Sometimes the work is worth it.

That's certainly the case with understanding the hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." Since it was written almost 500 years ago, it has become one of the most well-known hymns in church history. Originally written by Martin Luther, the monk who kicked off the Protestant Reformation in Europe, the song has been translated in to over 200 languages. Luther wrote the melody to "A Mighty Fortress" himself, and based the lyrics on Psalm 46.

The version that is most well-known in English was translated in 1853 by Frederick Hedge - so it comes to us in 200-year-old English. That creates a bit of a challenge for folks (most of us) not familiar with archaic terms and ways of writing. But as with a lot of old literature and poetry, the work of making sense of it is worth the reward.

Luther became a monk because of a rash promise. Threatened by a severe lighting storm, the terrified Luther cried out to St. Anne, patron saint of travelers, that if he survived the storm he would dedicate his life to God in a monastery. And when he took his vows as a monk, he didn't have a clue who God really was. Afraid of God as a frowning, threatening, untouchably perfect tyrant, Luther believed God hated him for his sin. And in return, he hated and was terrified of God. But thanks to Johann von Staupitz, his superior in the monastery, Luther came face to face with the love of God in Jesus through studying the scriptures.

The rest is history - some of the most transformative history in all of Western Civilization. Luther came into conflict with the Roman Catholic church because of his insistence on following the Bible over the traditions of the church, leading to the Protestant Reformation. Though many of Luther's friends and coworkers in the Reformation died for their convictions, Luther not only survived, but thrived. Even with the most powerful institution in Europe gunning for him, Luther was safe.

20 years after becoming a monk, Luther wrote a hymn based on Psalm 46. Often, when he was afraid, Luther would say to his friends, "Let's sing the 46th Psalm, and let the devil do his worst."

So: let's take a look at these old lyrics, and see if we can find the same comfort in God's promise that as long has he is our fortress, nothing can hurt us - even if we lose our lives for his sake.

Verse 1:
A mighty fortress is our God; a bulwark never failing.

• Our God is our fortress! A bulwark is the big, defensive wall of a fortress. These parallel lyrics emphasize that God is our place of never-failing refuge.

Our helper, he, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

• Even though the ills - the problems and evils - of our mortal world seem to be prevailing - winning - he is our helper in the midst of it all.

But still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe.

• Our "ancient foe" is Satan, and he is still trying to hurt us who love God.

His wrath and power are great, and armed with cruel hate;

• Satan is angry and powerful, his hate is cruel.

On earth is not his equal.

• No one on earth can beat the devil on their own.

Verse 2:
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;

• If we trusted our own strength, all our efforts would fail...

Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God's own choosing

• If not for the one who is on our side...

You ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he!

• Who is on our side? Jesus!!

The Lord of Hosts his name, from age to age the same

• He is the Lord of Hosts - the name of God that means the leader of angel armies - and he never changes.

And he must win the battle!

• The only way this can go is that Jesus wins.

Verse 3:
And though this world with devils filled would threaten to undo us,
We will not fear for God has willed his truth to triumph through us.

• Even though the world and the forces of evil will try to take us down, we won't be afraid because God's truth is going to win - through us!

The prince of darkness grim: we tremble not for him!

• Satan himself can't scare us...

His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure:

• We can deal with him - he's already destined to lose.

One little Word shall fell him.

• Satan will fall with a single Word.

Verse 4:
That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth.

• And the word that will destroy the devil is Jesus - the Word Made Flesh

The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him who with us sideth.

• Because he's on our side, we have his Spirit and his spiritual gifts.

Let goods and kindred go - this mortal life also

• So: let go of your possessions, your loved ones - even your life in this world...

The body they may kill; God's truth abideth still!

• Don't fear the one who can kill the body. Even if you die, God's promise stands!

His kingdom is forever!

