A Closing Hymn

How great thou art.  How great God is.  How great this conference was. 

How great the messages were.  How great the musicians were, the visual artists, the production team, the prayer warriors, the breakout session leaders, the conversations in the foyer, the sense of community. 

How great it was to worship in Spirit and Truth.  How great it was to be quiet and reflect.  How great it was to learn new ideas and ways of thinking about our Christian faith.  

How great it was pray, stand, raise our hands, hearts and voices.

It was so great.  All because our God is so great!

Give Us Your Feedback

Help us gather feedback from your CU Worship Arts ’09 experience. Take this quick and easy survey.

You are also invited to write a comment under any of these blog postings.  Join the WAC community after the conference has ended. 

Leave thoughts, reflections, ideas, post-conference take-aways.  Let us keep learning and being tranformed by joining the WAC online community.

Film 2

MARVELOUS LIGHT

The Song of the Redeemed

We are Yours.  We are Yours.

We, the sons and daughters of the King, sing a song the heavenly angels can not sing.  We sing a song that the earthly creation can not repeat.  We sing a song singularly designed for every sinner who comes to faith in Jesus Christ. 

We are Yours.  We are redeemed.  We are rescued.  We are alive.  We are transformed.  We are loved.  Because of Jesus Christ, we sing the song of the redeemed.

This is a New Year

Charlie Hall has taken the stage.  His lyrics tell us this is a new year, this is a new day to rise, shine and point the way to God’s great life.  Uplifting and exalting. 

Our hearts are called to consider how our new life in Christ always produces new life in a very real world.

Skeleton Bones

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.”  (Ezekiel 37:1-3)

John Mark’s lyrics calls us to look at our lives like Ezekiel looked at the valley of dry bones.  Can we be awakened?  Can we be turned back to flesh?  Can we be resurrected from death to life?  From the death of sin to the promise of eternal life?

Lord, turn these dry bones into living flesh that sings your praise forever.

A Sacrifice of Praise

Evening worship 3.  Charlie Hall will soon take the stage.  John Mark McMillian will open the evening to usher us into the presence of God.  The night is sure to be filled with passion, exhilaration, and joyful adoration.

As the closing concert of the ’09 CU Worship Arts Conference, anticipation is at it height.  Exceptions are running high.  All we need now is a fresh touch from the One who is worthy of all praise and glory.

The Curtain Call

3 hours till the curtain call worship concert led by The Charlie Hall Band and John Mark McMillian.

Questions & Answers

A question and answer session with the panel of leaders discussed issues of racial equality, mentors, pastoral worship leadership, and hair length.  Good questions.  Good conversation.

7 Marks of a New Monastic

1.  They relocate to the abandon places of the world.

2.  They lament the racial inequality in the world, especially in the church.

3.  They celebrate BOTH marriage and singleness.

4.  They desire to be caretakers of the earth and of God’s creation.

5.  They are people of peace and reconciliation.

6.  They are people of prayer.

7.  They are committed to submitting to the larger Church body.

- Shane Claiborne  (more marks available at http://www.newmonasticism.org/12marks.php)

Kingdom Party

Jesus said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”  (Luke 14:12-14)

Shane Claiborne again brings our attention to the plight of the poor and needy and the intentionality of serving others who are different from us.  This passage has come alive in a new way.  Don’t we all want to begin throwing Kingdom Parties?

A Sweet Aroma Unto the Lord

The afternoon session has invited worshippers to pray.  Pray, meditate, and pray some more.  An open invitation to rest in sweet communion with God through silent reflection.

How few are the minutes of silence in our schizophrenic lives?  How few are the moments of quiet, tender conversation with our Lord and God, the creator of the heavens and the earth?  How little we hear from our Heavenly Father because we rarely stop and listen.

We have been invited to pray before the Lord this afternoon.  And God has heard our prayers.

Grace, Grace, Marvelous Grace

Shane Claiborne is asking us to consider the theme of grace.  Grace in how we view others.  Grace in how we interact with our fellow man.  Grace in how we demonstrate a classic characteristic of Christ in that ask “he who is without sin, cast the first stone.”

The contagion of grace.  It spreads like wild fire.  Being God’s love and God’s grace in human form.  It is an interruption of grace in the lives of those who need the Gospel the most.  It is beyond evangelism or church growth or even community ministry, it is being the hands and feet of our Lord in a terrible world.

Shane shared so much from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Timothy McVay, and Mother Teresa.  I am overwhelmed with my self-serving, American consumerism.  Allow us to show grace, grace, marvelous grace to our communities and our world.

