#117 Manipulative Worship?

I regularly play guitar for worship. With high schoolers on Wednesday nights, I lead quite a few contemporary worship songs. (Sometimes we use contemporary songs for special music on Sunday mornings, too.) Some of the songs we sing have a section (a chorus, a bridge, etc.) that gets repeated three or four times in a row. As a worship leader I try to make each time through a little different in an attempt to keep the repetition from getting stale. Maybe we'll start quietly and slowly get louder. Maybe I'll change my strumming pattern as we go. I think it's good musicianship to use dyanmics (how loud or soft the music is) and tempo to help express emotion. One of the great things about music is how it can express emotion in ways that words alone can't.

But sometimes I have an internal debate. When I quiet a song down and then build it back up again, am I really expressing emotion, or am I actually controlling emotion? I'm not always sure. I don't want to manipulate anyone. I don't want repeat a section of a song again and again until people get the feeling I want them to have. But at the same time, I know that a bit of repetition can create space for people to reflect on lyrics. And if I can help people express their emotions and worship more fully, that's fantastic. The debate goes on for me because I don't have a simple solution. However, I think as a general rule I'm safer as a worship leader if I spend more energy making sure I'm focusing on worshiping God than worrying about if the music feels right. And hopefully I'll learn to lead worship better over time.

I know I'm not the only one who thinks about these things, so feel free to send me your thoughts!

Grace and peace,
BMH

#116 Pretties

Each morning I play the game Flow Free on my phone. (Actually, I have a few versions of Flow Free on my phone, but that's not very important.) If you don't know, Flow Free is a puzzle game where you fill the board by connecting dots that are the same color. Here's an example of a solved puzzle:

The daily puzzles normally take me a couple minutes to solve. I enjoy the logic of figuring out the solution and the satisfaction of completing a puzzle, but normally I don't think much about it.

Recently Lanie has caught on to me playing this game. I've been doing this for years, since before she was born. But it's new to her. She doesn't look the game as a puzzle. She sees it as a bunch of pretty colors. "Pretties" is how she refers to it. While I normally plow through the handful of new puzzles each day, Lanie likes to stop and admire the finished image. So I've started slowing down just a little bit. The completed puzzles do look like a somewhat odd form of art. Some of them can really be sort of beautiful.

I know that I often tend to rush through things in my life. I've been influenced by American society, which is obsessed with busyness. But slowing down helps me appreciate things more. Slowing down gives me a chance to see things from a different perspective. I wonder how much more often I could see God at work in and around me if only I'd take the time to slow down and look.

Grace and peace,
BMH

#115 Christmastide

December is an incredibly busy month for many of us. Families get together; workplaces hold parties; schools have concerts and other special events. For lots of us, as soon as Christmas celebrations are over, we've moved on to New Year's plans, and for others those  celebrations overlap. Christians have a lot to celebrate at Christmas. We remember that the Son of God became human and was born as one of us. He took up all of our weaknesses and lived among us. Christmas shows that God cares about us and is present with us and understands us. But it's difficult to find time to fully reflect on these important theological truths in the midst of all the other (good) things that are going on. It's easy to not think much about Jesus' birth, especially after Christmas Day has come and gone.

So what can we do? We could take more time to discuss and reflect on what Christmas means throughout the month of December. That could work, but I don't want to cut into the Advent season that the church observes before Christmas. It's good for us to remember how God's people waited for the Messiah to be born. It's maybe even better for us to look forward to Christ's return.

The church calendar has some wisdom for us here. Traditionally the church has thought of Christmas as a season rather than a single day. Christmastide is often celebrated for twelve days (yes, there's a reason for the that ridiculous "Twelve Days of Christmas" song), beginning December 25 and ending January 5. I think we as a church need to emphasize the season of Christmas more. Let's think about and preach about Christmas for a couple or even a few weeks, not just one week or just a special midweek Christmas Eve or Christmas Day service. (Maybe it would even be good to have more Christmas services on some of the days between December 26 and January 5, though that's probably not very realistic unless we take drastic steps to cut back on our busyness during that time.) Let's sing Christmas carols for a while after Christmas Day (and maybe not quite so long before then). Let's take time to carefully read and ponder the stories of Jesus' birth in the beginning of Matthew and Luke as well as other Christmas passages found in places such Isaiah 9 and John 1 and Galatians 4 and Hebrews 2. Let's not let our gatherings and celebrations prevent us from appreciating what God has done that made us start gathering and celebrating in the first place.

And while we take time to focus on Christmas, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Certainly Christmas doesn't exist in a vacuum; we can't totally separate it from Good Friday and Easter. But we have time to remember and celebrate those events later in the church year. During Christmastide let's simply reflect on the mystery of the Incarnation, the wonder of God becoming human. Surely there's enough for us to think about there.

Grace and peace,
BMH

#114 The Snow Bowl

Every year around Christmas, the Hofman family plays football. It's been a family tradition for over 40 years, starting when my dad was a little kid and his family gathered with the cousins and grandparents. Now the game is played among with my dad and his siblings and some of my cousins and me (when I'm around for Christmas). Our annual game, the Snow Bowl, does not feature very high quality football. Not very many of us even attended a high school that has a football team. Tackling was banned decades ago. And while we used to have quite a few participants, we've had a lot of 3-on-3 matches lately.

