Page CXVI has just released there new album, Hymns II - As part of the promotion for the new album Page CXVI is making their first album, Hymns I, available for download free of charge this week only. You can go to their website by clicking here. Once you are their you can also preview the new album and purchase it directly through the site.
The song list for the new album is:
How Great Thou Art
Praise to the Lord
Jesus I Am Resting, Resting
Rock of Ages
Abide With Me
Battle Hymn of the Republic
Doxology
These guys are continuing to try and make these rich hymns more accessible to a modern audience so that these meaningful pieces of music will live on. If you appreciate what they are doing, as I do, then please show them your support.
This weekend, my boys and I took a trip to Hollywood! Before I continue, let me make a few things clear about this place of glamour:
1. Contrary to what's shown on TV, 99.8% of Hollywood is not glamorous, star studded or beautiful at all.
2. Drugs, sex, prostitution and poverty are rampant in Hollywood. It is one of the most spiritually broken cities I've ever been in.
3. The Church has little to no presence there.
That being said, this weekend, I noticed the Church's presence there in a striking way. Driving down Hollywood Blvd., I stumbled upon a big black sign that said in white letters, 'Ecclesia.'Curious, I pulled over to see it closer. The church was meeting in an old, broken down theater (fitting, eh?). Literally, right next door to the theater was a sex shoppe (the little pink building to the left in the photo).
I did a bit of searching around online about their Church, and in general, they were Evangelical! Of course, they were super-hip, all with cool hair, cool clothes, and a love for Indy music. In short, the staff looked like they belonged in Hollywood. They were contextualizing their message ( like missionaries dressing in African garb, they too were dressed in Hollywood garb). An Evangelical presence on Hollywood Blvd.?! I loved the picture: A church proclaiming the Lordship of Christ, right next to a sex shoppe! Isn't this how Christ ministered when He was here in the flesh? Isn't this how He still ministers today: in the midst of tax collectors and sinners (even eating with them!)?
On the other hand, a couple blocks away, I saw a different kind of Church entirely. Oh, they claimed to be Christians, and their building (at first glance) certainly gave testimony to that effect. Towering over the other buildings around it, the old Methodist Church looked much more like a traditional church building then say a theater next to a sex shoppe. Yet, as I got closer to the building, it became very clear that they were anything but traditional. I saw three big banners hanging from their windows and doors. They read:
1. "Reclaiming the Bible for Progressive Christians"
2. "We are different. We believe in Equality."
3. Sermon this Sunday: 'Marriage Equality.'
What struck me was how both Churches were trying to reach their culture. The Evangelical Church changed their dress, music style, and overall aesthetics, yet maintained the central message of Christianity. The Methodist Church, on the other hand, in order to reach the culture, did not give up it's dress, music style, and overall aesthetics, but in order to "be relevant" seems to have given up it's message.
So here's the thoughts I came away with:
1. Contextualization has it's limits. The message cannot be changed. Ever. We cannot tamper with it. The Gospel must remain central. The Methodist Church looks the part, but like so many Church buildings, appears to be full of dead men's bones. Style changes, music changes, what's considered beautiful, or fashionable today, can very quickly look old and antiquated not too much further into the future.
2. Although, I can't be sure of this, I have a pretty strong sense that this particular Methodist church wasn't always the way it is today. I'm sure at one time, even if they were "more progressive," someone once preached the Gospel there. But over time, in a quest to "be relevant" to their culture, they just began to affirm the culture, rather than confront it with Christ's claims. Evangelicalism in some ways, is in danger of heading down this same road. Endless self-help sermons, five step programs, and hipper than thou Pastors all can make for a very shallow Church.
3. What then is the key to staying safe? Contextualizing your message, without losing your message? I think it's found in this tension: 1 Corinthians 9:22- "I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some." 1 Corinthians 4:6- "Do not go beyond what is written."
May God help us maintain this tension by the Holy Spirit's working in us and through us.
At the end of the sermon I showed a video in which Josh Caterer (lead singer of The Smoking Popes) discusses his own conversion to Christianity. If you make it to the end, play this:
Watching this video I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I firmly believe that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. So I sort of cringed at some of the implications of what Chan is saying. On the other hand, as I watched, I couldn't help but think about this word from Jesus:
Matthew 25:14 “For it (the Kingdom) will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
And then there's this: "Either make the tree good and it's fruit good, or make the tree bad and it's fruits bad, for the tree is known by it's fruit."
What do you think? Is Chan right about the implications of 'living too safe a life?'
When I was a teenager, one of my favorite bands in the known universe was "The Smoking Popes." They were not a Christian band, just a rock band that made great music (name not withstanding). Me and my friends Jeff, Ryan, and Jimmy would listen to them for hours, and then in our own band, would seek to write songs that were similar (ok, maybe exactly alike would be a better way of saying it).
Anyway, as we listened to this band, my friends and I would actually talk and pray about how cool it would be if the Popes became Christians. Lo and behold, not long after, Josh Caterer, their lead singer, did indeed receive Christ as Lord. Here below is a short clip in which he describes how his conversion took place:
“I understand that this is the week for the church collection, and many of you do not want to give a thing. You ungrateful people should be ashamed of yourselves. . . . I am sorry I ever freed you from the tyrants and the papists. You ungrateful beasts, you are not worthy of the treasure of the gospel. If you don’t improve, I will stop preaching rather than cast pearls before swine.”
Martin Luther, exhorting his congregation, according to Roland Bainton, Here I Stand(New York, 1950), pages 351-352.
Page CXVI has just released there new album, Hymns II - As part of the promotion for the new album Page CXVI is making their first album, Hymns I, available for download free of charge this week only. You can go to their website by clicking here. Once you are their you can also preview the new album and purchase it directly through the site.
