Good Friday - Song of Repentance

The reminder of the inestimable price paid by Christ ought always to cause us to re-think our sin. When I look at my sin, I think, "How could He save me?"
When I look at His cross, I think, "How could He not save me?!"
Here is a song of repentance for this Good Friday...

I Will Call On the Lord

I will call on the Lord
Lord Jehovah King
King, yet Forgiver of men
Men that sin like me
Me, how I need to be changed
Changed within by You
You alone satisfy...

I am so quick to be swayed
Swayed away from You
You never falter or fail
Fail is all I do
Do you have grace left for me?
Me the sinful soul?
Solace is only in You.

Lord, only You can forgive
Give Your pardon now
Now, this is what I must have
Have You grace, O Christ
Christ, no other can cleanse
Cleanse and make me whole
Holy is what I must be

You, alone are my hope
Hope and Saviour, Lord
Lord, how I need your free grace
Grace and mercy please
Please, forgive all my sin
Sinfulness and take
Take all my guilt and my shame.

I call on the Lord... (2x)

Words and Music © 2003 Paul W. Martin

You can listen to this song here.

Sun, Snow and John Newton on Renewed Hope

The first of our real warm weather hit today in Toronto with temperatures reaching the 20 degrees C mark! Lovely when less than a month ago things looked like this:



It made me think of an old Newton hymn (there are several like it actually... I wonder if Newton wrote them to encourage Cowper through the winter months?) that I thought I would post for your use.

Bleak winter is subdued at length,
And forced to yield the day;
The sun has waited all his strength,
And driven him away.

And now long wished for spring is come,
How altered is the scene!
The trees and shrubs are dressed in bloom,
The earth arrayed in green.

Where’er we tread, beneath our feet
The clust’ring flowers spring;
The artless birds, in concert sweet,
Invite our hearts to sing.

But ah! in vain I strive to join,
Oppressed with sin and doubt;
I feel ’tis winter still, within,
Though all is spring without.

O! would my Savior from on high,
Break through these clouds and shine!
No creature then, more blest than I,
No song more loud than mine.

Till then—no softly warbling thrush,
Nor cowslip’s sweet perfume;
Nor beauties of each painted bush,
Can dissipate my gloom.

To Adam, soon as he transgressed,
Thus Eden bloomed in vain;
Not paradise could give him rest,
Or soothe his heart–felt pain.

Yet here an emblem I perceive
Of what the LORD can do;
Dear Savior, help me to believe
That I may flourish too.

Thy word can soon my hopes revive,
Can overcome my foes;
And make my languid graces thrive,
And blossom like the rose.

Trying to Force the DashHouse into Compliance

Today I posted the section of the emerging church paper detailing what I think are good things within the movement.

I have already asked (and received) from David Wayne at Jollyblogger his list of benefits - although I am hoping for more from him.

Now I am trying to provoke my friend Darryl Dash to do the same - even though it is Easter week and we are all busy! (If it is too much for this week - I will let you have to the 21st Darryl! After that I am going to send over a couple of guys from the church...)

What I am really trying to find out from those who know better than me, is what specific things emergent alone has to offer the church at large. I think this is a very worthy question. If there are none, then we might as well just move on. If there are some, then we all need to know them. If there are only a few, then let's own them and press on. If there are hundreds, then let's stop and re-think everything we are doing.

And there is no point in vagueries. We need to know specifically, what are we missing that emergent has to offer?

(Are you allowed to publicly call on your friends to answer your questions like this?)

EXAMINING EMERGENT: Persons, Churches and Organizations Strongly Associated with Emergent – How it is a Movement

EXAMINING EMERGENT: Persons, Churches and Organizations Strongly Associated with Emergent – How it is a Movement

A new section goes up on Examining Emergent...

JOLLYBLOGGER: What I like about emergent, I

JOLLYBLOGGER: What I like about emergent, I:

David Wayne answered my question about what things he sees are good in emergent.

I hope he keeps this up!!

EXAMINING EMERGENT

EXAMINING EMERGENT:

The new site is already generating a lot of interest.

Tim Challies, Adrian Warnock (UK), Andew Jones (UK), Nathan Colquhoun (that's kole-hoon, to the uninitiated!) (CDN) and Darryl Dash (CDN) all posted... to name a few. There are links to others from here that are worth looking at.

Pray the Lord uses this whole thing to bring glory to His Name!

Slap! Waaaah! (A New Blog is Born!)

EXAMINING EMERGENT:

"“Have you heard of this ‘emergent church?’” “Do you have any idea what it is all about?” “What is a ‘missional?’” “What about this McLaren fellow, have you read his books?” These kinds of questions have been asked of me (and perhaps of you) with increasing frequency in the last few years. "

Thus begins the opening section of a new study on Emergent. I promised something new was coming - and this is it!

Today I delivered a paper on the emergent church for SGPF. The day was well-attended with some excellent discussion to follow. I hope to make the entire paper available as a PDF in the next week or so, but I am also intending to publish the whole thing, section by section, over at EXAMINING EMERGENT. There is a reason for this. Those of us in attendance were able to discuss things at length, but I would like to invite others into the conversation. I will post a section of the paper, then wait for any comments to die out. Once that happens, I will post another section. If you want to be kept up to date on when new sections are posted, I suppose you can set up an RSS feed.

So, tell your friends and neighbours - especially if they are at all involved in anything emergent. I think this is an excellent conversation to have and trust the Lord will use these things to bring Himself much glory!