The Tabernacle

Today I got the real privilege of putting away the Communion elements from the altar at Kaw Prairie after the services were over. I have not done this much, or at all in the 5 years I've been a part of the church. A few minutes before that I had listened to Pastor Dan do a teaching based on the Shema:
⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^{[a] 5} Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. -Deuteronomy 6.

He challenged us to think of the things in our lives that become so great a passion that they dethrone God and take the place of our affection and attention.

So you can see why after church I was in a sort of Old Testament mood. You get those too right?

As I'm cleaning up the altar, pouring out the wine and juice back in the earth, and cleaning the goblets and plates, I was taken back to another Old Testament story which has long intrigued me. The Tabernacle of worship. 

The full, and number-filled story, can be found in Exodus beginning in chapter 25, after the ten commandments and the first few days and weeks of Israel's wanderings in the desert. 

What I was remembering specifically was that the Tabernacle was a movable structure. It was designed for God's presence to dwell among the people but it was also designed to move with them through the wilderness and anywhere God lead them with the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of smoke by day. 

Simple enough right, well not if you read the description in Exodus. If you manage to get beyond the long list of measurements, weights, and descriptions of design, you'll likely end up overwhelmed with the number of furnishings and tools used in the Tabernacle, commissioned for use in the Worship of Yahweh.

This is what is crossing through my mind as I hand wash wine goblets this afternoon. Dorky perhaps.

The Exodus is believed to have started somewhere around 1313 BC. After some time Israel would settle into the promised land, establish Jerusalem, and finally in the days of King Solomon, David's son, they would build the Temple there which would render the Tabernacle obsolete. 

Some estimates date the construction of the first Temple around 832 BC. That means that the children of God were setting up and tearing down the Tabernacle with all its many parts, pieces, furnishings, tools, decorations, and other articles of worship for somethign like 500 years. Of course, I'm building an estimate from two estimates, but this is not science fiction; these are actual numbers that many scholars accept today.

Worship in the Temple would continue much as it had in the Tablernacle but at a larger scale and without the need for the structure itself being set up, torn down and moved regularly. Well that Temple was destroyed and later another would be built in its place. That Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, an event connected even to some things Jesus said during his ministry.

So that's about 1400 years of setting up and tearing down, a good chunk of those also moving from place to place; of arranging, preparing, cleaning, organizing, mobilizing, training, and worship by God's people. And as all these thoughts are crossing my mind, the suds of the sponge with which I'm washing wine goblets covering my hands, a huge sense of gratitude and humility hit me like a ton of bricks.

Next year Kaw Prairie will be 10 years old and for all its history faithful children of God have been taking time each week to put up chairs, brew coffee, set up the altar for Communion, clean up after, put stuff away, prepare the room for other ministries and for the next worship service. Some weeks I'm sure they feel very fulfilled doing it and other weeks they probably wish they hadn't signed up. But these people are walking in the footsteps of the faithful who go before them several millennia. For thousands of years hard-working faithful children of the Father have labored to prepare and steward the meeting places of God's people, some times in the forefront but more often behind the scenes.

Today I say thank you to those people. I honor them for their hard work and am privileged to join them in this amazing tradition and eternal work of the worship of the One True God Yahweh and of His son Jesus. They make a great sacrifice to do all this setting up and tearing down but because of them the House of the LORD on Prairie Star Parkway and K-7 continues each week to be a place of worship and of life-change. 

Thank you all, I'm am honored to serve with you. 

Corporate Singing

A friend at church sent me this link and I found it very interesting. Science is a wonderful thing and I often find that it points us back to the creator every bit as much as someone else might argue it points us away from Him. Be that as it may, this article really raises some great questions about what it means to be a church community. Enjoy and feel free to comment and discuss if you'd like.

http://churchmusicblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/why-sing-together-1-neuroscience-and-the-creators-intentions/

May 20 Youth Band

I wish you could have been there Sunday. Maybe you were. It was awesome. The students (or several of them) from our student ministry worship team led worship on Sunday and they simply rocked! Not only did they play and sing the music well, but they really led worship.

