bobs blog

Creative Project

bobyrne — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:53:20 +0000

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue online Worship Theology course with Dan Wilt.

awake-chord-sheet1

awake mp3

When I think back over the course one of the things that stands out to me is God’s passionate pursuit of us down through history. He is questing for us, he is determined to reconcile and restore us to “life to the full”.

In this I can feel the force of his personality – his emotion, his passion, his intent etc. The image for me is of a voice, through time, lamenting our brokeness, moving and acting to rescue humankind.

For my project I combined this idea with the image N.T. Wright uses of awkening (1). As people respond to the good news it is if they wake from sleep to become fully alive.

The song is written from God’s view which is something I was/ am very hesitant to do because – well, how can you possibly presume to write something that even approaches expressing the heart of God. So, I attach the disclaimer that this song is written from within the limitations of my understanding of God’s heart.

Also, Like Nik, I’m not used to creating to deadlines so I really feel that this is unfinished as is and could do with a lot more work.

I had some trouble finding somewhere to upload this song the best I could come up with is to put it here. Where you’ll have to click on the mp3 and then click the download button. Sorry for the inconvenience.

1) N.T. Wright. Simply Christian, Chapter 15. SPCK 2006.

My Christian Worldview, in a nutshell

bobyrne — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:36:13 +0000

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue online Worship Theology course with Dan Wilt.

There is a God, one God, and he cares deeply for us. He created the universe that we live in and he created all things good. By definition, therefore, he is not contained by his creation, he is not bounded by space, time or any of the physical laws that govern our universe. He is, therefore, infinite, eternal and all powerful.

God is perfect in love, in holiness, in justice and in wisdom. He is sovereign, he rules over everything he created.

God is a person comprised of three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each is distinct from the others yet each has being within the others, a mutual indwelling. God has perfect community in and of himself.

God created the universe because it is in his nature to do so. To create, out of nothing, the incredibly complex and breathtakingly beautiful natural order. To create a being with whom he can have relationship, a being who can join the circular dance of the trinity. To create a universe he will reign over in justice and love.

God remains intimately involved and present within his creation. He is unfathomable yet he has chosen to reveal himself to us insofar as we can know him. Our only appropriate response to this revelation is to worship him, to love him and to give our allegiance wholly to him.

We are made in god’s image. Our role is to establish the rule and reign of god by reflecting his glory into creation and articulating the clamorous praises of creation back to him. We have each been infused with something of the nature of god in that we are creative, we are relational and we have been invested with authority as rulers over creation.

In order to have meaningful relationship with us god created us with the freedom to choose whether or not to love him. Creation fell from perfection when man (and angels) chose not to love god. This introduced sin into our nature and thus separated us from god and has caused humankind to fall short of our identity and our purpose in the created order.

God will not step away from brokenness. Throughout history he has passionately pursued humankind to restore us to right relationship with him. He has yearned for a time when he can be our god and we can be his people. He has intervened and acted, both symbolically and actually, to rescue his people from bondage, slavery and exile. He has made covenant commitments that one day creation will be put right under his rule and reign, everything will be restored.

Jesus is the culmination of god’s rescue plan for humankind and for creation. God honoured all of his covenants with Israel through his son Jesus. God in his love, stepped into his creation, became man and died, sacrificially in our stead. In so doing he took the full wrath of God upon himself for our sin. Jesus is God himself bearing away his own penalty in himself. God has intervened and rescued us. He has made a new covenant with humankind based upon Jesus death and resurrection. By this covenant he has restored us to intimate relationship with him through Jesus’ sacrifice.

He has made his home with us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who is constantly at work within us transforming us, restoring us and leading us towards our proper place and role in creation.

Also, in Jesus heaven and earth came together, God’s future arrived in the present. As Jesus proclaimed, ‘the kingdom of God is near’ and then demonstrated through his resurrection on the third day – ‘the kingdom of God is here’.

God’s purpose is to restore all of creation, to put things right and to make all things new. This has been achieved through the cross but not yet actualised. God has chosen to act through us the church to bring about this restorative work. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim God’s kingdom through engaging in new creation acts such as healing the sick and being nice to our neighbours. To do this we need to engage with the people around us who are still sleeping and call them to wake up and become fully alive to what they were created to be. We need to be in our culture but not of our culture.

There will be a day when God’s rule and reign is established, new creation will be complete and we will see him face to face.

Where is God? (Essentials Blue Fall 08)

bobyrne — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:58:26 +0000

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue online Worship Theology course with Dan Wilt.

