What Is Lent?

God has designed our world to be shaped by seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Our lives are also shaped by seasons - made up of times of abundance, joy, and celebration, as well as times of suffering, pain, and loss.

This is why our calendars are filled with holidays, literally meaning holy days. These are days set apart from all the rest. We mark the days that have marked us. These holidays remind us every season of who we are, where we have been, and who we desire to be. So too with the Church calendar. Followers of Jesus have designed and followed the Church calendar to mark their lives and days by the arrival, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of Christ.

Beginning on Ash Wednesday, for forty days during Lent, we strip away some of our usual comforts (often through fasting) to create more space for reflection, repentance, and refining. These days ready our hearts to gaze upon the gore of Good Friday, and the glory of Resurrection Sunday.

Although there is no biblical mandate to celebrate the season of Lent, there are countless calls to remember. During Lent we remember our sin, we remember the suffering of our Savior, we remember his triumph of Christ over satan, sin, and death - and that is why Lent is not sullen, but sobering.

Beginning on Ash Wednesday, Lent is the period of forty days (excluding Sundays) leading up to Resurrection Sunday. These forty days represent the forty days Jesus spent facing temptation in the wilderness preparing for His earthly ministry and the ultimate purpose of his Advent: his death, and resurrection (John 6:38, Matthew 20:28). We trace the shadow of our sin through the shadow of Christ’s cross and empty tomb. This season invites us to acknowledge, expose, grieve, lament, and repent of our sin, and to our Savior once again.

Revelation and Response

Worship is more than a song, more than a period of time on a Sunday morning, more than the exclusive act of musicians. Worship is a rhythm of revelation and response. And we see this rhythm all throughout Scripture – people going about their normal lives, then God breaks in reveals Himself and everything changes:

Noah – a man who found favor.


Abraham – a pagan called out to be a blessing


Joseph – a not so self-aware little brother who God used for the provision and protection of many – setting the stage for a rescue and redemption for God’s people after 400 years of captivity.


Moses – a runaway called by God back to His people to lead them out of captivity and toward the promised land.


Rahab – a prostitute turned believer, and protector for God’s people.

Hannah – a mother who gladly gives back to God the child her heart desperately desires.


David – a boy called from the sheep field to shepherd and lead God’s people
Isaiah – a prophet who sees God, and is joyfully sent to proclaim

John the Baptist – set apart from before birth to make straight the path to Christ


Mary – a teenage girl who’s response was ‘let it be done to me as you have said.’

Joseph – a man whose plan for a quiet life was interrupted to become the adopted earthly Father of Jesus
Zacheus – a tax collector and crook, in repentance became generous

A woman at a well – completely seen, completely known, completely accepted, completely loved

The sick, the lame, the demon-posed, the blind, the cast-offs, the least of these, the little children, the poor, the sinners – all finding their wholeness when God meets them.


Saul turned Paul – a murderer of Christians, and the instrument of God to take the Gospel to the gentiles.

Let’s plan and prepare. Let’s give our people words and songs that reveal the heart and character of God. Let’s be expectant that God will move and reveal Himself, and that everything will change.

September 13: Tuesday Refocus

“The things we love tell us what we are.” - Thomas Aquinas

Love reveals us. 

Where we spend our time reveals what we value.

Where we spend our money reveals what we desire.

In every pursuit, the desire to be loved.

For the follower of Jesus, we know that love comes not from striving, but by seeing “…what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are…” 1 John 3:1

If every pursuit reveals a desire to be loved, then resting in the lavished love of God reveals our true identity: children of God; and so we are.

Father, may Your love reveal us. May we love You more than life itself. Amen.

Loved,

AB

One True Worship Leader

As musicians responsible for sung corporate worship, we consider ourselves worship leaders. Pastors, preachers, and teachers planning and executing a corporate gathering may also see themselves as worship leaders. As I have shared previously, I believe that every musician, vocalist, sound, and tech person should view themselves as worship leaders. But at the end of the day, there is one person by whom we all must first be led before we lead. And that is the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who is the true worship leader in our preparation and in our leadership of the people of God.

