Book review: Gods at War by Kyle Idleman

This book is based around the simple concept that people are created to worship, and that the question is therefore not, ‘Do we worship?’ but ‘Who/what do we worship?’ All of us are guilty of idol worship, and Kyle Idleman deals with one idol per chapter, looking at things like money, family, job and self to ask whether they are idols in our lives, and how we ought to replace them with Jesus.

I think this book is absolutely outstanding. Kyle Idleman is encouraging, funny, challenging, biblical, Jesus-focused, and a good story teller. Reading each chapter is like savouring a richly-flavoured meal, but instead of tastebuds being hit it’s your soul being exposed for the idol worshipper you are. Each chapter is challenging and intensely practical, asking probing questions which make it easy to apply them.

It’s filled with good stories and links to more detail about them, as well as being packed with references to high quality books so reading this ought to be the start of an adventure rather than a goal in itself. There are also plenty of cheeky footnotes which made me laugh a lot; this is not some academic study in idol worship but a radically challenging and instantly applicable handbook.

If you think you need to read this book, you definitely do; it’s probably the best I’ve seen on replacing our idols with Jesus. And if you think you don’t need to the chances are that you’re in even more need of it because you’re unaware of your own idols!

I got this ebook for free from BookSneeze.com in exchange for an honest review.

Related articles

• Megachurch Pastor: Many Christians Unknowingly Worshipping Idols/Includes Perry Stone (vineoflife.net)
• My Favourite Book of 2012… (darleencostin.wordpress.com)
• Not a Fan (challies.com)
• A La Carte (3/18) (challies.com)

I don’t know what I don’t know

The Seven Deadly Sins (ca. 1620) – Envy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the most frustrating things about being married is simultaneously one of the best. You know what I’m on about: being told my annoying habits.

Here are some of mine: the way I accelerate, the way I laugh, places I choose to park the car, the way I manage my diary, places I choose to shop, the way I brake, the way my face looks when I’m thinking…I could go on. The fact that I leave the tap dripping every so often, the way I run from one end of our flat to the other, the time I leave for work in the morning, the time I get back from work, the location of my office, the nature of my work, the way I tell people about my work…ok, I’ll stop now.

It’s definitely annoying being told, ‘you sound mean when you laugh,’ but it’s also definitely good, because without being told that I’d never know I sound mean when I laugh, so would never be able to correct it.

Now, this is all very nice and a bit of fun but something that’s always slightly worried me is: what if there are sins in my life that I don’t know about so have never addressed? Well, good news for me – someone’s compiled a list of every Bible sin, very specifically, separated into heart, mouth and body sins (i.e. sinful thoughts, words and deeds). I hope he doesn’t mind me pasting it here:

Heart Sins	Mouth Sins	Body Sins
Evil thoughts	Deceit / lying	Sexual immorality
Coveting / Jealousy	Slander	Theft
Wickedness	Quarreling	Murder
Sensuality	Strife	Adultery
Envy / greed	Dissensions	Orgies
Pride / arrogance	Divisions	Drunkenness
Foolishness	Reviling	Sorcery
Impurity	Foolish talk	Fits of anger
Idolatry	Corrupting talk	Swindling
Enmity	Crude joking / obscene talk	Homosexuality
Rivalries	Without self-control	Abusive behaviour
Grudges		Brutality
Bitterness / wrath		Without self-control
Clamour
Malice
Worldly passion
Evil desire
Loving self
Loving money
Not loving good
Loving pleasure, not God
Disobedient to parents
Ungratefulness
Being unappeasable
Heartlessness
Being treacherous
Being reckless
Worship of demons & idols
Being cowardly
Being faithless
Without self-control

By committing this little table to memory and/or keeping it accessible, it should be possible at any given moment to quickly analyse an action and spot if it’s sinful or not. Simples!

This also means that might be things that you, or others, are doing that you’re judging unfairly…maybe we need to repent of that!

And to underline this let’s just remind ourselves that all of our sins, known or unknown, are forgiven in Jesus Christ!

That table, by the way, is taken from Julian Freeman, and the original article’s well worth a read.

I worship three persons

A few months ago I referenced the fact that Christians seem to worship a God with multiple personality disorder.

As an appendix to that, presented in a far better researched and more visually appealing manner, have a look at this beautiful infogram.

The best bit about it I think is the top grey band showing the Three Foundations. I reckon that every Christian would be happy to say that they worship ‘one God’, but how many would be so quick to say that they worship ‘three persons’?

Let’s really get to know who God is.

Another thought on worship

Every so often I’m drawn back to the word ‘worship’, and why we use it the way we do.

Contemporary Christianity has taken to using ‘worship’ to describe the act of singing. We call it ‘the worship’ during a Sunday meeting and we listen to ‘worship CDs’…but at the same time we somehow want to cling to the biblical idea that all of life is worship.

