Such musical meaning/sincerity behind the lyrics. Very well put.
Category: 2013
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Kevin Bauder – Paradigm Shift
This essay was handed to me in Bible class, and it has been an incredible conviction to me. It has shown me what true Christianity in America will be up against, and it challenged me to be ready for it. I encourage you to read it to its full extent and ponder it.
The word paradigm is used literally as a grammatical term, but it can also be used metaphorically to refer to a shared set of basic assumptions. A paradigm shift occurs when a community rejects its old assumptions in favor of a new set. The perspective of the community changes and it sees the world differently than it did before.
American Christianity has operated throughout its entire history with what could be called a “daylight paradigm.” It has been able to adopt the basic assumption that most Westerners–and especially most Americans–had significant exposure to biblical ideas and held a generally Judeo-Christian understanding of virtue. It has been able to assume that a broadly Christian outlook occupied the cultural high ground, if not in the centers of power, at least among the masses. American Christians have been able to leverage this Christian consensus into significant ecclesiastical success and even into political influence. They have been able to appeal to what Jerry Falwell called a Moral Majority.
From every indication, those days are now past. The cultural momentum has shifted toward a radicalized version of secularism and pluralism, with even the most generic Christianity representing a minority perspective. Repressive legislation and public policies are already being implemented and Christians are being forced to treat moral impossibilities as if they were realities. Already governments are employing the use of force to deprive Christians of their livelihoods if they will not participate in the charade.
While no human can see the future, it will likely hold worse sanctions for people who are loyal to God. The heathen have always raged and the kings and rulers of the earth have always taken counsel against the Lord and against His anointed. They have always wished to throw off the bondage of divinely-imposed moral restrictions. When such people have been held in check, as they have been in America for hundreds of years, they are eager for payback. They are not contented to allow Christians to live out their virtues, certainly not in any public way. They will use the armed might of the state to force Christians to recognize and participate in vice. They will punish whose Christians who refuse. it is certain that they will do these things because they are doing them already.
In short, we are standing on the edge of a precipice. We have been living in the daylight–that is, in a civilization that has been shaped largely by biblical perspectives and norms. We are about to plunge into the night. We are at the door of a Dark Age.
What makes a Dark Age dark? Not the lack of technology. Not the dismantling of governments and other institutions. Not the absence of toys and amusements. Not the paucity of information. A Dark Age is dark because of the decline of virtue and the decay of morals. People who are highly learned, technologically sophisticated, artistically talented, and socially proficient may nevertheless be savages. When their savagery is directed against the people of God (as it inevitably is), all of their advantages merely make them more efficient opponents of truth, goodness, and beauty.
The night is coming. American Christians have been living as if the sun shone upon them, but the shadows are falling and the light grows dim. The time has come to abandon the daylight paradigm and to adopt the paradigm of the Dark Age. Christians must adjust their eyes to see in the night.
What assumptions must Christians adopt during the Dark Age? Their basic perspective can be summed up in a few brief propositions. First, the expression of their view will be increasingly unwelcome, especially in the public square. Second, their ability to operate from the relative insulation of a subculture will be directly challenged. Third, pressure will increase, both officially and unofficially, to call good evil and evil good. Fourth, Christians will have no weight to throw around in either the social or political spheres.
Under this altered perspective, Christians must not view themselves as Moses, leading a nation into the promise land. They must not even view themselves as Elijah, calling a chosen people to repentance. They must view themselves as Mordecai or Daniel, as exiles in a brutal and foreign land–just as they should have all along.
What does it take to survive in a world that hates truth and twists virtue? American Christians have been spared from asking this question for generations. The time has now come to ponder it.
A second question is just as important. For at least three generations, American Christians have tried to teach their children the meaning of Christianity by offering them fun and games. This program has left increasing numbers of young people unable to resist the perspectives of secularization. The American Church has won more and more young people to less and less Christianity. If the world is finally about to show its brutality, how can children be instructed so that they will shine as lights in the darkness? How will future generations of Christian leaders be equipped to shepherd their flocks through the savage days to come?
