Three Thoughts After the Sermon

Three Thoughts After the Sermon 
By Vermon Pierre, Lead Pastor

Three things to highlight/remind you of from last Sunday’s sermon, “A God for Your Soul” (Ps 42-43):

1. This is a bit allegorical, but as I think of God calling us out of the dark corners of our soul and to his “holy hill” in worship (43:3), I can’t help but think of how Jesus died on a cross set up on the hill of Golgotha, a place known as “The Place of the Skull” according to Matthew 27:33. Because of what Jesus accomplished through his death and resurrection, this formerly cursed, morbid hill is now for the believer a place of worship, hope, and joy.

2. I made a point of emphasizing the special importance of the Sunday morning worship of the gathered church. I did so because I believe that, in our efforts to rightly point people to not think of church just as being a Sunday thing and to see every day as worship, we have ended up neglecting the unique significance of Sunday morning worship for our ongoing spiritual health and growth. Every Sunday is an opportunity for the believer to receive deep counseling and real comfort direct from the Lord. Fear and despair tend to shrivel up as light and truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ is mediated to your soul in worship.

3. That quote from Piper is so good that I’m going to post it again here:

“The basic movement of worship on Sunday morning is not to come with our hands full to give to God, as though he needed anything (Acts 17:25), but to come with our hands empty, to receive from God. And what we receive in worship is the fullness of God, not the feelings of entertainment. We ought to come hungry for God. We should come saying, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Ps. 42:1–2). God is mightily honored when a people know that they will die of hunger and thirst unless they have God.

Nothing makes God more supreme and more central in worship than when a people are utterly persuaded that nothing—not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends—nothing is going to bring satisfaction to their sinful, guilty, aching hearts besides God. This conviction breeds a people who go hard after God on Sunday morning [and I would add here – “and also then go hard after God the rest of the week”].

They are not confused about why they are in a worship service. They do not view songs and prayers and sermons as mere traditions or mere duties. They see them as means of getting to God or God getting to them for more of his fullness—no matter how painful that may be for sinners in the short run.” (John Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards)

Highlights from Legacy Conference 2010

Highlights from Legacy Conference 2010
Alden Powers, Music Director @Roosevelt Community Church

Last week Jordan (aka Barabbas the Rebel of the Christian hip hop group i65), my wife Melissa and I attended the Legacy Conference in Chicago, Illinois. This was a three-day conference dedicated to equipping people for urban ministry. The conference featured prominent guest speakers like Paul Washer, Francis Chan and Thabiti Anyabwile. It also featured concerts and workshops taught by many of today’s top Christian hip hop artists such as Le Crae and Shai Linne. Here are a few of the highlights from this very informative conference.

Discipling Artists in the Local Church

Lamp Mode recording artist Steven the Levite taught an extensive four-hour workshop on how to minister to rappers, musicians and artists in the local church. Steven discussed some of the reasons why rappers have a difficult time getting plugged into a local church. He stressed the importance of artists getting involved in other ministries in the church that are not as high profile as performing. He also addressed qualifications for rappers to have in order to properly minister.

Compassion Ministry

This workshop focused on what is necessary to have an effective ministry toward the poor and needy. Concepts stressed in this workshop were the importance of the person going into ministry to be prepared spiritually. They must be faithful to the Word of God and spiritually mature. We also discussed what the Bible says about poverty and Godly compassion. We also went over how to effectively evangelize, as well as practical issues to consider when ministering to someone in poverty.

Lamp Mode Concert

Thursday night’s concert featured the music of three artists from the Lamp Mode record label. Steven the Levite mixed spoken word with his unique rapping style. Steven likes to experiment with more complex rhythmical patterns that are rarely heard elsewhere in hip hop. Hazakim, an energetic duo consisting of two Messianic Jewish brothers, followed Steven the Levite. Shai Linne challenged everybody’s assumption of what a hip hop concert is by singing classic hymns along with a beat boxer from the audience!

Cross Movement Concert

Friday night was one of craziest concerts I’ve ever witnessed. Cross Movement artists LeCrae, Thi’sl, Flame and Tedashii rocked the house. All four artists were on the stage at the same time and the energy was explosive. The crowd was jumping, LeCrae poured water on the audience, Thi’sl grabbed a guitar, and the God’s people jumped for joy.

