by James Webb
There’s been a long pause between these posts, but I thought it might be time to resurrect this series. Lockdown makes me think strange things, you see.
Today I shall be highlighting the merits of the song ‘Invert’ by the Swedish band Blindside. Read more
I preached a sermon this week; the main thrust of which was the message that God does not demand perfection of us. Afterwards, I sat down, feeling flat and disappointed because I felt like the sermon hadn’t gone perfectly.
I must be growing, because it only took me a few moments to realise the irony of the situation. Read more
Of all the temptations that men face, the temptation of power is the one that scrubs up the best. No-one can deny the lure of sex and money, but it’s a lot harder to make your interest in those look noble. But power? Well, who doesn’t want to change the world for the better? Who doesn’t want to use their influence for good, to improve the lot of the downtrodden common man? Who doesn’t secretly believe that although power corrupts, it won’t corrupt me? Read more
One of the many wise things that my counsellor, Derrick, said to me was, “You can humble yourself, or you can let God humble you. The first one is less painful.”
How do you humble yourself? Well, that’ll be between you and God, but it will require some decent soul-searching and some brutal honesty, I can tell you that. Read more
When it comes to me, most worship leaders are up against it from the start. I have no musical talent myself, and therefore little appreciation of the skill required to play the handful of chords that most worship songs seem to employ. Neither am I a big fan of the contemporary worship style – on the whole, I like my music to have a little more edge. Furthermore, I’ve suffered over six years of formal theological training, so find myself hyper-critical of and disappointed by the content of most lyrics. Finally, many more years of hard yards in following Jesus, and trying to help others to follow Jesus, has resulted in me having nothing but contempt for the shallow, I-feel-pretty-good-about-God-right-now sentiment of many worship songs.
However, whenever I find myself drifting too far down the path of seething rage, I remember what C.S. Lewis said. He too struggled with the church music of his time, considering it fifth-rate poetry set to sixth-rate music, but he also wrote, “I realised that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.”
Hard as it is to believe sometimes, not everything is about me.
