Monday Morning Music Ministry

2-24-25

There is a joke that I have heard told in church circles. Some Christians hush me up when I tell it; but others, as I say, regard it is entre-nous: between us.

It goes something like this… no, it goes exactly like this: “I heard about a church that was so strict that the preacher constantly warned against extra-marital affairs – on the grounds that it might lead to dancing,”

Well, it’s not a great joke, and probably not great theology either. But it reminds us of impulses and lessons and results, three things that the church was instituted in order to address, for our sakes, in our lives. Yes, fellowship of believers too. Yes, to praise and honor God. Yes, to equip us to go into the community and be salt and light.

I have been thinking about “church-y” things lately, partly because I am getting married in a week. How to order a service (Mickey and I want “straight out of the liturgy”); how much Bible readings and what hymns and such. As a historian, I have been interested in the modes of worship through the centuries – the role of music; congregational singing, or not; lengths of the service; when the Catholic Church forbade their flocks to read the Bible (unbelievable!); exuberance vs “keeping silence”; etc.

Things that seem super-important ultimately might be superficial in other times or other places. My comfort-zones of corporate worship have evolved from loving liturgy to traditional modes to Pentecostalism; from small groups to Seeker churches to mega-churches to loving liturgy again, retaining what blessed me in different modes along the way.

Worship is derived from “worth-ship”: God should be glorified; He is a jealous God who desires our devotion; and we need a vehicle to inspire and refresh us.

Mt friend Heather Renea Heaven recently shared something about these matters:

~~ Go To Church Anyway ~~

If you are having sex before marriage, go to church anyway.

If you are a drug addict trying to beat addiction, go to church anyway.

If you were out drunk all night the night before, go to church anyway.

If you aren’t sure what gender you prefer, go to church anyway.

If you can’t quit that disgusting habit, go to church anyway.

CHURCH is a hospital for the BROKEN, LOST, EMPTY, CONFUSED, DESPERATE, and REJECTED.

Every saint has a past. And every sinner has a future!

I will add one thought, recalling a sign I saw once outside a church, addressed to people who shun churches because of the “type” of people you might find there, and use that excuse:

Yes, actually, this church does have hypocrites here on Sunday mornings.

But come on in. We always have room for one more.

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Click: Getting Used To the Family of God

2-17-25

On Presidents’ Day, it has been my wont to regret the holiday’s celebration of insipid ubiquity – instead of recalling Lincoln, or Washington (whose birthday it generally approximates) of the “Greats,” we implicitly honor nonentities like the briefest-tenured William Henry Harrison, who died of ice cream; and the near-traitor James Buchanan.

It is a holiday fostered and featured by used-car dealers and mattress salesmen, and enjoyed by families seeking three-day weekends instead of beneficial civics lessons.

In the past – my past – I have written essays and given talks reminding people of the greatness of presidents who deserve honor. America has been blessed by a disproportionately high number of exceptional men. Similar to the miracle that saved Donald Trump’s life, the Lord has ordered the affairs of this nation so that men who were spectacularly prepared and equipped became president – Washington, surely; Theodore Roosevelt. Even more remarkable is how obscure men proved to be the right leaders at the right moments, confounding anyone’s expectations. Lincoln, of course; Reagan too, I would say.

I have gathered, and could here again, great words by great presidents – words that defined crises, moved peoples’ hearts, and inspire us yet today.

On this Presidents’ Day, however, I will quote the simple words of a neglected Chief Executive; a sentiment that is as profound as any president’s… or any citizen’s. This president was born in a log cabin, and from humble beginnings became a Civil War general, a congressman, and a president. James Abram Garfield was also a born-again Christian, saved at age 18, and was an elder in his church when elected president. He said, before leaving for Washington:

I resign the highest office in the land to become President of the United States.

I focus on this short quotation by one of the shortest-tenured presidents – Garfield was shot in the back after 200 days in office, and died from his wounds; a hack politician grasping for a job in government was the assassin. I mean no slight of eloquent thoughts of better-known presidents. But Garfield’s views of life’s relative tasks – and opportunities – are lessons for all of us today.

We all have professions; but we must not lose sight of our jobs.

We all have resumes, but putting them into action is what really makes them relevant.

We all must exercise humility. Bosses, the public – and God – put us in places. It is not as important where we serve, as how we serve.

There are men and women, we hear occasionally, who leave jobs, even consequential activities and perhaps comfortable situations and homes “late in life,” to serve as missionaries or ministers. These decisions are admirable!

But I think far less do we hear of clergy and ordained ministers – Garfield was a pastor of his Disciples of Christ church – who “leave the pulpit” and join the ranks, so to speak, of lay people. They bring the Gospel with them to work in the world.

James A Garfield is one my favorite presidents, despite his being robbed of time to prove himself in the White House. He was honest, brilliant (he could write something in Greek in one hand; and write something in Latin by the other, simultaneously), and was a tested leader. In his young days he was an anti-slavery crusader, and was martyred for fighting the cancer of his later days, government corruption.

