Two articles appeared before me recently on selecting a missionary or field to support. Both bring good ideas. The first is by a brother in the church; the second by a Christian Church woman.

Choosing a Man by Dr. Earl Edwards, Freed-Hardeman University

Should We Support This Missionary? (pdf format) by Judy Johnson

The first is also appropriate for the prospective missionary to evaluate his personal qualities and need for preparation.

As long as I live, I will never appeal for money for the mission of God in this world. This is a degradation of God and of ourselves, which has pauperized us in every way over the centuries. God has no need, and if the mission is God's, then we do not ask for help to give God a boost; therefore we do not appeal for funds. We allow people to take a share in God's work, and this is a very different thing. --Stephen F. Bayne, Jr. (1908-1974)

Perhaps this man's circumstances, probably in a denominational setting, made an appeal for funds a carnal thing. Or he may be reacting against a practice common in his circles where appeals were made on improper bases. (I myself have heard appeals that sounded as if God's hands would be tied unless people at that moment helped that particular work.)

But Paul wrote Romans exactly as an "appeal for funds," or rather, as a means of requesting their help to send him to Spain. So let's be sure we're not more spiritual than the apostle.

www.frontier.net

Guy Orbison, Jr., of Durango, Colo., edits the eight-page monthly, Working in the Word, with four or five articles. Other than the editor, Hugo McCord is one of the main writers. Guy is a staff writer for The Rocky Mountain Christian.

Recent articles include a seven-fold "The Search for Genuine Christianity." A few articles can be read on site.

www.texnews.com

It's a sad day indeed when a music professor of a major Christian university records a solo album featuring traditional hymns and contemporary praise music with a soprano saxophone.

According to the professor, "This puts the saxophone in a vocal position. It’s based on what people tell me when I play — that ... those (instrumental) sounds go to places in their beings that words have not touched before. ... They can’t identify what it is, but they know what they feel."

How wonderful that this professor has supplied what the first-century Christians never experienced, a special feeling in their beings that words do not touch.

If others cannot identify it, let's do it for them: instrumental music directly manipulates the emotions. It bypasses the mental function and produces emotional states consistent with the type of music. And when the effect of the music subsides, so does the induced emotional state. This temporary feeling has no relation with the Christian walk and deludes people into thinking that they are communing with God, when, in fact, they are merely swooning.

The administration of the Christian university apparently looks on benignly as their professor sells his music.

With one commercial praise group, the voice imitated the sounds of instruments. So now the seed has borne its fruit, with the instrument being put "in a vocal position."

What do the Scriptures say about this?

"... speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your hearts to the Lord" (Eph. 5:19, NASB).

"Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God" (Col. 3:16).

The argument was that instruments were merely an accompaniment to the words. Now they are taking over completely.

Isn't it time we woke up to what's happening in the church?

Our Christian university music professors should be cultivating the singing of praise in our congregations. Instead, they are, with administration approval, leading the way in pushing the instrument into the church and in pushing the word of God out of our lives.

This came through the Christian Quote for the Day; the thought is worthy of meditation.

Inscription for a Pulpit by Robert Hammond Adams (1883-1975)

"The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed." The hungry sheep, that crave the living Bread, Grow few, and lean, and feeble as can be, When fed not Gospel, but philosophy; Not Love's eternal story, no, not this, But apt allusion, keen analysis. Discourse well framed -- forgot as soon as heard -- Man's thin dilution of the living Word.

O Preacher, leave the rhetorician's arts; Preach Christ, the Food of hungry human hearts; Hold fast to science, history, or creed, But preach the Answer to our human need, That in this place, at least, it may be said No hungry sheep looks up and is not fed.

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2002, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator CQOD Home Page: www.gospelcom.net Comments and problems: email to curator@gospelcom.net

Church websites have gained notoriety. They're mostly awful. One evangelical critic says they lack a voice.

You won't agree with everything he says, but on one thing he's right. To put it in my own words, most churches put up a sign on the web instead of starting a conversation. In terms of the Internet, you're dead in the water if you do that.

So, get talking.