As I write this I am sitting in seat 11F about 37,000 feet above somewhere in central Europe looking at the fields and towns scrolling past below me. Being a diligent worship theology student I am reflecting deeply and profoundly (much to the annoyance of the travel weary occupant of seat 11E) upon how God’s space intersects with earth’s space, how the creator interacts with the created.

Many of the commonly held perceptions of God would conclude that seat 11F is somewhat analogous to God’s perspective on the world. He is over all, he sees all and even that he can come down and directly intervene when he chooses to.

N.T Wright (1), in his writing on the relationship between the creator and the created, uses the image of the two interlocking spheres of God’s dimension and the created dimension. These spheres are distinct from one another yet they overlap and intersect in a number of ways so that God is present in his creation but he is not contained by it.

In this model God’s overall perspective on creation comes not from his removal from it, like seat 11F’s removal from the earth below it, but from his remaining within it – all of it. He knows the hip pain felt by the guy who has spent too many cold nights sleeping on the streets, he knows the joy of the couple who find out they are going to have a baby when they thought they couldn’t….you get the idea.

“To speak of God’s action in the world, of heaven’s action on earth….is to speak not of an awkward metaphysical blunder, nor a ‘miracle’ in the sense of a random invasion of earth by alien forces, but to speak of the loving creator acting within the creation which has never lacked the signs of his presence.” (1)

God has always remained in a close, dynamic and intimate relationship with creation just as a painter, sculptor or composer remains intensely involved in the piece they are creating.

Two important implications arise from this for me:

1) Creation is good, it was a good idea to begin with, it is still a good idea and God remains devoted to it. Creation is still underway, the artist has not yet finished the painting, God is re-creating, “making all things new” (Rev 21:5 ).

2) After Jesus’ ascension into heaven the primary interlocking point between heaven and earth is now us, the church. The Holy Spirit has made his dwelling place in us. This means that heaven and earth come together within me or, to use N.T Wrights language, I exist in both the earthly dimension and the heavenly dimension.

This is an inspiring but sobering thought and leads me immediately to the importance of holiness. Learning to live our lives according to the rules of God’s kingdom while living within the present one. Holiness demonstrates new creation within our own lives, it is a testament to his reclaiming work.

(1) Tom Wright, Simply Christian, (SPCK, 2006)

Saved for the world not from (Essentials Blue Fall 08)

bobyrne — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:46:14 +0000

For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue online Worship Theology course with Dan Wilt.

N.T. Wright wrote “God’s people are not just worshippers, but also workers, bringing God’s new creation into reality – and the worship is the beginning of that task” in his article entitled Recovering Biblical Worship.

Through this article and the other course material for this first week I have found my view on the role of the worship leader being challenged and being expanded.

God is “making everything new” (Rev 21:5). The amazing part about this though is that He has chosen to use us as agents in the redemptive process, as co-creators. Creation began with the world around us and culminated in the creation of man – made in God’s image. ‘New Creation’ flows in the opposite direction beginning with human hearts being reconciled to Him, being made alive and then, in turn, participating in the creative, redemptive process as we are used by God in bringing His “wise order to the world” (N.T. Wright).

This is really inspiring but I have been asking myself what does it mean, practically, for the role of the worship leader (or worship artisan). I think part of the answer is connected to the idea that Dan mentioned in his article, The Rise of The Worship Artisan, that the mission of art is to reveal.

Reveal a vision of the future:

There is a prophetic role for worship leaders to see and understand the next stages of the redeeming purpose and, through creative expression and leadership, to find ways to impart that vision.

Reveal truth about God

There is the often quoted idiom that, for most christians, their thinking and knowledge of God is shaped more by the songs that we sing than by preaching or reading. This leaves a sobering responsibility upon the worship leader to ensure that they are leading people into a way of thinking about God that is healthy and true. We need to tell the whole story, to hold forth the whole character of God.

N.T.Wright Recovering Biblical Worship, Inside Worship

Dan Wilt The Rise of the Worship Artisan, www.danwilt.com

To begin…..

bobyrne — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:26:28 +0000

So, here I am doing something I thought I would never do -

Blogging

There is a reason that I have been dragged into the blogging universe. I am studying a course on worship theology at the Institute of contemporary and emerging worship studies with a very eclectic bunch of people. Like all decent worship theology courses, blogging forms an integral part of the course work.

Initially, this space will be used to record my thoughts and ideas on the course material. After that, who knows, maybe I’ll become an enthusiastic member of the blogging community.