Paradox of Planning Worship

(Just a current events update: Tomorrow marks my first Sunday Morning as the "Permanent Temporary Worship Leader" for the Singing Oaks Church of Christ in Denton. Six days ago, during Worship Assembly, Mark Crain's final Sunday as full-time worship leader, our preacher, Brady Bryce, announced his resignation. While his ministry and family life in Denton are thriving, he's received the sort of job offer from ACU that only comes once in a lifetime. Despite the unfortunate timing, this is the kind of thing you take when it comes, no matter how inconvenient. Brady Bryce, as of this fall semester, will wear several hats at ACU, including being the head guy for all their workshops. This means Brady Bryce has final say on Lectureship, and summer workshop. Also, he'll be an adjunct Bible Professor. So, as of December, you can choose to call him "Dr. Bryce" or "Professor Bryce." SOCC is still formulating plans to set up a suitable interim preacher situation and then begin the search for a full time preaching minister.)

How can we possibly plan worship? Some of the most detailed accounts of worship, the action, in the Old Testament are events that were spontaneous. Worship as a response to victory or overwhelming mercy.
If all of your worship takes place in an assembly planned right down to who says which prayer and which song will be sung and chorus repeated and sermon text read from which version . . . . . you get the point.
If our worship lives were limited to Sunday morning assemblies (and I am ALL for those being THOROUGHLY planned out. Not that we would suppress the Holy Spirit, but that we would be accommodating to the fact that hundreds of people with hundreds of daily schedules and lives are all in the same place at the same time) then worship would become dry, ceremonious, and ritualistic. We start noticing symptoms of a word that we have long banished from our Restoration-movement churches, especially the Church of Christ: liturgy. "Worship" produced from a formula. A non-moving template where you just pencil in different names and songs every week.
The solution? Worship happens beyond Sunday assemblies. Worship regains its original meaning, having to do with worthiness. To use my gifts in a way so as to say "Only God is worthy of this" is to worship.
I'm trying to organize thoughts about this for future use, perhaps as a bulletin article for church newsletter, or a future conference or retreat if I get a chance to speak.
What are your thoughts?
In what ways are your gifts a tool for worship outside of Sunday morning Worship Service?

OFFICIAL: Notice to all Harry Potter Fans!

If you are not a Harry Potter reader, or plan to become one soon, read no further. You will not care about what I have to say in this post, and it probably won't make much sense.
I believe that in a few hours, when the 7th Harry Potter book is released, the world will begin mourning the death of Harry Potter. Immediately after I finished the 6th book I began telling my friends that I believed Harry would die in book 7, but I don't know that I've made an official announcement yet. See, when he does die, everyone is going to say that they knew all along, but I'll be able to prove it, because I'm officially calling it before the book comes out!
J.K. Rowling has to kill Harry; it's unavoidable. Allow me to illustrate why:
Thirty years from now, in 2037, an ABC Christmas Special or a straight-to-movie film titled "Hogwarts Class Reunion" or something of the like. Everyone, grown, gathers at Hogwarts for the Hogwarts reunion, or to honor Hagrid upon his retirement. Anyways, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, the twins, Neville, all of them are there, back together at Hogwarts all together again! But wait! Oh no! They've all been placed under a mysterious curse and kidnapped by Draco Malfoy. The only people who know they are missing and can save them are their teenage children. It's the next generation of wizards who have heard the stories about one another's parents, and must now work together to defeat the evil sorcery . . . . .

Get my point? J.K. Rowling, along with any true fan of pure Harry Potter must know that the only way to keep cheesy sequels and extensions of the story that AREN'T WRITTEN BY ROWLING HERSELF is to end the story of Harry Potter once and for all on her own terms.

How will Harry die? Well, I have only a theory. I know for sure that he will die, but I do believe that Rowling has thought of something completely unexpected that none of the theorists could have foreseen. However, for the sake of speculation, on this the day before book release festivities, here's my guess:
Harry is the last Hocrux. I draw this theory from book six and the discussion about hocruxes, and based on the movies, I think of two possible moments when his scar became the final hocrux of Voldemort.
(a) In the graveyard at the end of Goblet of Fire. If Voldemort intended to make a hocrux off of the murder of Harry's parents, this was his first oppurtunity, seeing as how it was his first time in flesh following his first defeat. The moment when he touched Harry's head and the scar seared with pain, I think is possibly the moment.
(b) In the most recent movie, it dawned on me in the final show down inside the Department of Mysteries that when Voldemort temporarily possessed Harry, that at this moment he could have placed his hocrux inside Harry.
Either way, Harry destroys six out of seven hocruxes and then realizes that he's the last one. People will try and talk him out of it, but somebody (maybe Dumbledore, somehow?) says something that makes him know he must become the literary Christ-figure and die.

Regardless, the hocrux thing is just a guess. I'd say I'm 5% sure that's how he dies. BUT, I'm 99.9% sure that he will indeed die. If I'm wrong, I will gladly allow you to tell me I'm wrong, but on a few conditions: (1) Not until I've read the book and found out the ending on my own may you talk to me about it. (2) If I'm right or not, you must not discuss it with me in front of anyone who is reading or plans to read the book. Don't ruin it for anybody. (3) All comments on this post or facebook may only be guesses. As long as you haven't read book 7, but have a different theory, comment away. Once you've read it and know the real story, hush!

