Billy Graham: His Life and Legacy

From Faith & Leadership:

 “America’s pastor,” who was an adviser to presidents and preached the gospel to millions across the globe, died Feb. 21, 2018, at age 99. This resource page gathers Faith & Leadership essays about the great evangelist and his wife.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2018

Grant Wacker: Billy Graham and Christian humility
Graham’s ministry was marked by personal humility -- but that never meant disparaging his accomplishments.

Grant Wacker: Billy Graham was a model for what Americans wanted to be
The author of “America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation” explains how Graham reflected and changed 20th-century American culture.

Excerpt from ‘America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation’ by Grant Wacker
In the epilogue of his new book on America’s most influential evangelist, Duke Divinity School professor emeritus Grant Wacker recalls a visit with Billy Graham.

Grant Wacker: Billy Graham’s legacy
Despite his flaws, Billy Graham is a model for Christian life and ministry, says Duke Divinity School professor emeritus Grant Wacker in this audio talk.

Related

Anne Blue Wills: Ruth Bell Graham was more than Billy Graham's wife
The story of Ruth Bell Graham is not well-known. Although she embraced her role of “preacher's wife,” she also lived out a deeply personal Christian commitment, says a scholar at Davidson College who is writing her biography.

Originally posted at: 

https://www.faithandleadership.com/billy-graham-his-life-and-legacy 

You Are What You Eat

Malcolm Guite, "I Am the Bread of Life":

Where to get bread? An ever-pressing question
That trembles on the lips of anxious mothers,
Bread for their families, bread for all these others;
A whole world on the margin of exhaustion.

And where that hunger has been satisfied
Where to get bread? The question still returns
In our abundance something starves and yearns
We crave fulfillment, crave and are denied.

And then comes One who speaks into our needs
Who opens out the secret hopes we cherish
Whose presence calls our hidden hearts to flourish
Whose words unfold in us like living seeds
Come to me, broken, hungry, incomplete,
I Am the Bread of Life, break Me and eat.

Alexander Schmemann, "For the Life of the World":

Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence...To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that 'something more' is, but they nonetheless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life.

John Donne, "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions," Prayer:

Therefore I beg of thee my daily bread; and as thou gavest me the bread of sorrow for many days, and since the bread of hope for some, and this day the bread of possessing, in rising by that strength, which thou the God of all strength hast infused into me, so, O Lord, continue to me the bread of life: the spiritual bread of life, in a faithful assurance in thee; the sacramental bread of life, in a worthy receiving of thee; and the more real bread of life in an everlasting union to thee.

A Blessed Lent

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the season of Lent. If you didn’t grow up with Lent (and I know many of you didn’t, myself included), here’s a bit of background. The word “Lent” comes from the Old English word for “springtime.” It refers to the length of time before Easter, traditionally forty days, when the Church prepares to commemorate Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Just as Advent helps us prepare spiritually for Christmas, Lent helps us prepare spiritually for Holy Week and Easter.

You may be asking, Do I have to observe Lent? The first answer is, Of course not. But the second answer is, Why wouldn’t you? This season is a gift to us wherein we may pause and reflect on our lives in light of Jesus Christ. So, I encourage you to observe it this year. Typically folks use this time as a chance to give something up: certain foods, certain media, certain habits. In recent years it’s become popular to take something on: daily prayer, for instance, or journaling and letter-writing. Regardless, the goal isn’t self-promotion (pride) but self-effacement (humility). What will help you humble yourself over the next forty days, so that you can see Jesus more clearly? Whatever the answer is, do it.

Much more can be said — but for now I’ll leave you with the sage words of St. Ambrose of Milan. Let’s pray this together, and mean it:

O Lord, who has mercy upon all:
take away from me my sins,
and mercifully kindle in me
the fire of your Holy Spirit.
Take away from me the heart of stone,
and give me a heart of flesh,
a heart to love and adore You,
a heart to delight in You,
to follow and enjoy You, for Christ's sake,
Amen.

Image credit:  Agnolo Gaddi, “Crucifixion”

Do You Want to Get Well?

Today we heard the story of Jesus healing an "invalid" at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-18).  Jesus asks a probing question: "Do you want to get well?"  The man does, and Jesus heals him. 

