Tag Archives: worship

The Spirit Phaneroō in Tiberias :: Poem

6 Aug

Poetry is an interesting form of literature to me because of how extensively the writers of scripture used poetry to express God’s instructions, thoughts, and proclamations.  I take no claim to being well read in poetry, quite the opposite, but if it was important to the writers of the Old and New Testament, and ultimately to God, as an inspired form of literature, then it isn’t one believers should totally ignore.

Poetry as a Form of Worship

If you had mentioned poetry to me 10 years ago I may have gone screaming for ESPN, but when examined in the heart of the hundreds of poems in scripture, the literary form as a whole begins to take new light.  This is probably one of the greatest lost forms of literature in the 21st century church (by lost I mean non-existent).  It is hard for poetry to compete with our modern day worship styles, but it is certainly a form of worship, no matter how seldom it is practiced today.

A great modern day example of this appreciation for poetry is still seen in several pastors, but most recently a post from Desiring God’s website, A Pastor and His Poetry, reminded me of the importance poetry has in God’s creation.  Pastor John Piper has written many poems over the last 25 years, many inspired by contemplation and meditation over a particular scripture passage, and about a year ago I did the same thing as part of my ongoing studies.

Through a few hours of meditation (worship) over John 21, “The Spirit Phaneroō in Tiberias” became the tangible result of that worship.

The Spirit Phaneroō in Tiberias

The spirit penetrates the air
But futility still reigns supreme
It occupies the mind all of the day
Oblivious, save self, to the way.

Caught nothing but the sea
Chained by routine, still blind
Yielding yet unknowing
I follow, though I know not why.

These shackles I long to throw away
The breath I leap after
It becomes food for my brain
For the here, and ever after.

Love, love, love thee, the spirit perceives
Freed from the bondage of sin, just receive
No, no, no, I do not love thee I now know
Please help me to believe and I will go.

How is this man to live, how is this man to die
Wonder penetrates the air with grief
It matters not, you follow me, you’ll see
Perfection now attainable, but only if you focus on me.

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Catalyst West Coast with Hillsong United and Fee Band

23 Apr

Hillsong United Worship Band

I only thought yesterday was a long day.  Today was a great day and all I have time to do is just decompress a little bit.  It was a non-stop packed day with Hillsong United from Sydney Australia (I am now an official fan), The Fee Band which came over from Atlanta (who sung their new song “Glory to God”), and a whole host of fantastic speakers like Guy Kawasaki, Andy Stanley, and many more.

I wish I could go through the whole day here but I can hardly keep my eyes open at this point.  I did want to post a few photos of the bands.  The first of Hillsong United, the second is Steve Fee.  I will have to do several more posts at a later date but for now, here are a few shots from today. See more photos of the Steve Fee Band at Catalyst.

The Fee Band

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Taking God Out of the Box With U2

30 Mar

I am continually amazed at what boxes we tend to put God in over and over again.  I am reading this amazing book called Chasing Francis by Cron about Francis of Assisi and it has been a true eye opener to see how many different places Francis found God that we (I) have disregarded in our sophisticated and technologically advanced society today.  The box we put God in on Sunday mornings is a way for us to make sure we don’t experience God’s fullness through the rest of the week.

A few days ago I read this passage and thought about the different ways we think God can or can’t talk to us.  It has to be the right location, the right time, place, attitude, do’s or don’ts, with or without’s, but those are limits we put on God, not the other way around.

A few years ago I went to a U2 concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City, just three months after 9/11.  Most of us in the arena that night probably knew someone who’d died in the Twin Towers; we’d lost three people in our church alone.  I’ll never forget the end of the concert.  As the band played the song “Walk On,” [lyrics] the names of all those who had died were projected onto the arena walls and slowly scrolled up over us, and then up toward the ceiling.  At that moment the presence of God descended on that room in a way I will never forget.  There we were, twenty-five thousand people standing, weeping, and singing with the band.  It suddenly became  a worship service; we were pushing against the darkness together.  I walked out dazed, asking myself, “What on earth just happened?’ Of course, it was the music.  For a brief moment, the veil between this world and the world to come had been made thin by melody and lyric.  If only for a brief few minutes, we were all believers.

