Adoration

What's blasting from your car speakers, and more important, how does it sound? For sound-system engineers at the audio-equipment manufacturer Bose, a playlist is more than tracks that slap. To test stereos, they need songs representing a variety of sounds and recording techniques to make sure new systems can re-create a song with the depth of the original recording.

To have a common reference point, Bose engineers all over the globe share a master playlist. Mark Armitage, head of the acoustical-engineering team at Bose says, "Every system engineer knows these tracks inside and out. It makes for a universal language we can use when testing and tuning." He named a few selections from the test list:

Bruno Mars, "24K Magic" – It features a lot of instruments from the high tweeter notes all the way down.

Tom Petty, "Learning to Fly (Live)” - The crowd starts singing along, Petty's voice drops out, and you get a real sense of how big that auditorium is.

Dave Brubeck Quartet, "Take Five" - Listen for the cymbals from the intro, which are hard to reproduce.

Straight No Chaser, "Homeward Bound" All a cappella. The vocals span all the way across the stage and you can independently hear each person singing.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We also use music to tunes our minds and souls. The world has its music, which attunes them to worldly thoughts, desires, and actions. But believers also have music which tunes our hearts to God by giving us the vocabulary to express praise and worship to God, unifying us as we gather for worship, and adjusting our hearts so that our faith is expressed to God in worship.

There’s a well-known story about a famous violinist who took his $3.5 million Stradivarius onto a platform of a Washington DC subway and started playing music. He was dressed in a T-shirt and a ball cap. Joshua Bell was accustomed to playing for packed concert halls and getting paid $1,000 a minute. During his 43-minute solo concert in the subway a total of 1097 people passed by. But only seven people stopped to listen. He earned $32 in change.

J.T. Tillman, a computer specialist, was one of the people who walked by. He said, “I didn’t think nothing of it, just a guy trying to make a couple of bucks.” Tillman would’ve given him some cash, but he spent all his money on the lotto. When he was told that he stiffed one of the best musicians in the world, he asked, “Is he ever going to play around here again?” The reporter said, “Yeah, but you’re going to have to pay a lot to hear him.”

Exactly one person recognized Joshua Bell. Her name was Stacy. She positioned herself 10 feet away from Bell, front row, center. She had a huge grin on her face. She said, “It was the most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen in Washington. Joshua Bell was standing there playing at rush-hour, and people were not stopping, and not even looking, and some more flipping quarters at him! Quarters! I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what kind of a city do I live in that this could happen?’”

The late pastor and writer Eugene Peterson once told a story about walking in Yellowstone Park with his wife and three children. Peterson wrote:

As my family and I were walking in a mountain meadow in Yellowstone Park, there was a little boy of four or five about 30 yards out in the meadow picking exquisite alpine flowers. It is against the rules to pick flowers in national parks. I was outraged. I yelled at him, “Don’t pick the flowers.” He just stood wide-eyed, innocent and terrified. He dropped the flowers and started crying.

You can imagine what happened next. My wife and children, my children especially, were all over me. “Daddy, what you did was far worse than what he did! He was just picking a few flowers and you yelled, you scared him. You ruined him. He is probably going to have to go for counseling when he’s 40 years old.” My children were right. You cannot yell people into holiness. You cannot terrify people into the sacred. My yelling was a far worse violation of the holy place than his picking a few flowers. Later I had plenty of opportunity to reflect on this, reminded, as I frequently was, by my children.

I do that a lot, bluster and yell on behalf of God‘s holy presence, instead of taking off my shoes myself, kneeling on holy ground, and inviting whoever happens to be around to join with me.

He added, “If we begin by formulating a problem, by identifying a need, by tackling a necessary job, by launching a program, we reduce the reality that is before us to what we can do or get others to do.” Peterson concludes that everything we do in the Christian life must begin with adoration, with a sense of wonder, and with worship.

