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Charlie Hall: A Good Man

brianwurzell — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 21:41:46 -0700

I’ve met a lot of people in my young life, but, yesterday I met a fellow that will not soon be forgotten. I mean the guy told me to grab his goatee, he’s a good man. Charlie Hall is a Singer/Songwriter/Worship Leader/Pastor and now a friend. We had the chance to hang for a few hours yesterday as he and my friend Phil Wickham are on tour together and the tour stopped here at Cornerstone.

Charlie is one of those guys that lives like I hope I live. He lives in the midst of his story, believing God, believing the scripture, making his declaration through the art of song and doing everything with Christ in him to live it out. A couple things really stood out to me from what I observed in my time with Charlie and I’d love to share them with you.

As a Worship Leader, I have a deep amount of respect for him. Charlie has been on the scene as a writer and leader for a good while now. I can remember hearing the Passion ‘99 album for the first time and hearing him lead ‘Better is One Day’ and ‘You’re Worthy of My Praise’ with the Female vocalists and all. Ten years later his lyrics and style continue to be a transcendant piece of beautiful art through music.

Ultimately, now having had the chance to get to know Charlie, I see a man that has dealt and is dealing with real life face to face. Charlie is a man that declares the truth of the songs God has given him to serve as a medium to help free people, but, they’re also the songs to remind him that he’s free. I appreciate the way he draws people in who don’t normally feel invited in and reminds us all that we’re broken people in need of redemption.

Much more to say, but, for your own good, go download some of his music. His newest offering is called ‘The Bright Sadness’. Check it out!

Lent - A Gift, A Miracle...

brianwurzell — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:43:39 -0800

THERE is a video at the bottom of this post that YOU HAVE TO WATCH. This post is a good read too!!

Today is Ash Wednesday and it's been a great day so far. It's been a full day of reflection, discussion and conversation about this mysterious God that I've put my life towards (ash on head and all!). It started by going to Ash Wednesday Mass at my dear friends Parish called Mt. Carmel in Tempe. The homily was confronting. The priest talked about how we are so afraid to be alone. He called us 'cell phone junkies' and called us out on the reality of how desperately afraid our culture is of being alone, even those of us in Christ. We don't know how, we're scared to, we're resistant to, we're afraid of and we fill our lives with so many things that keep us connected to people so that we won't have to be alone. Introvert or Extrovert we all have 'things' that we do that keep even our minds occupied. I was confronted by the Holy Spirit in time of reflection, during church this morning, to prioritize more time to just soak in His presence and commune with Jesus. Is this just me or are you with me on this one?

My fast for lent is going to be from soda/coffee drinks. My resolve is that I will drink water only for 40 days. I'm excited about it because I actually will have to choose water in my day multiple times and it's in those times that I just want to remember who is my true drink. Jesus. He's the one I'm after and He's the one I'm staking it all on! I want to know Him more and I'm thankful for a season of fasting that will lend itself to the gift of knowing Jesus more intimately. I'm amped to have an opportunity, throughout the rhythm of my day, to willingly choose something that will serve as a reminder of Jesus sacrifice for me, for us and for humanity. Thanks be to God (as they say in the Catholic Mass).

I returned back to our church campus here at Cornerstone just to run into beautiful tears. Our amazing Kenyan sister, Caroline, is living here in Chandler, AZ with our Pastor and his wife as she pursues her Masters degree at Arizona State University. What's never been said very loudly is that Linn and Lisa Winters (our pastor and his wife) live one of the most generous lifestyles that I know. I could make a list of 10+ people (including myself) that they've take into there home in times of need and just to be a blessing. Caroline is next on that list of people that they have been gracious to as she lives with them now and for the past 4 weeks Linn and Lisa have been 'just figuring it out' with their 2 cars to make sure Caroline has transportation to get to ASU. Relentless giving. Very cool!

That being said, I came back to the church this morning and Caroline came in gasping for breath, filled with tears and, honestly, I couldn't tell if something bad had happened or what. She then went on to explain what I then made her sit down with me to video record this very special day and what it means to her. So sit back for a minute and listen to this beautiful woman as she talks about a faithful God and tells a story of unique and profound blessing. PRAISE BE TO GOD!! Music courtesy of Robbie Seay Band - Hallelujah, God is Near and Matt Maher - Unwavering.

I'm curious...what would you be willing to give up during Lent?

To learn more about Huruma Childrens Home - CLICK HERE.

To see a previous blog post I did on Mama Zipporah during the time @ the loss of their beloved Papa Isaac - CLICK HERE.

The Altar of Words Invites Many Idols

Caroline Ferdinandsen — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 11:28:19 -0700

(Note: This is a re-mix of a post I wrote in November of last year. I'm feeling compelled to toss it out here again.)

It seems that across the world, word worship is beginning to look more like idolatry and less like a really cool hobby.

Now, I’ll admit I am in love with words. I collect interesting ones, put them on display, use them to my advantage. I’ve spent a lifetime building things out of words, and I’ve always thought I had a lot to show for it. But I think I might be ready for change.