Francis Chan

Friday night Francis spoke very candidly and openly about the need for us to love Jesus more than anything. He challenged us to look into our hearts and see what indwelling sin we are harboring that keeps us from a true, deep relationship with our Lord. Chan told stirring stories about saints all over the world living Godly lives. Hearing about these people such as his grandmother who talks to Jesus all day long, or missionaries in Afghanistan who were nearly killed for their faith convicted Chan to leave his comfortable surroundings in an affluent church and seek a deeper relationship with Christ.

Saturday Inner-City Outreach

The best part about this conference was that after we were fed with some amazing Biblical teaching, we were then sent out and expected to apply our knowledge. The conference adjourned from the comfy confines of the Moody Bible Institute to a low-income neighborhood in Chicago’s west side. The outreach featured Christian rap concerts and food all day long, but while the stage was set up, we were asked to go out into the community and tell people not only about the concert, but also about the good news of the Gospel.

As we walked down some of the poorest streets of Chicago, God worked to open up the hearts of many of the people in the community to hear the Gospel message. We talked to guys getting drunk on their front porch. We talked to grandparents who had lived long enough to see the neighborhood deteriorate. But as we shared the message of hope in the savior Jesus Christ, people were willing to listen and ponder some truths that they had heard for the very first time.

Overall I felt the Legacy Conference greatly helped me grow in understanding how to share the love of Christ in an urban context. I got some great knowledge, met some great people and heard some great music!

5 Reflections on Leading a Prayer Vigil

5 Reflections on Leading a Prayer Vigil
Alden Powers, Music Director @Roosevelt Community Church

Last month my wife and I hosted a two-week-long morning prayer vigil on behalf of our missionary team in Kenya. Having served on the team two years before, we felt a calling to be diligently in prayer for our current team as they shared the gospel half a world away. Committing this much time to prayer for one specific thing really opened my eyes to the nature and power of prayer. I have prayed for missionary teams, I have participated in days of fasting and prayer, but never anything of this length and I wish I would have done more of these sooner in my life. Here are a few of my insights:

1. God listens to your prayers

God tells us in places like 1 Kings 9:3 and 2 Kings 20:5 that he does hear our prayers and act on them. When we got together and prayed we had no idea what was happening in Kenya. We didn’t know how the community was doing. We didn’t even know if the team had arrived safely. But we stepped out in faith and came to the Lord with our prayers anyway. Upon hearing reports when they returned, we were amazed by the level of transformation that had taken place. We know that the church is growing rapidly. People in the church are growing in their spiritual maturity. Children are learning in school. There is more water. All of things we prayed for, God seemed to be doing in our sister community! Praise God!

2. God wants persistent prayers

In Luke 11:5-13, Jesus tells a parable of a friend asking another friend for loaves of bread to feed some guests arriving late at night. The friend, despite being already in bed, gives into his friend’s request due to his persistent asking. This parable illustrates the importance of asking God for things again and again. If we ask, we will receive and if we seek, we shall find. But we need to be bold and persistent in our efforts.

3. There are different ways to pray

When we pray, there are many different things we can do. It’s not just all about asking. Our prayers can be prayers of thanksgiving. They can be prayers of praise. We should also confess our sins to God. These categories of prayer can be summarized in the acronym A.C.T.S (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication).

We can ask God for things, but ultimately God will grant to us only what is truly good and right. The purpose of our prayers is to not align God’s will with ours, but to align our will with God’s. God may grant us what we ask for, but even more so we need to ask our Heavenly Father “thy will be done”.

A great way to keep in tune with this idea is to pray through scripture. Speak scripture passages to God so that your prayers can be more fully in line with His will.

Consistent and persistent prayer on a certain thing can greatly increase the level of sincerity of your prayers. When we pray for something once, we can easy to get pulled into the “checklist” mentality. I prayed for it, cross it off my list, now I can continue with what I was doing and feel good about myself that I prayed. But when we consistently come to the Lord again and again with the same requests, it can transform our simple prayers into heartfelt longing. It deepens our sincerity. It enables us to dwell upon what we are asking of our Father and really pour out our soul for what we are praying for. This deepens not only the effectiveness of our prayers, but it also deepens our relationship with God. We are no longer “mailing in” our requests. We are no longer folding our hands and talking out of obligation. We are now crying out to the Lord. We are talking to God! And we begin to understand prayer as an intimate conversation between a child and their Father.

4. It is important to have a consistent time of the day to pray

We held our prayer vigil every morning from 7am to 8am. We chose to pray in the morning because it worked best for our schedule. There’s no real significance to praying in the morning (my wife might have preferred at later time!). Some people might prefer afternoon or evening. But the important thing is to resolve to set aside a certain time every day to pray. Jesus seemed to pray morning and evening (Mark 1:35, Matthew 26:36), and he definitely resolved to pray often.

