Worship

It has been a while since I posted on anything related to worship, devotions, or meditations. In fact when I have posted on those items it has always been to comment on my feelings, or thoughts at that particular time. I noticed I have never talked or recommended materials for devotional purposes so I want to take the time to do that now.

Bible:
In this arena where the choices are many, my recommendation for the computer savvy is to use Bible Works. I know an odd choice for a devotional bible but it makes perfect sense. You can see as much of the particular selection as you wish and you can journal your thoughts in the notes section of the screen. I have been doing this with the Psalms for the past 2 months, averaging about 1 Psalm a day. This has worked increadably well and turns a very important study resource into a spiritual resource.

Music:
This is an area that most often gets me in trouble. I am not a fan of worship music, I find most at best are cheesy. For me music worship takes place most often with U2, and yes sometimes even Pearl Jam. However there is one particular worship CD that I want to recommend, it is the Veggie Tales Worship CD. I bought this CD for my daughter to listen to as she plays around the house, often painting or coloring. They picked excellent songs that encourage people to sing along and for me over the last 5 months or so have been increadably uplifting to my spiritual life. As I noted I have found a lot of contemporary worship music cheesy and unable to speak to me, and sorry for the traditionalist but hymns just don't cut it all the time. In my opinion this Veggie Tales CD is a must have, even for those without children

Nature:
This is a special topic for me and is intricately linked to my spiritual life. I believe that time must be taken to mediate on nature and our relationship to it. For me this often means staring out my window at the trees swaying in the breeze, or the squirrels frolicking in the branches. However I must say for me I recommend picking up a good science book and reading it. The Universe in a Nut Shell by Stephen Hawkings is an excellent book to help you reflect on the beauty of God's creation.

My last major suggestion is don't be afraid to use whatever you have on hand as devotional material. Some of my greatest spiritual experiences have occurred while reading novels, "Things Fall Apart," or "Les Meserables" are two excellent examples of this for me. In the end I believe that we can find God anywhere if we just look, and because of that we are able to focus, and re-center ourselves on his message in the world.

Comments

Keith H. McIlwain said…
Good words.
9:29 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ortega: "Man Has No Nature"

"Man has to be himself in spite of unfavorable circumstances; that means he has to make his own existence at every single moment. He is given the abstract possiblity of existing, but not the reality." Today unfortunatly I got very little opportunity to read but when I did I was able to read and excerpt from Ortega (of course dealing with existentialism). Ortega has a very nice writing style that is very understandable but also thought provoking. This quote I have above is the first two sentences of the selection. What struck me about these sentences is the reality of it. Man is the one that chooses his reality. That is he chooses who or what he is to be. Man is under the influence of countless things in his life, religion, politics, friends, and family, not to mention history in general but it is his/her choices that influences his/her reality. I am not saying that man creates his /her reality apart or separate from physical scientific reality. What I am saying is th
Read more

Theology vs. Scripture

I've been doing some thinking. I've been apart of and have been watching the discussion taking place on Locust and Honey on the General conference. I did post some statements but recently a relatively short discussion on homosexuality has surfaced. Now this is a hot button issue for pretty much everyone but there were a few issues I had with the various points that were given, as well as some thoughts on what is happening in the church right now around this issue. First off, I was struck by the insistence that the church needs to be open and affirming. I am not making any claims on whether this is right or wrong but the church has never in its history been an "open and affirming" organization. This is just a statement of fact, and I find it quite interesting that most people claim that the Methodist church needs to be open and affirming when I believe that John Wesley would not have been. Lest we forget John was known for kicking people out of his societies if
Read more

Stewardship Prayer

Scripture: 1 Kings 19:1-13 Central Verse: “…but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.” 1 Kings 19:14b-13 Central Truth: This is the second lesson in our stewardship series and it focuses on Prayer. This may seem like an odd verse to focus on prayer within our membership vows but we must take the time to begin to understand in the most basic elements what prayer is. Prayer is communication with God. With communication there are two important attributes to the conversation. The first is listening and the second is speaking. Most people would put speaking as the primary for conversation but it is just the opposite which is listening. When we speak about prayer in its most basic components we are talking about conversation. Most of the time it feels like we do all the talking. We fill up the silence of our lives with it. This relegates the ro
Read more