Video Lyric Guidelines, Free Song, & Reviews

Welcome to Digital Worship News, Edition 38. This issue includes six encouraging resources for you. Be sure to scroll to the bottom to download the free Christmas song (MP3 & PDF chord chart)!

blessings,
Kim Gentes

I am a worship leader, pastor, artist and writer. It is from that perspective that I make these suggestions related to the use of video imagery, lyrics, fonts and colors. Myh goal with these is to encourage participation, engagement, and functional utility in the use of display tools purposed in the course of our worship and gathered services... These come in the light of an overwhelming push in modern worship settings to video presented lyrics with motion backgrounds, themed images and eye-catching marriages of lyric, music and imagery. My primary goal with these points is to remove the distraction that has become more commonplace with the use (and sometimes misuse) of video lyric presentation and backgrounds.

Click here: here to read more.

C.S. Lewis is one of the most celebrated Christian writers and thinkers in modern times. His literary gift extended his philosophical genius into almost every kind of written scope- children's books, science fiction, morality lessons, personal narratives, apologetics, theology, counseling, and more. Lewis' most prized construct was the narrative allegory, exampled most brilliantly in his most well known work of the Narnian Chronicles. Because he is such a master of language, one rarely reads Lewis simply and directly on a given topic. Rather, even his shorter works often speak about the thing obliquely, as a better method of communicating powerful points (drawing on the readers imagination to fill in the powerful truths). While the gift of allegory is at play in poignant manner in his famous sermon, The Weight of Glory, it is his contrasting forthrightness that makes the paper take shape so quickly it stands out as, arguably, Lewis's most brilliant short work, and what I consider the best sermon recorded since the New Testament preaching of Peter and Paul....

Click here for the full review...

It's true. There is a long history of a small segment of Christianity that has held to the belief that God will save all people, even those that reject him on this earth. Rob Bell's recent book "Love Wins" takes a look at another spin of this age-old concept of universalism. Bell writes and thinks well. There is no denying it. But ultimately he stays well within the context of the best argument for universalism- human reason and human attribution of the qualities of "love" on to the Divine Person. As long as you use logic that does not look at all the scriptural record, and rely heavily on personal anecdotes to frame the "kind of God" that you are willing to believe in (and that He is a good God), then you can arrive at the doctrine of universalism and feel pretty good about it. And this is primarily what Bell does.

Read on here for a complete review by Kim Gentes.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together is a modern classic manual to understanding and practicing Christian community. The book, though short, provides thoughtful and crisp perspectives on what people foundationally believe about community, some of the misguided premise which people start with and what a core of Christian community should be based on. From there, he guides people through a myriad of important issues dealing with community. Each sub-topic is addressed in terms of its value to the individual and its value to the community. Always, we see Bonhoeffer subverting the desires of the individual by exposing them to the underlying truth of the selfishness of their practices. Bonhoeffer begins his treatise by exploring the need and nature of fellowship.

Click here for the full review...

Microsoft's new phone platform Windows Phone7.5 is intuitive, simple, and brilliant. Wait, did you just use those three words in the same sentence as Microsoft and Windows? Yes, I did. This new development by Microsoft brings an important piece to the mobile environment.

Intuitive: The OS its-self is very intuitive. When you power on the display you are welcomed to live tiles that are beautiful and easy to understand. Gone are the days of cluttered notification bars and crowded clusters of apps. Windows Phone ushers in a day of relevant information that updates seamlessly.

Read on here for a complete review (including a benefits list) by Jordan Gentes.

If you weren't aware of it, we have a video blog for demonstrating easy guitar parts for some worship songs. Session 12 of the Worship Song Video Blog includes an example of playing the Christmas song "O Come Let Us Adore Him" (more commonly known as "O Come All Ye Faithful") with this arrangement from Kim Gentes. This song edition includes a video demonstrating the song arrangement on guitar a demonstration audio MP3, and a downloadable PDF chord chart with the lyrics and chords. For those that already use worshipteam.com, this song is already preloaded for you and ready to use in your song database!

Download the new song for free here.