Short was his time as president, but deserves to be honored – yes, on Presidents’ Day, and all days – for his example to us as a Christian patriot.

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Click: WHEN I GET TO THE END OF THE WAY

2-10-25

“Weaponization” is a neologism – a recently manufactured word. Clumsy, perhaps, but we know what it means, because it is the new tool of subversives, traitors, and those who are not brave enough, but surely are malignant enough, to work evil.

It means subverting something that is innocuous in order to work a harmful purpose by stealth and misdirection. Generally, “weaponization” is employed to deceive a targeted group – dishonest on several levels. In government, officials and bureaucrats increasingly weaponize laws, regulations, and most shamefully, language, to conduct business away from public notice.

Innocent euphemisms have morphed into dangerous weapons.

By these methods, many of the worst offenses in the past years have been against traditionalists, conservatives, parents, patriots, and… people of faith. Specifically Christians. Attacks came first from the secular world. Then from Hollywood. Then from the media. Then from the educational-industrial complex. Then from courts. Then from the government.

These vicious parties “weaponized” rules, regulations, laws, court decisions, news stories, movie and TV content, and textbooks… to brainwash, then to ridicule, then to promote anti-Christian values. First, ignore; second; marginalize; third, censor and cancel; then substitute sick, perverted, evil practices, standards, and “values.”

This week President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias,” announced at a Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC. Its substance follows.

February 6, 2025

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Purpose and Policy. It is the policy of the United States, and the purpose of this order, to protect the religious freedoms of Americans and end the anti-Christian weaponization of government. The Founders established a Nation in which people were free to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or retaliation by their government.

For that reason, the United States Constitution enshrines the fundamental right to religious liberty in the First Amendment….

Yet the previous Administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses. The Biden Department of Justice sought to squelch faith in the public square by bringing Federal criminal charges and obtaining in numerous cases multi-year prison sentences against nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life Christians for praying and demonstrating outside abortion facilities. Those convicted included a Catholic priest and 75-year-old grandmother, as well as an 87-year-old woman and a father of 11 children who were arrested 18 months after praying and singing hymns outside an abortion facility in Tennessee… I rectified this injustice on January 23, 2025, by issuing pardons in these cases….

[I]n 2023, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) memorandum asserted that “radical-traditionalist” Catholics were domestic-terrorism threats and suggested infiltrating Catholic churches as ‘threat mitigation.’…

The Biden Department of Education sought to repeal religious-liberty protections for faith-based organizations on college campuses [seeking] to force Christians to affirm radical transgender ideology against their faith and… to drive Christians who do not conform to certain beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity out of the Foster-care system.

The Biden Administration declared March 31, 2024 – Easter Sunday – as “Transgender Day of Visibility.”… My Administration will ensure that any unlawful and improper conduct, policies, or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated, and rectified.

Establishing a Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. (a) There is hereby established within the Department of Justice the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias (Task Force)…. The Attorney General shall serve as Chair of the Task Force…. In addition to the Chair, the Task Force shall consist of… the heads of such other executive departments, agencies, and offices that the Chair may, from time to time, invite to participate.

Task Force Functions.The Task Force shall meet as required by the Chair and shall take appropriate action to… review the activities of all executive departments and agencies… and identify any unlawful anti-Christian policies, practices, or conduct by an agency… share information and develop strategies to protect the religious liberties of Americans… identify deficiencies in existing laws and enforcement and regulatory practices that have contributed to unlawful anti-Christian governmental or private conduct… and recommend to the President, through the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, any additional Presidential or legislative action necessary to rectify past improper anti-Christian conduct, protect religious liberty, or otherwise fulfill the purpose and policy of this order….

A news account of the Executive Order follows, from Al Jazeera (so I may not be accused of quoting from a friendly source):

“President Donald Trump… made the announcement on Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC, an annual event that brings together religious groups with government leaders.

“‘The mission of this task force will be to immediately hold all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI and other agencies,’ Trump said….[Attorney General Pam] Bondi, he added, would also work to ‘fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.’… Under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, the government protects freedom of religion.

“‘If we don’t have religious liberty, then we don’t have a free country,’ Trump said. He also reflected on his relationship with religion after facing a pair of failed assassination attempts last year, saying it ‘changed’ him. ‘I feel even stronger,’ Trump, a nondenominational Christian, said. ‘I believed in God, but I feel, I feel much more strongly about it. Something happened.’ Speaking later at a second prayer breakfast sponsored by a private group, Trump remarked, ‘It was God that saved me.’ ”

Please. Do not just read this and nod your head in agreement. Do not merely endorse the initiative to your family. Do not only debate with friends.

Act. The governmental beast might be tamed. The government is putting tools in your hands, Yes – weapons, for defense and counter-attacks. Notice things! Report! Fight. In fact: fight, fight, fight.

We have been under attack, but the victory will be God’s. Stand up for Jesus, who will equip us.