Fender Musical Instruments Corporation sold a record number of guitars in 2020, driven in part by people forced to stay at home during the pandemic. The company calculates that nearly a third of those new musical instruments were purchased by people who play in praise and worship bands. This may not be surprising to anyone who knows a worship leader who are always wanting to “up” their guitars.

No one knows the first person to bring a guitar into church, but it became common in charismatic congregations in Southern California in the 1970s. Folk-rock went to church with the hippies who converted during the Jesus People movement. Guitars became staples of the Calvary Chapel and Vineyard church style before spreading to other evangelical churches.

The style signaled openness and authenticity to baby boomers raised on the Beatles. But guitars also had some practical advantages. They were portable. When a new church started in a school, or someone’s house, or even on the beach, no one had to haul over an organ. Guitars are also easier to learn to play than the pianos and organs traditionally used in church music.

Duke Divinity student Adam Perez says, “People joke about how simple it is—three chords or four chords—but that was a strength, not a weakness. You could have a beginner guitar player who learned to play to lead their small group or even a new church. You’re democratizing access to the sacred.”

Worship music in the 2020s is not all guitar-based, but industry experts know there is a lot of money in church guitars. According to Ultimate Guitar, an estimated one million guitar players are “gigging” at churches every weekend, and more people play praise and worship music than any other genre in the US.

The Trinity almost never comes up in the songs sung by American Christians, according to a new study from Southern Wesleyan University. In worship songs churches mostly sing about Jesus (68%), with only occasional references to the Father (7%), and few (if any) mentions of the Holy Spirit (5%).

The relationships within the Godhead only rarely make an appearance in the 30 most popular hymns or the 30 most popular worship songs. Michael Tapper, professor of religion at Southern Wesleyan says, “In the music we sing, it seems like we’re not as Trinitarian as we think we are.”

Poet Amy B Hunter writes:

Five years ago I had emergency surgery. My sister, a professor with final exams to give, was getting married in less than a week. Yet she drove from New York City to Massachusetts in a snowstorm to see me in the hospital. No phone call would reassure her that I was alive. She had to see me with her own eyes.

Sometimes the demand to see is not doubt. Sometimes it is even love.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Thomas wanted proof of the resurrected Christ. Thomas’ words, “My Lord and my God!” is the high point of John’s Gospel. No one else has offered such devotion or named Jesus as God. Thomas held out for a personal experience of Jesus on his own terms.

You thought pianos dropping from the sky is a gag for cartoons? Then hear this story out. During World War II, all kinds of production involving metals, such as iron, copper, and brass, that was non-essential to the war effort were halted by the American government. This was because these metals were needed to make guns, tanks, and artillery. Many musical instrument makers were affected by the new regulations, which meant that either they had to manufacture something else the military could use, or wait for the war to end, which was as good as going out of business.

Piano makers Steinway & Sons was also affected by the restrictions. Instead of shutting down their factory, Steinway decided to bide their time manufacturing parts for troop transport gliders.

Steinway’s patience was rewarded when the US Military granted them a contract to make heavy-duty military pianos. By June 1942, Steinway’s workers had designed a small upright piano, no more than forty inches wide and weighing 455 pounds. It was light enough to be carried by four soldiers. Each piano was treated with special anti-termite and anti-insect solution and sealed with water-resistant glue to withstand dampness. The best part was— the piano used only 33 pounds of metal, about a tenth as much as a typical grand piano.

Known as “Victory Verticals,” these pianos could be packed into crates and conveniently dropped by parachutes along with tuning equipment and instructions. An estimated 2,5000 pianos were dropped to American soldiers fighting the war in three continents.

Steinway’s pianos continued to serve the military well after the war was over. When the nuclear-powered submarine USS Thomas A. Edison was built in 1961, a Steinway upright was installed in the crew’s mess area at the request of its captain. The instrument remained on board until the sub was decommissioned in 1983.

Possible Preaching Angles: The US military knows the importance of music and singing for the morale of the troops. God’s people have also sung through the ages, from the shore of the Red Sea (Exodus 15:1-21), to the battlefield (2 Chronicles 20:21-23), and from deep within dungeons (Acts 16:25). Believers know that singing “songs, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Colossians 3:16) is a powerful encouragement and an act of worship.