Yes, we choose songs and scripture, rehearse bands, and plan our transitions, but if we are not first, and continually being led, guided, directed, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are just singing songs. And while music is powerful, and people may leave impacted by it, there is no lasting transformation without a Holy Spirit-revealed encounter with the living Christ.

‘When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come.’ - John 16:13

It is the Holy Spirit that leads us in all truth.

It is the Holy Spirit that leads us to see and respond to Jesus.

It is the Holy Spirit that will confront and convict us of sin.

And it is the Holy Spirit who comforts His people.

There is one true worship leader in our gathering, and it always has been and always will be the Holy Spirit.

Romans 12

After years of reading definitions of worship by others, I have settled on a definition that has stolen the best parts of the definitions of others:

Worship is the right response, of our whole lives to God’s revelation of Himself.

Now, I say this is a definition stolen from lots of definitions, but in reality, we have all stolen our definition of worship from the Apostle Paul:

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.” (Romans 12:1, CSB)

Romans 12:1 shows us the rhythm of worship: God reveals, we respond.

Real worship, true worship, right worship always and only begins when God reveals Himself - when God acts first. Romans 12:1 is no different, showing us the rhythm of revelation and response. In this passage, God has revealed Himself as merciful. Certainly, we see this throughout the previous 11 chapters of Romans, but we also see this throughout the entirety of Scripture. In fact, when Moses asks to see God’s face, God allows His glory to pass before Moses (because no one can see His face and live), and God reveals something about Himself at that moment:

‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.’ (Exodus 36:6-7).

The second rhythm of worship we see in this passage is our response. The offering of our bodies as a living sacrifice. Not just our time or talent, but our very lives. This is not worship relegated to a Sunday service or a mid-week bible study, but an all-encompassing response to God that is evidenced by loving the

‘Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.’ (Luke 10:27)

For those of us who lead corporate sung worship, we have a responsibility to help people see that our songs of response are only that - a song of response. True worship is the right response of our how lives to God’s revelation of Himself, and there is no corner of our lives that God is not displaying some aspect of His heart, and character. Let’s be worship leaders who help people lead lives of worship, not just worship leaders who help lead songs of worship.

January 19: Tuesday Refocus

‘Then they believed His words; they sang His praise.’ - Psalm 106:12

We are people always responding.  We engage, interact, entertain, ignore, and are transformed by what we see and experience all around us.  If we cannot help but respond to the created world, how much more are we compelled to respond to the Creator who has revealed Himself?  Matt Redman often says ‘Seeing is singing.’  When we believe His word, our hearts cannot stay silent:

He is the Bread of Life - satisfying our deepest hunger, forever (Jn 6:35)

He is the Light of the World - illuminating the narrow road (Jn 8:1, Matt 7:14)

He is the Door - through whom we have access to the Father (Jn 10:9)

He is the Good Shepherd - He lays down His life to rescue His wayward sheep (Jn 10:11)

He is the Resurrection and the Life - He has died, but is alive forevermore holding the keys of death and hell (Jn 11:25, Rev 1:18)

He is the Way, the Truth and the Life - everything we seek is found in and through Him (Jn 14:6)

He is the True Vine - abiding perfectly in the life and love of the Father, inviting us to abide in Him (Jn 15:4-11)

He is the One who emptied Himself, took on flesh, became sin, offered Himself as the Perfect Sacrifice, died the death we deserved, is raised and is seated at the right hand of the Father interceding on our behalf (Phil 2:7-8, 2 Cor 5:21, Heb 10:10, Rom 4:25, Acts 13:30, Mark 16:19, Rom 8:34)

And He can always be trusted because His word always proves true (Proverbs 30:5).  Believe and respond.

Lord, give us a greater glimpse of the reality of Who You are, and what You have done.  May we believe and respond with lives of continual worship.  We love you, amen.

Seeing and responding,

AB