In our busy, on-the-go culture it’s easy to blow off prayer time in favor of “more important” matters. I know for me that if I don’t schedule it, it won’t happen. Take time to block off a certain amount of time during your day for prayer. It doesn’t have to be for a whole hour, but anything is better than nothing.

5. Quality is more important than quantity

Some days we had as many as ten people at our house praying. Some days it was only my wife and I. Regardless of how many people we had, the important thing was sincere prayer. God tells us that when two or more are gathered in His name, He is there also (Matthew 18:20). We didn’t have to have standing room only in our house in order for God to act on our prayers.

Three Thoughts After the Sermon

Three Thoughts After the Sermon
By Vermon Pierre, Lead Pastor

Here are three things that I'd like to further highlight from last Sunday's sermon, "Pure Words vs Impure Words" (Ps 12):

1. I've been thinking a lot these days about what kind of people we are becoming in today's information loaded, interconnected, always "on" world. Such an environment seems to more easily encourage and even embrace insincerity and hypocrisy. We don't just have a "double heart" (v.2), we have many hearts, one for each of the many lives we are living. Are we aware of these dangers? And what are we doing to address them?

2. Psalm 119 is just a great great psalm. Every time I find myself feeling a bit dry when it comes to reading and meditating on Scripture, Psalm 119 wakes me back. It reminds me of the great treasure the Lord has given us by giving us his word, and it inspires me to dive deep into it, knowing that it will lead me in paths of purity, delight and worship.

3. It's both an encouragement and warning to know that in the end all lies, deception, and hypocrisy will fade away and that it is the Lord and his word alone that will remain forever. If you spend your life saying and doing things that are essentially lies and deception, you will end up with nothing. Only a life lived along the contours of God's word will have something to show for itself when eternity comes.

Three Thoughts After the Sermon

Three Thoughts After the Sermon
By Vermon Pierre, Lead Pastor
 
Here are three things that I'd like to further highlight from last Sunday's sermon, "God, Crisis, and Faith" (Ps 11):

1. Believing that God is a God who rules above all (i.e. transcendent) and is also near to all (i.e. immanent) matters for how you will practically make your way through a crisis. For if God is not really in control over everything in your life or not really involved in the details of your life, then you should feel anxious and live most of your life with doubt and fear. It makes sense to always play it safe and not take risks, because God isn't really able or isn't going to do much to help you out. On the other hand, if God is really in control over everything in your life and is really involved in the details of your life, you are then able to live with great boldness and confidence. Yes, you will have fears and worries, but at the same time you will also have a God who you can readily go to address your fears and doubts. This is because he is a God is a God who is fully in control and fully involved in your life – even when your life is at its lowest point.

2. God always acts in full consistency with all his attributes. So, for example, when God does something, he does it based on the fact that he is perfectly just, wise, loving, merciful, righteous, etc.

3. Read again this Charles Spurgeon quote. I think he captures well the perspective Christians ought to have on suffering because we are now in Christ: "We can suffer joyfully, hope cheerfully, wait patiently, pray earnestly, believe confidently, and triumph finally."

Should We "Modernize" Hymns? PART 2

Should We "Modernize" Hymns? PART 2 (of 2)
Alden Powers, Music Director @Roosevelt Community Church

4. Changing the lyrics

In some rare instances, it may be necessary to alter the lyric of the hymn. This should be exercised with caution though, since the great lyrics are why we are reviving these hymns in the first place. Many older hymns use language, grammar and words that are no longer in use in everyday speech. For example, the hymn How Sweet and Awful is This Place would not be understood properly by a modern congregation because the word awful, originally meaning “full of awe”, is not used that way anymore. Now the word means something that is really bad. This song would be a good candidate for a lyric change.

When I change lyrics, I usually only change one or two words that might replace the archaic words. I might change the “thees” to “yous” and the “doths” to “does”. I generally don’t like to do this unless the song is not very well known, or it won’t interrupt the rhyme pattern. For example, there are a lot of “thees” in Holy Holy Holy, but if you change them all to “yous” then the song won’t rhyme.

Sometimes all that is needed is an explanation by the worship leader of what the obsolete word means. When we sing All Hail the Power of Jesus Name, I’ll often explain to the congregation what a diadem is (it’s another word for crown). Explaining the songs is a great way for people to gain insight into what they are singing about and gain a greater appreciation for the song.

