Songwriter's Blog

I've just started a new blog, I think I posted a bit ago to see if there would be any interest in some type of forum for sharing songs and feedback. I've made it by invitation only for now, so if you're interested and I don't know it, just leave a comment or e-mail me, maybe send me a song you've written. I figured private would be better in case people were worried about copywright stuff, not wanting their music stolen etc... There are a couple of people I'm already aware of who may be interested so don't be surprised if I e-mail you an invite.

Grace, Not Your Safety Net!

Well, I guess I haven't written anything for a long time. Don't worry, I'm just pregnant. I've been wasting a lot of time trying to find worship music that is not depressing/legalistic and have not come up with much. How sad! According to the Christian music industry, I guess grace is that thing that kicks in every time you fail to obey the law. Grace is just a safety net for those times you fall down and mess up, it's your 'get of jail free' card for every time you happen to sin. It picks you up and dusts you off and sets you back up to try harder next time.

What a bunch of lies. What else can I say? The truth is we live only in grace, to go back to the law is to fall from grace. We must choose between law and grace, not choose law thinking that grace is our back-up plan. If you choose law, then don't expect to find grace when you fail, expect to find judgement, condemnation, and shame. Until you finally give up that is...grace is always waiting for you to turn your back on the law and find life in Jesus.

How To Love God, and Kim Walker, I Sing My Love

Recently I've been getting tired of worship songs that focus on our love for God. It's not that I don't love God, it's that many of these songs miss the point. They are from an Old Covenant mindset of our obligation to love God and not the New Covenant way of loving God. In fact, when God defines love through John, he always starts with himself, never with us. We are the responders, we cannot love until and unless he loves us first!

"In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:9-10)

God is love. When we are in him, we love. When we believe in Jesus, we receive his love and then we have love to give. Ahhh, the simplicity!

So who of God's sons doesn't love to sing back in response to our father how much we love him? Once we have freely received his love for us, have experienced it, then we are free to love him back! If we try to love him under law, we will fail miserably and will not please his heart. We don't love God because we were commanded to but because he loved us first and our new nature was born to love him back! I feel like I keep repeating myself...

Anyway, I found this Kim Walker song and really like it. The verse is all about how God loves us and the chorus is our response, a beautiful picture of the love shared between Christ and his Bride I think. Hope you like it!



P.S. thanks to my husband for discussing these things with me passionately even though the rerun of the country music awards was on...

Doubt, Discouragement...Hunger! (a bit of rambling)

I am a passionate person, I don't know of anyone who knows me who would disagree. I am hot or cold, I am extreme, intense. I'm not saying I can't be relaxed because more and more I'm just peaceful and relaxed. But when I believe something, I really believe it! Funnily enough this can lead me to get discouraged and doubt I mean doubt everything. When I don't see healing, or financial provision, or changes in people/relationships, or whatever, I get angry sometimes. I start thinking that maybe this God stuff is all my imagination, that maybe none of it is real. Like I said, I'm either hot or cold!

But generally my extreme doubts, anger, discouragement, even depression all add up to one thing--hunger. I am starving for intimacy, a fresh experience, a fresh conversation, with Jesus. I just miss him. Do you know what I mean? I think my Christian experience has been pretty broad, non-charismatic and charismatic, arminian and calvinist, etc... But every church I've ever been part of has had legalism as a common denominator.

Some mixed in a little law, some alot. Some were honest about it, some called it 'grace'. But even if the methods or doctrines about getting God to show up or do something were different, they all had methods. Some believed that prayer was the key (yeah, I've read Ravenhill and God knows how many others), some believe if you really want something (revival anyone?) than add fasting to that. Some say confessions of sin and repentance is key, actually, many claim this on both arminian and calvinist sides. We must consecrate the temple, purify it, clean it out or the Holy Spirit will not fill the temple (this leans very heavily on OT imagery obviously). I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of people who believe that faith and the word of faith (speaking things out) is the key to getting whatever it is that you need.

I believe that faith and prayer are great, but they are the fruit of the answer, not the answer. There is no method for receiving any of God's blessings, the greatest of which is his constant presence. I'm tired of begging God for what I need or want, especially begging for him to reveal himself, manifest himself to me.

You see, when I first started listening to Rob Rufus, getting my first real glimpse of the glorious gospel of grace, I would be caught up in a crazy swirl of joy and love, it was euphoric and it would last for hours sometimes. I would wake up in the night and God's presence was so real! His voice was so clear! It was beautiful and wonderful. At any moment in the day I could say "God, you there?" and he would be there in this tangible powerful way. I was so caught up in his love!