We may look and listen for God in the “normal” places, but He is present in His creation… birds, music, paintings, literature.  Maybe we don’t hear God outside of Sunday morning “church” because we aren’t looking at his entire creation.

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Final Session Photos at NewSpring Unleash Conference

12 Mar

Unleash at NewSpring

The final session of the Unleash Conference started with an unbelievable worship time and moved into Perry Noble talking about leadership in the church. He brought up some serious issues in the church and asked some tough questions. Who is with me? How often are we asking the question, am I pleasing God? How much time are we spending in prayer? Are we only inviting the people we want in church, or are we remembering that God wants everyone in church?  He left us a lot to wrestle with and it will take some time to process everything.  I am glad there are churches like NewSpring over here in Anderson and around the world.

Unleash at NewSpring

Unleash at NewSpring

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Photos of Steve Fee Band at Catalyst in Atlanta

5 Mar

Steve Fee of Fee Band

As some of you know, last week I went to Catalyst One Day to shoot the event for Catalyst (see A Great 24 Hrs with Catalyst One Day // Photos, and Off the Blogs Night at Catalyst // Photos).  It was a great day of worship, growth, and learning (even if you spent the day running around with a camera).  If you have a chance to go to Catalyst West Coast or the next One Day event in Dallas, go, you won’t be sorry.  Not only does Brad Lomenick, Ben Arment, and a whole bunch of other people over there put on an incredible production, but if you are at all interested in leadership in the Church body, this is the place hear current and relevant information on the growth (or lack there of) of the Church.

Here are a few more from photos from that day of the Steve Fee Band and some of the North Point worship band members who led all of us in worship at North Point Community Church last week.  I am about half way through the day’s edit and will post a few more tidbits before I send the final edit off to Catalyst.

Steve Fee Band

Steve Fee Band

Ashley Plays with the Steve Fee Band

Steve Fee Band in Atlanta

Steve Fee with Fee Band

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Catalyst One Day in Atlanta and No Film?

26 Feb

I am in Atlanta right now getting ready to shoot the Catalyst One Day event at Northpoint Church and later the Off the Blogs at Buckhead Church.  This was one of the most last minute shoots I was ever asked to do, but being that it was Catalyst (and the Off the Blogs) I was pretty excited about accepting the last minute offer.  Step one as a photographer is always always pack your film (or in this case digital compact flash cards).  Without a medium to record any images on, it makes your equipment and time pretty useless, and up until this month, over the last 10-12 years, I have never forgotten those precious cards (or film), but I did today.

I did the same thing a few weeks ago when we went to the Butterfly Day Center at Callaway and wanted to make sure I never did that again (same reason as today, I switched camera bags at the last minute) so I guess this makes number two.  Thank goodness there is a Best Buy in the same parking lot as my hotel and I can go pick up something I already have tons of, but can’t do the shoot without.

I am really looking forward to the day today and can’t wait to hear and worship with everyone at Northpoint.  I doubt I will be able to post any pictures throughout the day here but you might look for some over on Twitter, but I should have some shots of Andy Stanley, Fee Band, Carlos Whittaker, Anne Jackson, and several more posted here over the next few days.  Now off to our favorite neighborhood Best Buy.

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Sunday Walkthrough at Cornerstone // Video

22 Feb

Sunday Walkthrough at Cornerstone // Video

This has been done a million times but not by me, and not on this Sunday, so today I took my video camera with me from start to finish through a normal Sunday at Cornerstone Church.  The video is a little long I know, I will try to keep the rest of them down to 2-3 minutes but this one covered about 8 hours of the day.  It has a cast of many, special thanks goes out to Jack Fisher for putting up with me posting what he didn’t want me to post (always seems to work out that way with Jack) and everyone else that appears on the video.