The Snow Bowl might not be much, but I love it. I started playing when I was about seven, a little kid standing on the edges of play, getting tossed one ball a game as a reward for being out there. Then I became a fifteen-year-old role player who could make a couple plays a game as a secondary option. Then, as time continued to work in my favor and I came into height and wingspan that my dad and his brothers couldn't match, I became a major player around the time I entered college. Sliding around on a dusting of snow—or trudging through several inches, depending on the year—is a lot of fun. There's really nothing that compares with the thrill of showing up a family member, even if that also means being shown up stings more, too. Maybe the best part of the Snow Bowl is that it's a change of pace. There's a lot of wonderful sitting around and eating and chatting during the holidays. Sometimes it's nice to catch a few balls and run until you need to catch your breath, too.

Grace and peace,
BMH

#113 You'll Believe a Man Can Fly

I was going to write this blog last week, but life happened, so I'm getting around to things a bit late. December 15 was the 40th anniversary of Superman, my all-time favorite movie. In my mind, Superman is the Mary Poppins of movies: practically perfect in every way. I could go on and on about why I love Superman, but I'll try to simply highlight a reasonable number of things that I think are fantastic.

• John Williams' music is simply amazing. I can't hear his Superman theme without wishing I could take off and fly around. Such a beautiful, triumphant piece of music.
• ZOD! General Zod isn't even the villain of this film; he and his partners in crime are there in the beginning to set up the sequel. But Zod's speech to Jor-El (Superman's father) is incredibly chilling. "You will bow down before me, Jor-El! Both you and then one day, your heirs!"
• Young Clark Kent's comments after Pa Kent dies always get me. "All those things that I can do, all those powers, and I couldn't even save him." Brutal stuff.
• I absolutely adore the scene where the gunman tries to mug Lois and Clark. Margot Kidder is a fantastic Lois. She's unafraid of the mugger and even tries to kick the gun out of his hand. I love it when Clark catches the bullet and half-winks to the camera before going on to tell Lois everything that's in her purse. Classic.
• The big reveal of Superman is nothing short of epic. He soars up to catch Lois, who's plummeting toward the pavement. ("You've got me! Who's got you?") Then Superman catches the falling helicopter in his other hand. The whole thing looks effortless. It's brilliant.
• The chemistry between Superman and Lois is great. It feels like it should be cheesy when he flies her around the world, but it never comes across that way to me. The characters just seem to be head over heels for each other.
• Christopher Reeve knocks the Superman/Clark Kent role out of the park. He's mind-blowingly good. The way he transitions back and forth between the Superman persona and the Clark Kent persona when he picks Lois up for their date is so good.
• Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor is cunning and diabolical. He can be witty and even funny. ("You know why the number 200 is so vitally descriptive to both you and me? It's your weight and my IQ.") But at the core he's pure evil. As he says, he gets his kicks plotting the deaths of innocent people, millions of innocent people. Such a great foil for Superman.
• The feats Superman pulls in the climax are incredible. Director Richard Donner and company really understood how to challenge Superman without a huge fight: multiple emergencies at the same time. Superman is there to stop a runaway misslie, fix the earth's crust, save a busload of kids, shut off an out-of-control power main, and stop a river that bursts its dam. And all of that is leading up to the finale when he flies fast enough to reverse the rotation of the earth, go back in time, and save Lois. I understand how ridiculous that is, but I can't get past how cool it is. Superman does incredibly cool things. I love that.
• The conclusion of the movie, where Superman smiles at the camera as he flies in orbit around the earth, is just perfect.

If you've never seen Superman, I highly recommend it. If you have seen it, I highly recommend watching it again. Just let me know when you do. I'd love to watch it with you.

Grace and peace,

BMH

#112 Guest Preacher

As a Christian Reformed minister, I occasionally get assigned to go preach for other Christian Reformed congregations that are between pastors. I really enjoy doing this. I appreciate having an opportunity to interact with fellow Christians from nearby churches. A change of scenery once in a while on Sunday morning helps me stay fresh in my ministry. Plus, preaching to a different congregation gives me a chance to reuse a recent sermon that I thought worked well, which frees me up to accomplish other things during the week.

The only "trouble" is that different congregations have different orders of worship. Now this isn't really a problem; it's good that we don't all worship exactly the same way. But when I preach here in Kanawha, I don't have to spend much energy focusing on what comes next in worship. I'm used to our general pattern. In a worship service somewhere else, I don't know what to expect. But generally, as the guest preacher, I'm in charge of leading the worship service. I don't want to distract anyone from worshiping. So I tend to spend the service on high alert. It's really a good experience for me. It keeps me on my toes and helps me try different things. But after being gone for a week, I'm always glad to come back to my congregation. After all, there's no place like home.

Grace and peace,
BMH

#111 Raising a Toddler

Lanie: [points to a picture of cows] MOOOOOOO!

Me: You're right. Those are cows. Can you say "cow"?

Lanie: MOOOOOOO!

Me: Not "What does a cow say?" Can you say "cow"?

Lanie: MOOOOOOO!

Me: Say "cow." C-c-cow.

Lanie: MOOOOOOO!

Me: No, no. Say "cow."

Lanie: [goes silent]

I just can't win.

Grace and peace,
BMH