In his book, Chuck Bentley writes:

There's a name for God that we seldom ever use. I know I don't use it very often. That name is Jealous. Sounds strange, doesn't it? When we call someone jealous, it’s usually to point out a character flaw. How can something we consider bad be attributed to God, especially one of his names? “Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14).

Back in the late 1960s, there was a popular TV western series called The Guns of Will Sonnet. Walter Brennan played the title role, a Scripture-quoting man with a reputation for unparalleled gun fighting skills. As the series progressed, viewers saw the wise old man avoid more gunfights than he got into the simple, truthful statement about his abilities: “No brag, just fact.”

God has the title of Jealous because he’s the only one worthy of all our affection and adoration. No brag, just fact. The complete worthiness of ultimate praise grants him and him alone the right to be the Jealous One. He’s God Almighty. He’s at the top of all Kings, all Lords, all gods, and all things. So jealousy is normative, if you’re God.

There are two kinds of magnifying: microscope magnifying and telescope magnifying. The one makes a small thing look bigger than it is. The other makes a big thing begin to look as big as it really is.

When David says, “I will magnify God with thanksgiving,” he does not mean, “I will make a small God look bigger than he is.” He means, “I will make a big God begin to look as big as he really is.”

We are not called to be microscopes. We are called to be telescopes. Christians are not called to be con-men who magnify their product out of all proportion to reality, when they know the competitor’s product is far superior. There is nothing and nobody superior to God. And so the calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is. That’s why we exist, why we were saved, as Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

The whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think, and act in a way that will make God look as great as he really is. Be a telescope for the world of the infinite starry wealth of the glory of God.

Somewhere in the Namib Desert, the American rock band Toto’s song “Africa” (first released in 1982) is blaring from a set of speakers. Namibian-German artist Max Siedentopf spent December constructing a new art installation on the rugged desert landscape of his home country. His goal: that the sounds of Toto’s rock anthem “Africa” be heard in perpetuity. To that end, Siedentopf connected six speakers to an MP3 player loaded with the song set to play on a loop and placed it in an undisclosed location in the Namib Desert. According to the plan, the solar batteries hooked into the speakers and player will ensure perpetual power and allow “Africa” to play—at least until it rains.

Possible Preaching Angle: In heaven there is a truly perpetual song of praise lifted up to the eternal and almighty God. Saints and angels will sing his praise unceasingly in love and worship.

This time of year, the songs of the season are everywhere: at the mall, in elevators, on TV, and in the earbuds of many personal audio devices. But recent research has conflicting ideas about how this music affects people.

Mayo Clinic experts say tuning in to music can be good for you. Dr. Jonathan Graff-Radford says research suggests listening to or singing music can provide emotional and behavioral benefits for people with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia. Another study shows music may also help reduce pain.

But other studies show the opposite result. According to another study conducted by British psychologist Linda Blair, listening to cheerful, jolly Christmas could harm a person's mental health. Blair said the continuous playing of Christmas music in the car or at stores reminds people of all the things they need to do before the holiday arrives. "You're simply spending all of your energy trying not to hear what you're hearing," Blair said.

Meanwhile, a 2005 study showed an even different result. When Christmas music was combined with Christmas scents, it encouraged people to spend more time in a shop and subsequently boosted sales.

Possible Preaching Angles: The Christmas/Holidays season brings out very different reactions in people—joy, longing, stress, sadness, reunion, loneliness, etc. But no matter what we're going through right now, Christ can meet us in this season.

There are some songs that are just so good that it's hard not to sing along when they come on in the car. That was the case for Montreal native Taoufik Moalla when C+C Music Factory's 1990 hit "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" came on while he was driving. Moalla began to sing along (presumably with some enthusiasm, if you are familiar with the song), but quickly noticed police lights behind him. "I was thinking they wanted to pass, but they called on the speaker, 'Please go to the right side,'" he told reporters. "I stopped and four police came, two on each side, and checked the inside of the car. Then they asked me if I screamed. I said, 'No, I was just singing.'"

