Ed Stetzer of LifeWay Research had an interesting post on his blog last week about worship wars that are all too common in today's church. You can read it here.
Recently in Church Life Category
(originally posted on A Worshiper's Heart). John Mark McMillan posted a recent entry to his blog concerning his song, "How He Loves." With the right audience, this is a really powerful song regarding the passionate love of God. But, some people get hung up on the second verse, specifically the phrase "sloppy wet kiss" in the line "So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss." They find it to be too graphic and/or sensual. Others say the image gives them the "willies" or is just plain distracting to their worship.
The song will likely become even more popular now that the David Crowder Band recorded it for the new CD Church Music. Crowder changed the lyric to "unforeseen kiss," which is admittedly less jarring. I fault neither Crowder for changing the lyric nor McMillan for allowing him to do so. After all, the song is not really about sloppy, wet kisses and the metaphor is not essential to the message of the lyric. Crowder's lyric will, in the end, be the one the song will be known by.
But personally, I like the original lyric and I'm glad Kim Walker recorded it. It speaks of both the passion of God and the mess of humanity. It's both divine and gritty, much like the Incarnation itself. And if it makes people stop and think about what they're singing in church, so much the better.
iTunes has both Walker's recording and Crowder's. What about you and your church? Are you singing this song? What lyric do you use? Should this song be on our site?
THANK YOU for the overwhelming response to Worship: Reverence v. Relevance featuring Ed Stetzer and Mike Harland! Over 1300 of you pre-registered for the event, and we're aware that some of you had problems viewing the live stream.
Because we know some of you may have had trouble, we decided to archive the event and let you know that the entire broadcast is available for on-demand streaming here. Feel free to share it with your staff, friends and congregations!
Click these links for more information about Ed Stetzer, LifeWay Research, and LifeWay Worship. You can also follow us on Twitter: @edstetzer , @mikeharlandlw , and @lifewayworship. Finally, click here for more information about online and in-person LifeWay events.
Attention church leaders and church members. Do you ever find yourself struggling with how worship is "done" in your church? Organ or guitars? Praise team or choir? Traditional or contemporary? Bulletins or Projectors? If so, be sure and tune into our FREE online event happening TODAY at 2:00 pm (central time), Worship: Reverence vs. Relevance. Register before it starts to receive 5 FREE downloads from LifeWayWorship.com.
At my church, worship is led by volunteers who rotate from week to week. This past weekend, I had the privilege of co-leading with another volunteer. We had a funny mishap during communion, which I wrote about on my personal blog. The experience has led me to consider how oftentimes real lessons are learned from awkward, funny, or embarrassing moments in ministry. So, I thought that I would pose the question here: What ministry lessons have you learned through an embarrassing moment? Leave your comment below.