This Sunday (June 11, 2023) marks the beginning of Providence's journey through the Book of Psalms. The book is a collection of 150 songs from perhaps 1,000 years of Israel's history, and it ranges from joyful meditations on God's faithfulness and the blessedness of those who are faithful to him, to laments of loss, grief, and anger. The whole range of human emotion is represented in the Psalms, and as a collection, they invite us not only into a historical witness to the life of Israel's worship in millennia past, but also join in that worship with our whole being - mind, body, emotions.

Often at Providence, we have a song or two that serve as a recurring theme during a teaching series. Since we usually teach through whole books of the Bible, and we often take months or years to do so, it can help give us an anchor point when we return to a song that reminds us what the big idea of a book of the Bible is.

As I sat down to think about what song might serve this role during the Psalms series, I had a little bit of a crazy idea: what if we had one song that covered the whole journey of the Book of Psalms from beginning to end. That initially seemed a little unrealistic - after all, this is the third longest book in the Bible, and there are 150 individual Psalms. But a little time looking at the structure of this incredible collection revealed a way to it. We could sing the whole thing, at least in a representative way, in one song.

What I came up with was Then Sings My Soul (The Psalms). The title is shared with our teaching series, and it comes from a line of a classic hymn - How Great Thou Art. In the chorus of this song, I borrowed and built upon the melody from this original hymn. If you happen to be a church kid from way back, you'll probably get that nostalgic feeling of familiarity.

Like its namesake, Then Sings My Soul is a song of response. Meditating on the works of God, how can we help bursting in to praise that envelops our whole being? How does the song manage to cover the whole book of Psalms though?

The Psalms were written, edited, and collected over time, and in its final form the collection is divided into five books. Flip through your Bible, and you'll probably find the beginning of each book is marked for you - Book 1 (Psalms 1-41); Book 2 (Psalms 42-72); Book 3 (Psalms 78-89); Book 4 (Psalms 90-106); and book 5 (Psalms 107-150). I started by reading the first and last Psalm in each book, and I was surprised by what I found!

Each book of the Psalms starts and ends with similar ideas - thematic and emotional echoes that create a rhythm across the whole. Here's a short theme statement for each of these bookends - the first and last Psalm of each of the five books.

Book 1: (1-41)
Psalm 1: Delight in the law of Yahweh and become like a flourishing tree by the water.
Psalm 41: I know Yahweh delights in me because he preserves me.

Book 2: (42-72)
Psalm 42: God is the water of salvation when my thirsty soul despairs.
Psalm 72: God, preserve your King and glorify Your name among the peoples of the earth. (The prayers of David, son of Jesse, are completed.)

Book 3: (73-89)
Psalm 73: It doesn't always look like the righteous flourish - but they will.
Psalm 89: It doesn't look good, but Yahweh will be faithful to his covenant with his anointed King, David.

Book 4: (90-106)
Psalm 90: Satisfy your servants, O Yahweh (a prayer of Moses)
Psalm 106: Israel's history shows: we are not faithful, but Yahweh is faithful to his covenant.

Book 5: (107-150)
Psalm 107: Yahweh satisfies the hungry and the thirsty with his steadfast love.
Psalm 150: Let everything that has breath praise Yahweh.

Notice the echos: in the first Psalm of each book, the main idea is about flourishing - how to grow and be blessed; how to flourish even in despair; keeping hope when it looks like the righteous don't flourish and the wicked are; a prayer to be satisfied in God; a promise that God will indeed satisfy the hungry and the thirsty. Water, life, satisfaction, strong and healthy trees - these are the images.

In the last Psalm of each book, it's about God's faithfulness to his covenant King and people. When I feel his presence, he is faithful; he will be faithful to bring justice through his chosen King; he is faithful even when it doesn't look good; he is faithful even though we are not; let every living thing praise him.

