We’ll be taking in the LOVE CAME DOWN Christmas tour with Leeland, Jars Of Clay, Sixpence None The Richer, Sara Groves and others. Then we’ll also be taking in a RENAISSANCE VOICES Christmas concert at the Cathedral Church Of St. Luke.

I’ll do a few posts in the next few days on the following 4 questions related to each event:

What gift does the unique genre of music being played give to the 21st century Christmas/Advent worship experience?

What values drive the making of that kind of worship/artistic music?

What are the stories being told, both in the theological/worldview content of the event, and in the manner in which the material is presented?

What contribution might this form of worship expression give to current and emerging culture, both inside and outside of the Church proper? and

What role do aesthetics, art and creativity play in the creation of liminal (threshold) spaces of worship encounter for those attending?

Hope you can follow along the next few days. I promise the worst of journalism, the best of storytelling, and the most verbose commentary possible.

Off with you now – have you nothing better to do?

From the content of our interactions over the past weeks, these should be real keepers for today’s church.

We tried to engage the Indescribable. See how we did, and take the time to check them out below.

Our summer online course, Essentials Blue: Online Studies In Worship Theology and Biblical Worldview is just wrapping up, and our students are getting creative. It’s been an amazing time growing and learning together as worship leaders and creative influencers, and now it’s time to put feet to the learning.

Each of our students has been asked to present a “creative project” of some sort that meets our criteria, and embodies some aspect of theological/worldview insight(s) they gleaned from the course. We’re excited about what is coming in.

Posted in the comments section of this post will be links to their projects. Enjoy, and let them know what you think! It may take a few days for their links to get up here.

A fresh dialogue on the interface of Church and culture is going on over at Dan Kimball’s blog. Here was my response to his recent video on why non-believers like Jesus, but not the Church.One of the great challenges will be helping the Church to negotiate this change, Dan:

“Can the Church begin to read, listen to, and view extended perspectives with which they disagree?”

This element is not in popular Church culture today, for all the right reasons (i.e. historically – we have seen a need to protect ourselves and the purity of the message we bear).

Opening ourselves to this dialogue with the world, calling people to be who they were made to be (as opposed to a monologue, telling people who they are not and could only be if they will give our brand of discipleship a turn about the room), will radically change the Church.

I think that change will feel (as it does now) quite negative for a time, but in gravity’s pull, will come back around to a renewed strength we may not live to see.

To dialogue in this way will demand a stronger and larger Story than we are currently telling in our communities, but which N.T. Wright and other theologues are affirming in their works of hope.

The themes of New Creation, Resurrection and Eden Mission (my own phrase) stand with great strength among the most compassionate and tolerant ideologies of the day.

Our creational story is similar to many, but our redemptive story is not. We must cultivate a stronger redemptive Story in the Church for real engagement to take place.

The Story we are often presenting is simply not large enough, biblical enough, substantial enough, to penetrate the deepest feelings and thoughts of a postmodern world.

That God would “come bursting out of the center of the maze” and express Himself through one tribe of the human race, the Jews, is indeed both a joyful possibility and a stumbling block.

That the average Christian’s Story, told in a thousand ways and allowing truth to reveal itself, could speak these ideas into the heart of the world would be a significant part of the new day we are after.”

It’s a new incarnation. A fresh invitation. A blossoming conversation.

The new DanWilt.com is live.

Hosting an ever effervescent conversation on emerging worship ideas, ancient insights for today, future trend reflections, Church/culture interface meditations and both prosaic and poetic renderings of what it means to be fully alive to God, the new DanWilt.com is about it’s business.

Welcome friends.

Note: The site now features original photography from Dan Wilt, Matt Frise and a few other pals. The new look is a WordPress template retool by designer Matt Wiebe at Soma Design.

It was a great video connection, and I drew most of the teaching from an elaboration on Peter Fitch’s beautiful article, Inner Living, Outer Giving: Spiritual Habits For The Worship Leader.

Our class had rich, further dialogue then on N.T. Wright’s, For All God’s Worth.

Here, our students will respond to the ideas in The Sacramental Leader teaching. Friends in Porstewart, N.I., and beyond… join in.

Students fell passionately on two sides of the issues of caring for aesthetics in worship, including quality visual art in our connecting with God, the importance or non-importance of buildings, and the concept of seeing the physical world as good rather than inherently evil or passing away.

Should a building or a worship environment be beautiful? Who does it serve if it is? Why is this important, or unimportant biblically?

This week our students respond in 250 words or so, how they interacted with the ideas presented. Use the Scriptures to back up your reflection.

If you’re not in the class, feel free to interact with our students.

Physical theatre, DVDs, unicycles, dance, songwriting, photojournalism, handmade books, stories for adults and children, and many other beautiful expressions of worship – all centering around the themes of Genesis, were presented.

What a stunning morning of worship, and what joy to see these guys “getting” the idea that a human being is optimally designed to glorify God.

What a privilege to teach this group of powerhouses.

This week our students respond in 250 words or so, how they interacted with the ideas presented, and amplifying our session the week before.

If you’re not in the class, feel free to interact with our students.

Her topic was The Motivation Of The Worship Leader, and we opened up our souls to examining the motives the lead us as we care, lead, create, serve and challenge others. It was a wonderful session, and Kathryn’s humility and wisdom shines through into the hearts of students on both sides of the Atlantic.

As well, we looked into the basic foundations of Christian worship, tapping into the creative impulse of God in Genesis 1, resulting not only in the created order, but also in the flower of creation – humankind.

This week our students respond in 250 words or so, how they interacted with the ideas presented today, and the experience of shared learning with our Northern Irish friends.

If you’re not in the class, feel free to interact with our students.