Montreal has varying bylaws depending on the neighborhood, but police apparently felt that this case fell under the category of "Noise resulting from cries, clamors, singing, altercations or cursing and any other form of uproar" prohibited in that part of the city. It earned the poor 38-year-old father of two a $118 ticket. "I don't know if my voice was very bad and that's why I got the ticket, but I was very shocked," he said. An NPR article recounting the story concluded with an amused question for the Montreal police: "How do you not sing to this song?"

Potential Preaching Angles: Just as our favorite songs seem to tug at us to sing along whenever they come on, so ought God's glory pull at our hearts to cry out in worship whenever we catch glimpses of his goodness and faithfulness. As Jesus said to the Pharisees about the cries of "Hosanna!" during his triumphal entry into Jerusalem: "If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out." (Luke 19)

In most people's minds, there are quite a few things more interesting than watching a weatherman on TV. One of them, apparently, is watching a weatherman watch the weather.

During a total solar eclipse that swept across the United States, footage of WGN Chicago's Tom Skilling was shared around the internet because of the 65-year-old meteorologist's endearing response.

"We've been told people start sobbing," reported Skilling during the minutes leading up to the eclipse, but then moments later—before the eclipse still—he found himself choked up and unable to continue. "I'll get my act together, guys," he said on camera.

During the event itself, his crew trained one camera on the moon, and one on Skilling as he repeated in awe over and over, "Look at that. Look at that. Wow." When asked about his emotional response, the meteorologist said he wasn't ashamed. "I'm kind of an emotional guy and it snuck up on me … I was overwhelmed by the enormity of it … it makes you realize we're a very, very small part of a huge universe."

Potential Preaching Angles: The majesty and wonder of God's creation can sometimes slip by without us noticing-but leave it to God to periodically place an eclipse on the calendar and put the glory of his creation on display in such grand fashion. While incredible cosmic events like an eclipse may make us realize how small we are, they should also remind us with wonder how big our God is.

Think for a moment about the mysteries of just one of God's creatures—a whale. These big, beautiful creatures spend 95 percent of their lives in the ocean, one of the deepest and darkest places we know about. And without warning, they pull 30,000 pounds of blubber against gravity and leap out of the water for unexplainable reasons. Some baby whales gain 100 pounds an hour while nursing. The song of a humpback whale, lasting for 10-20 minutes and being repeated for hours at a time, is produced for no apparent reason. Biologists speculate it may be related to mating, but truthfully no is quite sure. The reason they breach is also a mystery. For show? For mating? For fun? There are speculations, but no one really knows why.

Behold them for a second and you feel helpless, out of control; not the terrible kind of helplessness, but the beautiful kind where we feel small and God feels big, and the mysteries of the world are acceptable to be unexplained.

Writer Philip Hoare tried to describe his sense of awe as a huge finback whale swam underneath his ocean vessel:

In that one motion, my entire presence is undermined. I feel, rather than see, this eighty-foot animal swimming below. Knowing it is there tugs at my gut, and something inside makes me want to plunge in and dive with it to some unfathomable depth where no one would ever find us.

A beautiful article in the Chicago Tribune told the story of a woman named Rachel Long who died in 2017 at the age of 97. Based on the information in the article it certainly sounds like Rachel was a follower of Christ who fell in love with God's Word, especially the Psalms.

For decades Rachel Long taught over 300 piano students as well as aspiring opera singers. One of her former students said, "She didn't have children of her own, but she had hundreds of children, including myself, who benefited from that unconditional acceptance and love."

But then in the early '90s she lost her ability to hear musical intonation. The sound of a recording, or of her fingers playing on a piano, had turned into a screech. The singing at church sounded like the grinding of a buzz saw. One of Long's closest friends said, "She was stricken by something that forced her to look for beauty in other places. Her world was reduced to her apartment, but every day … she would try to chant the Psalms."

