It was one of the most memorable Christmas Eve’s I have ever experienced. It happened on the 5^th night of my 18-month-old daughter’s hospitalization as she battled a particularly brutal strain of RSV. As I lay alone on the plastic hospital couch and listened to the other child in the double room cry loudly that night I was questioning if my daughter would ever be able to recover from this virus and pondering how far away God felt in that moment. On that less than silent night, it felt like hope was far away, that there was no peace in my corner of the earth, and that there was no joy present in my world. Even on Christmas Eve, Bethlehem seemed so far away.

Instability seems to be shaking the foundations of our world on all sides. Where can we find a place to stand on firm ground? What offers a sure place where we can leave change and deterioration behind? What can give me an immovable, unshakable anchorage? Simon and Garfunkel expressed the hope that one can shield himself with the self-made armor of his own room, protected from the love that has only brought tears and disappointments. “I am a rock. I am an I-land,” they sang. But “I” prove less than a reliable, unshakable rock, and the delusion of my attempt to stand still and rest on my own two feet just tumbles me into doubt and despair. The seventeenth-century English poet John Donne recognized that no one is an island. My own stability and reliability as a sure place to stand quivers at the sound of the ambulance siren, for I know that the siren also wails for me.

As the year 1971 began, Walter Ulbricht had directed life in the German Democratic Republic, under the tutelage of his Soviet mentors in Moscow and their military might, for a quarter of a century, as head of the ruling Marxist party and for a few years also as head of state. In the middle of 1971, I attended a pastoral conference in East Berlin. The massive presence of propaganda slogans—“the head, the brain, the soul of the People is the State,” for example—and the East German pastors’ stories of governmental pressure on Christians from Kindergarteners to the elderly quickly made an impression on me. I asked one of the pastors, “Humanly speaking, how can the church survive in this situation?” Ignoring my “humanly speaking,” he replied, “Walter Ulbricht is not the Lord of the church.” Ironically, by the end of 1971, Walter Ulbricht was not even lord of the DDR. His comrades had forced him from power, replaced by a new generation.

Trying to wrap our minds around God not only frustrates, it breaks our minds. He—“he” indicates that God is a person—exceeds our imaginations in unimaginable ways. Trying to stretch our minds into his immensity and his timelessness brings our thinking to its point of collapse every time. God in his fullness is hidden from us not just because we are sinners who have consciously and determinedly tried to avoid looking at him. The Creator in his totality extends far beyond the competence of our fantasy because Creators are simply greater than what they create.

We encounter the hosts and hordes of the Deceiver and Murderer on battlefields scattered across our lives. They come at us not only in daily confrontations with all the luring offers of pleasure and profit in media of all kinds, but also assault us with a plethora of opportunities to gain an advantage over others or take advantage of them at work, at home, at school, or at play. 

It is not easy to be a hip. The feet make a mistake, take a false step, and the hip suffers. The hip suffers not only from being twisted the wrong way but also from the complaints of other parts of the body that depend on a healthy hip and feel its twist at a distance. Hips like to do things their own way, and the feet or the back do not always agree. 

We usually call the incident “Peter Walked on the Water.”  The real story gives the report with a different subject: Jesus rescued Peter, a fellow too dumb to recognize the limits of his own abilities, too enthusiastic about pursuing his own plans to properly estimate the perimeters of his own potential.  Peter resembles us all.  Peter thought he was heading toward the Lord, but on his own he could not reach Jesus. 

The song “Take Me With You” begins with the bridge, which sets a proper tone for approaching the Spirit in prayer. Talking on the psalmist’s posture of wonder before God, the song begins and ends with an address to the Holy Spirit in the form of two questions: “Where are You going? / Where are You leading?” Rather than seeking to discern the Spirit’s movement and direction on his own, the supplicant humbly asks the Holy Spirit to take control and guide him on a journey to grasp more deeply His works in creation and in his own life: “Take me with You / Can I come with You?”

In his book In Defense of Christian Ritual: The Case for a Biblical Pattern of Worship, David Andersen made two significant arguments. First, he argued that worship practices deeply and stubbornly form the beliefs and culture of the church — both institutionally and individually. As a specialist in Christian apologetics, Andersen made this argument with the same methods he used to defend the historical resurrection of Jesus, namely, the collective insights of anthropology, psychology, neurology, epistemology and the social sciences.

Culture matters. Context matters. Through certain practices, we can learn to value culture. We can learn to value the uniqueness of culture that guards us from cultural elitism. We can learn to value the inherent meanings of cultural symbols that keeps us from misappropriating culture. This, as the Newsboys so eloquently taught us years ago, is truly how we learn to sing the “song of the redeemed.”

Worship is never theologically neutral. Every worship form can be analyzed in terms of its pragmatics—that is, what it seeks to accomplish. Analyzing the pragmatics of the service will uncover the theological presuppositions lurking beneath the surface of the worship form. Does the service seek to elicit a response from worshipers? This suggests one understanding of worship. Does the service aim to proclaim forgiveness? This suggests a different understanding of worship. Those who plan worship can analyze the worship forms they use to see whether the pragmatics stand up to theological scrutiny.

Leaders of congregational singing take on a meaningful but difficult role in the church. For example, they must plan services for the whole congregation while the people often disagree about which songs are meaningful/appropriate in church. While many of these disagreements are unavoidable and reflect clashing theological traditions, there is another force at work in the way songs are appropriated in the church. Namely, even though individuals come together to express their common faith in worship, worship remains the expression of distinct individuals. This phenomenon is explored through the popular worship song: "Reckless Love."

In our common life as Christians we encourage one another as baptized brothers and sisters in Christ, to regularly join together with thankful hearts in the presence of the Triune God. Worship, as celebration, expresses the love we have for Father, Son, and Spirit. But that’s only half of the story of worship. The reason WHY we gather is the most important part –– He first loved us in his Son, Jesus!