One-fifth of all the material in the Gospels is concerned with Jesus' healing of some form of physical disease.  This has dramatic implications for our life today as Jesus' followers.  The Son of God came to save us and to heal us - in body and in soul, in this life or in the life to come.  

Take a look at these extra resources, especially the Wilson article I referenced in my sermon.

- Blake

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“We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order. The Bible tells us that God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it. Jesus has come to redeem where it is wrong and heal the world where it is broken. His miracles are not just proofs that He has power but also wonderful foretastes of what He is going to do with that power. Jesus’s miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming.”

— Tim Keller, "The Reason for God"

• God Always Heals by Andrew Wilson
• Why has God answered others' prayers for healing but not mine? by Nancy Ortberg
• Death, the Prosperity Gospel, and Me by Kate Bowler (see this and this, too)
• The Purpose of Biblical Miracles by Tim Keller (see this, too)

Image credit: Rembrandt, “Christ Healing” 

Come and See

Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, “What do you seek?”
They said to Him, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”
He said to them, “Come and see.” - John 1:38-39

Week 2 in John’s Gospel finds us making the turn from knowing about Jesus to following after Jesus. John the Baptist acts as our guide, helping us (and those first disciples) get their bearings for this new adventure. What will you do when he comes calling, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world?

- Blake

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“We need to pledge ourselves anew to the cause of Christ. We must capture the spirit of the early church. Wherever the early Christians went, they made a triumphant witness for Christ. Whether on the village streets or in the city jails, they daringly proclaimed the good news of the gospel.” - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love

"Those who aren't following Jesus aren't his followers. It's that simple. Followers follow, and those who don't follow aren't followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it." - Scot McKnight, One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow

John the Baptist and the “pointing hand” (Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece)

The Light Has Come

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” - John 1:4

Today we started our new study of John. Here are a few of the things I mentioned. Hope you can join us in reading and praying along through this beautiful Fourth Gospel. 

 - Blake

“John flies like an eagle above the cloud of human weakness and looks upon the light of unchanging truth with the most lofty and firm eyes of the heart. And gazing on the very deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which he is equal to the Father, he has striven in this Gospel to confide this above all...” - Thomas Aquinas

From Falling Up by Shel Silverstein, gettin’ all theological: 

“Of the Father’s Love Begotten” (because sometimes hymns say it best):

And never, ever forget: 

Coming in 2018: The Gospel of John

Starting Jan. 7, I'll be preaching through the Gospel of John.  This is a first for me.  I've tackled bits and pieces of John before, but never the book in its entirety.  I'm looking forward to digging in with you.  Give it a read and see what you notice about Jesus, the Word made flesh who made his dwelling among us (John 1:14).

- Blake

P.S. -- Take a look at these resources and commentaries to go deeper:

Keeping Time Like a Christian

This coming Sunday (Dec. 3) marks the end of "ordinary time" and the beginning of "Advent."  What in the world does that mean?

For centuries, the church (meaning the whole church, Christians everywhere) has kept time in a unique and particular way.  We Christians have our own calendar, distinct from the Roman calendar used throughout Western civilization.  This Christian or "liturgical" calendar reminds us of our identity as God's family and attunes us to the rhythms of God's salvation story. 

Here is how Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove explain it:

“If we in church are going to take our citizenship in heaven seriously, we must reshape our minds by marking our calendars differently.  We must remember the holidays of the biblical narrative rather than the festivals of the Caesars, and celebrate feast days to remember saints rather than war heroes and presidents.  Our inception as a church was on Pentecost, not on July 4... The point is to keep God’s story at the center of our lives and calendar.  And it is through the lens of Jesus that we read history and interpret whether an event is good or bad... When we look at the Christian calendar, we are reminded that we are in the world but not of it.  We are citizens of the kingdom that transcends time, but we sojourn on a time-bound earth.  Without liturgical time, we can easily forget our eternal identity.  We can get lost in the hustle and bustle of business and efficiency that shapes our culture and society.  Likewise, without the cosmic calendar, we can become so heaven-bound that we ignore the hells of the world around us.  And the glorious goal we are headed toward is not just going up when we die but bringing God’s kingdom down - on earth as it is in heaven.”