So this is how the song works: there are five verses, one for each book of the Psalms. In each verse, the lyrics sum up the bookends, and the chorus reminds us what the Book of Psalms is trying to do: to get our soul to sing. This is not a book to read through once, check the box, and say "I did it." This is a book to read over and over, considering it anew each time. Letting each Psalm lay bare the joys, fears, victories, defeats, sins, anger, hope, frustration, and trust that define life as a human. Reflecting on how these are all answered and given meaning for every follower of Jesus in the Kingdom of God. This is what Psalm 1 means by "meditating on his law day and night." Read it, pray it, sing it, ponder it. Do it again. And again. All your life.

This is the inspired songbook of the scriptures. And there's only one fitting response: SING!
 

A coffee shop employee, late for work, careens through a school zone at 60 miles per hour in his 1998 Toyota Corolla. You, a conscientious driver doing 25mph, hear the whine of his engine well before before you see the passing red blur of the compact sedan through your passenger side window. That's when the blue lights start to flash. You watch with satisfaction as this reckless driver is pulled over and slapped with a hefty fine.

Recklessness. It's the quality of an action that is so single-minded, it disregards all other legitimate concerns in pursuit of one purpose. Recklessness is associated with the thoughtless endangerment of others for the sake of one's own self-absorbed quest.

Foolishness is a related concept. Foolishness is the lack of judgment and wisdom, something that might just lead to recklessness. Recklessness is foolish. Fools are reckless.

It would be out of line to use these words to describe the character of God, wouldn't it? God is incapable of foolishness. God cannot disregard the collateral damage of selfish choices; he certainly can't make such choices himself. And yet, foolishness is exactly the word Paul the apostle uses to describe God's ways in his first letter to the Christians in the city of Corinth. "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man, and the weakness of God is stronger than man" (1 Corinthians 1:25). What exactly is going on here?

This statement is part of the opening section of Paul's letter - one in which he will challenge the Corinthians, in a lot of ways, to become wiser than they are. He begins by saying he himself didn't come to them with impressive and wise-sounding rhetoric, and that to those who think they are wise, God's wisdom looks foolish. He's talking about the "word of the cross" (1:18), the message he brought of a crucified messiah. It looks like stupidity and weakness when your hero dies in a gruesome and shameful public execution. It looks even more foolish if you sign up to follow in his footsteps.

What kind of God would intentionally do such a thing? What kind of King wins his throne by losing his life? Couldn't he have done more, taught more, been a better leader, if he had stayed safe? Isn't it horrible that Paul would endanger people by inviting them to imitate this kind of... recklessness?

Of course, Paul isn't saying that God is actually foolish. He's using a rhetorical device. God looks foolish to the unbelieving world, but in seeing him as foolish they actually demonstrate that they are the fools. Paul feels quite free to talk about God's foolish message of salvation, because he knows that it's actually the greatest wisdom in the universe.

In Matthew 18, Jesus' disciples ask him who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. He calls a small child up in front of his followers, and declares, "unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 18:3). Compared to the shrewd wisdom of an adult, a child's credulity and naiveté might be seen as foolish. But the kind of trust that a child displays is exactly what makes a person fit for the Kingdom. The disciples' interest in being the greatest is the real foolishness.

Jesus goes on to talk about how much he and his Father value these "little ones," those who trust in him like children. If you cause one of them to stumble, he says, it would be better for you to be drowned in the sea than to face the consequences. And then he illustrates his love with this story: Imagine a shepherd with 100 sheep, and one goes missing. He'll leave the 99 to go search out the lost one - and when he find it, he'll be happier about its return than he is about the 99 who never strayed in the first place! Seems a little irresponsible from one point of view, doesn't it? What if something happens to the other 99 sheep while he's out searching? While that's probably taking the details of this little parable a bit too literally, I can personally feel a little cringe at the thought of leaving the 99 to go after the one.