The answers to these questions will not be new. Previous generations of believers–whether in Babylon or in Rome, under the black heel of the Nazis or the red banners of Communism–have had to find their own answers. Surely these leader brethren and sisters in the Church Militant have something to say to American Christians in the early Twenty-First Century.
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A Plan of Hope
I’m gasping for a hope
And searching for a light.
Oh how I stumble
And yearn for my sight.I hear a tumult of voices
All calling for my name
Until all stop at the sound
Of a cry of pain.A cry of pain, a cry of love
Came ringing through the night
And led me to the cross of grace
Which freely gave me sight.Then seeing the Man grasping my sin,
Holding it as tight as He can,
He looked at me and softly said,
“Don’t worry I have a plan”Oh a plan so wonderful,
A plan that summons all,
A plan that rings all through the night,
A victorious and triumphant call.
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Around the Bonfire (Bond-fire)
My high-school (7th-12th Grade) went on a retreat. We all had a blast and we listened to some incredible sermons on “what do we love?”. As an annual tradition, on the last night of the retreat, each high-school class took 45 minutes to put together a skit and then proceeded to present it to the high-school on stage. After this was over, we all gathered around a bonfire and then gave summer testimonies. It was an awesome night.
But that night I realized something.
As my class and I were backstage getting ready to perform our skit, I began to have flashbacks. There my summer drama team stood in wait to go on stage to perform our play. With smiles ablaze and excitement in the air, we walked onto the stage, lights gleaming, music playing, as surreal as ever. But then reality hit, and my Junior class and I walked onto the stage to perform our skit.
After the skits were over, we all gathered around a bonfire, and once again I began to have flashbacks. There my summer drama team and I were, around a bonfire in Pennsylvania, sharing testimonies. We were sharing how we came to know Christ, and things that God has done in our lives through trials. But then reality hit, and I was asked by my principle to share my summer testimony. As I said, it was an awesome night. To hear what God had done through so many lives this past summer was just incredible. But then I realized something.
This is my team.
As much as I love the people I traveled with, I’ve been given a new task. My summer drama team taught me what it means to be a team, and now I’ve been gracefully handed back to my class (team) of 2015. What pulled my summer drama team together is what is begging to pull my current team together. Christ, the solid Rock, is begging for a team to stand up for Him! But then again, without Christ we’ll crumble under adversity. We will complain about homework and teachers. We will gossip about each other and backbite. We will mock the efforts of the less intellectually blessed, and then get puffed up with pride when we do well. We will focus on the shallow things of life and if worse comes to worse, we will face the danger of individually falling off the narrow road. But never the less, I’m excited to see what’s to come.
Because as long as we continue in Christ, Christ will continue to work in us.
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Stratton – Flames
“Get on fire for the Lord, and people will come to watch you burn”
– Nicole Stratton
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I Once Lived There
I know a house built brick by brick
With beauty beyond compare.
Each plank was laid, each tile was set
With much design and care.I know a house in which we lived,
With walls of solid wood.
Each breath we took was not our own,
Nor on our own we stood.I know a house which took a match,
So tempting from the foe.
It was so small, yet far too hot
To stay a tiny glow.I know a house consumed in flames,
With death beyond compare.
Till came a Man to rescue souls
Who were so trapped in there.I know a house which took a Man
Who built it brick by brick,
Who had such love for every nail
And every wall so thick.I know a house which killed a Man
Who ran through every flame.
Who called to every soul below,
“It was for you I came!”I know a house which shook with fear
As every flame in sight
Became the Man in agony
In deepest, darkest night.I know a house which drowned in hope
As from the dark He rose.
The battle fought, the price paid full,
The fatal blow to foes.
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A New Beginning
This is my team.
They are family.
Keep that in mind as you read.
“Hi, my name is Christopher Murray, I’m 16 years old (Now 27), I’m from Plymouth, Minnesota, and this is my first summer traveling with the Academy of Arts”…
I was the kid whose only home was the house that he lived in. I was kid whose only friends mostly attended his school, youth group, and church. I was the kid whose only parent figures were the two parents he had, and his only siblings were the two brothers he had. I was the kid whose only known Wisconsin and Minnesota his whole life and been out of state a couple times, but never longer than a few days, and never farther than a few hundred miles.
