Son as Savior, the Spirit as Life-Giver, etc). We would do well to pay attention to that in our writing. 

This mysterious belief in God as three Persons is uniquely Christian. We are not praying to, singing to, or following an amorphous, monolithic Hero-God. We are drawn up into the Divine dance, the communion of the Tri-Personal God. If we’re looking for help in understanding the distinct roles, we can, once again, turn to the Nicene Creed—the only statement of Christian faith accepted by every stream of the Body of Christ, both Eastern and Western, Catholic and Protestant (and rejected by Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other cults and religions that would like to be called “Christian”).

As I wrestle with this, I am not yet convinced that every song needs to be overtly Trinitarian by acknowledging all three Persons. A song could be aimed at one Person of the Trinity. (Think of a song about Yahweh as Creator-God, the Almighty Father, or about Jesus the Redeemer and King, or about the Holy Spirit as the Comforter or God’s “empowering presence” with us.) But even in doing this we are acknowledging the God we worship as three-in-one.

If you were to comb through the catalog of my songs (you might first need a powerful search engine to find them!), you would discover that many of my songs simply address “God” or “You”.  Many of them are not Christo-centric or Trinitarian, and some, worse yet, are not even uniquely Christian. Much of that I regret. This journey for me is only a year or so old. But I want to write songs that are uniquely Christian and that help people live our truly Christian lives as a result. Would you join me on the journey and embrace the challenge?

The Order of Service at NewLifeSundayNight

Here is our "Order of Service" at NewLifeSundayNight:

Worship in Song
Music is one of the oldest worship expressions, and perhaps the most complete in the way it engages and moves our whole being. The Bible is full of injunctions to sing, shout dance, and play skillfully on instruments as we make music to the Lord. It also encourages us to sing a new song. For this reason, we begin our service with Matthew Fallentine and a team of worship leaders and musicians leading us in expressing our worship in song, often newer songs that reflect what God is doing in our midst today.

The Nicene Creed
Officially formulated and adopted at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, the Creed expands and re-articulates beliefs that were taught by the early apostles and used in baptismal rites as early as the mid-2nd century. It is also the only creed accepted across every Christian denomination in both Western and Eastern streams.

Silent Confession
This is quiet space to become aware of the places in our lives and relationships where we have tried to live independently of God. It is a time to confess our sin, acknowledge our need for God, pay attention to the Holy Spirit’s work in us, and surrender every part of our life and heart to Him.

Corporate Confession
By using language from Psalm 51 and the Book of Common Prayer, words that are centuries old (at least!), we are travelling a well-worn path of faith, humility, and surrender to Christ. It reminds us that we are not alone in our journey, nor are we the first to embark on it.

Communion and Prayer
From the earliest days of Christian worship, the Eucharist—the celebration of communion—was the centerpiece of the Christian gathering. It is the moment where followers of Christ remember His death, celebrate His resurrection, and anticipate His return.  

On Sunday Nights, we invite families and friends to get the communion elements from the communion stations as the band plays, and then to return their seats and pray with one another as they receive the elements together. We also have a prayer team available to minister to those in need of special grace.

The Lord’s Prayer
While it is certainly good to form our own words from our hearts as we talk to the Lord, there is something special about praying the words Jesus taught His disciples. We believe this prayer, with its praise, petitions, and proclamations, can shape the posture of our hearts and teach us to pray “in Jesus’ name”.

JoyTime
This is a time to give to God with glad and joyful hearts. Jesus taught that the way we spend our money is the best indicator of where our loyalties lie. So giving to God is a tangible way to express our worship. Jesus gave sacrificially of His life for “the joy set before Him”. We believe that giving to God should always be a joyful and sacrificial part of our worship.

Scripture Readings
Before the talk begins, there is a public reading of the Scriptures by different members of our community. Passages are selected from both the Old and New Testaments that correspond with the current series. 

The Sermon
The talks on Sunday Nights follow the same series and subjects covered on Sunday mornings. As the pastor of the Sunday Night “campus”, I serves as the lead teacher, and try to bring a thoughtful Biblical and historical perspective to the subjects each week. (Subscribe to the Podcast HERE.)

Rethinking "Every Tribe and Tongue"

[The following piece was written for Worship Leader/Song Discovery Magazine. What does it mean to "take worship to the nations"? It's a complex and layered subject...one that demands more a short piece like this. But perhaps this will be enough to get the conversation started. Here's my perspective as a worship leader who's grown up on both sides of the world. This post will link to the full article at SongDiscovery.com.]