There's a song - we're singing it this Sunday, in fact - that rejoices in the fact that God loves his little ones in this way. And like Paul's "foolishness of God," it uses language that appears contradictory on first glance. The chorus gets right to the point:

If you cringe at calling God's love "reckless," you're not going crazy. Just like our school-zone speeder, true recklessness is a bad thing that endangers the vulnerable - and God is never like that. But from the point of view of the human and broken desire for self-preservation, personal greatness, and pride, it looks pretty reckless to love like God loves. Just like it looks pretty foolish to die on a cross when you're trying to get a world-changing movement going. And yet in both cases, the foolishness of God is wiser than man, and the recklessness of God is more careful than man. He defies our concepts of what is wise and careful, he looks like he's throwing caution to the wind (even though he truly can't) in pursuit of the ones he loves.

When we sing this song together, consider the insanity (from the world's point of view) of living a life that imitates this kind of love. God can't truly take risks, but we can - and the parable of the lost sheep is meant to invite us to imitate the same "reckless" love as we redefine greatness by becoming the least - and perhaps losing things the world values - in order to pursue discipleship through radical love. When we are foolish like this, we are wise. When we are reckless like this, we show the greatest care.

Human beings are God's image bearers - we represent him in his creation. Our whole job is to reflect his nature, from our care of the world to the way we worship him. He's made us as whole beings - embodied and spiritual; made of the dust and yet made for eternal life. Our physical and spiritual selves are both essential, which is one reason that gathering together, in person, is such a crucial part of the Bible's teaching on worship for the church. As we heard just this past Sunday, even the Greek word for "church" in the New Testament means a gathering! Ekklesia is formed from two words: ek, meaning "out of" and kaleo meaning "to call." In Jesus' day, it was a common word for any assembly of citizens called out from their homes to gather for a public purpose. We're called out and called together to form the body of Christ in the creation.

When we gather, there's another both/and reality that we affirm: we are both intellectual and emotional. We come to worship bringing not just our minds, and not just our affections, but both. Our very nature as humans bearing God's image makes these inseparable. In our worship services, we seek to call both of these faculties together for the purpose of seeing God accurately with our mind, and responding to him appropriately  with our heart.

This Sunday (September 25, 2022 if you happen to be reading this sometime in the future), is a great example of how we work these intentions out in a liturgy - an order of worship. Join me, if you will, on a tour of this week's liturgy, to help prepare you to better engage in worship!

We begin, as we usually do, with prayer, led by one of our elders. This time is all about making our hearts ready to surrender to whatever the Lord wants to do among us in this gathering.

Then, we will sing the song Love Shines, written by Austin Stone Worship. With this song, we start to actively declare truths about God - that in the moment of Jesus' death, the Father's love shines more brightly than any other time!


Calvary is the Latin name for Golgotha - the Place of the Skull, the hill where Jesus was crucified. There, just as Jesus appeared to be defeated in death, he achieved the greatest victory of all: victory over sin that would culminate in his victory over death at his resurrection. This is what is looks like when love gives everything.

After we sing this together, we'll open up the Bible and continue studying the Gospel of Matthew. As Jesus is moving toward the endgame of his ministry, his death on the cross, he makes what may be his most challenging call yet to his disciples: if anyone wants to follow me, he has to take up his cross to do it. He hadn't been crucified yet - the disciples didn't know what we know now about what was going to happen. To them, this must have been a scary thing to hear: following me will require you to carry the Romans' most brutal instrument of execution, a cross. The thing about carrying a cross is that the one who carries it is the one who is getting ready to be killed on it. Do you feel the uneasiness that the disciples felt? Do you think following Jesus is worth this? He goes on to tell them losing your life is actually the way to gain it; that if you keep your hold on the world, you will lose your soul. There's a judgment coming, where those who have given up their life will be rewarded by gaining Jesus and his Kingdom. And as a preview of that, he promises that some of the disciples he's talking to will get to see something of this Kingdom, and Jesus shining in it, before they die.

This not only paints a vivid picture for the disciples and for us about the cost of following Jesus, it also shines a light on the joy of the payoff. And as we contemplate what that means for our own lives, we will sing again.