— Common Prayer

As a pastor, I don't consider myself a high-church traditionalist (for example, I don't regularly wear a robe and colored stoles and preach through the Revised Common Lectionary).  But I do believe deeply in the church calendar as a tool that that grounds us in the truth of the Gospel and unites us to all Christians everywhere.  I very much agree with what Lauren Winner writes:

“I want the Christian story to shape everything I do, even how I reckon time. I want it to be truer and more essential to me than school’s calendar, or Hallmark’s calendar, or the calendar set by the IRS. I want the rhythms of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost to be more basic to my life than the days on which my quarterly estimated taxes are due.”

— Living the Christian Year

So you will notice the church calendar being referenced this time of year at First Presbyterian Church.  The songs and anthems will all reflect the Advent season (and notice, it's not the Christmas season - that comes on Dec. 25!).  The banner and parament colors will change to purple as a reminder of the royal birth of King Jesus.  The Advent wreath will be lit each week as a reminder of the light Christ brings.  I will be preaching through the assigned lectionary Bible texts to help us remember Israel's hope for the long-awaited Messiah.  None of this is for the sake of rote traditionalism.  We don't do it because it's what we have to do to be good Christians.  Rather, we do it for the sake of a lived faith, learning from those who have gone before us so that we might worship the Lord with gladness today.  I hope you'll join us during this beautiful time in the life of the church, so that all of us may be shaped by the Spirit in rhythms of grace.

- Blake

P.S. - Looking for more resources on this topic?  Check these out:

• Robert Webber, Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality Through the Christian Year
• Shane Claiborne & Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
• Bobby Gross, Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God
• The Calvin Institute for Christian Worship, especially their resource The Worship Sourcebook (edited by John Witvliet)
• What in the World is Worship?, a document I put together to explain our services at FPC

Praise the Lord

Psalm 134 - the last of the songs of ascent - ends with a call to praise:

“Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord
who minister by night in the house of the Lord.

Lift up your hands in the sanctuary
and praise the Lord.

May the Lord bless you from Zion,
he who is the Maker of heaven and earth.”

This reminds us that we are made to praise God.  That our chief end (as the Westminster Catechism says) is to glorify God and enjoy him forever!  Could there be a more fitting call for Christ the King Sunday?

Eugene Peterson says this:

“Glorify.  Enjoy.  There are other things involved in Christian discipleship... But it is extremely important to know the one thing that overrides everything else.  The main thing is not work for the Lord; it is not suffering in the name of the Lord; it is not witnessing to the Lord; it is not teaching Sunday School for the Lord; it is not being responsible for the sake of the Lord in community; it is not keeping the Ten Commandments; not loving your neighbor; not observing the golden rule.  ‘The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.’  Or, in the vocabulary of Psalm 134, to bless God.”

— A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, 198

Live in Unity

You can't be a Christian alone.  We can't be Christians alone.  As Scot McKnight says, When it comes to the Bible, WE is always bigger than ME.  So how is God challenging us to go a bit deeper with our brother or our sister?  How is God calling us to expand our horizons and see his hand at work through our church, and not just in our individual lives?

Reflect on these questions, and on the quotations below, as we seek the Lord's blessing together.

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“I have come to feel that the primary reality of which we have to take account in seeking for a Christian impact on public life is the Christian congregation. How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross?

I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it. I am, of course, not denying the importance of the many activities by which we seek to challenge public life with the gospel– evangelistic campaigns, distribution of Bibles and Christian literature, conferences, and even books such as this one.

But I am saying that these are all secondary, and that they have power to accomplish their purpose only as they are rooted in and lead back to a believing community.”

— Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989), 227.

“Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this…

The death and the life of the Christian is not determined by his own resources; rather he finds both only in the Word that comes to him from outside, in God’s Word to him. The Reformers expressed it this way: Our righteousness is an “alien righteousness,” a righteousness that comes from outside of us (extra nos). They were saying that the Christian is dependent on the Word of God spoken to him. He is pointed outward, to the Word that comes to him…

But God has put his Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.

And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world. summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God...

I believe that the community-in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures-is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms. ”

— Wendell Berry, Health is Membership

Hope in the Lord

Psalm 130 begins in the depths and ends with redemption.  This movement -- from lament to hope, sin to forgiveness, suffering to redemption -- is at the heart of the Gospel.  How do see this in your life?  What do you hope for in the Lord?