As the famous American worship leaders returned to the table with platefuls of aromatic curries and rice boiled in coconut milk, their faces wrinkled with curious interest in something other than their discoveries at the buffet line. It was the faint lines of music drifting through the humid air. The sultry notes being squeaked out on a stringed instrument defied conventional pitch. And the light tapping on small bongo-like drums had no sense of "groove" or, for that matter, time signature. 

"Why don't Malaysians write worship songs like this-in their own style?" blurted one of the Americans. Because it's awful, is what I thought....[Click HERE to read the FULL ARTICLE]

Are Worship Pastors Becoming Extinct?

 Over the past seven years, I have served as the Director of the New Life School of Worship, a 9-month program designed to train worship leaders for local churches. We believe that to effectively prepare our students for local church worship ministry they need to be trained in more than music. They need to be grounded in theology, familiar with church history, and responsible with their handling of the Scriptures. Moreover, they need to learn what it means to be a pastor: to shepherd the people under their care. 

But it seems that some churches aren't looking for that. They would prefer a musician who can lead the "singing", oversee the tech team, and produce recordings of their original songs. None of these are bad expectations, of course. But are we looking for these trade skills at the expense of other, more essential pastoral qualities? Are worship leaders simply highly skilled technicians who have a "steady gig" at a church? 

Today's worship leader may spend more time with his Macbook than with a real book. She may be more familiar with GarageBand than the people in her band. He may be better versed with directing the choir than providing spiritual direction. 

Of course, the trade side of being a worship leader and the pastoral side are not mutually exclusive. A person can be good at Pro Tools and at pastoring the people on his team. The trouble is we've lost the sacredness of the pastoral vocation. Any person who says their core role is to pray, study, and provide spiritual direction is not as "useful" to the corporation we call church. What else can you do? we ask. Then we proceed to fill so much of their time time with scheduling bands, arranging music, and working with the latest recording software that they are no longer doing any pastoral work. Musicians and singers become cogs in a wheel, things we use to fill slots. True, the administration needs to be done. And yes, musical excellence is valuable. But at what price?

Ross Parsley, the long-time worship pastor here at New Life, is fond of saying that music ministry is not about music; it's about people. Worship ministry is first a sort of a "helps" ministry that serves the Body of Christ. But more to the point, it is an excuse for us to connect with one another. Music is the table we gather around, the place where we see each other face to face, and then learn how to walk alongside one another in this life of faith.

Perhaps the question every church who hires a worship pastor-- and every aspiring worship pastor-- should answer is this: What will Jesus ask us about: the music we produced, the services we programmed? Or the people we pastored, the sheep we fed?

Take time today and think about the people on your team. Pray for them. Pick up the phone and call them. Break bread with them. Talk to them about more than the setlist. Remember your calling as a worship pastor, not a music program manager. Clear some of the clutter from your week. Maybe it's time to appoint others to do the tasks that are keeping you from your role as a shepherd. You have never met a mere mortal. Our music will not last forever; these people will.

Rethinking The Way We Worship (Reflections on Deuteronomy 12)

It is probably not surprising to you that God has an opinion about the way we worship. As is the case with so many other things, God is not only interested in our doing of a particular thing but in how we are doing it. Obedience is not just about right action or right result; it's also about right "way". Jesus was obedient, even to death on the cross. The central temptation of Jesus was to get Him to do God's work in the Devil's way. Much has been written about the three temptations Jesus faced in this regard, from Dostoevsky to Eugene Peterson.

When this principle is applied to worship, however, the discussion usually becomes about physical actions: God wants us to lift our hands, dance, clap, etc, we say. And that may be true. The one who made us just might know something about what helps engage our whole being in worship. But I read something in Deuteronomy today that made think of a few other "ways" our worship must be:

"Do not worship the Lord your God in the way these pagan peoples worship their gods." Deut. 12:4 (NLT)

The Book of Deuteronomy puts a great emphasis on avoiding idolatry. Even Deuteronomy 12 opens with an injunction to destroy pagan shrines and every trace of idolatry, echoing a theme that has surfaced several times in the preceding chapters. But God doesn't stop there. It wasn't enough to not worship idols; they were not to worship Yahweh in the way pagans worshipped idols. So, what were the ways pagans worshipped their gods? Are those ways still prevalent in how people in our culture worship success or fame or wealth? In what ways was the worship of Yahweh to be different from pagan worship? Based on Deuteronomy 12, here are some thoughts on the way we worship our God:

1. Be Communal Not Privatized
The first thing God says about His "way" of worship as opposed to the pagans is about place. "Rather, you must seek the Lord your God at the place of worship he himself will choose from among all the tribes-- the place where his name is honored." That specific place is where they are to bring their burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, sacred offerings, offerings to fulfill a vow, voluntary offerings, offerings of the firstborn of their flocks (vs.6, 10-11). You get the point. But in case you missed it, Moses goes on: "Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings just anywhere you like. You may do so only at the place the Lord will choose within one of your tribal territories" (vs. 13-14a). 

In John 4 Jesus helps us understand that there is nothing inherently sacred about a geographic location anymore. It is worshippers who worship in spirit and in truth that the Father is after. But wherever those worshippers gather in His name, there He is. And every gathering has a place just as every family has a home. Place matters because that’s where the gathering is. By specifying a location for their worship in Deuteronomy, God was teaching Israel that worship was not a private matter. They could not freely offer sacrifices anywhere they liked. It had to be at the chosen place within their tribal territory. Their worship was to be in the context of their tribe-- or in our language, community.

There is something dangerous about our tendency to privatize or individualize everything. When worship becomes privatized it becomes vulnerable to error-- false worship, wrong thinking about God; moreover, it becomes anemic. Our worship must not only remind us that we belong to God, but that we are His people, we are part of His tribe. This is likely why Jesus' chosen word for the His new people was ekklesia, the gathering or assembly, a word that conjures images of a city gathering with purpose. Much can be said about our current trend toward meeting with a few friends just like us in a home and calling it "church", but that must be saved for another blog. For now, it will do to start us thinking in a more communal or corporate way about worship.

2. Honor Life, Don't Desecrate It
Moses continues by telling them that could eat meat so long as the blood was drained: "But you must not eat the blood. You must pour it on the ground like water" (vs. 16). From Leviticus 17, we know that "life of every creature is in the blood". Blood was for atoning for sins, not for eating or drinking. Wrapped in this strange command is an instruction about the sanctity of life.

By telling Israel not to eat the blood of an animal when they joyfully ate its meat as part of their worship celebration, God was teaching Israel not to let worship make them self-indulgent. It's as if He was saying, "Don't get so caught up in the joy of worshipping Me that you forget about others, that you think your life is more valuable than theirs." Later in Israel's history they would be rebuked for celebrating great sacred festivals and feasts at the expense of the poor and the needy (Amos 5). Our worship, while being communal, must not be insular. Life is precious: the Life that was given so that we might truly live, the lives that are suffering without that Life, and the lives that are trivialized and extinguished by genocide, abortion, abuse, and injustice all around the world. Worship must lead us to honor life and to protect it.

3. Involve Our Children, Don't Sacrifice Them
Toward the end of the chapter, Moses adds a very specific detail about how pagans worshipped their gods, one that Israel had to avoid:  “You must not worship the Lord your God the way the other nations worship their gods, for they perform for their gods every detestable act that the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods” (vs. 31). When Moses talks about what Israel was to do with their children, the two ways come into sharp contrast: “You must celebrate there in the presence of the Lord your God with your sons and daughters and all your servants” (vs. 12a). In Yahweh worship, children are included in the celebration; in pagan worship, the children are sacrificed. 

How often do we aim to serve God, to worship Him, to bring Him honor, but do so at the expense of our children? Far too many servants of Yahweh—pastors, missionaries, marketplace ministers—are sacrificing their children to carry out their work for God. This is how our culture works for its gods of wealth and success. But our God does not want to be worshipped in that way. His way of being worshipped means that we bring our children into what we are doing for Him. We are to talk with them when we are “at home and when [we] are on the road, when [we] are going to bed and when [we] are getting up (Deut. 6:7).

It's good that we are learning to put away idols and idol worship. Now perhaps it's time we rethink the way we are attempting to worship God, so that we aren't doing it the way the ancient pagans did. The way we worship matters immensely to God.