This time, we'll sing a song called Is He Worthy?, by Andrew Peterson. As we sing, we ask ourselves and each other if the cost of following Jesus is worth it. "Is he worthy of this?" And we answer out loud, to ourselves and to each other, "He is!!" With that, we will make another declaration: we will declare his death through taking the Lord's Supper together.

In the physical act of Lord's Supper (or Communion), we will remember Jesus broken body and poured out blood - the signs of his covenant with everyone who trusts in him. In the bread and cup, we will see a reenactment of what he did for us, and what he is calling us to do in imitation of him. We can expect to feel the brokenness of suffering when we walk the steps he walked. But when we are united to him in his death, we are also united to him in his resurrection!!

After we eat in remembrance, we will stand to sing again - this time recounting the story of how Jesus came to meet us in our world, taking on the form of a servant, but ultimately showing himself to be the King of Kings - the title of the song we will sing together. With one voice we will cry out,


 We know that this King will forever keep us, and that his church will not will not be defeated no matter what the gates of hell might throw at us.

And finally, we will sing the great commitment of the day, Jesus I My Cross Have Taken. This song, with its 6 verses, is a lot to take in. And if we're honest, we can all say that it reveals in us the very same conflict the disciples must have felt: can I really say that I'm ready to drink from the same cup of suffering that Jesus did? The song's author, Henry F. Lyte, knew what loss felt like, and what it meant to be taken in by someone else's sacrificial love. As a child, his father was what we might call a deadbeat - preferring fishing and hunting to caring for a child. He sent Henry off to boarding school, and when he wrote him letters, he signed them "Uncle," not even allowing his son to call him "father." The headmaster of Henry's school saw his need, paid his tuition, and included Henry in his own family gatherings at holidays. Henry also lived with terrible health for most of his adult life, dying at the age of 54 with the last words, "Peace! Joy!"
Just consider the boldness of these lines:


In modern language: "Jesus, I have taken up my cross, to leave everything to follow you! Even if I'm poor, hated, and abandoned, from now on you are my everything."


In other words: "See you later, good life. Hello suffering. Bring it on: the more it hurts, the more I rejoice in  you, my King! In you I have a Father! The storms of life can do their worst; you're going to work it all for my good."

THAT is the confidence we need for the journey of discipleship. THAT is what the surrendered life looks like. When you leave worship this Sunday, I hope these words are still ringing in your ears, speaking directly to your soul:


No, we can't truly mourn no matter what we lose, because we are children of the Kingdom of Heaven through Jesus as we walk in his footsteps and count the cost. Think it. Feel it. And then, live it.

This week at Providence, we’re singing a hymn that’s been around since the early 1920s. Those who have grown up in or around protestant churches will probably know this song - it’s even shown up in pop culture, being recorded by the likes of Carrie Underwood and contestants on NBC’s The Voice. Its beautiful melody and classic harmony has been helping English-speaking believers affirm God’s faithful and unchanging nature for a hundred years.

"Great is Thy Faithfulness" is all about what theologians call God’s immutability and his omnipotence - the fact that he is eternally the same, reliable, never capricious or fickle; never failing to do what he says, and never lacking the power to do it. 

The writer, Thomas Chisholm, made it his goal to write hymns that incorporated as much scripture as possible, and "Great is Thy Faithfulness" is no exception. The main theme comes from God’s repeated commitments to be true to his covenant with his people - going back to his promise in Genesis 8 to never again destroy the world in a flood. James 1:17 tells us that there is no shadow or variation of change in God; every good and perfect gift comes from him and he brings us to life by his own will. Chisholm picks this up with his line, “there is no shadow of turning with thee.” The second verse of the song evokes the wonder of Psalm 19, the heavens declaring the glory of God. The sun, moon, stars, seasons, join together will all the rest of creation to bear witness to how faithful and unchanging God is. Chisholm’s last verse delights in the truth that God mercifully gives us forgiveness for sin, enduring peace, the presence of his own Spirit, strength in the moment and future hope - and that’s just the beginning! 

