Friday, July 11, 2008

Food and Sports


A few random thoughts on food and sports.


  • While visiting friends in Orlando, I learned that the Krispy Kreme near our church closed. There are some that claim that my leaving Orlando was the cause of the closing. However, I don't think I ate that many doughnuts.

  • I returned to Colorado Springs and discovered that Panera raised the price on a Cinnamon Crunch bagel from 99 cents to $1.25. For those slow at math, that is a whopping 25% increase. For me, this is significant because every day I don't have a breakfast appointment, I go to Panera at about 7 or 7:30 am for coffee and a Cinnamon Crunch bagel.

  • Also, when I left for vacation, we had two sports radio stations. When I returned, I discovered both had gone out of business.

  • A couple of years ago on my old blog, I wrote that Roger Federer (tennis) and Tiger Woods (golf) were probably the best athletes of our generation. Both seemed virtually untouchable. Well, it appears that these Supermen have found their Kriptonite. Tiger is out for the season (after winning the US Open with a torn ACL and a broken leg!) and Federer has lost the last to majors to Nadal.

  • I played golf a couple of weeks ago for the first time since moving here. I discovered that the high altitude does nothing to improve one's game.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Worship Series

I am beginning a mini-series on worship this Sunday. Because the series is short and there is so much to say, I hope to post several thoughts and links on the topic here.



Using Hymns in a Postmodern World

Few, if any people in my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) have put as much thought into worship, at least worship music, as Kevin Twit. Here are a number of articles by Kevin and others.



To hear some hymns recasts with modern tunes, go to http://www.igracemusic.com/ and click on any of the five album covers.



By the way, some people don't like it when we "change" the tunes to old hymns. While there is something comforting about the familiar, there are good reasons for this. First of all, if you look through the hymnal, you will notice that most of the tunes were not written at the same time as the text. So, in most cases, there is no "original" tune. Secondly, if you go the back of the hymnal, you will notice that there is a Metrical Index. That index is there so that you will know which tunes can be sung to which texts. There is a long standing tradition of NOT singing hymns hymns to the "traditional" tune. Thirdly, sometimes the tunes we think of as being the "original" just don't fit. I realize that there are some people who love the Scottish Psalter, but it seems that the Scots had a knack for taking glorious psalms and putting them to depressing, unsingable tunes. Fourthly, musical tunes are cultural expressions. Even a cursory glance of music history (and even church music history) will show that the musical style of the church has always been changing. After all, even in the most traditional churches Protestant churches, we sing with the use of hymnals, organs, and pianos, which were not even invented at the time of the early church. The early church didn't even use harmonies. Fifthly, some great hymns with great texts are being lost because they are attached to unsingable tunes or tunes that don't connect with modern and post-modern people. Sixthly, a new tune can make you see familiar words in a new light.

More to come later.