For me it was a lot of fun to play good music, but it was very inspiring to see young people embrace the heart of worship, to experience God through the music and in the presence of the church. It was very proud of them on so many levels.

They worked hard. We had a ton of practices and they all paid off. Well done guys and gals! You inspired the church in immeasurable ways.

Here's the set we played:

Dancing Generation by Matt Redman
Like a Lion as by David Crowder Band
How He Loves as by David Crowder Band
Manifesto by The City Harmonic
No One Like You by David Crowder Band

It's been too long

I have not blogged in ages and it's about time something got posted up here.
I'll start off with this week's set list:

My Glorious by Delirious?
Rescue by Gungor (written by Jared Anderson)
Remembrance by Matt Redman
From the Inside Out by Hillsong United
Sing to the King by Candi Pearson (written by Billy Foote and Charles Silvester Horne)

The set went well and it was fun although it did not seem very engaging. I thought it might have been wiser to put at least one up-tempo song in the opening set, seeing that both My Glorious and Rescue are slower songs. I know From the Inside Out is well liked but I wonder if Sing to the King will catch on.

This week I'm super excited about Youth Sunday. Several members of the Wild (our youth ministry) band, and a couple of adults, will make up the worship team this week. We've been working hard to prepare and I think we're all very excited.

There'll also be confirmation, honoring graduates and Brett Glover, our youth director, will be preaching. I'm looking forward to it.

I'm really proud of our teenage musicians. They work hard and they put a lot of heart into the worship ministry. They are constantly learning tons of stuff. That may just be my favorite part of the whole thing. Well done guys and gals.

About September 11

On Sunday, September 11, the 10-year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, Kaw Prairie took some time to thank the people who serve in our communities, putting their lives on the line for the well being of others, while also thanking God for the blessing of being able to live and worship in this great country.
We remembered with sadness the losses of that day 10 years ago, and we were inspired once again by the example of those who stepped up to help, at any cost whatsoever to themselves.
We have two identical worship services at KP; one is at 9am and the other at 10:45am. We started off the morning by singing out Hosanna to the God who saves us and who alone is worthy of our praises.
Then we sang America the Beautiful. It was during the first service when, at the end of the song, we sang as a reprise the last line "America, America, God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea." It was right after that I was notified by our tech team that as we were singing that together the clock hit 9:11am.

Thank you Lord for the privilege of living in this beautiful country. May we, like those who've come before us, make the sacrifices each day that will keep this country alive and well, knowing that it is by following in the footsteps of Jesus that we can ultimately make any country, city, or even family, the dwelling place of the Most High, and that our calling is to be the hands and feet of the Father to a whole world of hurting people. Amen.

Worship Set August 14, 2011

We had a great time worshiping together this week. We did the Blessing of the Backpack to pray over the kiddos who were starting school this week and it was so great seeing all those little guys and gals come forward to prayed for.

We sang:
God of Wonders as by Third Day
Everlasting God as by Lincoln Brewster
Mighty to Save as by Laura Story
Sweetly Broken as by Jeremy Riddle
Beautiful One as by By The Tree

Lake Baptism Service August 7th, 2011

On Sunday evening we had the joy and privilege of worshiping together at Shawnee Mission Park Lake, right on the beach, of dedicating two children from our church, of baptizing several people, both young and grown, and of witnessing the affirmation of baptism of several young people from Kaw Prairie. It was a wonderful night of worship and testimony of God's Grace.

Here are the songs we sang together on the beach that night:

Everything Glorious as by David Crowder Band
Jesus Paid it All as by Kristian Stanfill
Take My Life as by Chris Tomlin
Grace that is Greater as by Bart Millard
Amazing Grace (My chains are gone) as by Chris Tomlin
Happy Day as by Tim Hughes