I would like to make special mention of two songs in the video I briefly used, one was Love Love by Brett Younker and the other was Offering by Daniel Boshta and I would recommend both of their current albums, both of which are available on their websites.  I have met both of these guys and they are very passionate about what they do, so go buy some of their CD’s if you like their music.  The song Brian is singing throughout the video is Glory to God by Fee which will be released by Steve Fee in a few months.

Cornerstone has two services, one at 9 and 11 and I am usually working both or at least at both.  I edited out as much as I could to still make it flow as the day went, but it gets quite busy and hecktic at times.  We just launched a new website so check it out if you have time, and if you can make it through to the end of the video you will have seen all 4 of the leadership team at Cornerstone, Rusty, Josh, Brian, and Jack.  Enjoy.


A Day at Cornerstone Church from Scott Fillmer on Vimeo.

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The Internet is The Church’s New Drug of Choice

28 Jan

The Internet can be many things to many people.  Can it be the drug of choice today or is that to harsh a term to describe what we as a society have done with the Internet?

Most of the time we have a negative connotation associated with a “drug”, but drugs can be just as positive as negative, especially when one company has promoted their product as the “wonder drug” of all time.  One legal definition puts it like this:

Some governments define the term drug by law. In the United States, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act definition of “drug” includes “articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or other animals” and “articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals.

This is one of those random blog posts I couldn’t decide if I wanted to dive into or not, but I am going to do it anyway.  I started writing this several weeks ago but it culminated this week with a conversation I had with the worship leader (photo shown above) here and moved into the finer point of Calvinism (if only we actually had time to just sit and discuss these things).  And that is… what is the Internet doing to fellowship and how does it change how we read Hebrews 10:25 (in context) that says: “25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another€”and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

If you are reading my blog and are not a Believer, then insert “social skills or socializing” in place of fellowship, but for the rest of us, what does it mean to move our worship and other networking (i.e. fellowship) to the Internet?  This is what I envision when we combine the greatness of the Internet with the Bride of Christ.  Something totally awesome if I can still use that phrase, but how careful are we to not be slowly creating a generation of Internet only Believers that don’t know how to, want to, or even care anything about fellowship?

The ultimate online church campus right now is lifechurch.tv but this week I was really excited to watch the initial launch of the iCampus for NewSpring as posted on ChurchCrunch (read NewSpring Church Launches iCampus BETA).   I was so excited to see NewSpring launch a full blown service that I could sit here in my office and watch Sunday evening from a church in Greenville I have never been to (but will in about a month) and feel like I was part of the service, but was I really part of the service?

The questions that ran through my mind when talking to other about where the church is going through technology goes something like this:

  1. What about those Believers who really don’t like to fellowship in the first place, or worse, highly dislike it?  To say “they should” is what I would equate to saying a gay Christian just shouldn’t be gay (from Anne’s post Why is being gay a sin?).  Can we look at the issue seriously and not just say “because the Bible said so”.  I know that, but that often doesn’t change a person’s behavior or attitude.
  2. How do we fulfill Hebrews 10:25 online?  Can we fulfill Hebrews 10:25 through only online means?
  3. Can we effectively fellowship with others online?  I have gotten to know quite a few people online I have never met in person?
  4. What about those church-a-phobics (that would be the opposite of church-a-holics)?  How do you get people in the building when they highly dislike (hate) the thought of “going to church” but will engage online?
  5. What intentional steps do we take to move from online fellowship to discipleship?  Are we being intentional about the steps we take to pull people to our online venues in the name of Christ?

These are just a few, but serious questions to me, and quite personal.  I have asked myself these and many other questions for many many years and I will continue to try to find where technology fits into God’s kingdom.  It is not just something the church can ignore, or misuse.  In some respects, it is the future of the Church.  Thoughts?

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Who Inspired Your Life Today, Anyone?

6 Jan

It seems that January has gotten off to a nitro-fueled pace.  We started this new series (Alive) that I am personally already struggling to keep up with.  Anyone else?  It is about mid-week in the first week in January so I figured by now almost everyone has given up on some of their “new years resolutions”, but in light of my post yesterday on how to be creative, I tried to keep my own list in my mind as I went through the day.