Why Twitter Is Better Than Facebook

Turn on any news show-- even a sports news show-- and you'll hear fully-grown, well-groomed anchors talking awkwardly about "tweets". A little of a year ago, when I first started "tweeting", nobody-- including me-- really understood the point of telling everyone what you were doing at any given moment of the day. Now, all of a sudden, it's how freedom-loving Iranians are telling the world of their plight and how diva NFL receivers sound off about their contracts. Twitter is just mainstream enough that professional athletes are "tweeting" on the sidelines or during halftime; yet it's not mainstream enough for owners and coaches to really understand it-- hence the reason many teams have banned their players from "tweeting". 

I don't claim to be a Twitter expert or power-user. Neither am I ignorant about it's dangers to our already narcissistic culture. I am not sold out to this little tool. I know it's a fad and a year from now we might be atwitter with something else. Still, as I've considered how Twitter is different than Facebook, and the power hidden in this simple social media device, I thought I'd take a stab at the reasons I think Twitter is better than Facebook:

1. Twitter Is Concise
140 characters is all you get. So, an update is short. In fact, it's not really best for soul-baring, like the "OMG, I'm so depressed because my boyfriend just broke up with me" kind of nonsense you read in your Facebook newsfeeds. It's not even best for ranting about world issues or vague political jabs. Because of the character limit, Twitter ends up being very specific, particular information. Or links to it.

The character limit applies not just to updates but also to direct messages to another Twitter user. Imagine if Instant Messaging didn't require you to sit at your computer for 2 hours just to finish a conversation. Imagine if someone's message to you could only be a few sentences at the most....and that you could reply whenever you wanted...and that it would come to your phone like a text without you giving up your cell phone number. That's why Twitter direct messaging is better. 

2. Twitter Is More Private
Twitter doesn't care to know the school you went to, the networks you're part of, or even your marital status. I love that Facebook does all that, but I can see why some would prefer a more private way of connecting. It's this very reason that most athletes, musicians, actors, actresses, and a multitude of minor celebrities prefer not to have a Facebook, but will "tweet" every day. Terrell Owens and John Mayer are just a few examples.

This narrow field of personal information has also made Twitter the ideal social networking platform for many businesses in general, and news networks in particular. For example, I follow the Denver Broncos on Twitter. This means at different points during the day, my routines are pleasantly interrupted by updates on the latest from Bronco Training Camp. There are often pictures and links to blogs about how the new players are doing. CNN, ESPN, and other news outlets "tweet" breaking news...which on a slow news day includes word that Brett Favre is still retired, though he is working out. 

3. Twitter Is Targeted
Like Facebook status updates, your "tweets" only go to your friends. The difference is that while you may accept someone as a friend on Facebook who once dated a girl who used to go the high school that was your school's main rival six years after your graduated, you may not really care about what they ate for breakfast. On Twitter you can allow people to follow you while choosing not to follow them. It's not automatically reciprocal. So, you may have 2000 people following you, but you only need to get tweets from people you want to follow...and that list may be only a handful. As a result, your followers on Twitter tend to be people that actually care what you have to say, especially on a particular topic. So worship leaders may follow Bob Kauflin, author of "Worship Matters" (@bkauflin) because they like hearing Bob's thoughts on worship ministry, or receiving links to resources Bob has found helpful, or even occasionally, learning what Bob ordered at Starbucks. The point is, when you send out a "tweet", it's going to people who care about what you have to say even if you've never met them, versus a status update that shows up in a the news feed of hundreds of loose acquaintances who don't have a clue what you do for a living.

4. Twitter is Relatively Instant
Thanks to the iphone, when it comes to Twitter, "there's an app for that." Of course, there's a Facebook app too, but for the rest of us who have non-smart phones (stupid phones?), Twitter lets you text in your "tweets". You can even receive "tweets" via text. (Standard text messaging rates apply.) So if your followers choose that option, you can communicate to a targeted group of people concisely and instantly.

This comes in handy for things like a worship leader telling the choir that practice is cancelled tonight, or an airline pointing people to their website for a limited hour of cheap tickets. Perhaps it will become the way churches do announcements so as to eliminate the commercial break announcement videos in the midst of worship.

5. Twitter is Search-Friendly
Unlike Facebook, Twitter lets you search to see what others are "tweeting" about a particular event or item or person. For example, if you're a young author or musician prone to insecurities, you can see what people are saying about your new book or CD-- hypothetically speaking.