Why this new distrust for words? After an evening of stomachaches scrolling around the internet, I realized that the arena of words has essentially become our national temple. It is here that everyone has started to worship his own prose. Let me post my clever comeback. Listen to my witty retort for your narrow-minded thinking. Watch me impress you with my intellectual rant—aren’t you jealous?

It’s a creepy, unholy place where I’m afraid we’ve started a new religion. Freedom of speech used to require pretty deliberate methods, and only the most daring would try. You had to start a newspaper, sell an editorial column, or maybe build a crate to stand on at an intersection. Politicians and speechwriters would craft words into platforms and positions and policies where the public would weigh its value. Less buttoned-up were the street talkers and doorway evangelists who would use dime store apologetics to bring you inside their bubble. Of course, there were always some fringe folks, seeking attention with counter-culture banners that might say Bong Hits 4 Jesus or Save the African Mud Hens.

But all along, when it comes to apologetics, human debate has always been secondary to God’s divine work. Any real spiritual transformation is an interior and silent work. God’s miraculous forgiveness creates a metamorphosis of the heart, largely mysterious and sometimes even unspeakable. Today, however, it seems the semantics of conversation has tried to supplant the mystery of conversion. As theologian Karl Barth proclaimed, it seems “man has been made great at the cost of God.”

Maybe it’s even worse than Barth pronounced. Today’s relentless rants and smug digital comebacks are hardly worth the indigestion spent on them. Even a carefully crafted essay seems to dilute the spiritual process. Is language all I’ve got? I have begun to read the angry, Christians-are-morons postings popping up on every website, and it seems both sides often have only their wit to rescue them from irrelevance. My response? It’s seldom wrapped in prayer and peace. Instead, I’m suddenly in an ideological volleyball game, and I’m ready to sacrifice my body to get that spiked ball back over the net.

For what purpose? I used to think it was “a reasoned defense of the faith.” Now I’m not so sure. So many people have so little to say and so many opportunities to say it. Everyone—from adolescent Myspace philosophers to snarky PhD’s—has a theory to share. Maybe I’m one of them. Does it make me feel better to sort out my spiritual ideology in public? Have I proved to you how clever I am? If language is our idol, then we are careful to polish our words, create temple-sites for them, and then worship what our minds have created. It’s no longer motivated by the exhortation in I Peter to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” For many ideologues, that hope is not in Christ, but in his own really cool rhetoric. Not to mention the fact that no one even asked him for it.

I’m starting to identify with Solomon’s warnings:

Words from a wise man's mouth are gracious,
but a fool is consumed by his own lips. At the beginning his words are folly;

at the end they are wicked madness-

and the fool multiplies words . . .

Okay, so I’m willing to admit this whole essay might be an exercise in irony (a lover of words will always find it hard to break up the relationship). But let’s say that I might actually be onto something about word worship. Might this also extend to our study of the Holy Scriptures? In their zeal to defend the faith, intellectual apologists always reach for the sure thing: the Bible. No complaints here. That’s precisely the place to expose counterfeiters and lay bare some of the mysteries of God himself, right? C’mon, I haven’t read the Christian Research Journal for ten years for nothing.

But what if, over time, we begin to worship the text instead of its writer? In a dangerously subtle shift in allegiance, some teachers have created an unintentional fourth member of the trinity—a four-sided triangle that includes the Bible itself as an object of worship. Its purpose is no longer to reveal the risen Christ or to instruct, reprove, and correct. We who are comfortable with words find the biblical text irresistible.

Perhaps even more irresistible than Jesus Christ himself.

How did it come to be? First, let’s be frank. We are frequent consumers of what we love. A Broadway aficionado listens to show tunes. An Olympic athlete spends time in the weight room. A junk food addict enjoys his Twinkies. A seminarian reverences words in part because he consumes what he loves. He is good at turning words in his head, finding out meaning, analyzing variants. But respecting the words is not the same as loving the writer.

I would hope that Bible scholars are more like a reverent and awe-struck David who proclaims “for I delight in your commands because I love them. I lift up my hands to your commands, which I love, and I meditate on your decrees.” Instead, so many of us have abandoned the sweet, soulful communion with the spirit of God for the rush of selfish, intellectual one-upmanship.

If we are motivated by what we naturally love, the same danger exists on the other side. God doesn’t give a free pass to those who got a 66% in their high school English class. We can’t just say “Gee, I don’t really like to read, so I’ll just figure God out by staring at a really great mountain.” Many have tried and found themselves equally deceived by their own custom-made theology.

Even so, are you and I helping God along by being his spokesmen? It seems a little ludicrous. We don’t like being God’s hands and feet—it’s so much more fun being his mouth. Someone once asked me why I write essays about my Christian faith. It’s a wise question. Perhaps I should just shut up for awhile.

If empty discourse has become a form of idolatry, it’s not improper to identify with the words of the prophet Jeremiah who writes,

Everyone is senseless and without knowledge;

every goldsmith is shamed by his idols.

His images are a fraud;

they have no breath in them.

Like a pagan nation with a surplus of gold, we have a million wordsmiths making empty trinkets. Let me not be one of them.