But then something really weird happened, which I don't think I've shared with anyone but Aaron. One night after listening to some grace preaching I was lying in bed still caught up in God's glorious presence and I must have drifted off to sleep. I was woken up by such an evil presence that was paralyzing me so that I could not speak without a pronounced effort. Finally I said "Jesus" and the evil presence left.

Now, things like this had happened to me lots of times before, but for some reason this experience had a horrible effect on me. Because I fell asleep in God's presence and woke up in fear, in my mind God's presence just kind of turned on me so to speak. It's really strange, but especially at first I could not experience God's presence anymore the way I had been because every time he came I became afraid, I instinctively withdrew. Very very strange, since in general I'm not afraid of demons (apart from the initial reaction when you're first caught off guard or you're having a dream) Over time the effects have been dulled and of course I've experienced God's presence many times, but it has never been the same.

I know this is a very weird story but I guess I don't care what people think of me so much. I don't really know why I'm sharing it in relation to this post but I think I'll just leave it for whatever it's worth.

Anyway, I don't appreciate worship songs that are begging for God to come or whatever. I think they ignore the fact that he has come, Jesus has come and made a way for us to enter into the holy of holies! There is a new a living way, not a dead ritualistic way that sends in the holiest guy you can find with a rope tied around his leg hoping he can please God enough to get everyone safely through another year.

Now we have a great high priest who has entered the holy place with his own blood. Did God strike him down? Or is the blood of Jesus so superior to the blood of bulls and goats that God had to strike down the whole system? The curtain was torn from top to bottom because for any other sacrifice to be offered after the blood of Jesus had been sprinkled would have been blasphemy. Think about that!

We are not beggars, we are sons! We live in our father's kingdom, we carry out his word, his work, with authority. There is no power on earth that can stop us from victory! There is no power on earth that can keep us from our father and his love.

I'm putting up another song that I love. I love it because it doesn't say "will you come" it says "you will come". Now yes, he is already here, but he also promised to come! He said where two or three were gathered he'd be there, he also said "I will never leave you". So both are true, but in either case, there's no place for begging unless you are under the law and still a slave. But I am not!

"I See Grace" from New Creation Church Singapore

OK, I just stumbled across this on youtube, but you gotta love it!

Guilt-free Breaking of Bread Song

Ok, so this probably won't end up being the real title of the song...but I think that the breaking of bread (or communion, the Lord's supper) has been dominated by a seriously fearful and ashamed atmosphere for too long. If we come to the Lord's table still hanging our heads with thoughts of sin swirling around in our heads, then we are in danger of eating unworthily. We would not be accepting the body that was broken for us, we would be equating his precious blood with that of a lamb or bull which had only partial or temporary power to allow us entrance into God's presence without absolute confidence of his mercy.

Recently I wrote this song, it's one of those songs that came with minimal work and head scratching. The recording is bad but who cares? I think you can get the general idea from it. I didn't set out to write a guilt-free breaking of bread song, but as I sang it I was struck with how perfect it would be for that and I felt like getting a bunch of people together to have a feast in God's awesome presence, enjoying food, each other, and celebrating God's infinite mercy and goodness to us. How amazingly he demonstrated his love in humbly coming to earth in human form, living in this sinful world as we do yet not sinning, taking up the cause of the poor, sick, abandoned, and despised, and ultimately sacrificing everything to save us and restore us back to the Father and then conquering our every enemy in his resurrection to make us sons representing him here and doing the exciting work of ushering in his kingdom on earth.

I can't believe I used to be afraid to take communion! I thought I had to be righteous enough by my obedience to God and a variety of Christian rules and regulations. Now I'm free to celebrate Jesus when the bread and cup come my way! I'm not righteous because of my actions and if ever ever I break bread based on feeling in any way worthy based on my performance, then I'm eating and drinking in an unworthy manner. The bread and wine IS my righteousness, if I refuse the body and blood of Christ, then I'll never be worthy but eternally condemned. So here's the song, let me know what you think (had to put it in video format to upload to blogger.)
Here are the words:

Be quiet now
Rest your soul
Lay your head down
Let go of control

Nothing you've done
Or ever could do
Can make you right
Or disqualify you

Jesus
You've done everything that we could not do
Jesus
We believe in you

Remember his death
His body and blood
We have been cleansed
Redeemed by his blood

We remember we're free
From guilt, fear, and shame
Risen with him
Up from the grave

Kathryn Scott: I Belong

I just had to recommend this worship album. Kathryn Scott is one of my all-time favorite worship singer/songwriters and she has a new album out...well,it's not so new now maybe but we're still in the right year anyway. She and her husband pastor a Vineyard church in Northern Ireland and she also has a blog. I'm really loving the new stuff! Here's a song I found on Youtube so you can get an idea:



The cd would be available at any Christian bookstore, or it could be downloaded from itunes.