For added meaning to today's sermon, check out these resources:

• Philip Yancey, God Behind Barbed Wire: How a Nazi-soldier-turned-theologian found hope
• Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope
• Hope in The Shawshank Redemption (spoiler alert!) 
• When in doubt, read a poem...

Christina Rossetti, De Profundis (“Out of the Depths”)

Oh why is heaven built so far, 
Oh why is earth set so remote? 
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat. 

I would not care to reach the moon, 
One round monotonous of change; 
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range. 

I never watch the scatter'd fire
Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train, 
But all my heart is one desire, 
And all in vain: 

For I am bound with fleshly bands, 
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope; 
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands, 
And catch at hope. 

John Donne, Hymn to God, my God, in My Sickness

Since I am coming to that holy room, 
         Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore, 
I shall be made thy music; as I come
         I tune the instrument here at the door, 
         And what I must do then, think here before. 

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
         Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
         That this is my south-west discovery, 
      Per fretum febris, by these straits to die, 

I joy, that in these straits I see my west; 
         For, though their currents yield return to none, 
What shall my west hurt me? As west and east
         In all flat maps (and I am one) are one, 
         So death doth touch the resurrection. 

Is the Pacific Sea my home? Or are
         The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem? 
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar, 
         All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them, 
         Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem. 

We think that Paradise and Calvary, 
         Christ's cross, and Adam's tree, stood in one place; 
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me; 
         As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face, 
         May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace. 

So, in his purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord; 
         By these his thorns, give me his other crown; 
And as to others' souls I preach'd thy word, 
         Be this my text, my sermon to mine own: 
"Therefore that he may raise, the Lord throws down." 

Emily Dickinson, Hope is the Thing With Feathers

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Faith & Work

"Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain."

Looking for ways to connect your work to your faith in light of this morning's sermon on Psalm 127?  Take a look at these resources:

See The Center for Faith and Work for more from Katherine Alsdorf & Tim Keller.

You may also enjoy these books:

Surprised by Joy

"The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy!" - Psalm 126
"Joy is a not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence." - Eugene Peterson

Today's song of ascent (Psalm 126) is about the joy of following Christ.  Here are some more resources to help us reflect and cultivate deeper joy, that this fruit of the Spirit might blossom and grow to the glory of God, even in the midst of struggle.

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"Joy" according to C.S. Lewis (see also his book Surprised by Joy and sermon The Weight of Glory)

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"Theology of Joy & the Good Life" Project at Yale Divinity School

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"Hidden Joys: A Sonnet for the Visitation" - poem by Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons

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Reflections on "Joy" by theologian Stanley Hauerwas

More resources on the Psalms

Our study of the Psalms continues at First Presbyterian Church!

“If you are interested in exploring the psalms further... here are a few resources that might be of interest to you or to your community. I will also be posting additional material on the Brehm Texas website. A warm thanks to The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and to Cardiphonia for their help in collecting these resources.” - David Taylor, assistant professor of theology and culture and the director of Brehm Texas

Psalms and Prayer

Praying the Psalms: Engaging Scripture and the Life of the Spirit
Walter Brueggeman (Wipf & Stock Pub, 2007)

Reflections on the Psalms
C. S. Lewis (Mariner Books, 1964)

Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer
Eugene Peterson (Mariner Books, 1964)

Praying with the Psalms: A Year of Daily Prayers and Reflections on the Words of David
Eugene Peterson (HarperOne, 1993)

U2 and the Psalms

Psalm References in U2’s Music
“40,” “Gloria,” “Scarlet,” “Vertigo,” “Love and Peace or Else,” “All Because of You,” “Yahweh.”