And she wanted to share the richness of the Psalms with others. So for each of the 150 biblical psalms, she composed a short introduction. She had no computer but wrote on the closed piano cover, near her old records and turntable.

Two nights before Long had the stroke that took her life, a close friend talked to her on the phone. The friend said, "She told me she had a dream that she was in a glass sailboat, all dressed up and much younger. It was sailing toward a shore where there was a crowd of people and when the boat reached the shore, all the people were the people she had known, and they were all dressed up and throwing her a party."

Two-time Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington is best known for his roles in Glory, The Preacher's Wife, Remember the Titans, and Training Day. But the Hollywood A-lister has sounded more like a pastor when has spoken at events. Washington has publicly stated that he reads his Bible every day and that he strives to consistently "get up and speak of what God has done for him."

At a church banquet he urged his listeners to live in a constant attitude of gratitude for God's goodness:

Give thanks for blessings every day. Every day. Embrace gratitude. Encourage others. It is impossible to be grateful and hateful at the same time. I pray that you put your slippers way under your bed at night, so that when you wake in the morning you have to start on your knees to find them. And while you're down there, say "thank you." A bad attitude is like a flat tire. Until you change it, you're not going anywhere.

For most Americans Arvo Pärt isn't exactly a household name. But the Estonian composer of classical and sacred music has won numerous international awards and honorary doctorates. After the pain of a struggling marriage and a prolonged illness, the talented Pärt spent seven or eight years searching, during which he wrote his only symphony—Symphony No. 3. During that time, he also came to embrace the Christian faith, being received into the Eastern Orthodox Church.

In a review of his work, the British newspaper The Guardian quoted Pärt simple but lofty goal for his vocation and calling. He said that he wants his music to express "love for every note" he writes or plays.

What a beautiful way to pursue our calling in life. No matter what we do, no matter where we're planted in life, no matter who sees what we do, can we make it our desire to express love for every note that God calls us to play?

The March/April 2016 issue of Psychology Today attempted to give readers several reasons to cultivate a sense of awe and wonder with their article "It's Not All About You!" The article mentioned the following secular sources about our need for awe and wonder:

• University of Pennsylvania researchers defined awe as the "emotion of self-transcendence, a feeling of admiration and elevation in the face of something greater than the self."
• A popular theoretical physicist wrote: "Awe gives you an existential shock. You realize that you are hardwired to be a little selfish, but you are also dependent on something bigger than yourself." Being enraptured is a way "to remove the tyranny of the ego."
• Therapist Robert Leahy, PhD writes: "Awe is the opposite of rumination. It clears away inner turmoil with a wave of outer immensity."
• Social scientists have found that when people experience a sense of awe, they feel more empathetic and more connected with others. One scientist concluded, "Wonder pulls us together—a counterforce to all that seems to be tearing us apart."
• The Wharton School of Business evaluated the New York Times' most emailed articles and found that the ones that evoked awe were the most shared.

Author Philip Yancey describes a moment of profound wonder and awe in Alaska's wilderness. He was driving down the road when he came upon a number of cars pulled off to the edge of the highway. Like any of us would have done, he stopped to see what everyone was looking at. Yancey describes the scene:

Against the slate-gray sky, the water of an ocean inlet had a slight greenish cast, interrupted by small whitecaps. Soon I saw these were not whitecaps at all, but whales—silvery white beluga whales in a pod feeding no more than fifty feet offshore. I stood with the other onlookers for forty minutes, listening to the rhythmic motion of the sea, following the graceful, ghostly crescents of surfacing whales. The crowd was hushed, even reverent. For just that moment, nothing else—dinner reservations, the trip schedule, life back home—mattered. We were confronted with a scene of quiet beauty and a majesty of scale. We felt small. We strangers stood together in silence until the whales moved farther out. Then we climbed the bank together and got in our cars to resume our busy, ordered lives that suddenly seemed less urgent.