Musings

Several years ago the Father prompted me to refresh this blog and co-publish it as a podcast. It was the tithe series that required the most labor to organize and re-publish in 10 minute episodes. The original 7 tithe articles were written in response to letters I received from readers between 2001 and 2005 and published through several Christian email based newsletters popular at the time. They worked well in a ‘letter and reply’ format but not so well as concise stand-alone articles. I’m still amazed at the way God caused them to be forwarded and cross posted all over the world. In fact, so many people cross-posted the tithe articles, my own website didn’t come up in a Google search until the 3rd or 4th page of results and that effectively buried my music ministry which was on the same site where the articles were hosted. Very few people knew I was a songwriter with CDs offered for free. It was greatly upsetting at first where in time I was forced to learn the same attitude as Paul when he encountered similar “which ever way, I rejoice that Christ Jesus is preached!” (Philippians 1:18)

Admittedly the tithe issue is difficult to parse into simple short lessons – Biblical precepts if you will. While Youtube shorts seemed like an influential medium, brevity is not my strong suit and personal issues discouraged me. Even so, I’ve been inspired here and there to write scripts for short videos. Father made me creative and in my minds eye I could envision some humorous sight gags to help get the point across. When recently I offered the scripts, 16 so far, to a friend who was building up his own Youtube channel, the Father impressed me that the tithe message has been given to me to deliver. I was also reminded what happened when Jonah ran from delivering the message God gave him for Nineveh. I guess I forgot that I can do ALL THINGS through Jesus who strengthens me.

Here is the new Youtube channel dedicated to Tithe shorts:

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTitheIsFood

What follows is the most recent episode of the Robbing God Series. I hope my goofy mug doesn’t give you a fright. (Grin!)

The Lord has shown me something in Timothy the Musical I hadn’t considered before about the evolution of church services over 70 years and the tendency of them to change in response to culture and revolving door membership. Remembering my boyhood church and traditional liturgical services, they were not called worship services then but church services. There we gathered with an invocation, sang hymns accompanied by an organist, recited the Lord’s Prayer and Apostles Creed, read responsive readings, listened to a choir anthem, sang the Doxology and Gloria Patri, listened to the message, made prayers of intercession, and departed with a hymn and benediction. The tithe wasn’t preached instead charity and stewardship. Services were conducted by a black robed pastor with liturgical stole, robed choir director, deacons and elders dressed in their Sunday best, with the youth sitting in pews with their parents or together in the back. Every hymn was a statement of faith, which when sung along with the readings, creeds, and Lord’s prayer, was a common confession drawing us together in mutual encouragement.

Fast forward to today, youth have displaced the elders and their ways, staking an unyielding claim to the stage with electronic keyboards, amps, monitors, guitars, basses and drums – often so loud and overpowering that they have to be enclosed in a plexiglass booth. There the 30-something band leader Bogarts the microphone for an hour or more, singing not a single hymn of the faith as a gesture of honor and respect for their elders, but droning repetitious songs of self indulgence masquerading as worship.

How often when watching a contemporary “worship” service have I wondered whether any of the young and unseasoned leaders ever read 1 Corinthians 14:

What is our conclusion, brothers? Whenever you come together, let everyone be ready with a psalm or a teaching or a revelation, or ready to use his gift of tongues or give an interpretation; but let everything be for edification. If the gift of tongues is exercised, let it be by two or at most three, and each in turn; and let someone interpret. And if there is no one present who can interpret, let the people who speak in tongues keep silent when the congregation meets—they can speak to themselves and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, while the others weigh what is said. And if something is revealed to a prophet who is sitting down, let the first one be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, with the result that all will learn something and all will be encouraged. Also, the prophets’ spirits are under the prophets’ control; for God is not a God of unruliness but of shalom. (1 Corinthians 14:26-33a CJB)

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