Hello friends, and welcome new subscribers! You will notice we have made a domain change from oikonandwesley to oikonstudios. This is to solve the problem of sounding like a law firm or being confused with the Wesley Foundation campus ministries. The moniker change to Oikon Studios is a double entendre. First, it helps clarify that we are an organization that creates resources (liturgies, music, teachings, curriculum). Moreover, a studio is a place of practice, imagination, and creativity. And the Christian life is to be practiced with a renewed imagination in every context we find ourselves in. May your very life be the “studio” in which you practice and reimagine a rich life in Christ.

What ‘Modern’ Worship Song Should We Sing?

One of the most terrifying things for me as a pastor was picking music for the congregation to sing.

Like a parent meticulously scouring through the ingredient list before buying anything for their children at the grocery store… I was excruciatingly particular about the kind of theological imagination each lyric of a ‘modern’ worship song might create…

For Instance:

• I wanted to make sure songs did not lean heavy into any one atonement theory.

• I wanted a collection of songs that balanced personal, as well as communal language, in addressing God.

• I wanted songs that signified the intimate nearness as well as the transcendent distance of the Triune God. It’s cool to sing Jesus is my boyfriend songs. But in moderation. But not too creepy.

• And speaking of Triune God — there are something like 2 worship songs that name God as Triune. If you know of any good ones, please message me.

It all was too much.
And I was being too much.

You can’t stay in the grocery store forever.
At some point, you have to prepare and serve the food.

So I decided to have the church sing the Psalms verbatim.
When in doubt, stay close to the Scriptures.

I did the thing — I played G C D Em.
Well, it was C C/E F G.
You know.
Basic chord structure.

And I added a basic melody to these ancient words that the people of God have been singing for generations, casting their image of God as a Deliverer to seek in times of fear…

Psalm 27

The LORD is my light
The LORD is salvation
Whom shall I fear
The LORD is salvation

When the darkness falls around me
Should an army come surround me
I will not fear

My heart says seek his face
Your face Lord I will seek

My Daughter’s Imagination of God

We sang this song a few times as a congregation.

Frankly, I doubt a single church member would remember the song.

Like a sermon forgotten by Sunday afternoon, I’m not sure how much formative work this song actually made on the church.

But about a year later, as I am putting my 5 year old daughter to bed, she asks, “Dad, can you sing me that song… the Lord is my light?”

And to this day we sing this song as her lullaby.

These words and this melody is now embedded in her body.
Sometimes, I hear her humming the tune around the house.

One night she asks me, “Why do we say ‘seek his face’? What does that mean?”

And I respond.

“When you look at someone’s face, you see what they are feeling, what they are thinking. When we pray, we don’t want to just seek God’s hands and ask for things. We want to look upon God’s face. See what God is feeling.”

“Oh… I think God feels happy, dad.”

Love has its speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore the speed the love of God walks.
― Kosuke Koyama

Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is the one thing hurried people don't have.
— John Ortberg

We have become a people who think we have to fit God in rather than fit in with what God is doing. Time has ceased to be perceived as a gift in which we participate; now it seems to have a life of its own.
— John Swinton

The Sabbath rest of God is the acknowledgment that God and God’s people in the world are not commodities to be dispatched for endless production and so dispatched, as we used to say, as “hands” in the service of a command economy. Rather they are subjects situated in an economy of neighborliness. All of that is implicit in the reality and exhibit of divine rest.
— Walter Brueggeman

Stressed Out Pastor: What do I need to do to stay healthy and alive spiritually?
Dallas Willard: You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.
Stressed Out Pastor: That’s a good one. I’m writing that down. What else?
Dallas Willard: There is nothing else.
— Dallas Willard

A family takes a walk amid fallen autumn leaves.
Dad lifts up his five-year-old son,
and the boy showers him with kisses.
Mom watches with a smile on her face.
If we take time to look around,
we see ourselves surrounded by lovely moments.
— Haemin Sunim

Lyrics

I want to live a disciple’s life
I want to die a disciple’s death

This life I pour out I spend on you
Knowing in the next life
I will enter into rest

Do what you will in me
I want to be your disciple…
Lord I’ll spend my life on you…

You are worthy
Alleluia

The Worst Song to Mumble Along To

If there ever was a worship song that was impossible to mumble along to while strolling in late on a Sunday morning, casually sipping a cup of mediocre church coffee while securing the lineup for your fantasy football team… it’s this song right here.

Most modern worship songs written by songwriters in an affluent military superpower country don’t begin with an aspiring confession to die a martyr’s death!

