I used to blog every week. One year I blogged EVERY day for 150 days as I challenged people to read a Psalm a day with me and I posted my feeble thoughts about each day's Psalm.
I'm not sure why I stopped blogging. Probably Facebook. I felt like I was reaching a lot more people on Facebook. It's easy to post there and I don't necessarily need to have any deep thoughts on Facebook. I can just post a picture of my chickens and go with that. Like this one that explains why I named this pretty chicken Elizabeth the First. (If you haven't seen this then you probably don't know that it ends up that Elizabeth is a rooster! I just call him Izzy for short.)
And then along came Twitter (or at least I decided to give it try.) It's ended up that I mostly tweet or retweet about political things. So it's kind of annoying there. (OK. It's actually VERY annoying there when it comes to politics.)
I also tweet pictures of #Portugal so people there will discover my photographers blog http://vistadoporto.blogspot.com/ where not only will you see beautiful pictures of Portugal,
but you'll see links that share the Gospel in Portuguese! Like this one http://pazcomdeus.net/
However, the original purpose of this blog was two-fold.
1. To share upcoming worship events with the community (and related rehearsals and info with our church musicians.)
and
2. To talk about worship with anyone interested and to help prepare the worshippers at Hilldale for our Sunday morning gatherings.
A verse that is extremely important when discussing "worship" in the church is 1 Corinthians 14:15.
I Corinthians 14:15 What then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with my understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with my understanding.
The Apostle Paul was comparing speaking in tongues with speaking prophecy in a language everyone could understand. I don't think it is out of line to expand this to say we can worship better if there is some understanding of why we are singing a particular set of songs or reading a particular verse or why we are doing one thing or another in worship.
A few years ago (and for several years) I would post - just about every week and usually on Thursday - what we were planning on singing in worship on the upcoming Sunday. My thought was that those who read ahead would come with some understanding of why those particular songs were chosen and therefore would be singing with "understanding." Not that they would think I was clever in my choice of songs. I hope what I lead us to do is never "clever." I want us as a congregation to have a purpose in our gathering - to do more than just sing some songs and hear a sermon and then go our merry way as if nothing had happened.
When we gather we need to truly worship God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We need to hear His voice. We need to see our sin and His incredible grace. We need to be challenged to answer His call on our life and then actually choose to follow - to live our lives as a royal priesthood.
1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Well.....I don't claim to be an expert theologian or the most eloquent writer, but I hope my posts will point you to Jesus, give you an idea of what's happening around Hilldale, let you see a little of my thoughts and heart and possibly give you a little bit on entertainment now and then.
So..... ALL of that to say I'm going to start blogging again. Hope to see you around here. Feedback is welcomed (but I have to approve comments. Too much SPAM is out there in blogger land.)
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