Not Clinging to the Cross! (a random and spontaneous musing)

That's right, I'm not clinging to the cross. Am I eternally grateful for the cross? Yes! Will I remember what Jesus did there on our behalf? Yes! But I'm not clinging to a piece of wood.

I know, it's supposed to be a metaphor and all that good stuff, but listening to worship music (both older hymns and more modern songs) has brought it to my attention that there may be some sentimentalism, maybe even a weird idolatry, going on when it comes to 'the cross'. So many people are hiding in the shadow of the cross, clinging to it, fixing their gaze on it, drawing near to it, loving it, etc...well, you get my point. But I don't get it. I love Jesus for what he's done, but ultimately, it was a means to an end. And the purpose of the cross was to reconcile us to God so that we could enter into the Holy of Holies ANY TIME WE WANT! So why would I hang around at the foot of an empty cross when I could be worshipping at the throne of my beloved Father and King?

Bottom line, if Jesus isn't on the cross, I don't want to be there either! I want to be with him. So am I crazy?

New Covenant Grace Church

Well, that seems to be the name we're going with for our church. We've had an eventful couple of weeks in some ways, though we have a lot of down time where we feel we're not accomplishing much. It's been good to spend lots of time with the kids though, the last 2 or 3 years have been so busy with so much stress and change.

Some of the events that stand out are having a family over for dinner, Aaron speaking to Rob Rufus (City Church International Hong Kong) by phone, and an utter failure to reach anyone else on the phone who we originally thought we needed to talk to! Contacting Rob was a bit surreal at first, because we know we wouldn't be here planting a church if it weren't for his faithful preaching of grace. We just wouldn't have had the faith to step out like this, we would still be wallowing in our miserable failures to live up to the perfect standard of the law! He is truly a spiritual father though he's only just become aware of our existence, and the churches we plant will be part of his spiritual heritage in many ways.

We also had 6 people over on Friday night for worship, but we never got to do any singing because we all talked until around midnight, mostly about grace. It was great to fellowship with believers and it's always great to talk about God's grace so we were very excited. Also got to pass out some Rufus cd's to everyone...

After everyone left we called Hong Kong and talked to Ryan Rufus (Rob's son and author of "Do Christians Still Have a Sinful Nature?", also he has some sermons available for download on City Church International's website ) for over an hour and it was great to see how God connected us so quickly in the Spirit, with so much in common in how we view grace, what God's teaching us about leadership in the church etc...very encouraging. We didn't get to bed until after 2 A.M. but I still couldn't sleep from all the excitement of what God is doing! Things we couldn't understand seem to be making more and more sense as we watch God's amazing plan unfold. His idea of how to go about things is always so much more brilliant than ours, what a shock!

Besides all that, we've been working on a church website, though so far I haven't really figured it out. I'll definately put up a link if I ever do so those of you who actually have computer skills can have a good laugh.

We are planning on meeting regularly on Friday nights at my parents' house for now, hopefully another home will become available soon since it won't take long to run out of space here...I'm really looking forward to getting everything really going, I miss worshipping with other people in God's presence.

Why God Made Us, Why He Saved Us

I was doing a bit of songwriting today, which can be for me a time of revelation coming as I just sing whatever comes into my head. It's funny how the greatest revelations can be of the simplest truths isn't it? I was working on a song with a chorus that just says "the more we know your love, the more we love you" and the verses just talk about how as we know and experience God as he really is, in his love and his delight in us as his children, praise and love is our natural unforced response to him.

Anyway, God just starting speaking to me about how much he just want to be with his people. All his demands in the law, his demands for people to worship him alone, are to those who are separated from him. The demands come to show them that their hearts are far from him, to reveal the lack of his presence with them. On his children, those who are in Christ, he does not place demands and requirements because he is in a love relationship with them (made possible by Jesus who fulfilled every requirement on our behalf). The reason God made us is because he wanted to fellowship with us, and the reason he saved us was because his heart was broken when sin broke our fellowship with him. He could not rest until he restored the relationship between us and him, and he was willing to do whatever it took to make it happen, even coming to earth and dying on a cross in utter shame experiencing for himself the separation from the Father that sin caused.