The Sayings of Bono (on the Psalms)
David Taylor (Diary of an Arts Pastor, 2016)

Ancient Psalms for a State of the Art Tour
Tim Neufeld (www.ATU2.com, 2015)

Eugene Peterson: U2 Connections
Angela Pancella (www.ATU2.com)

Bono’s Prophetic Vox 
Scott Calhoun (www.ATU2.com, 2006)

Fresh Translations of the Psalms

Music of the Heart: New Psalms in the Celtic Tradition
David Adam (Spck, 2004)

The Message: Psalms
Eugene Peterson (NavPress, 1994)

Psalms (Pocket Book Canon)
Introduction by Bono (Canongate Books, 1999)

Voicing God’s Psalms
Calvin Seerveld (Eerdmans, 2005)

Psalms and Worship

Psalms for All Seasons: A Complete Psalter for Worship
Martin Tel (Brazos Press 2012)

This Far by Faith: An African American Resources for Worship
(Augsburg Press, 1999)

The Anglican Chant Psalter
Alec Wyton (Church Publishing, 1987)

¡Grita de Alegría! Salmos para el año liturgico
Carlos Rosas (OCP, 2012)

Chant from the Hermitage: A Psalter
John Michael Talbot (Troubadour for the Lord Music, 1900)

The Biblical Psalms in Christian Worship: A Brief Introduction and Guide to Resources
John Witvliet (Eerdmans, 2007)

Psalms and Justice

Reading the Bible with the Damned
Bob Ekblad (Westminster John Knox, 2005)

The Psalms as Christian Lament
Bruce Waltke and James Houston (Eerdmans, 2010)

The Green Psalter: Resources for an Ecological Spirituality
Arthur Walker-Jones (Fortress Press, 2009)

Psalms of Lament
Ann Weems (Westminster John Knox Press, 1999)

Psalms and Poetry

The Art of Biblical Poetry
Robert Alter (Basic Books, 2011)

The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley
T. Kimbrough Jr. (Kingswood Books, 1990)

The Great Poems of the Bible: A Reader’s Companion with New Translations
James Kugel (Free Press, 2008)

Dead Men’s Praise
Jacqueline Osherow (Grove Press, 1999)

The Psalms for Small Group Study

Psalms: Managing Our Emotions
Christianity Today (2015)

Christ in the Psalms
Patrick Henry Reardon (Conciliar Press 2000)

Psalms: A 12 Week Study
Douglas Sean O’Donnell (Crossway, 2014)

The Spirituality of the Psalms
Carroll Stuhlmueller (Liturgical Press, 2002)

Biblical and Theological Perspectives on the Psalms

Psalms: The Prayerbook of the Bible
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Augsberg Fortress, 1974)

Journey Through the Psalms
Denise Dombkowski Hopkins (Chalice Press, 2002)

The Psalms: volumes 1-3
John Goldingay (Baker Academic, 2002)

The Psalms Through Three Thousand Years
William Holladay (Augsburg Fortress , 1996)

A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms: The Psalms as Torah
Clinton Jr. McCann (Abingdon Press, 1993)

The Psalms in Israel’s Worship
Sigmund Mowinckel (Eerdmans, 2004)

The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential
N. T. Wright (HarperOne, 2013)

The Psalms and the Visual Arts

Seeing the Psalms: A Theology of Metaphor
William Brown (Westminster John Knox Press, 2002)

Songs of Ascents
Aaron Collier (2007)

“Psalms,” The Saint John’s Bible
Donald Jackson (Illustrated Edition, 2005)

Seeing a New Song: Painting the Psalms Connection
Anneke Kaai and Eugene Peterson (Piquant Editions, 2008)

Worshiping with the Psalms Through the Church Year

Psalms for Advent
Jacob Tilton (2013)

“Psalm 126,” He will Not Cry Out, Anthology of Hymns and Spiritual Songs
Bifrost Arts Music (2013)

Holy Week Devotional through the Psalms of Ascents
Cardiphonia (2010)

Hallel Psalms Compilation
Cardiphonia (2013)

The Psalms and Contemporary Music

The Prayerbook Project
Brian Moss (2008-current)
+ Piano based contemporary renderings of the Psalms from pastor-poet

Psalms
Sandra McCracken (2015)
+ A Nashville singer-songwriter writing devotional meditations on the Psalms. A few certainly useable by congregations.

The Songs from the Psalter
Cardiphonia (2015)
+ A crowd-sourced effort by worship songwriters to provide a variety of approaches to singing the psalms in the modern church. Largely in the folk rock vein.

Psalm 1
Joel Limpic (2014)
+ Worship Pastor at Park Church in Denver, CO. Working on writing songs based in a word-for-word rendition of the ESV.