Here’s a thought for a Monday – compare the Old Testament and New Testament ideas of the temple. In the Old Testament the presence of God was encountered once a year when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, but in the New Testament we’re told that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit; God dwells within every Christian!

But in our use of the word ‘worship’ are we falling back into the Old Testament attitude that the gathered body of believers is somehow the only way that we can truly connect to God?

I’m re-reading a book right now called Unceasing Worship by Harold M. Best – it’s wonderful. And he suggests that the best way of understanding the biblical idea of worship is in the phrase ‘continuous outpouring’. We are continuously outpouring worship to some god or other in our words, ideas and actions; whether that god is Jesus, or ourselves, or something or someone else ultimately comes down to us.

That idea makes sense of Jesus’ words in John 4 after the Samaritan woman asks him where the right place to worship God is. He doesn’t give a place name, he instead gives her an attitude: ‘in spirit and in truth’. If that lady had asked a typical contemporary Christian ‘where is the best place to worship?’ I’m not sure the Christian wouldn’t default to something along the lines of: ‘Well, that depends on what sort of music you like.’

Is it a worry that we’d so blatantly answer such an important question differently to Jesus?

I’ve written about this already (at least here and here) so if you feel like I’m flogging a dead horse you may have a point…but I suppose you clicked the link to get here so it’s actually your fault. Haven’t quite worked that thought through yet.

Why Christians sing

Jesus was once having a conversation with a lady who wasn’t Jewish. She was a Samaritan, and wanted to know where the best place to honour God was – the Jews said on one particular mountain, and the Samaritans said a different mountain. All she knew was that she wanted to adore God.

Jesus’ reply seems obvious to the Christian mindset: it doesn’t matter where you are, all that matters is how you worship. But then he gets a bit cryptic:

The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:23-26)

What does this whole ‘spirit and truth’ thing mean? I think it’s more straightforward than it appears at first.

Truth

Truth is objective – if something’s true, that’s the end of the story. So to worship God we must worship within strict, true boundaries, properly defined by the Bible. That means true worship must engage with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. No matter how much we love watching X Factor it’s not worship of God in and of itself because there’s no input from the Bible into that moment.

Spirit

Our spirits are far more subjective – I change my mind more often than I care to admit, and my feelings and opinions are certainly very different to everyone else’s. But in order to worship God properly we must also engage ourselves; it’s not good enough to speak through some true words in an emotionally-detached way, because that would be worshipping only in truth.

Spirit and Truth

When we gather together to worship we could do all manner of things. We could speak words of the Bible together, or dance together, or perform some community action together…but all of these somehow don’t guarantee true worship in spirit and truth…but singing’s different. When we sing, we can sing songs that are filled with biblical truth. But also, we can engage emotionally with the sound of the music.

For one person, they may be able to emotionally engage with simply reading the Bible (I’m that one person), but others may find it easy to emotionally detach from that. For another, a carefully choerographed dance may enable them to express truth…but I’m not that person. So singing is the easiest way to enable a large congregation to all worship simultaneously in spirit and truth.

How do you find it easiest to worship in spirit and truth?

Why I’m stepping back from leading the band

Image via Wikipedia

My most public role at Crown Church is easily that I’ve led the band on Sunday mornings at least once a month for a good few years now. We have four bands, and I’m involved in leadership of two of them.

I approached James Hunting, the Lead Elder, and Dan Smith, who’s responsible for oversight for the entire worship team (including PA and lyrics projection), and got their support in my decision to step back, but I have been asked by a few people why I have – I thought it would be good to sum up here.

Clarification

By stepping back from leading that doesn’t mean I’m leaving the band, or leaving the Crown! I’ll still be just as involved, just not with the lead microphone. I’ve also been told that I may get drafted in, so you may not have seen the last of me yet!

Capacity

Anna and I lead a cell group, lead the student and twenties work, and are involved in organising local outreach events into West Drayton. I’d like to be freed up to do those things well.

Others

There was once a time when the Crown had two band leaders, Dan and me. That’s not the case any more; there are five leaders on the team so I want to make space for them to lead as much as they want to.

The Crown’s future

The Crown is growing, and it’s always better to plan than to suddenly realise that you’re not ready for something! I’m confident that one day the Crown will get to the size that it will need a bigger team of band leaders, so the more people with experience in that role the better. If me stopping for a bit enables others to get that experience, great!

My future

I don’t feel that leading the band is my primary gift. That’s not some sort of false humility, it’s just that I think I’m far more gifted in other areas like strategy and preaching. By stepping back from leading the band I hope I can grow in different gifts.

