Women leading worship
I am writting this on the fly, so I haven’t slept on the issue here; please forgive me if I don’t sound too coherent.
I have never seriously took a position on this issue of women leading worship in my church, but after reading Bob Kauflin’s humble response to this issue, I am now feeling compelled to. His post brought to mind a very important questions about the role of men and women in church ministry: is my church egalitarian or complementarian?
For a while now, I believe my church is egalitarian–for we have elected a woman into the Elders Board before, and we still have in our bylaws a clause that states that the Eldership is open to both women or men to be elected to office.
However, about women leading worship for Sunday Services, I have not objected to this in the past. Actually, out of the 3 worship teams and worship leaders that “lead” our English congregation in musical worship every week–2 out of 3 are women. So it seems that my church is egalitarian in its stance about the roles of men and women in ministry for allowing women to be in the lead worshipper role. Thus, girls or women leading worship at my church is something that is not ever questioned because of the chosen understanding of the roles of men and women; it is entirely understandable that women are permitted to lead worship considering the position taken.
EDIT: I humbly withdraw my comment about a certain para-church organization being egalitarian. I was thinking about this in the shower, and I realized that para-church organizations are non-/trans-denominational and thus have no need to take such doctrinal positions on secondary issues. It is not a church in and of itself and such ecclesiastical concerns do not apply directly. As long as those serving/participating in its activities are united in the primary doctrinal issues, then all is well for the group to pursue its mission fervently.
Music Monday
I finally got to finish reading Thomas Shreiner’s chapter on Penal Substitution in “The Nature of the Atonement”, and was reminded of the hymn “It Is Well With My Soul” when Shane and Shane led it at Passion 05 and sharing the quote from 2 Cor 5:21 during the song: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (NASB)
Here’s a recent video of Shane & Shane leading the same hymn:
It Is Well With My Soul
Horatio G. Spafford, Philip Paul Bliss
Verse 1:
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
“It is well, it is well with my soul.”
Chorus:
It is well (It is well)
With my soul (With my soul)
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
(more…)
Phriday Photos
I walked out of the office one whole hour early (thanx to the kindess of my supervisor) at 3:30pm yesterday and still, it took me over 4.5hours to get home! A big snow storm hit Toronto in the middle of the afternoon yesterday, and the afternoon rush hour became a standstill: bumper to bumper on basically all the major roads. I didn’t even bother taking the highway, since 680news told me it was very slow from Mississauga all the way through to Port Union in Scarborough! I tried taking Steeles, and Finch, but apparently that was what everybody else did too.
This (Friday) morning, waking up the radio said that there was ice all over the streets, ice/snow chunks falling off trees and roofs, frozen trees & hyrdo poles falling over, and Toronto Police recommending that everybody stay home unless absolutely necessary. So that’s what I did: called in and left a message at the office saying I wasn’t gonna be coming home! More photos here:
Death as a man, for man
If we read, ‘Cursed of God is every one that hangeth on a tree,’ [Gal. 3:13; cf. Deut 21:23] the addition of the words ‘of God’ creates no difficulty. For had not God hated sin and our death, He would not have sent His Son to bear and to abolish it. And there is nothing strange in God’s cursing what He hates. For His readiness to give us the immortality which will be had at the coming of Christ, is in proportion to the compassion with which He hated our death when it hung on the cross at the death of Christ. (more…)