So who inspired me us to be creative today?  For me, I started off the day with an unbelievable speaker, Eddie Gran, the former running back coach from Auburn.  He spent much of his career with Tommy Tubberville from Miami to Ole Miss, to Auburn, and of course in light of the current coaching situation is looking for a job. He presented a great testimony which I know had to inspire many who were able to come hear him speak.

Was I able to achieve any creativity on my own.  Who knows.  I wanted to dive deep into my own journal, take some photos, and listen to some new music, but for this day, here is my short list of others who gave me some inspiration for the day.

The last one requires a little explanation.  I am amazed at how I keep learning from my mother-in-law.  Since her death in April I have been pouring over here journals she wrote when she lived in Europe.  She did what most of us are trying to do now with the Alive series, write.  I have been putting her journal one day at a time in a blog called My Life in France.

I sit here and wonder what is or isn’t acceptable in worship.  Why do we do this or that, why don’t we do this or that.  Her entry in her journal today was short, and to the point, and really hit the spot.  This is what she wrote on February 2, 1992:

No English speaking churches in Verdun so we drove to the American Cemetery located in St. Mihiel, France (where 4,000 Americans from the war are buried) and had our own private worship in the chapel there.

Now that is inspiring, at least to me.

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Can Technology Yield a Better Prayer Life

21 Dec

Can Technology Yield a Better Prayer Life

In short, I would say, no.  There are so many things technology can do, especially with networks like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and all the others we know and love, but I am not sure if prayer is one of them when you look at the traditional definition of prayer, communicating with God.  There are sites like WeTheChurch that use technology with a basis of prayer, but aren’t they ultimately communicating with other readers about what they have already communicated with God?

How about Twitter.  Prayer, praying, and pray are all pretty active on Twitter and show in the graph from Twitterscoop.

Prayer on Twitterscoop

Another one I like to look at is Google trends.  Anything that is technology certainly has Google’s mark on it somewhere.  But this is a stretch, most of this is talking about prayer, not actually in the act of praying.  The graph looks much different if we compare it with two terms most popular in the world, prayer, money, and sex.

Google Trends on Prayer

Prayer is a conversation or communicating between us and God, right?  If so, that means (for purposes of this post) that all created technology is basically a means of communication between people.  It may be between our wallet and the bank or the TV station to satellite to our living rooms, but more times than not, it seems to be a means of communication between ourselves.  We could stretch it and look at things like the movie Contact, or the SETI Institute (which does employ about 150 scientists) but so far we have been unable to use technology to communicate directly with God.

I have been going through a book given to me by the author called Six Prayers God Always Answers (I love the tag line, “Results May Vary”) and in one passage she talks about what constitutes prayer.

It seems our prayers well up around the things we love–a child, a spouce’s beauty, our own lives… then consider these expressions:

“God, help me.  I’ll never do it again.”
“God, are you there?”
“Save me, God”
“Please God”

People thoughtlessly invoke the name of God into the mundane (“Oh my God!”) and the profane (“Jesus Christ”).  Believers are offended–convinced it is disrespectful, even blasphemous.  Nonbelievers toss it up to a slip of the tongue… but what if these were really prayers? … Could Jesus see these outburtsts as a cry of a wounded brother or sister?  How do we know what is in the heart of those who utter such words?  Do we even know our own hearts?  God is the judge of these prayers.

This passage has nothing to do with technology in prayer, but it opened up my thinking a bit to what we here on earth consider to be prayer, so why can’t we use technology in prayer.  We use all kinds of technology in church and prayer is a big part of church so they must come together at some point.

What do you do that you consider to be prayer.  In one of the shorter verses of the Bible we read in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (NASB) “pray without ceasing” or even shorter in the NIV 17 “pray continually”, so there has to be more than just the Sunday version of the Lord’s Prayer to be able to achieve this command.  What is so great about prayer is that we can pray anywhere, anytime, in a ton a different ways.

We can certainly use technology to bring us to prayer with God, like writing a blog post or in a journal, (many prayers were/are written down) but they don’t communicate directly with God alone, because prayer comes from the heart.

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