5. Changing the harmony

Many modern worship teams that primarily use guitars can find it hard to play hymns because there are so many chords! Most hymns were written using four-part harmony; meaning that there is literally a chord for every note that is sung. For a pianist or organist this is not such a big deal, but for most guitar players this is impossible to do.

Despite this problem, many guitarists can play these hymns if they simplify the chords. Stripping down the harmony can work wonders for the sound of the hymn and immediately make it sound more modern.
I’ve also heard great results by arrangers who have completely changed the harmony. For any melody, there can be several options for what kind of chords you can use. I’ve heard jazzy arrangements where 7th and 9th chords have replaced the more traditional sounding triads. I’ve also heard hymns that were originally sung in a major key changed to the relative minor with startlingly beautiful results.

6. Writing a chorus/bridge (changing the structure)

Most younger listeners are turned off by hymns because of their repetitive, predictable structure. Hymns are written as a series of 12 to 16-measure verses that are repeated 4 to 6 times. Modern music is not written this way. Most modern popular music is written in a verse/chorus format, where there are 2 or 3 verses that are 8 to 16 measures in length, followed by an 8-measure chorus that is the same every time you sing it. The chorus serves to keep the song together and offer a catchy section that can easily be remembered. Often times the title of the song is found in the chorus.

Modern hymn arrangers have found a brilliant way around this problem by writing an original chorus for the old hymn. The chorus is usually much easier than the verses and offers the worshipper a change of pace, a break from long verses and further insight into the truths we are singing about.

Another practice that is not uncommon is to take one of the verses and make it a chorus. People will change
the melody and maybe some of the words and viola!

7. Further changes to the structure

Along with adding a chorus, there are other things we can do to the structure of the hymn to make it modern. I’ve heard people split one long verse into two shorter verses. This is a great technique to do when a hymn is especially “meaty” theologically. By splitting up the verses we can spend more time contemplating the truths we are singing about.

I’ve also seen people take the first half of one verse and attach it to the second half of another verse. (By the way, this is not a “modern” phenomenon - people have been doing this to hymns for centuries.) This is a great way to change how we sing the truths we are singing. I like doing this with old hymns that have a lot of obsolete language. Sometimes switching verses around is easier than changing the lyrics altogether.

There are many great ways to breath new life into old hymns of our faith. When some or all of these techniques are used, they can serve to bring a great hymn into the new century and give it new life to a whole new generation of worshippers.

Should We "Modernize" Hymns? PART 1 (of 2)

Should We "Modernize" Hymns? PART 1 (of 2)
Alden Powers, Music Director @Roosevelt Community Church

One thing that we love to do at Roosevelt Community Church is sing hymns. Not only do we like to sing the timeless music of our faith, but we also like to sing modern arrangements of these hymns. Some of our arrangements are very similar to the original while others are radically different. What we are doing at RCC is not unique to our church body. This has been a popular movement in modern worship music for a few years now.

Changing a hymn can be exciting, inspiring, and even controversial. There are many factors to consider when changing a hymn that one needs to think of before we take the plunge. Here are a couple of things we can do to modernize the great old hymns and bring them into the 21st Century.

1. Why should we change hymns in the first place?

The single most important reason to change a hymn is to make the deep, powerful truths that we are singing about more relevant to our modern culture. If you simply read the words of the great hymns of our faith, they are loaded with rich, beautiful lyrics that express the wonders of the Gospel. Devoid of music, the lyrics of great hymns can stand alone as great poetry.

Sadly, many of these great hymns are attached to music that has become stale and outdated to many modern listeners. Sometimes the older style of music invokes memories of one’s unpleasant churchgoing past. Other times the music is simply not relevant to the modern culture. In a church where many of the members might listen to heavy rock music, why should they then sing hymns the traditional way?

I do concede that there are reasons not to change a hymn and we should have a love and respect for the rich tradition of church music. However, for the sake of presenting the rich gospel truths found in the lyrics of the great hymns, we need to modernize many of them.

2. Changing the style.

The easiest way to modernize a hymn is to perform it in a modern style without changing the melody or words. This works if the hymn is very popular and many members of the congregation could not imagine singing the hymn to a different tune. This also works if the original melody associated with the hymn is a really great melody and can be easily transferred to other musical styles. We’ve had a lot of success singing a hymn with a reggae beat, or with an up-tempo rock feel. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed to make a hymn sound modern.

I will say however, that whatever style we do the hymn in should be a style that we are familiar with. It serves no one to do a bluegrass version of “Amazing Grace” if you don’t know how to play bluegrass!

