Healing prayer is part of the normal Christian life. It should not be elevated above any other ministry in the community of faith, nor should it be undervalued; rather it should be kept in proper balance. It is simply a normal aspect of what it means to live under the...
If we faithfully followed God’s example, there would no longer be the crassness and cynicism of the throwaway or the false pomp and pretense of art for the ages. Nor would the Holy Spirit be continually pestered to turn poor work into blessed work. The Christian...
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.
The same breath is blown into the flute, cornet, and bagpipe, but different music is produced according to the different instruments. In the same way, the one Spirit works in us, God’s children but different results are produced, and God is glorified through them...
As many philosophers and theologians have observed, music is close to “spirit”—a non-material medium of receiving and conveying a sense of the world. In our deepest attentiveness and encounters with certain forms of music, we are opened to a depth of awareness; a...
One man does not make a wave. We are all carried by the flood of heroism in the human spirit. A symphony orchestra is no different. If we are fortunate in our times, we achieve a few moments of that heroism. But this is only the beginning, only the drawings on the...
I am convinced that congregations learn more theology (good and bad) from the songs they sing than from the sermons they hear. Many sermons are doctrinally sound and contain a fair amount of biblical information, but they lack that necessary emotional content that...
The acceptance of the fact that Christian existence is based on and permeated with God’s forgiveness in Christ through the Holy Spirit strikes simultaneous deathblows to attitudes which can be described as musical legalism and musical lawlessness. Musical legalism can...
Where the Spirit of God is, there is also singing. The early church was characterized by its singing; so also in every generation where there is renewal by the Spirit a new hymnody breaks forth. If most such songs do not have staying power, some of them do, and these...
At the heart of successful and dynamic worship, private or public, is the issue of being honest with God and ourselves. We must honestly evaluate our love for God, genuinely express love to God, and sincerely expect love from God. I am amazed that God still seeks...