I had never been in a play before, nor done anything in drama. That changed when The Academy of Arts came to my school. They took a week out of my highschool’s time to teach us a play which takes place during the Civil War and is based off the story of the Prodigal Son. My friend, Rajan, played the runaway, and I played the drummer boy who challenged him with the message of the Gospel, which he accepted after my death and then returned home.
Towards the end of the week, I had an opportunity laid before me. I was invited to join The Academy of Arts Summer Drama Team program. I was initially shocked because I was the only Sophomore invited, and I saw no reason why I should be invited in the first place. After all, I had only been in one play my whole life, and yet they were asking me to travel with them for a whole summer. Yeah. Right..
But then I prayed.
I initially said no, which over the course of a week turned into a yes. My parents initially said no, which over the course of a week turned into a yes. Circumstances initially said no, which over the course of a week turned into a yes. And after a week had gone by, there I was, the Minnesotan kid sending in his application.
I was accepted, and a little over a month and a half later I was sitting in the Logos Theatre with 30+ other teens. Most of us didn’t know each other, nor did I know know anyone there. And yet there I was, in South Carolina, a thousand miles away from all my friends and family, embarking on a journey unlike anything else I had ever been a part of before. Funny how God worked that out.
After funny, serious, and rudimentary auditions, it was decided that I be put on the 2013 Eastern Summer Drama Team. Soon after, I was sitting with ten other people I barely knew. My guy leader was Will, and my lady leader was Kara. The guys were Sam, Jeremiah, Caleb, and Peter, and the girls were Valerie, Alex, Becca, and Emily. They were pretty nifty if I don’t say so myself.
But none the less, they were my team. We had two weeks of training to learn our lines, the choir songs/hymn arrangements, the play, how to set up the stage, how to set up lights and sound, how to run lights and sound, how put on makeup, how to do costumes, what to do when, where, why, how, and much more. All of this coupled with sermons, messages, devotions, and talks preparing us for circumstances/situations on the road. It was exhausting mentally, emotionally, and physically. It was those first two weeks that formed us into a team. We learned how to work together, and how to carry out what the following seven weeks would call for.
After training was over, we were sent out on the rode for seven weeks. From South Carolina, to Indiana, up to New York. Technical difficulties. Trailer problems. Team members getting sick. Churches with small stages. Family situations. Injuries. Clashing personalities. Little sleep. Hours of work. I’d say it was a long summer, but never has any summer gone quicker. As a team, we pulled together. But what set our team apart from any other team in this secular world was that we didn’t pull together and then lean on each other. We embraced each other and then pointed each other to Christ. We embraced the trials and then laid them at Christ’s feet. We gave everything we had on and off stage. We prayed constantly asking for Christ’s help. We laughed with each other. We cried with each other. We encouraged each other. We got right with each other. We stuck with each other.
But it wasn’t us that stuck. It was Christ. Had it not been for Christ, we’d have to reason to be where we were. We’d have no reason to be doing what we were doing. We’d have no reason to forgive each other. We’d have no reason to fall to our knees in prayer when everything else was falling apart. We’d have no reason to breathe. And yet Christ died for us, and who are we to not give everything in return. Who are we to not respect those people who gave everything they had for Christ. Who are we to not sincerely sing those songs which were written through tears at Christ’s feet. Who are we to not retell those miserable yet victorious stories of those true followers of Christ..
And it was for those reasons that we weren’t just a team.. we were a family. We were a family held by Christ. And as a family held by Christ, we’ll always be a family, even if we’re a thousand miles apart. They didn’t give me a new beginning, but they taught me that Christ gives me a new beginning. They taught me that to live in past failure is to live in fear of failure, and to live in past sin is to live in present sin. Who I am now does not have to be defined by who I used to be.
Because He didn’t just die for me. He rose for me.
And for that reason, I have a new beginning.
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