3. Changing the melody.

Sometimes it can really serve our congregation to change the melody of a hymn. Older hymns might have melodies that by today’s standard sound boring and dated. To some the idea of changing the melody may sound like heresy, but I would remind you that many of our favorite hymns underwent numerous melodic variations and were set to many different tunes until one emerged as the definitive melody. I do not recommend doing this to well-known hymns that our congregation is familiar with. Doing this can alienate some people.

There are, however, a treasure trove of lesser-known hymns that are not widely known because they have been attached to bad melodies. When we come across a hymn such as this, I believe it is our duty to free it from the prison of the lousy melody it is enslaved to and redeem it with a fresh, modern melody.

One of the most popular ways to change the melody is to use a different hymn tune. Old hymns were often written in established rhythmical meters so that they could be sung to different tunes. Try singing “All to Jesus I Surender” to the tune of “Come Thou Fount”. It works!

Sometimes all a hymn needs is some more interesting rhythms. Old hymn tunes were written with a straight rhythm that can sound boring and predictable to modern ears. Modern melodies are much more rhythmically complex, often employing syncopation, a technique by which there is an emphasis on the up-beats. Sprinkling in some of this magical syncopation into an old hymn melody can really do wonders.

If you would like to hear examples of some great modern hymns, I recommend:
*Park Slope Church: Kingsborough Hymns Vol 1- Beautiful Arrangements of hymns by several great hymn writers. The arrangements are hauntingly beautiful in mostly a folky, acoustic style.


*Indelible Grace Music- An entire music company devoted to producing recordings of modern hymns. Their website is a goldmine of great music!

*Red Mountain Church: Help My Unbelief and This Breaks My Heart of Stone- Great modern arrangements of William Gadsby and Isaac Watts hymns.

*Sojourn: Over the Grave- Isaac Watts hymns “turned up to 11”! Radically new arrangements of some of Watts’ greatest hymns.

"Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus" by D.A. Carson

Scandalous consists of 5 chapters in which Carson goes through a different passage of Scripture. He digs through them, pulling out deep truths about Christ, the cross, our battle against Satan's rage, and the resurrection. Each chapter is full of rich biblical and theological thoughts that kept my mind racing as I attempted to digest it.

Not only is the book a wonderful read because of the topics but if you pay attention, the chapters are also a tutorial on how to read your Bible. Carson is one of those voices that I like my mind and heart to have a steady diet of because I grow in understanding how to read Scripture. Paying attention to Carson's exegesis of Scripture will teach you how to read your Bible and put it together. I highly recommend any of his writings or sermons. If you are new to Carson, this is a great book to start with.

"Marks of the Messenger: Knowing, Living, and Speaking the Gospel" by J. Mack Stiles

"Marks of the Messenger: Knowing, Living, and Speaking the Gospel"
by J. Mack Stiles
BOOK REVIEW by Dennae Pierre



This book brought me to tears and gave me a chilling awareness of how little I share the gospel. It brought me to my knees in repentance.

It is not a "guilt-tripping evangelism" book that left me feeling like I need to "try harder" or "do better". Instead, the author paints a glorious picture of the gospel and our high calling to be a part of gospel work. I finished each chapter with an urgency to know and live the gospel in a fuller and more vibrant way.

Read this book several times and find a friend to read and discuss it with!

Three Thoughts After the Sermon

Three Thoughts After the Sermon
By Vermon Pierre, Lead Pastor
 
Here are three things that I'd like to further highlight from last Sunday's sermon, "Confidence As You Wake Up" (Ps 5):

1. God hates sin and also hates those who sin. That's probably one of the more severe statements I've made in a sermon. But Ps 5:4-6 couldn't be clearer on this point. This is a hard point to grapple with for many people because, as J. Mack Stiles writes in Marks of a Messenger, we tend to think of ourselves as people who commit sins as opposed to being a people who are sin. The problem is that in our very condition. We don't just do some rebellious things against God – we are fully rebels against God. In all that we say, think, do, and feel, we are systematically defying God's good, perfect, and righteous rule. In view of that, we should expect God to react strongly!

2. All of us have committed an abundance of sins for which we deserve to be judged and cast down into fiery punishment (v.10). Thank God, however, that he has overcome the abundance of our sins through the abundance of his love expressed to us through Jesus Christ. (v.7 cf Rom 8:38-39).

3. Assurance, joy, hope, confidence – all things people would like more of in their lives. And all things that are impossible to secure from within ourselves. It's only when we develop a life lived in the presence of the Lord, where we obey him and submit to his righteous, leading, that we experience all the elements of life that make it a blessed life.