An Immature Asian-American Imagination of Radical Christianity

I freaking loved this song as a teenager. That is was written by an obscure Asian American Charismatic Christian made it all the more appealing to my adolescent self.1

I was ready to give my life to something. As an immigrant child looking to find my place in the world, there was something powerful about using the top of my vocal range to announce I was offering no hedges. Just giving my entire life to following Jesus.

Except, at the time, my imagination of a radical Christian disciple revolved around a high level of activity and accomplishment. Attending prayer meetings. Going overseas. Reading through the Bible. Leading ministries.

It was a transference of the Asian American burden and ideal to work hard and be highly successful in the world… just in the religious world. This was my expression of taking multiple AP courses and studying for the SAT exam while practicing violin and attending Korean school.

Stages of Maturity for Your Instagram Bio’s Confession of Discipleship

When we make self-identifying claims about the Christian faith, such as:

“I am a Christian.”
”I am a follower of Jesus.”
“I want to live a disciple’s life.”

Or some creative version of this on your Instagram bio…

the implication of those words is determined by our stage of spiritual maturity.

Below is the working framework I operate from.

1️⃣ STAGE 001 Tribal

Following Jesus is a means of enmeshment with a particular person or tribe.

Confession: I want to live a disciple’s life.
Translation: I want my parents to love and be proud of me.

Here, we follow Jesus because it’s what our parents, culture, friend group, or country wants for us.

The deep human need to feel safe and loved, and to belong is the dominant underlying motivation. By the way, this is good and appropriate! But only the beginning of a journey in spiritual maturity!

2️⃣ STAGE 002 Personal

Following Jesus is a means of adolescent identity formation.

Confession: I want to live a disciple’s life.
Translation: The way I follow Jesus is better than yours.

Here, we have what psychologists call differentiation. This is when an evangelical becomes a progressive or vice versa. This is when an emotive charismatic becomes a scholar or vice versa. The point is not which part of the spectrum you land or move towards, but that your faith becomes your own. Instead of being handed a tribe, you now choose your own.

The deep human need to feel a sense of identity is the underlying motivation.

💥 DISRUPTION AND DISORIENTATION

In order to move from the immature half of spiritual growth (tribal and personal) into the mature half (childlike and christlike), almost always, there needs to be disorientation.

This is not a stage but a paradigm shifting moment, where one undergoes some seismic event that disorients their prior sense of security and safety in their given or chosen tribe.

This moment can lead to despair and a vicious cycle of immaturity, where your entire life is based on you being right and having all the answers, or it can lead you to the third and fourth stages of maturity…

3️⃣ STAGE 003 Childlike

Following Jesus is a surrender of judgment and an embrace of wonder.

Confession: I want to live a disciple’s life.
Translation: I do not sit in the seat of judgment and authority.

Here, the Christian finally arrives at this realization - I don’t have to pass judgment on everyone and everything. I do not possess that authority. I am projecting my pain onto others.

Which leads to a childlike pondering: God, what are you up to in my world? What are you doing in the life of the person in front of me?

At it’s most mature form, childlike curiosity (in lieu of passing judgment) sounds like this: God, this person has wronged me. Why do I feel so much pain from their actions? What pain from their life may have motivated their behavior? How might I move towards healing?

4️⃣ STAGE 004 Christlike

Following Jesus is a quiet union, trust, and joyful obedience to the Spirit of God.

Confession: I want to live a disciple’s life.
Translation: I want to live in unending union with God.

In this stage, walking in the way of Christ is not so much about deliberation or intention but a natural state of being. You are so seasoned in the practice of contemplative prayer, everything you do is now an act of prayer. Your life of devotion and service of others is actually just you being yourself.

Wesleyan scholars call this Theosis or participation in the life of God.

Here, the words “I want to live a disciple’s life” does not bring about fervor and pride, but a restful smile.

Singing this Song at 37

The Apostle Paul writes to the Christians in Rome:

It’s been 20 years or so since I first sang this song.

No doubt I was sincere. But my deepest desire then was to find my place in the world. As I sing this song today, my prayer is for God’s grace to allow the disorientating moments of my life to lead me to a deeper union with God.

And I pray that the zeal never wanes.

You are worthy.
Alleluia.

The early church Fathers said it in slightly less pithy terms:

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi.1

That’s pretentious latin for: what we pray shapes what we believe and how we live.

When I pray with my three and six year old daughters, I want to make sure that we’re not just offering petitions to God. Otherwise, their imagination of the Triune God would be diluted into a cosmic Siri or Alexa.