I've always heard that the moment that the Father turned his face away from Jesus was the worst part for Jesus, causing him to cry out "why have you forsaken me". And I think that is in essence of the problem of fallen man, they have been separated from God and live in the world forsaken and lost and alone. That's why one of the greatest promises for us as believers is that Jesus will never leave us or forsake us, in fact he promised to send his own Spirit to live with us and in us forever. Just because he wanted to be with us all the time as close as he could get, because he's in love with us! So when we sin as believers and think we have to distance ourselves from him, it's the most hurtful thing we can do to him. When we do that we're rejecting his sacrifice on our behalf, not believing his love for us.

We think he only loves us if we're doing what we think he requires of us, that he loves us because he can benefit from us in some way. But the reason he wants to use us on earth to do his work, is because he wants to be with us! He could do everything that needs to be done without us, but in joining with us to do things we get to know him and experience his love for us in a whole new way. Like any relationship on earth, as we join together in a common purpose and work together we develop a stronger and stronger bond and trust, we get to know one another intimately. I think that's what God is after with us in allowing us to remain on earth to accomplish things for his kingdom.

I don't know why we sometimes act like when we ask God to manifest himself as we meet together we have to hold our breath and cross our fingers. He wants to be with us more than anything else, and when we just believe that we open our hearts to receive all he wants to bless us with. And he comes. That's when we experience the most wonderful and amazing, glorious thing there is in the world to experience, and we know that all we really want is found in him...

A CD I Must Get...

I don't have this self-titled cd yet--West Coast Revival-- and it's not available for download anywhere that I can find BUT you can listen to it on their website, www.westcoastrevival.com. Long ago in another life I once met the lead singer and his dad. Great people (though I don't think his dad is the band hehe) and great worship music. To find out how to order it, go to their site, or just click here.

I Don't Like Cathedrals

I've heard arguments about how the greatness of architecture and art inside immense ancient cathedrals helps people worship God and understand how big he is. I cannot agree at all, at all! I was thinking this morning about how I spend my life staring at four walls, only moving from one four-roomed wall to another, and how stifling and depressing this is. I grew up roaming woods and fields, splashing in brooks and ponds, exploring beaches and catching fish from our little fishing boat. I spent hours catching crabs and talking to my dog and singing songs to God from the end of an old wharf. I was so quickly intoxicated by fresh air as I ran and somersaulted and swirled through big open grassy spaces or ice-skated on big ponds cleared off by my Dad. I hate living in the city where the only nature we really have has been tampered with and and 'improved' until God's order is somehow rendered something more human--something much smaller.

And you won't convince me that these big cathedrals don't do the same thing. They make God as big as we like him to be and no more. They make us feel him to be far away and dreamy but not Emmanuel, God with us. They are more a monument to man's accomplishments than God's. God's great accomplishment involved coming here to earth as one of us, being born a helpless naked baby in a stable. He died a shameful death on a piece of wood, killed by the ones he made and came to save. He spent much of his time on earth trying to pull down the deceitful religion that looked so impressive on the outside and he is still at work today doing the same thing. Religion is a monument to man, not God. While men are busy building monuments to themselves, God is building the church, a people for his own who will be an eternal monument to his love, power, and all-surpassing glory.

When I talk about cathedrals, I want to make it clear that I think evangelicals are building their own kind every day. We spend millions of dollars in the name of ministry to build impressive buildings, buildings that stand as monuments to our worldly success of attracting so many people with so much money. We add pretty decorations and expensive crosses and call people to worship God, thinking these things somehow help them. We depend on sound systems and stages and pulpits and bands and choirs until the Holy Spirit is optional and even somewhat of an inconvenience to all our diligent planning.

It's funny, but when Jesus was asked where we should worship, he answered "...believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father...But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:21-24)

So do I think it's wrong to meet together in a building? Nope. I just think the building shouldn't be a focal point at all. Have chairs and heat and rooms to use, whether rented or owned, but don't have another temple or mountain. To have another temple or mountain is to deny that the Spirit lives in us, and to deny the Spirit living in us is to deny Christ and admit we don't know saving faith. We must learn to leave behind old covenant thinking that emphasized the physical realm, because those things were only a sign of something better and more real to come. And it has come!!!

I'm going to continue in this theme soon as I'm working on some posts on baptism (infant vs. believer's). Stay tuned, and feel free to comment and try to convince me I'm wrong if you think I am. I promise to be kind in my responses...and I apologize for when I haven't been in the past.