A Morning Reflection

Morning Day 3.  The sun is out.  A chill is in the air.  Worshippers have come weary from a long yesterday.  They look tired and needy of another few hours of sleep.  But there is a spirit of newness.

The Rachael Hurt band has opened our morning session with an offering of sweet melodies and thoughtful praise.  Those gathered are standing.  Eyes closed.  A gentle sway rushes over the crowd. 

It is a morning reflection on a gracious and loving God.  Like waking up in a mountain cabin, stepping out onto the porch and overlooking a vast valley of God’s creative wonder.  Like taking a morning walking down a Floria beach at the coming of the early tide.

A morning reflection.

Breaking Down

As John Mark McMillian is breaking down on stage (not literally, but with the song “Breaking Down”), our worship restrictions are breaking down.  Our inhibitions are breaking down.  Our self-centeredness is breaking down.

Hands come to the air.  Eyes close.  Songs of praise raise from our lips.  Hearts leap with each beat of the snare drum. 

And what is being built up in the place of all that is breaking down?  A renewed passion and vitality for the Lord Most High in Christ-exalting worship.

Who is this the King of Glory?

Who is this King of glory?
The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!
Lift up your heads, O gates!
And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory! Selah.
(Psalms 24:8-10)

Once and For All

John Mark McMillian has taken the stage.  300 or more have now filed in.  McMillian’s rock anthems course with glorious praise for our Risen Savior.  Jesus Christ who has died and has been raised once and for all. 

Complete & Complex

Rachael Hurt has opened the evening worship concert.  Complex and contemplative worship fills the chapel.  Worshippers are listening, considering, and reflecting on the lyrics of Rachael’s music.  It is the kind of music that makes one stop and take a breath.  You are confronted with God’s love and mercy, but in a way that you leave wanting more.

You want to stand and shout, but instead you stay seated and labor in the lyrics.

Awaiting in Anticipation

Worship concert 2.  Rachael Hurt, John Mark McMillian and 200 plus worshippers seeking to worship the Lord in Spirit and Truth.

The mood is more intense.  The atmosphere more electric.  An entire day of worship and the Word has led to a heighten sense of expectation.   Will He meet us?  Will His Spirit come in power?

Matthew 18:20  “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

 

Reinventing Community Life

Shane Claiborne has certainly shed new light onto the idea and biblical premise of community.  Could living in a New Testament community result in living in communally with other brothers and sisters in Christ; married, single, children, teens? 

Could it mean a redistribution of personal wealth and income so that everyone is sharing all their possessions in common?

Could you live in a neighborhood known for poverty and despair for the sake of the Gospel and with the attitude of Christ?  No, this is not on the international mission field, this is in a major city in America.

Shane Claiborne and the those who follow the Simple Way have done just that in Philadelphia in a community with the highest poverty rate in Philly. 

Shared possessions.  Shared bathroom.  Shared life.  Sounds a lot like the early church.  We have been challenged to read the Scripture anew but with a different lens toward community life.

Create in Us and We Create in Others

A closing prayer from the afternoon worship session & teaching.

God, you’ve placed your artistic hand on each and everyone of us.  Your creative vibration in all of Your creation.  As the church continues to grow in view of Your mercy, let us present ourselves as the bride of Christ.  We ask that You will continue to shape, mold, form, create, transform, and free us to create like You create.

Interruption in Creativity

Steve Ayers, lead pastor of Hillvue Heights Church in Bowling Green, KY, brought a wanted interruption to the afternoon session of WAC ’09.  Ayer’s session was wanted interruption in which conference participants considered God’s glorious mercy.

God is mercy-filled.  When you realize God’s mercy, you will enter into worship.  In view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God.  This is your spiritual act of worship. 

Mercy is the beginning of worship.  Worship is not entertainment.  Worship is not to impress God, but to receive His mercy.

Word of God Speak

Dr. John Hurtgen has moved us from musical praise to worship filled in the Word.   Through delicate memory and drama, the letter of James has been offered to us by our brother, our leader.  We have been drawn back to the early church, as if reading the letter for the very first time.  We hear its words anew.  They speak to our needs, our temptations, our human frailty.

The Word of God is able to cut deep, even separating bone from marrow.  It reaches the deepest depths of our soul and lives.  We are more like Christ, when His word dwells deep in our hearts.

Softly and Tenderly

Rachael Hurt has taken the stage to open this morning session.  Praises and honor have filled the chapel.  Hearts are being awakened to the sweet Spirit of Christ. 

Subtle hymns.  God-honoring songs of praise.  Tenderness, as a morning hug from an infant.