To make the searching easier and more "intelligent", you can use the "#" sign to set apart an event or item. This makes it a hyperlink in your "tweet" so that people can easily click on it and see what everyone else has said about it. I was at a worship conference where they asked conferees to use "#nwlc09" in any "tweet" about the event so they could easily see what workshops people enjoyed and why, and what the buzz at lunch was about. It's realtime feedack.

It's also "everyman journalism" on steroids. For better or for worse, we no longer need to wait for an on-site anchor to tell us about the event; we can look at the "tweets" of the people. The perfect example of this, was, of course, Michael Jackson's funeral. "Twitpics" and "tweets" let the whole world know the real-time inside scoop on that tragic day.

6. Twitter is Helpful
Generally speaking, the best "tweets" are the ones that answer questions or point you to resources. So, don't just "tweet" about what you had for lunch; tell us where to find the best coffee in town, or which free wi-fi spots are your favorite. Tell me a Bible verse that inspired you. Share a quote from a book you're reading. Send a link to a great blog (Ahem). Recommend a new CD. Don't make it diary drivel; make it maven-speak. Let us in our your personal expertise.

There you have it. Now, for the record, I love Facebook and will continue to use it. Facebook is like the town square: it's where we go to catch up with old friends and look at their family pictures or watch their vacation videos; it's where we network and do business and fall in love. Twitter is a like a telegram...on a steady diet of Performance Enhancing Drugs! So, in a sense, it isn't that Twitter is better than Facebook; it's that they're completely different beasts.

Oh, and you can follow me on Twitter @gpackiam! :)

What Creative People Never Tell You About Creativity

There is a myth about creativity that will surface in almost every conversation about the subject. It may not be expressed in quite the same way; it isn't even always said. But at the bottom of almost every discussion on creativity is the belief that creativity is about authenticity, it is about being unique, being different, being an individual. When a person does "what no one has ever done before", she is being creative. When a person copies or incorporates ideas or methods that have been used before, he is being dull and uncreative. 

But here are three things that every artist knows but is reluctant to admit...three reasons why the confusion of creativity with authenticity is misleading:

1. Only God Creates Out Of Nothing

Ex nihilo is the Latin phrase the Church used to explain that when God made the world, He didn't have any starting materials. He made it all from scratch. Out of nothing.

Every creative person thereafter has been building with His lumber. We are, as it were, painting with a fixed palette. All our so-called inventors are not making new things; they are taking existing things and combining them in such a way as to bring new possibilities to our world. A musician is working with a finite amount of notes. In Western composition, 12 to be exact. In Eastern melodies, intervals "within the cracks of the piano keys" are acceptable, but even then, the possibilities run out. Every dye ever made reflects a color God first sprayed in our universe. Even in our most creative work, when we join with God to co-create life, we are not creating something out of nothing. The building blocks of art are ancient.

2. Imitation is an important part of creativity.

OK, so not much room for disagreement on the first point. But here's is where things get a little dicey. No one who truly aspires to be creative cares to admit the amount of imitation they've engaged in. I recently went with my wife and Rob and Sarah Stennett to hear the award-winning short story writer Tobias Wolff do some readings at Colorado College. He talked about how in virtually every field of art imitation was an acceptable form of learning. Painters might begin by sitting in front of a Monet and trying to recreate it. Musicians will mimic riffs from Hendrix or Armstrong or Coltrain. But writers are somehow disdained for writing stories that imitate Hemingway or Fitzgerald. 

Why the double standard? Why not come out and admit that imitation is how we learn to create, in all fields? Imitation places us inside the head of an artist, making us see the notes they chose and the ones they ignored, the colors they blended and the combinations they used. It lets us peer at the world through their eyes as we try to re-create their "creation". Since none of us are making new "materials", we can learn about how to rightly combine these materials from the works of others. We learn to talk, to put words together, by being spoken to; we learn to pray by praying the prayers of Scripture; and we learn to create by re-creating the works of others.

3. Creativity is a combination of "theme" and "variation".

OK, so if we're not creating ex nihilo, and if imitation is part of the creative process, then where is the individuality, the uniqueness? It is in the way we reference the "theme" and the way we vary from it. What this means, then, is that the unwillingness to include any part of "theme" or a norm in our work means that we've lost any point of reference for others. It may be "creative", but it is isolated and esoteric. Let's think of it this way: a language that is truly unique is also utterly useless; it is a language known and understood only by you. It is gibberish. So, any art that refuses the inclusion of "theme" or even fragments of a template is an art that is individualized to the extreme. No one else can participate in it or benefit from it or be inspired by it. But if what we create is to have some sort of "public service" to it (the word "liturgy" comes from a Greek word that means a civic or public service)-- and not all art has to-- it must be willing to submit to "theme and variation."

