For to Us a Child is Born

Well, I can hardly believe it’s nearly the end of the year and the festive season is upon us. Firstly, I apologise for not having had much time to write in the past month. It’s been full of activity, from Global Day of Worship to finishing up work before the holidays to preparing for a […]

Worshipping in the Dark

We got to church this morning at about 6.30 am to begin setting up as we weren’t able to rehearse in the auditorium yesterday. About 20 minutes into the set-up, it went completely dark except for a couple of dim emergency lights. The power had cut out. Maybe this was a temporary thing. Someone must […]

Global Day of Worship Song: Hosanna (Be Lifted Higher)

There are certain songs which make your spirit soar, especially the ones that have multiple “key ups” like Dennis Jernigan’s “Who Can Satisfy?” Hosanna is one of those songs. The beauty of the song is in its majesty and simplicity: a four-line chorus and the repeated cry “be lifted higher”. May this be our cry […]

Global Day of Worship Song: Rooftops

As we are getting closer to Global Day of Worship on 12.12.12, I thought I might start sharing some of the songs we are doing so that you can familiarise yourself with them in preparation. I believe that what we do in corporate worship is never confined to those on the platform. Rather, both the […]

Songlist for Global Day of Worship Perth

I’m glad to announce that after a lot of prayer and thought, we’ve finally crafted the songlist for Global Day of Worship Perth. I really appreciate Pastor Yoy’s and Derwin’s input into shaping all the songs that we had to choose from. Here it is: SONGS – PART 1 (LIVE STREAMING) Shout to the Lord […]

Your Presence is Heaven to Me

We often prepare songlists for church services which go for 25 minutes. It gets quite easy and routine. You do four songs, two fast, two slow, maybe have a scripture reading somewhere, a bit of open worship after the first of the slow songs and finish up with some enthusiastic applause. But how do you […]

How Do We Have Great Faith?

Someone gave me a bookmark once which had a little sample of mustard seeds laminated onto it. I was surprised how tiny the mustard seeds were. In Matthew 17:20, Jesus said “if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will […]

Worshipping Generations

I shared the following thoughts with the band of which I am a part at Faith Community Church on 20 October 2012. We call ourselves “Fantastic Team 3”. Below I reproduce my sharing almost verbatim (with a few edits). Lisa (the worship leader of our band) has asked me to do a 10 minute sharing with […]

Two Kinds of Worship?

One of the things I like about Christian theology and practice is that it is always evolving. Sure, certain absolutes remain constant, but lots of the periphery change and I believe the reason why the Christian faith has endured (and in fact flourished) over the centuries is because of its cultural adaptiveness. So, when I […]

God Will See to It

In my post yesterday on giving and worship, I talked about Jehovah Jireh – the God who provides. My wife the theologian was quick to point out that the literal rendering of that name actually means “the Lord sees”. When rendered that way, the meaning is even richer. Think about it. Before you ever had […]