We’re singing an extra verse that wasn’t originally part of this hymn as well. Written by pastor John Piper for Austin Stone church’s version of the song, the third verse celebrates the fact that God himself takes pleasure in showing this faithfulness to people who have absolutely nothing to offer him, and moving our hearts to make him our joy.

In keeping with our strategy to sing as a response to God’s revelation of himself, we choose songs that help us express hearts that are moved by the word of God to worship, confession, adoration, and obedience.

We will follow "Great is Thy Faithfulness" with another old hymn: "Be Thou My Vision." The hymn itself was written in Old Irish a thousand or more years ago, but translated and put into English lyrics in 1912. It celebrates God as the high King ruling over heaven, but the heart of the hymn is a prayer: be thou my vision. When we sing this, we are pleading that nothing else would count for anything to us, except “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). By praying this, we are acknowledging that even though God’s greatness is unmistakable and infinitely satisfying, we are too blind on our own to see him and love him for what he is. We move on to sing that we will not heed (obey) wealth; we won’t order our lives to gain money or power or approval from people, but instead, we will be satisfied to have Jesus as our inheritance. This entire song echoes the longing that Paul expressed over his Ephesian brothers and sisters when he prayed for them,

“that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father , may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him (the eyes of your hearts having been enlightened), so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance among the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty strength which he has worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavenly places, above all rule and authority and power and lordship and every name named, not only in this age but also in the coming one, and he subjected all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.” (Ephesians 1:17-23)

Many of the hymns that have been sung through multiple generations of Christians were written hundreds of years ago. You may have wondered why these hymns sound so strange - using phrases like “Thou art.” The older hymns were written during a time when the only version of the Bible most English readers knew was the King James Version, and the language of this classic translation (published in the year 1611!) was what people thought of as the language of holy and reverent speech. Even before the KJV, William Tyndale’s translation standardized words like thou (you singular) and ye (you plural). The great hymn writers depended on scripture for their lyrics (and still do), so the sound of these translations became the sound of English hymns. Over the years, even as people stopped speaking in these ways, this language was still associated with worshipful speech, so even later hymns often imitate the old style.

Words for “you”

• Thou = You (singular)
• Ye = You (plural)
• Thy = Your
• Thine = Your/Yours

Verbs that end with -eth: 

• Speaketh = speaks. 
• Heareth = hears.

Verbs that end with -est or -t: second person verbs. 

• “Thou changest not” = “You do not change.” 
• “Thou art” = “You are.”

Imagine walking into a church you've never been to. Step into the main room before the service starts - what are your expectations? Preaching? A rock band? An organist? Readings in Latin? Prayers spoken in unison from a lectionary? Suits and ties? Flip flops? Will you be be a participant? A spectator? A leader?

Every element of a service reflects, intentionally or unintentionally, the culture of a church. And just as a reminder: the word church means a gathered group of Christ followers. A service is just another name for one of the moments when the church does what it is: it gathers.

It's common to call the gathering of the church by another name: worship. "Worship starts at 9am!" In fact, we call the room where Providence has its main services the Worship Center.  Sometimes we just call it church  - "see you at church tomorrow!" Some traditions call it Meeting, or Mass. Interesting.

Now, go back to that first question: What do you expect when you walk into a church service? With so many different names for the key gathering of the church, it would be no surprise if you answered, "I need more information." And that's fair. Some church traditions follow a longstanding liturgy - a word that means order of worship.  The whole year of Sundays might be written out in a book, complete with scripture readings, hymns, and prayers to be recited together. On the other end of the spectrum, some traditions just show up and see what happens - no plan, just the Holy Spirit and a bunch of bodies in the room. Most churches worldwide fall somewhere in between.