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Click: Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus

02/03/2025

The World whispers, “You cannot withstand the storm.”
You respond, “I AM the storm.”
There are storms of life, a metaphor so common – unfortunately – as to be almost banal. Yes, we expect them, but too often we accept them with an attitude of resignation. We should reply with a “Fight! Fight!” spirit, not inviting challenges and problems and crises, but prepared to assert ourselves defiantly.
Not only do storms come, but, we should remind ourselves, they come and go. Storms pass by… typically, they refresh the air and allow for new beginnings… and, as dark as skies may be, and violent the elements, above those storm-clouds the sun shines. Brightly and always.
I have not intended to traffic in cliches today, but these were natural thoughts during and after the Inauguration last week, which I attended with my fiancee Mickey. My thoughts went to weather and storms while we were in Washington because Inaugural plans were shifted and changed due to bitterly cold winds and precipitation. New thoughts return to those very locations as I write this: 10 days later the magnificence of the District and the memories of the impressive ceremonies have been marred by the horrific aircraft collision over the Potomac. We had taken photos from that very vantage-point; and my son, a TV news producer, lives within earshot of the fatal crash.
Storms come. Sometimes suddenly. But we need assurance that they pass too. I will share some thoughts and photos of Inauguration weekend, as I planned to do, with what I took away as larger implications.
Wanting to experience the citizens’ points of view, we declined to attend the fancy Inaugural balls. Besides, we did not have tickets nor invitations. But I had secured tickets for the Citizens’ Rally at the Cap One Arena scheduled for the eve of the swearing-in. One problem, known in advance, was that the organizers issued more tickets than (20,000) seats; that obliged us, and perhaps a hundred thousand others, to arrive in advance.
We return to the subject of storms. Inauguration weekend was predicted to be icy-cold, windy, with hints of snow. As we gathered in lines on the afternoon before the Inauguration, we quickly realized how wrong the forecasts were: they did not specifically predict freezing rain and sleet. Here is your humble correspondent (me) during a break in the storm.

Yes, it got worse. There were at least 100,000 people in that line. We stood and shuffled for four and a half hours. The line snaked around blocks and those Washington alleys that pretend to be streets. I had gone to college in DC, and for a while was head of a foundation that brought me there two days every week, yet on this day I walked through and past streets I had never seen before. Maybe Ben Franklin did when he invented snowmen. Anyway, it was chilly; I reckoned (through brain-freeze) the third-coldest I ever have felt.
We made friends with people on line. Our “neighbors” included a pastor from the very same small town in Texas where I lived for awhile, years ago, working on a book. In fact he lived in the same condo units; he was a friend of the pastor of the church I attended back then, and is a pastor himself. “Small world,” to coin a phrase. And we made other friends the next day too.
In fact, something “dawned” on us (almost literally) as we shuffled and sloshed and shivered. After the chill would pass, we would not remember the chattering teeth, but other things about Inauguration Day. I am warming up to my point – On that long line, on that long day, in those brutal conditions, four and a half hours on our feet, no Porta-Johns nor warm oasis… that this was the best-natured crowd we had ever met.
These walking icebergs laughed and chatted, as we did. People prayed; people sang hymns. Vendors along the sidewalk (except for one poor guy trying to sell “hot” pretzels) handed out tracts and Bibles. Many people, like our new friends from Texas, or, actually, we Michiganders, had saved and spent and taken time and made hotel reservations, all hoping to be in the crowd on the Mall and see Donald Trump take the oath of office.
Such expenses and plans went up in smoke – or the sub-zero equivalents – yet these thousands of people were patient, satisfied, understanding, accepting, loyal, fraternal, faithful, and patriotic.
Yes, there was a storm. Were there miserable aspects to the weekend? Yes. Were there comic aspects too? (Travel tip – don’t listen to your tired legs and wet feet, and succumb to the temptation to hire a “Pedi-Cab” to get to your parking garage… anyway, not with an African immigrant whose wardrobe was on the seat, who needed directions shouted to him through the soundproof plastic bubble into which we were zipped and could scarcely see through… and who tried to charge $165 for the four-block bicycle ride.)
I am sure there were some grouchy folks and even some who returned to their heartland homes with coughs. And certainly not everyone in line was a Christian (although I am sure that some became Christ-followers that day). But most people exhibited that spirit to which I referred above – they sensed that the storms, of all sorts, will be passing. That there are new sun-lit days ahead. That above the awful elements that have been pummeling us that day, and as a nation… the sun shines.
The Son shines after all.
You have seen videos and photos of the Inauguration. Here are other photos of our nation’s Capital, before the storms, before the plane crashes, and afterwards, once again, we pray:

The Washington Monument, seen from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Visiting Mr Lincoln in his Memorial always is impressive at night

Directly across the Potomac from where the air crash happened 10 days later

A sad commentary on America, 2025? Not anti-riot squads, but counter-terror units outside the Supreme Court, days before the Inauguration

Also before Inauguration Day, the calm before the (snow)storm. But fences and anti-terror precautions.

I think we saw more “Jesus” signs than MAGA; more joyful people than angry. Even after this time of day (merely cold and damp) when it turned to cold rain, sleet, and snow. Make America Warm Again!

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Click: Till the Storm Passes By