The transcript of our prayers and our songs of worship form our theology and behavior.

This is why as a Methodist pastor, modern worship songs (and many old hymns at that!) leave me feeling the same way I feel when my daughters pray for God to give them a Barbie Doll dream house.

Like, it’s not wrong.

But there’s more to explore and enjoy and embrace!

In coming weeks, I will offer recordings and reflections on songs of worship that emphasize themes of spiritual formation in Wesleyan and Contemplative traditions.

Here is a list in no particular order:

1. Therapeutic Model of Sin and Salvation. Come Thou Fount with New Stanza.

2. Lament as an Act of Worship. All I Can Say.

3. Uncertainty as a Place of Devotion. Merton Song.

4. The Aspiration for Perfection. The Cry of the Disciple.

5. Orthodoxy, Orthopraxis, Orthopathy. I Want a Principle Within.

6. Attentiveness as Spiritual Maturity. Not in a Hurry.

Below is the first in the series…

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing with Wesleyan Stanza

Song

Lyrics

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the Mount I’m fixed upon it
Mount of Thy redeeming love

Here I raise my Ebeneezer
Hither by Thy help I come
And I hope by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home

Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He to rescue me from danger
Interposed his precious blood

O to Grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let Thy Goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering hear to Thee

Prone to wander Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart Lord take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

O that day when freed from sinning
I shall see Thy lovely face
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy Sovereign Grace

Even now God as I tarry
Heal me of my sin disease
Through Thy mercies sanctify me
Until I love my enemies

Salvation and Rotator Cuffs

Courtroom

Have you ever been to court?

I have. I was 18. I was late to pay a speeding ticket.

I was ready to plead my case with the judge. Except there were about 20 people in front of me, and there was about 20 minutes until lunch.

By the time the judge got around to me, he flippantly said, “Look. I’ll give you an extension. I’m gonna get some lunch.”

Mercy and grace.

Physical Therapy

Have you ever gone to physical therapy?

I have. I was 32. My rotator cuff didn’t heal properly after one of those long-past-my-glory-days-that-never-were sports injuries.

Every time I went, the therapist would tell me to engage in these painful stretches and exercises in order to strengthen the muscle that needed repair.

A Powerless Christianity

Which of these two images come to mind when you think of sin and salvation?

If you grew up in a Christian home in America, you were probably taught that sin was a crime in need of punishment, and that Jesus died for you to be pardoned of your sin.

This is a powerful, beautiful, biblical image. But it is an incomplete one.

First, Jesus didn’t go around from village to village saying that he would save people from future punishment in the afterlife. He invited them to follow his particular way of life!

Secondly, in the courtroom metaphor, while Jesus saves us from the guilt and punishment of sin, he does not deliver us from the power of sin itself.

Going to the extreme, if Christian salvation is primarily a legal transaction removing the guilt of our individual sin, then it has no implication for how we live, or dealing societal injustice or taking personal responsibility for our own actions.

When salvation is principally about being forgiven in order to get to heaven and avoid hell, following Jesus becomes an unnecessary extracurricular activity.

The Scripture Way of Salvation

For Wesley, salvation was an ongoing work of restoration.

Like the therapist working with me to restore my body to its intended design, in salvation, we participate in the work of the Spirit to restore God’s original intent for our lives and our world in the present time.

By salvation I mean not barely according to the vulgar notion deliverance from hell or going to heaven but a present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity, a recovery of the divine nature, the renewal of our souls after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness in justice mercy and truth.
—John Wesley

The Disease of Sin

Many worship songs speak of Jesus forgiving us of our sin, dying for our sin, but very few songs speak of Jesus healing us from the power and disease of sin.

I wanted this notion of sin to be placed on the lips of the people I was pastoring. So I wrote a new stanza to the popular hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.

Even Now God, as I Tarry
Heal Me of My Sin Disease
Through Thy Mercies Sanctify Me
Until I Love My Enemies

Baptists and Methodists

Our Baptist brothers and sisters love to ask “When were you saved?” My answer is easy: In Vacation Bible School, when the pastor scared me into accepting Jesus into my heart for fear that I would suffer eternal conscious torment on account of my dishonest academic practices during the Third Grade spelling bee.

For Methodists, salvation is an ongoing work of restoration. So we ask about traumatic religious events from childhood, but we also ask “How are you being saved today?”

May you praise God for pardoning your sin, and may you join God in the work of being healed from the disease of sin.

Amen.