More?

I’ve loved the last few sessions of worship I’ve been involved in. (We'll leave the fancy words behind for a change) They have called to my attention – God; and with my family, I’ve sung out to Him because of X amount of reasons culminating in Him being worth it, or worthy. Brilliant.

I get increasingly excited about gathered times of exalting Jesus. I want each time to be more awe-filled and intimate than the last. So I ask myself: 

 What can we do that takes us deeper in truth?

 How can we get out of the way so people can tune into the speaking voice of God and be reassured by His comforting Spirit?

 How can we help people who engage with God in different ways to meet with Him?

What’s right for this gathering? Celebration? Repentance?

I love all of this, I need to grow in all of this, but I get frustrated. I want more, I want the real thing. We love to sing and surrender, we love to live our lives for the glory of Him who is able, but more and more I identify with the phrase ‘now and not yet’.

'If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy, I can only conclude that I was not made for here' C.S Lewis

If all we have to look forward to is better introductions, more creative artwork, slicker productions and more thought provoking lyrics then I’m out. I want our gathered worship times to host the presence of God. To give us more and more of an idea of what it might be like when nothing holds us back from Him. To know God like Adam did – naked and unashamed.

The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

I love the story of a well-known lead worshipper sprinting around an empty car park because there were no words left that could satisfy their hunger for God. In preparing for my next service I sometimes struggle that however pleasing our worship to Him is and however much we hear from God, there is still more. Am I just greedy with God? We have to do everything we can to allow the presence of God to dominate our times together, but no amount of planning can take the place of the euphoria of being with Him in Spirit and in Truth.

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

 Jeremiah 29

New Song: God Who Saves

  God who saves by Thomas Dean

So my good friend Robert decided he'd like to record a song of worship I wrote last year. Thanks Rob! Feel free to have a listen, the lyrics are here if you want a look.

Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign LORD comes escape from death. Psalm 68:20

Newsong: Broken As I Am

 Broken As I Am by Thomas Dean

Rubbish recording but quite like the song! Hope to do it properly very soon.
Words are viewable here. Enjoy.

2011 - Some Things Must Die

Christmas is now out of the way, I don't need to transpose any more tenor saxophone parts, compile any more carol services, host any more cavalcade road shows or conduct any more scratch choirs for another eleven months. Hurrah. I loved every second and feel like I know how we can improve next year, brilliant. Now...

I have two jobs, I have time to play with, I have ideas to pursue and brand new books and records to get stuck into. I'm excited about developing as a musician, as a friend, as someone who knows God and someone who considers the things of God. But what to prioritise? I'm getting to know all too well that if you spend life spinning plate after plate you will never become chief trapeze artist! (Incredible circus analogy)

I've been compiling a mental list of all the things I'd love to commit to getting better at this year.

• Prayer Journalling
• Getting back into Classical Music listening.
• Keeping up with my BibleinOneYear.
• Spending more time worshipping in my room, with guitar and without.
• Practising to be a better worship leader
• Prioritising certain relationships and bringing the LORD right into them.
• Songwriting and encouraging others in that.
• Getting back into the habit of reading things that shape me and those around me.
• Blog now and then!

I'm already exhausted at the prospect. Painfully aware that if any of these things are going to 'bear fruit' then there is going to have to be a serious cull in previous activities to allow the things I view as priorities to take shape.

Looking around my room its clear that I love to hoard stuff. Or at least, I find it very difficult to let things go. I own about 20 football shirts, I still use two pairs of trainers I wore at school, phone chargers from ancient and deceased models are stashed away - the list goes on. In life I love to try and maintain about 16 times the recommended amount of meaningful relationships, watch every major sporting event and say yes to and end up heavily involved in every event I'm asked to participate in.

On top of this, the real-time revolution has somehow hooked me into needing to react to every tweet, read every status update and stare at my gmail inbox until the replies roll in. Ridiculous. It cripples our productivity and fills ours heads with stuff we don't really need to know.

