By Adam Groza

I have been thinking about the song God of this City by Chris Tomlin. In fact, we sang God of this City to close chapel here at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary today. The song’s popularity is understandable, and in many way, laudable. In fact, the song is on my iPod! The lyrics begin:

You’re the God of this City
You’re the King of these people
You’re the Lord of this nation
You are

The opening verse affirms the existence and sovereignty of God over creation. The second verse is equally well written:

You’re the Light in this darkness
You’re the Hope to the hopeless
You’re the Peace to the restless
You are

The second verse speaks to the hope of the Gospel to those in the city. So far, so good. However, I have problems with the chorus:

For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater thing have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City

The chorus reflects absolute assurance (“are still to be done”) in (1) a future for the city that is (2) better than its past. I take the reference to the city to be a reference to whatever city in which the song is being sung. In other words, folks in Dallas are singing about Dallas as “the city.”

But hold on! Do we know that any city has a future? Might not God wipe Dallas off the face of the earth in some act of divine punishment? Aren’t there examples of cities that are no more? Moreover, aren’t some cities on a downward spiral? Aren’t there some cities whose greatest days are in the past?

I think this song assumes too much. God does have promises to his people, but he has no covenant promises to the city of Dallas, or any other earthly city, for that reason. God’s promises are to Christ and those who are in Christ, by faith. Yes cities are blessed when people repent and follow Christ. But can we really say for sure that greater things are yet to come and to be done in any city? Even though there is much to like about the song, I find the chorus presumptive and unbiblical.

The people of Sodom and Gomorrah would have been wrong to sing this song. The promise of immanent judgment hangs over creation. There is hope for those who come to faith, but the cities are going to be destroyed. So maybe the chorus should sing as follows:

For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in the City
Greater thing have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in the City

I changes “this” to “the” and the point is that there is a City whose greatest days are yet to come. It is the City of God, where Christ shall dwell. The City of God is populated by the redeemed, and all the inhabitants will forever sing the praises of the Lamb. The Holy City will come from heaven (Rev 21) and will never be destroyed.

We simply cannot say this about any earthly city.

I’m not necessarily endorsing the Media Convergence Forum (I don’t know much about it to be honest) that this video promotes, but my friend Jake Johnson recently posted the video with the question: “We are becoming digitized. What’s your online strategy?” As a church planting pastor, I find myself thinking a lot about stuff like this and I wanted to pass this video along for feedback and discussion. How can the church utilize digital tools to build real relationships? Are the two mutually exclusive? Is it enough for a church to have a great digital presence. Of course, this brings up questions of “online church,” but I’ll let you ask some of those questions. Please, discuss:

From the people at mothlightcreative.com:

It seems that everyone and their mother has a blog. Whether or not it is a fad remains to be seen, though it has encouraged and challenged many people to express themselves and their views in ways they had previously never imagined. This is both a blessing and a curse. Everyone now demands the right to be heard and everyone is convinced that their opinion is the right one. And in the midst of this, I blog. I don’t update nearly as much as I used to and there are many reasons for that, none of which is the point of this post.

What’s interesting is that, as I blog less and less, I’ve actually found myself thinking about blogging more and more. Part of the reason I blog is to cultivate the personal discipline and habit of filtering all of life through the Gospel. This has never been a pulpit for my personal rants, I don’t share a ton of personal information here, I don’t even link my blog from the website of the church I pastor. Instead, it has always been about the intersection of theology and culture, trying to help people, including myself, understand that the Gospel has something to say about every aspect of life. This blog has been some of my steps in the journey of that exploration.

But it’s not always easy. Creative people often speak about the coming and going of “the muse,” that creative spark that sometimes comes in floods and others in dribbles. I’ve come to recognize that this blog is dependent on something similar, something I’ve come to think of as the “blog instinct.” It’s difficult to describe, perhaps a bit like dancing about architecture, but let me give it a shot.

In order to accomplish the mission of this blog, the writer (myself and sometimes my good friend Adam) must be immersed in the Word and swimming in culture continually seeing the relationship between both. It is coming across a cultural artifact and naturally, instinctively seeing the implications. When Adam posted his piece the other day “Who’s To Blame for Homosexual Stereotypes: Gays, the Military, and Unfriendly Fire,” my first thought was that he had a great “blog instinct.” He heard a piece on NPR (I wish I had kept track of how many pieces I’ve written either directly or indirectly about NPR pieces) and his mind began to flesh out some of the implications. Sometimes the blog piece is more gospel centered than others, but the point is always to help us think about what’s going on around us.

Too many of us (including myself) simply float through life unconsciously. We get in the car and end up at our destination and oftentimes, don’t even remember the journey to and fro. We get in the car and just space out and far too often, that’s exactly how we live our lives. We’re not present in the moment and we’re certainly not thinking critically about what’s happening around us. This is the “blog instinct,” seeing something and immediately turning it over and over in your mind’s eye, filtering it through the Gospel, coming out the other end with timeless truth in a timely manner.

We don’t always succeed at that here at Holiday at the Sea, but at least we’re trying. I love the dialogue, the interaction of the blogosphere, I love being exposed to and challenged by a wide swath of perspectives, but ultimately, I blog to continue to force myself to keep these instincts sharp. I often say that part of my job is a pastor is to raise up leaders behind me. In a sense, to work myself out of a job, and I often think of blogging in a similar manner. If this blog can help others to think critically about applying the Gospel to all of life, then maybe the day will come when it’s no longer necessary (please don’t read that as me thinking this blog is more important than it is). But until then, let’s all keep sharpening the blog instinct.

A picture a day, every day for the past year, from 05/18/08 to 05/18/09, except, for some reason, 07/15/08.

It started with the idea that “social media” seeks to keep people connected in somewhat real time, but many people have photos of themselves that are years old. So I started changing my profile picture every day, and then I just kept going. Yes, I know that you will say this is narcissistic.

I typically try to save links for the Weekly Town Crier post on Fridays, but I wanted to pass this one along on its own. By now, many of you have taken the time to watch this video, but in case you haven’t, please take the time to visit Death Is Not Dying and hear the story of Rachel Barkey. It’s definitely worth an hour of your time.

Have you ever just been bursting at the seams with something to say but you just know in your knower that the best thing to do is just keep your thoughts to yourself?

This is something I’ve been learning over the years and it’s rarely an easy lesson. Proverbs 10:19 says: “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent,” while Ecclesiastes 5:3 says that “a fool’s voice with many words.”

It seems to me that this is one of the inherent dangers of blogging. For some reason, otherwise meek young men (it more often than not seems to be young men, doesn’t it?), think they become lions behind a keyboard. Now, everyone (including me) thinks that they have something to say and the entire world should have the chance to hear it. Not only that, blogging often provides the little guy with a chance to throw lobs at a big(ger) guy who might normally remain entirely out of reach.

But love believes all things (1 Corinthians 13:7) and demands we treat others, not just like we would like to be treated (Matthew 7:12), but better (Philippians 2:3) and the tongue is a small but powerful force that can be used for either healing or destruction (James 3).

It should not surprise us that the best wisdom is rooted in Scripture. Our mothers told us that if we didn’t have anything nice to say, not to say anything at all. Something I need to be reminded of as I seek to stay silent, seeking to think the best. I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”