Speaking of acoustic guitars...

People are always asking me what kind of guitar they should buy. Of course, the general answer is that you get what you pay for, although ocassionally a cheaper guitar might sound better than it's price might indicate (and vice versa). But I have been in some stores and played a few of these Epiphone Masterbuilt acoustics, and they sound better than their price range. Musician's Friend is having a clearance on them right now, which I guess either means Epiphone is no longer making them or that Musician's Friend is no longer carrying them. If you have 500-700 bones to spend and are in the market for a guitar, I would recommend these. I know, I know--you were thinking more like $200. But the only way you're going to score a guitar this good for $200 is to buy a vintage guitar on eBay that's in need of some major repair, in which case you A) need to know what you're doing, and B) are going to end up spending a few hundred dollars more anyway.

This is what has been missing from my worship leading

Dean is now making a Flying V acoustic guitar. I mean, seriously, do you know how humiliating it has been all these years being up there trying to shred all my worship licks on a dreadnought-shaped axe?

Worship en español

In preparing a sermon in Spanish this week on corporate worship, it has been interesting trying to figure out what word to use for "worship". There simply is no word in Spanish that communicates exactly what that English word means. The words people generally use are "adoración" (adoration), "alabanza" (praise), maybe even "culto" (which would refer more to the liturgy), but none of those have the range of meaning of the word "worship". The good thing is that many of the problematic uses of the word are therefore avoided (such as equating "worship" with the singing time, etc.), though "adoración" and "alabanza" have their own set of problems. In any case, using the whole "worth-ship" thing is out of the question.

In the end, I called Carlos Astorga Solis and he advised me to go with "adoración corporativa" and explicitly make the connection of the word "corporate" with the body of Christ.

Cheesy worship technology

Quentin Schultze has written an interesting, if rather brief, article on the use of technology in worship (HT: Justin Taylor). I like his criteria of "fittingness". This last part needed to be said, and I'm glad it was said by someone who's not young:

Young people tell me that a lot of the high-tech worship is "cheesy." Yet adults think that such worship is what "kids" want. Ironically, older adults tend over time to be greater supporters of the use of PowerPoint and video in worship than do younger members... Young people witness some of the cheesy video and computer "art" in worship and they see it for what it is: kitsch. Stock clip art. Old-fashioned, 19th-century background images under song text: the sun shining on the Cross, running streams, baby faces -- all of the stereotypical images that say, "Christians are crummy artists and naive sentimentalists." To them, such kitsch is like handing out illustrated kids' Bibles to high school students and telling them that these images represent the depth of insight and excellence of the Christian faith.

Obviously, the greatest danger in the use of technology in worship is not just that it be cheesy; if it's not well thought-out, it can easily be downright misleading. I remember hearing a recording of Bob Kauflin lecturing at SBTS in which he commented that he's not a big fan of images in worship for various reasons. A background image of clouds, he said, doesn't help us think of holiness--the cross of Christ helps us think of holiness. Clouds just make us feel, well, dreamy. But isn't that way more typical of what we see in worship service across the country?

We take great care to make sure that what is communicated from the pulpit be the intentional, studied, faithful preaching of the word of God, and rightly so! If a picture is worth a thousand words, why would we let the images we introduce on our worship be chosen and prepared by someone who is less a theologian?

My granddad

My granddad went into the hospital last Friday. They thought he'd had a stroke, because he was having a hard time moving his left leg. It turned out not to be so bad--some blood had clotted between his brain and skull, so they were able to take care of it fairly simply. So he'll be going home any day now, with half his head shaved. I wish I could have been there to visit him in the hospital.