Here are a few:

• I marvel at God's holiness, that he is independent, pure, good, and utterly beyond me.
• I glory in God's goodness, that he should save a wretch like me, totally undeserving, bent toward evil in all my faculties.
• I rejoice in God's sovereignty, that he chose to save me for the praise of his glory, not owing to anything I did or would do or any potential in me.

DeYoung is one of the authors of Young, Restless, and Reformed, which is a pretty good book. I read it recently.

The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. Books alternate in color between white and light gray. The length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arc - the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect.

This is not to say that political choices are always obvious. Often we must choose the lesser of two evils. Candidate Mershon may have a better view of one issue than Candidate Beates, while Beates has a better view on a different issue. It is an art to weigh the importance of different issues and to come to a godly conclusion. Each of us should have a large amount of tolerance for other Christians who come to conclusions that are different from ours. Rarely will one issue trump all others, though I must say that I will never vote for a candidate who advocates or facilitates the killing of unborn children."-John Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life (P&R 2008). p. 617.

I haven't read that Frame book, but I really like how he views the question.

It's time for congregations to sensitively but firmly rise up and reclaim congregational singing. We must remind song leaders (or, perhaps, teach them in the first place) the purpose of their ministry. Putting a microphone in the hands of someone who can sing no more makes her a song leader than, as the old proverb goes, sticking someone in a garage makes him a car. All the microphone does is make someone a very loud singer. The ministry of the song leader is, surely, to guide and lead the people of God in singing. The role of the song leader is to help us to sing, and they will know if they have fulfilled that ministry when they can hardly be heard because of the praises of the congregation filling the room.

The whole thing is really very well written, and covers a lot of points. One of his concluding paragraphs, though, which I quote above really hit home. I've been in churches where the worship singing had been turned into a concert performance by the band. Where it didn't matter if the congregation was singing or not, since all the hardware was on stage to ensure that the singers could hear themselves. And then they'd all jump into the chorus of This is the worship song that never ends...it goes on and on my, friend...we'll sing this line again and again...

And that's not good.

I followed the link from Michael Spender to find that article. Michael is even more pointed:

In its place we have a lot of songs that a lot of people don’t know, a lot of bad and unknown tunes, a lot of watching the worship team perform (especially if they are female of the right type and dress), a lot of forgettable, narcissistic lyrics, a lot of bad and inexperienced worship leaders, a lot of bone-headed thinking about congregational singing in relation to church growth, a lot of imitation of churches and methods that most congregations can’t imitate, a lot of lay people who simply don’t know how to sing at all, a lot of churches that don’t teach singing, a lot of turning congregations into audiences anyway and whatever else goes into the stew that does away with congregational singing.

I grew up with hymns. For the longest time, I thought praise choruses were only for when you went to summer camp, since you were in the woods and there was only a guitar. That was why you sang the same chorus 10 times over and over. That's not to say those camp songs didn't impact me. Even now, I hear some of them and I get chill bumps because it reminds me of times when God felt very near.

But heck, what if we just unplugged everything? Would our worship be worth less to our Lord? Would the rocks cry out if we were not in tune or off the beat? Amazing Grace, a cappella anyone?

Make a joyful noise...

However, if we search God’s Word faithfully and look to mature Christians who possess wise insight, we will quickly see that worship is much more than songs. Worship is what we were created for, it’s what we’ll spend eternity doing, and it encompasses our hearts as well as our actions.

It also matters what we sing. It’s been established that our ungodly culture has low expectations for young people. But when it comes to worship, even the Christian community has low expectations for us. Worship songs targeted for kids, tweens, teens and young adults, have dumbed down the lyrical content because they think we’re too dumb to understand anything harder.

Sadly, in far too many cases this assumption is correct. Young people who don’t study their Bibles faithfully, who don’t read hard books, and who can’t sit through “grown-up” sermons, probably can’t comprehend the profound truths found in timeless hymns like And Can It Be That I Should Gain, or Rock of Ages.

Perhaps someone would say he is over-generalizing, but in a general, megachurch way, he's right from what I've seen. And not just because And Can It Be happens to be one of my favorite hymns.

He goes on to list some musical artists who are writing modern-day hymns and the like. I've heard of a a few, but I'll have to check out the others.

Chuck's also got a blog, where he posted about his family's decision to move. I know how tough it is for a church to suddenly know their pastor won't be with them much longer, so I do pray for Centerpoint. I'm pretty excited, too.

Taylor goes on to do a pretty darn good job of using Scripture to make the case that Christians are told to be part of the visible Body of Christ, to serve and to be served, in the church.

If Christ is the foundational cornerstone, then the church is his temple. If Christ is the savior, then the church is the saved. If Christ is the sanctifier, then the church is the sanctified. If Christ is the head, then we are his body (Eph. 1:22-23; 3:6; 4:4, 16; 5:23, 30)

Sam Storm did a review of Barna's book, Revolution, and went on to say

No matter how often or egregious the neglect of pastoral responsibility and authority may be, the inspired and infallible instruction of the New Testament remains unchanged.