I won’t stop leading worship

You may notice that I haven’t used the word ‘worship’ at all so far, which is odd because most band leaders title themselves ‘worship leaders’. I don’t think that’s wrong, because band leaders do lead God’s people in worship, but I do think it’s misleading.

Worship doesn’t mean singing, it’s about a lifestyle lived to the glory of God. To my mind, every single Christian is a worship leader in that they live their lives to the glory of God, in order to inspire others to do the same. By the grace of God I will never stop doing that; will you be the best worship leader you can be?

I like free music

I’ve mentioned this website before but it’s constantly being updated so I thought I’d point to it again.

A Christian conference, The Gospel Coalition, happened a couple of weeks ago, and they recorded some of the songs and are allowing people to download them for free over here.

Handel's Messiah by Calvin R. Stapert

This book takes Handel’s theology, biography and musicalality, and combines the three to tell a wonderful historically accurate story to show the birth of this famous piece of music. Of particular interest, Stapert goes on to develop an investigation into whether Handel’s Messiah was originally intended to be for the church, or the theatre.

The most important thing about reviewing this book, I think, is to bear in mind its primary audience. If you have no interest in history or music, I’m pretty certain this will bore you to tears. That said, if you have any glimmer of interest in either or both, I’d be surprised if you didn’t love every minute of this book. The story is interesting, and if you are going to listen to Handel’s Messiah at any point soon I’m sure this will serve you very well and enrich your experience.

There are times at which the sheer level of historical and musical knowledge that is being thrown at you becomes a bit overwhelming but providing you’re ready for this, and aren’t treating it as casual reading, I think you’ll do very well.

For someone with enough motivation to want to apply this to their life I think that there are valuable lessons for Christians to learn here in terms of how a piece of artwork can be appealing to a secular culture and remain high quality while retaining the truth of the gospel, but again, if you’re looking specifically for this, I don’t think you’ll get it here without some follow-up brainstorms.

In terms of the audio experience, this is up there as perhaps the best audiobook I’ve listened to. The narrator’s voice is excellent (as well as being British), and you are treated to hearing the oratorio as well, highlighting this as a particularly good buy.

I got this audiobook for free from christianaudio.com. I’m not required to give a positive review.

Whole-body worship

At my church we believe in ‘whole-body’ worship. That means that every member of the church body (see Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12) is equally involved in corporate worship. There’s not one leader and many followers, there’s one facilitator enabling every individual to engage.

But worship is way bigger than we perceive it. I follow The Resurgence, who recently posted about the importance of the human body in worship. We worship with our body through daily living, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, but when we join in corporate worship it’s important we worship with our whole body too:

Scripture, however, presents an active, physical involvement in worship: the raising of hands, indicative of both blessing God (Psa. 134:1) and pleading for his help and mercy (Psa. 28:1-2; 88:8-10); kneeling, bowing, and falling down, exhibiting humility and abject shame before the Lord (Rev. 4:9-11; 5:8-14; Ezra 9:5-6; 2 Chron. 6:12-14; Psa. 35:13-14; Neh. 8:5-6); dancing or leaping, manifesting intense joy (Psa. 149:3-4; Ex. 15:20-21; 2 Sam. 6:14-17); and clapping and shouting praise to God (Psa. 47:1-2; 66:1). Certainly, many cultural—including generational, ethnic, geographical, socio-economic, and denominational—realities must be considered in this discussion, but embodied human beings qualified to worship God “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24) are to engage in this activity with the entirety of their being—and that includes their body.

Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship by Alan and Debra Hirsch (audio)

The title well describes this book. It presents a form of discipleship which is intentionally missional, and decidedly not ‘tame’.

I can’t make my mind up about this book. On the whole it is thoroughly biblical, and gives a healthy challenge to the western church, but there are some questionable parts.

At one point, for example, the authors say that there shouldn’t be any representation of God (including e.g. paintings of Jesus). I don’t agree with that. They also recommend a version of the Bible I’m not a fan of, The Voice. At one point they even suggest you should interpret the Bible in a different way to get yourself thinking, by losing the deity of the Holy Spirit (although not in so many words!). There are others as well.

The overall message is good, however, but I’m not sure who I’d recommend it to. Because of the odd parts I wouldn’t want to recommend this to a brand new or undiscerning Christian but at the same time I’m not sure a more mature Christian would be genuinely challenged by it.

The audio version of this book is presented nicely, but there are some weaknesses. The foreword, by Rick Warren, is read by the same narrator – I’d have preferred another – and the same is true of parts of the book written only from the point of Debra, which confused me sometimes. There are conversation starters for small groups at the end of each chapter which don’t work very well in an audio version.

But I want to finish by saying that the themes in this book are good, and important. If you’re a Christian and won’t read another book, read this one with discernment.

I got this book for free from christianaudio.com. I’m not required to give a positive review.