January 28, 2008 · 1 Comment
North Carolina’s Josh Hamilton was a local baseball legend, even as a teen. A news story summarizes, “ When he was barely 15, Hamilton was already a North Carolina sports legend. He was that rarest of finds, a true five-tool player. Left-handed, he was so gifted that he occasionally played shortstop and even hoped to be a catcher. But coaches were too protective of his arm because when he pitched, he hit 95-96 mph. When he played the outfield, nobody ran on him. When he hit, everybody gasped at the power.After signing with the Tampa Bay Devil-Rays in 1999, fresh out of high school, his life began to unwind.”
About his recovery and Christian testimony, the Dallas News says, “If Hamilton could shake his habit – it included downing a bottle of Crown Royal almost daily and cocaine and crack cravings so strong he burned through a $3.96 million signing bonus – and finally get to the big leagues last season, there had to be a reason.”
Click here to read the whole story
Categories: Christian News · Testimony
As a Lutheran pastor working in secular employment for the last 8 years, I’ve been startled by the monolithic movement towards contemporary worship. Contemporary worship was certainly not unknown to the reformers and is not undesirable in itself. What is astonishing however, is the extent to which normally sensible individuals and congregations will go in order to draw near to contemporary worship’s cutting edge.
Many of the reformation hymns were based on common tunes sung in the streets and public houses and as such caught the attention and imagination of the common people. This was good. There is no reason that the modern church should intentionally be obtuse and incomprehensible to the average person. Even so, how meaningful is it to come into a worship service that is opened with a troupe of hip-hop dancers and followed by a blaring rock band blurting out mostly vapid, ambiguous lyrics? What on earth do dramatic lighting, elaborate stage sets, and fog machines have to do with worship of the living God?
Doctor Arthur Just Jr., in an article on the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, home page writes, “However, many do not realize that Lutheran worship is its own culture, distinct from the pop culture and the evangelical culture of Christianity in our country today. The church must develop and maintain its own cultural language that reflects the values and structures of the Scriptures and not of the current culture. This church language can only be shaped by a biblical theology which affirms the real presence of Jesus Christ in worship and our belief that this presence binds the culture together as a community. The context that shapes our distinct Lutheran ethos is Scripture, theology, and history. Local circumstance is secondary. Traditionally, this Lutheran culture is liturgical, theological, and counter- cultural.”
Whether Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, or Pentecostal, shouldn’t there truly be something counter-cultural about Christian worship?
Categories: Christianity and Culture