The Psalms
Robbie Seay (2014)
+ A popular contemporary worship songwriter who is exploring the psalms in word for word versions

Asaph 
Loud Harp (2014)
+ Some ambient folk-pop meditations on the themes of the psalms.

From The River to the Ends of the Earth
Matt Searles (2013)
+ Original songs treating whole psalms for the contemporary church from a folk-rock idiom.

Psalms EP
The Gathering Sound Collective (2014)
+ A group of recent graduates from Kuyper College (Grand Rapids, MI) writing excellent versions of thePsalms.

Intown Psalms
Intown Music (2004).
+ A collection of largely retuned psalter texts from Matthew Curl and the musicians of Intown Presbyterian Church in Portland, OR.

Psalterium Vol. 1
Desert Springs Church (2011)
+ A church in Albuquerque, NM committed to writing and recording original versions of the Psalms.

Highways in Our Hearts
The Psalter Project (2014)
+ Ongoing project from producer Emily Moore seeking to reintroduce the Psalms into the church, with a few Indelible Grace contributors.

The Sons of Korah
+ A long term project from Australia band putting the Psalms word for word into music.

Psalms Vol. 1 Songs of the Forgotten
Garden City Project (2015)

The Psalm Project
+ A group of musicians from the Netherlands producing contemporary arrangement’s of the Psalms based on the old Genevan tunes.

Sing a Psalm
Jeremy Mayfield
+ Short responsorial songs written in a folky vein for the liturgical needs of the Anglican and Catholic traditions.

By the Streams
Jonathan Orden (2015)
+ Independent musician from the UK recording songs based in the Psalms.

Love and Fear
Worship at Pacific Crossroads Church (2014)
+ Album of contemporary worship songs inspired by the Psalms.

Originally posted here: https://fullerstudio.fuller.edu/resources-exploring-psalms/

Ways to Help

Dear church family,

The needs surrounding Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma persist, and there are many ways to help.  Here are some suggestions:

• Give financially through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance to victims of Hurricane Irma and/or Harvey by clicking these links or by calling 1-800-872-3283.
  
• Give financially to the ministerial association of LaGrange, TX, sponsored by Second Baptist Church (where I have friends).
• Make a clean-up bucket, hygiene kit, or school kit and send it to folks in need.
• Go on the mission trip to Kinston, NC on Oct. 8-13 to help folks recover from Hurricane Matthew.
• Pray, pray, pray for God's peace to triumph over chaos and calamity.

May we continue to bear one another's burdens, both locally and nationally, as Jesus calls us to do.

Yours,

Blake

Bono & Eugene Peterson on The PSALMS

Our study of the Psalms continues!  Check out this great conversation between Eugene Peterson (writer of The Message) and Bono (lead singer of U2):

Books on the Psalms

There is a wealth of literature to help us study and pray the Psalms. Several of us at FPC are reading A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, but all of these are great resources!

New Sermon Series - Fall '17

Blake will begin preaching through the Psalms starting in September.  He'll focus on the "Songs of Ascent" (Psalms 120-134), words and prayers that the Israelites sang on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Here's the challenge: Each week, read the Psalm for the upcoming Sunday out loud, everyday.  It won't take long - just a few minutes.  But praying these words could very well change your life.

Study & Preaching Schedule

September

• 9/3 Psalm 120
• 9/10 Psalm 121
• 9/17 Psalm 122
• 9/24 Psalm 123

October    

• 10/1 Psalm 124
• 10/8 Psalm 125
• 10/15 Psalm 126
• 10/22 Psalm 127
• 10/29 Psalm 130

November

• 11/5 Psalm 131
• 11/12 Psalm 132
• 11/19 Psalm 133
• 11/26 Psalm 134

A Prayer

Dear God,

I cannot love Thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see and my self is the earth’s shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon. The crescent is very beautiful and perhaps that is all one like I am should or could see; but what I am afraid of, dear God, is that my self shadow will grow so large that it blocks the whole moon, and that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing. I do not know you God because I am in the way. Please help me push myself aside. 

Amen.  

- Flannery O'Connor, "A Prayer Journal"

P.S. -- Click here to read Annie Dillard's classic essay, "Total Eclipse"