The Pirate Queen

I sure wish this musical were doing better. I'm beginning to worry that my taste in musicals is just entirely off, because this one continues to struggle and get poor reviews; it's already scheduled to close on Broadway and the audiences dwindle. Yet Dad and I were delighted when we saw it, and I got the CD in the mail yesterday and it sounds every bit as good as I remembered it. I hesitate to recommend it, because it seems so many people and critics (not the same thing) dislike it, I have to assume that odds are you would too, but there's just some really, REALLY good music in this, and all their voices are great. I don't get it yet.

Happy birthday, USA!

Happy 4th of July (a day late)! A year ago yesterday, I spent my 4th of July driving from the DFW to Houston with one arm (I had just gotten that hideous cast put on a few days earlier, and granted that I'd just had a wonderful three day weekend, the drive was stressful and tough.) So, I guess last year's 4th of July was not that great.
This one was different! At about 4:45 I arrived at the Baileys'. We cooked out, and some people swam (I did not) and everyone had a great time.
Around 6:30 or so, Jordan and I left for the ballpark. The Rangers beat the Angels 4-2 and we watched from the third level up behind home plate along with The Crains and the Moores (families from church). Afterwards, there was a 20 minute fireworks show that we got to watch from right in our seats.
The game was alot of fun for many reasons, but a big one is that Jordan has been kinda sick for the last week or so, and this was one of the first times she'd been out and about in awhile.
Pictured:
(top left) Jordan's cousin Rainey lovingly smothers her baby sister, Emily, with a beach towel. No worries, Emily laughed the whole time.
(top right) Emily loves my camera. She doesn't so much love having her picture taken as rubbing the viewfinder against her face. But hey, from her perspective, that's what everyone else does with their cameras, right?
(middle left) Me and Jordan at the game.
(middle right) Mr. and Mrs. Moore, aka "Mr. and Mrs. Russ" (Russ is their son who is about my age.)
(bottom left) (the other) Jordan and me at the game. I sat between two Jordans. It was kind of funny that anytime I said something to them, they both responded.
(bottom right) Whitney and Russ at the game.

Mark and Sandy Crain were at the game too, but happened to be "at Starbucks" when the camera was out.

Note: I've read Marla's blog, and I too felt annoyed by the late night firework noise. But then, early this morning, when the thought "this sounds like gunfire" ran through my mind, something struck me: I'm really lucky that this is the closest thing to gunfire I have to live with. This country needs a lot of improving, there's no doubting that. We have some crooked, misguided, maybe even evil leaders that have gained power in some positions in our government, but this is the only country in the world that people are dying to get into, and I'm blessed.

Beverly - the Real Death Scene

The American classical music world lost a true jewel this week. Beverly Sills was not only the greatest living soprano during the peak of her career, but she brought the esteem of the international opera community to the U.S.
Long thought of as "inferior" or "unartistic", American opera productions and singers just did not have the same quality as those of the age-old venues such as La Scala and Paris Opera House. Beverly Sills played a large role in changing that during the second half of the 20th century.
Even after she was too old to sing the leading roles, she continued to exemplify the "Warrior for beauty" as Mstislav Rostropovich put it. She served on directorial boards for numerous forefront American Opera Companies, including New York Met.
She was an innovator in getting the "snoodiness" or "elitism" out of opera's image. Up until within a year ago, she hosted PBS's "Live From Lincoln Center" bringing millions of people TV performances of world class opera, ballet, symphonies, and Broadway musicals and plays.
She gave trans-styled performances with popular names of decades past such as Danny Kaye, Carol Burnett, and even the cast of Sesame Street. All of this to show her humorous, personable side, without compromising her legitimacy as the world's prima soprano. Her signature roles in "La Traviata", "The Barber of Seville" and "Lucia" among others were certainly unmatched in her lifetime, and likely will not be equalled by anybody during mine. America's pre-eminent sopranos of today such as Renee Fleming or Laura Claycomb owe gratitude to Bev Sills for her precedent, but fail to match in overall combination of vocal virtuosity, stage presence, and artistic transparency.
I feel so very fortunate, that while I never had the chance to hear her live or meet her, I do know, and briefly studied under, a tenor who was her leading man in many productions. Henry Price, at a relatively young age for opera singers, was able to perform much of the great opera literature alongside Ms. Sills towards the end of her performing career.
The rather lengthy video in this post is the two of them performing the tragic "Manon's Death Scene." Don't know the date, but it's probably sometime in the early 70s.

This is a Special Post

Today's post is special for two big reasons.
1.) This is the 250th post on shflippin.blogspot.com. Happy 250th to all my readers (both of you!)
2.) And more importantly, I am blogging for the first time from a brand new MacBook computer! I drove into Fort Worth to pick it up today, because the FedEx people weren't going to deliver it until Friday. Supposedly, as big as Denton is, they don't send deliveries here more than once a week? I don't buy that. I got tired of waiting and guessing and having to worry about them trying to deliver while nobody is there (as they did on Saturday) so first thing this morning I went down there and got it!
I went straight from the UPS place to church, where I've been setting it up and getting acquainted. So much fun! To the right is the first picture I took learning how to use the "iPhoto Booth" feature. The lady in the picture is the SOCC office coordinator, Kim, and the gentleman is our Outreach Minister, Bob.
Anyways, I wish I had time today to just goof off and play all day, but such is not the case. I'm also very excited about having the DVD player (in the computer) as I've had the urge to watch a movie a time or two over the past two weeks and been unable.

Joke for the day: (Sorry that it's a bit crude, but the little boy inside me laughed when I heard it.)
Who are the three most constipated men in the Bible?
1.) Solomon - he sat on the throne for 40 years.
2.) David - Neither the heavens nor the earth could move him.
3.) Cain - he was not 'Abel'.

Flippin,
Out.