Storm provides a really well thought-out, insightful post that talks about what a church truly is, what it's meant to do, what it's meant to look like, and how we're meant to be a part of it.

I went to see the Azusa Pacific Symphony of Sound concert last Sunday afternoon at Lake Avenue Church. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is one of my favorite Christmas songs, the choir sang it to perfection. The Men's Chorus did a hilarious rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas with a bunch of random interjections from other songs. The solos during Do you see what I see? were quite splendid. It was a throughly enjoyable performance. APU seems to have a really good music program.

On the 16th, Lake Ave has their Messiah Sing-a-long. I've been going to that just about every year. I pretend to be able to sing baritone, and even though they have all the difference voices sitting together, I sit with whomever I go with. Great fun. My church in Boston always did a Messiah Sing, half of it at Christmas and half at Easter. Händel really nailed it with that oratorio.

At a recent Wednesday night service, Brian Huff, pastor at Church of the Harvest, took matters into his own hands - literally. When a member's cell phone went off, Huff asked if he could answer it.

Etiquette lapses plague churches Oregon Register-Guard

The article goes on to mention fashion traditions (jeans ties, flip-flops, baseball caps) and tardiness. And the humorous final line is about gum under the pews. Heck, just the fact that they have pews makes them a old conservative church. Nowadays, you're just as likely to get folding chairs.

The main theological dangers I see confronting us today are a practical rejection of the authority of God's word even by those who theoretically submit to it; a rejection of the sovereignty of God in favor of the putative sovereignty of man; a caricature, misunderstanding, or rejection of the penal substitution of Christ for sinners; a shallow understanding of conversion as a mere shift of opinions; a worldliness in our evangelism which deceives people about the very nature of the gospel we are hoping to win them to; an individualism that de-centers the congregation from the life of a Christian; and a carelessness of churches in addressing members in unrepentant sin, which causes untold confusion about what it means to be a Christian. I think that we deal with these dangers by understanding and teaching what God has called the local church to be and, by his Spirit's power, working to be that.

Mark Dever

Amen, brother.

California 1879, Preamble. We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom ...

Tennessee 1796, Art. XI.III. That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their conscience ...

That does do something for the argument that the Founding Fathers had no intention of a God-less state...

Also, we often treat the Lord's day as if it is an imposition, when in fact it is a blessing, it is a gift to us. It is no imposition to me when I take my wife out on a date - it is a delight to spend that one on one time with her. Yes, I have to cease my regular activities and arrange for childcare and do a whole host of other things that mess my schedule up. But I delight to do those things because I get that one one one time with my wife. The Lord's Day is meant to be a delight for us - it is a gift to us where we can rest our tired bodies, put away our worldly cares and worship and commune with our heavenly Father.

It's a really good little article. I, too, have noticed that more and more activites are getting scheduled for Sundays, it's not just youth sports. My sister at USC was just barely able to get to church before coming back for Stunt & Cheer club practice. They met early on Sunday afternoons because that was an easy time to get everyone together as few were church-goers. When I play with LAOUT, summer league finals can be on Sundays. The first day of the week is merely one-half of the weekend, equal to the other half.

Youth sports are a more worrying shift, though, to be sure. Not only is it not giving the kids the rest they need, it's teaching them that organized sports can carry a higher priority than church. What kind of example is that?

In it, she points to an article by Shmuley Boteach that makes the romantic in me leap up and turn flips.

The effect of women being placed on a pedestal was that men had to work hard to be thought worthy of a woman. Winning a damsel was a lifelong pursuit and a man would spend a lifetime in refinement of his character in order to win a woman. Even after marriage, a wife maintained her status as a lofty honor. Outside of worshipping God, honoring women was life's highest ideal. A man devoted his existence to protecting and cherishing the woman he was lucky enough to have as his wife. Like a man who is taken aback by the sight of a majestic mountain peak, he complimented her because he was in awe of her.

And Miss O'Hara doesn't pull any punches in her writing. Heck, just the word emasculated makes me nervous. She echoes a lot of things I remember reading in Wendy Shalit's A Return to Modesty, which I highly recommend.

Speaking as a male, it's rather tough to be a knight, albeit a modern modest one. Which is why when I find other guys who aim for the same ideal, they are a great treasure. It's much easier to be a Tender Warrior when you're Locking Arms. (I really like Stu Weber, if that's not obvious.)

And no, Miss O'Hara, you're not hideous. :)

Put an end to preaching by cheesy, whiny, quiche eating, preening Nancy Boys ... right now! It freaks us meat eaters out. Get it? Hire a pastor who throws off a good John Wayne vibe instead of that Boy George feeling. Know what I mean? And cheer on 'Pastor Wayne' to serve up the solid meat of the scripture - the stuff that prods the congregation to biblical maturity rather than prolonging their infancy.

Doug Giles makes some good points about the church losing some of its masculine character. I know that's a conversation I've had with several friends over the past few years of searching for church homes.

For the record, my pastor throws off a great John Wayne vibe. Just yesterday, he informed the congregation about tying fishing ties, and the joys of catch-and-throw-back fishing.