What about Providence Church? We are made up of folks from a wide variety of church traditions, or no church tradition at all. How do we decide on the shape of our gatherings? Glad you asked.

We think that gathering every week is a vital and central part of the identity and mission of any church. We are still the church when we're not gathered, but we're not really a church if we never gather face to face. The first Christians - who were all first century Mediterranean jews - were used to the weekly rhythm of gathering in Synagogues on Shabbat (Saturday). They offered prayers, sang songs, and heard reading and teaching from the scrolls of the Tanakh - the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament. This weekly rhythm and the practice of sharing teaching, singing, and prayer (not to mention eating) together carried over into the new community that believed Jesus was the Messiah - the God/human who fulfilled God's promise to redeem humanity and creation from sin. They gathered not on the Seventh day of the week, but on the first day - the day Jesus was resurrected. Every single week was Easter. And now, it wasn't just the Old Testament they were reading and learning from; it was also the Apostles teaching - Jesus' teaching passed on to his authoritative representatives. This teaching came to be recorded in the Gospels - the stories of Jesus' life, teaching, death, and resurrection - and the letters written to various churches by some of the Apostles. As these documents were written, distributed, and collected, they became the central authoritative teaching of the church - and now, we call them the New Testament.

So why this history lesson? Because this history is what informs our choices when we gather for worship today.

At Providence, we keep the scriptures at the center of our practices. It's our number one core value: the absolute authority of God's word.  We know him through his scriptures and his Spirit, and we do it in community with each other. That's the starting point for our worship services - the text of the Bible. Most of the time, we study whole books of the Bible from start to finish, taking anywhere from a few months to a few years, because we want the Bible to be able to speak unhindered to us. If God gave us these inspired scriptures, we need to let them say what they say, and we had better pay attention.

So every week, the section of scripture we're going to study becomes the jumping off point for everything else that happens in the service. Our goal is to structure our gatherings so that the message of the text is reinforced at every point, and so that we can not only learn, but respond and experience heart change.

This is the main reason that we break the mold of a typical American Evangelical service when it comes to our singing. More often than not, most of the singing in an Evangelical church service happens at the beginning. It's designed to take people on an emotional journey: starting with celebration, moving toward meditation, preparing people for the main event: the sermon. We have flipped that model very intentionally at Providence.

Our typical liturgy begins with prayer and a welcome led by one of our elders. These are the guys entrusted with the primary shepherding of our church, equipping people for ministry. Then, we usually sing one song - or maybe two - to join ourselves together as active participants in what's happening. The literal spotlight may be on the stage, but the real event isn't the band playing - it's the church singing. Every voice in the room is meant to be raised to God as one big voice. From there, we quickly move into a teaching time - led by our main teaching elder or one of several other gifted preachers. The goal of this time is to be educated in the scriptures, to be awakened to and reminded of God's truth and where we fit into it, and to be challenged to ongoing surrender to Jesus and his claim on our lives. That's why our messages often end with points we like to call "So Whats." Ok, great, the Bible says all this stuff. So what? This leads us into our main time of singing - and please, don't call the singing time "worship," as if the rest of the time isn't also worship. In these songs, we respond as a gathered community to what God has said to us in the scriptures and by his Spirit. These songs are chosen specifically to reinforce, extend, or revisit the themes of the Bible text in ways that apply to our hearts and that allow us to grapple with how Jesus is inviting us to surrender to him. Again, this is never meant to be a performance for spectators, but rather a participatory event. We usually leave on a moment of prayer or sending - a reminder that we have gathered to be equipped, and that we are now taking what have learned to apply it in our daily lives. This is how our services drive discipleship - the process of becoming more like our Master, Jesus.

So next time you walk into a worship service - at Providence, or anywhere - take a second to remember that this is an intentional moment for God to work, and ask him how he wants to form you to be more like Jesus in the next hour and twenty minutes. It's a prayer he loves to answer!