If you think about it, human beings are unique not in an absolute sense, but we are unique in the way themes and variations of those themes combine in us. We all have themes of God's image in us; we are sullied by the familiar stains of sin. Yet there are infinite (?) variations of God's nature and sin's defacement in each of us. And it is those combinations that make us unique. This may be disappointing to have to admit that we are more like each other than we had supposed, that no one is truly all that different. Even more deflating is the realization that if we all sought to be "extraordinary", no one would be extraordinary since extraordinary would then be the new "ordinary." We find ourselves, then, pursuing creativity like a teenager wanting to be different: we want to be different, just like everyone else. And so we are forced finally to admit that we are all more similar than different. We are living displays of theme and variation. And so is everything we make.

Two Sides of the Same Coin: Why I Recorded a Solo Album

I have always felt that at my core I am a teacher. It shows up in everything I try to do. This has often come with some unwelcome baggage. I find myself turning simple conversations into a soapbox pontifications; friends who simply want to vent are forced to endure my "teaching moments". Music for me has always been a tool to teach-- a lovely, moving, beautiful tool, but still, a tool. I have never considered myself a "true musician", one who loves the art for the art itself. I have been a worship leader because I love calling people's attention to God. And music is an elegant and potent way to communicate that call. In some ways, I stumbled into being a worship leader vocationally, always knowing that some day that would pass. So, when I stepped out of the Desperation Band last summer, it was not to "go solo". I had no intentions then, nor do I now, of being a "solo artist". I left so I could make room in my life for more speaking and writing. When I made the decision in April (it didn't become official until the summer), I hadn't signed a contract with David C. Cook, though conversations were in process. Still, I had no idea how things would play out.

After spending the summer writing Secondhand Jesus and much of the Fall re-writing sections, a friend who used to work for Integrity Music and is now a free-lance producer called. He asked if I would be interested in making a studio solo record. He would recruit the musicians and fund the project, and if we sold it to a label, he would reap the full benefit of his investment. 

Faced with that unexpected opportunity, I realized something: I'm not done with music yet. It is still a huge part of my life. I had written some new songs that I believed in and had used at theMILL (New Life's college ministry where I led every week). The thought of being able to record them and to also give new artistic life into a handful of previously recorded songs was exciting to me. I had to make my peace with the fact that, for now, speaking and worship leading, writing and songwriting, are two sides of the same coin: they are part of who I am and how I teach. 

So I spent a week in Mobile with a bunch of incredible musicians making the album. As it took shape, I couldn't believe how good it sounded-- and it had nothing to do with me! Then Integrity Music said they were interested in picking it up. I made it clear that I would never be a career artist or spend my life on the road. They said there were many ways of making a deal work. And this is why I'm so thankful for them, this is what makes them true ministry partners and not simply a record label: they got it; they understood me and how the Lord is at work. We found a quick, low-pressure way of making this album theirs.

In the process of choosing songs for the project, I realized that in many ways this would be a sort of companion piece to Secondhand Jesus. The book and the CD are twin expressions of the same journey. They have been a kind of soundtrack for my walk. In fact, many of the songs unintentionally correspond with the themes of certain chapters. It makes sense; after all, both were written in the same time in my life. For example:

Track 7 "Without You" works well with the themes of Chapters 3 and 4; 

Track 1 "This Is Our God" seems to correspond with Chapters 5 and 6; 

and Track 4 "For Love I Sing" captures the heart of Chapters 7 and 8. 

Maybe the most obvious correlation is Track 3 "Burning in Me" with Chapters 9 and 10 because of the pre-chorus: 

"I have only heard the whispers of Your majesty,

All I've known were only rumors, 

Now my eyes have seen Your glory, God." 

Anyway, I hope that helps explain what's going on in my life. I can't see what's around the bend all that clearly. But for now, music and writing are two sides of the same coin. They are faithful vehicles for me to express what God is doing in my life, and I hope both can be of some usefulness to you. 

"Rumors and Revelations" releases June 23. To hear tracks and to get chord charts, visit the brand new www.glennpackiam.com.