We can't expect our priorities to flourish unless we are prepared to be ruthless with all the crap. I'm carried by the grace of a loving Father but I'm also burdened with the responsibility of being faithful with the gifts He's blessed me with. If I was genuinely radical I'd look at this observation I've made and I'd give it all up, make a couple of phone calls and rock up at a monastery tomorrow morning ready for a lifetime of contemplation and solitude. I'm not a true radical though and I don't really believe that these are all bad things to be involved in. I'm just very aware that I binge on them and I'm missing out on becoming the person I could be. I look at the people I admire and their pursuit of God is what marks them out as special. I want to pursue God desperately, to live a distinctive existence that points to Him and I need to constantly strategize and evaluate how I do that.

So to compliment the other bullet points I need to have the self-control to...

• Switch the computer off, you don't need live text updates of Man City vs Stoke - you can read the match report after the game!
• Not spend the whole of Tuesday mornings contributing hilarious puns of Premiership footballers names that sound like vegatables.
• Make hard decisions about which events and people I can really commit too and not feel guilty about that.
• Learn to have my default setting changed from 'check my phone' to 'talk to my heavenly father'.
• Go to bed earlier.
• Have a proper day off

I love living in this age but I won't let it strangle and define me. That's the war cry I feel I have to make if I want to be serious about living for Jesus. It needs to happen in community and in grace.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Found in the Desert Place

Totally humbled to lead worship in an army barracks tonight. Some of the young men were leaving in less than 2 days to do their first overseas tours, getting thrown into their first ever experience of war. I can't begin to imagine how terrifying that must be. The fear was palpable. I need to remember them in prayer.

Why is it that whenever I visit a different social environment the wisdom of God, the songs that we sing and the words we read in scripture seem so much more imminently real? It's beginning to frustrate me.

In India I'm amazed at the transformation from life to death, from moribund idols to the true and living God, to looking after orphans and widows - faith with fruit.

Tonight some of the lines we sung took upon an entirely new meaning for me. Feeling slightly frustrated that I don't live in a place where there is more at stake than where your earnings fall between £10,000 or £60,000 . Maybe that's a bit unfair and I'm just not involved in the right things, I'm chuffed my church is trying to provide a family for these soldiers, and I want to be a support too where I can. Western consumerism has just become so effective at convincing itself it has no need to worry about life, death and the things of God. There needs to be an urgency about my faith that refuses to recline into the comfortability of the likelihood that I will live until I'm 80 and nothing really matters that much. With all the naivety in the world, the more real these words are to me, the more likely it is that I am fully relying on my God for everything I have, a position I want and need to be in.

"Blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place, when I walk through the wilderness, Blessed be your name"

"And though I walk the darkest path, I will not fear the evil one, for YOU are with me and your rod and staff are the comfort I need to know"

"Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe this far, And grace will lead me home"

"Blessed be your name, On the road marked with suffering, though there's pain in the offering, Blessed be your name"

Wise

For the Lord gives wisdom

and from His mouth comes knowledge and understanding

He holds victory in store for the upright

He is a shield to those whose walk is blameless.

For he guards the course of the just

and protects the way of his faithful ones.

Proverbs 2: 6-8

I love the simplicity of the wisdom on offer here. We all face difficult situations where it's a struggle between desire (not necessarily sinful) and 'doing the right thing' in terms of honouring God in my thoughts and my actions, even when nobody would ever find me out.

What does Godly wisdom say?

I need to be upright

I need to be blameless

I need to act justly

I need to be one of His faithful ones

then He will let me share in his Victory

He will protect me, the unshakable shield.

No brainer? Bring on the hard stuff.

New song

With your whole life you chose to show

Your Spirit in us can change the world

Loving and gracious You still are

You light up the way, and limping behind, we follow on.

Chorus:

Oh take this heart of stone away

In me no longer let it stay

The mind that was in Christ impart

Give me a new a perfect heart

Verse 2:

Gave no defence when you were accused

As you overcame our sin for us

Though you were tempted You refused

To give up on those, who nailed up your hands and took your life

Bridge:

Jesus what a mystery

That as your life takes root in me

I’m sharing in Your victory