Today marks the third anniversary of the day Nick left us—the third anniversary of the day he arrived in heaven. It has been some time since I’ve paused with fingers on keyboard to collect my thoughts and deliberately think about him, about me, about my family, and about our grief. But the Lord, through the strange providence of having Aileen and me get stranded in a small fishing town in Alaska has given me time to pause, to think, and to write. (The photo above is one I snapped here.)

Time passes at a constant rate, of course, never any faster and never any slower. Yet sometimes it seems to have been so short a time since he died and sometimes it seems to have been so long. Sometimes he feels almost as present in my life as the day I last saw him and sometimes he feels so distant. Sometimes my memories of him are sharp and clear and sometimes they are dim and hazy. Increasingly they are like dreams I’m desperately trying to remember or reminiscences I’m desperately grappling to hold on to. The sound of his voice, the cackle of his laugh, the feel of his hugs—these are all fading into a past that seems ever more distant. I don’t like it that way, but it seems to be how human memory works—that without constant reinforcement, the old gives way to the new and the past to the present. It makes me wonder what I’ll remember of him years from now, or decades.
Today, though, I sure do miss him. I miss having someone who loved me in that unique way a son loves his father, and I miss having someone to love in that unique way a father loves a son. There are many kinds of love, of course, but that father-son bond is sweet, strong, and true. It’s no better than a father-daughter bond. But it’s different. Irreplaceable.
I miss having someone who shared so many of my interests and who was similar to me in so many ways. In varied ways, and mostly good ways, he was a kind of reflection of myself, though one who had the good sense to assume my virtues and eschew my faults.
I miss having someone who was deliberately following in my footsteps—who wanted to be like me enough that he observed and imitated. I miss the challenge of continuing to be worthy of being followed by someone so dear to me as a son.
I miss having someone who was growing beyond me, whose increasing experience and education had begun to reverse the roles so that I was beginning to turn to him for advice and guidance. We were becoming peers, he and I.
I miss the future we had mapped out in our conversations, a future in which he would get married, complete his degree, return to Canada, and take up a position at our church or at one nearby. We had planned to live close together, a family reunited after that time of preparation and education.
We will be reunited, of course, though at a much different time and in much different circumstances. We will be reunited in that place where our faith will become sight, that place where our pain will be erased and our tears wiped away, in that place where this will finally all make sense. He is already there. I will eventually catch up.
In the meantime, God continues to grant us the grace to trust him. None of us have wavered in our confidence that God is good and that in some way even an experience as painful as this is an expression of that goodness. None of us have allowed this to knock us out of the race or to give us an excuse to become less useful to the Lord’s purposes. None of us have allowed this to rob us of our joy or to keep us locked endlessly in sorrow or lament. All of us have committed to staying true to the Lord, to living our lives well, and to looking forward to that day when we will be together again.
Together again with our Savior. Our family whole, our hearts whole, our souls whole. All made whole through the goodness and grace of our God. Until that day I miss my sweet boy. I miss him, I love him, and I can’t wait to see him again.

With due respect to my Reformed Presbyterian friends, I think it’s difficult to make the argument that singing in the local church must not be accompanied by instrumentation. But with due respect to everyone else, I think it’s equally difficult to make the argument that singing in the local church must be accompanied by instrumentation. It seems to me that we have a lot of freedom here—freedom to sing in a way that matches our convictions and freedom to sing in a way we judge appropriate to our setting.

I tend to think the most difficult position to justify from the Bible is the one that seems to be in effect in a great many evangelical churches today—that music is at its best when there is a full band of skilled singers and musicians who play so loudly as to drown out the voices of the congregation. Where instrumentation was traditionally used to enhance the beauty of the music and help direct the singing of the congregation, today it often seems to dominate so that instead of using a band to complement and accompany the congregation, the congregation now merely does their best to sing along to a band.
A friend recently distinguished between two helpful categories: worship services that are performative and worship services that are participatory. A performative worship service is one that could merrily go on even if there was no one there but the people at the front of the room—the pastor(s) and the band. A participatory worship service is one that would have no meaning unless the congregation was present and doing their part. And while the congregation can and should participate in more than the singing (e.g. prayers, ordinances, responsive readings), they should certainly not participate in less than the singing. Yet this is the reality in so many churches today—singing is performative far more than participatory. In fact, the less we can hear the voices of the unskilled singers in the pews, the better the music is judged to be. Singing has gone from being the domain of the many amateurs to the domain of the few professionals.
The New Testament says precisely nothing about instrumentation in worship services and, like the majority of Protestants, I take this silence to allow room for wisdom and conviction. I have joyfully sung acapella in some churches and have joyfully sung with a full band in others. But if the New Testament is silent on instruments, it is clear on voices, and it seems to say that singing belongs to the entire church, not just to a band. In two of Paul’s epistles he states with clarity that we are to all sing when we gather for worship. We are to address “one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord” and we are to sing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness” in our hearts to God (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16). As good as instruments may be, voices are better, for voices express praise and worship in ways even the most skilled musician cannot. 
Hence, it seems a reasonable conclusion that if we are to use instruments and lead vocalists, they should make it their task to serve the voices, not dominate them, not displace them, and not drown them out. And the voices should not be just the one or two skilled singers at the front of the room, but the entire congregation who together bear the responsibility for obeying God’s commands. It is the whole church, not just the best singers, who are to mutually encourage one another through the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And to do that, they must be heard! Their voices must not be drowned out by instruments, but rise above them.
So I say it is high time that churches emphasize participation ahead of performance. If the band is having a great time while the congregation is struggling to keep up, if the band is audible and the congregation silent, if two voices are being heard while hundreds more are going unheard, something has gone terribly wrong. It would be far better to sing without instruments than to have the church stay silent with them. It would be far better to turn off all instrumentation than to tune out all the voices. Serve the people as they sing, I say—serve the people as they sing of the gospel, sing for one another, and sing to the Lord—just as He commands.

May you know the Lord’s blessings as you honor and serve him this weekend.

I am wondering if I have any readers who live in Zurich or Malta. If so, would you mind getting in touch?
As Saturdays go, this is an exceptional one when it comes to Kindle deals.
(Yesterday on the blog: A Christian Case for Bitcoin and Blockchain)
Can You Hear the Congregation Singing?
“Congregational singing — which includes the one who sings like it’s an American Idol audition and the one who can’t find the right key — is the most heavenly sound you’ll hear on earth. Because of this, it’s important to find a church that has congregational singing. It ought to be a priority when looking for a church home.”
No Flock, No Shepherd
This article coincided well with my devotions yesterday (which took me to John 10): “Sheep stink and they stand really close to each other. They don’t all look the same, but they all have similar inclinations. All sheep lack an ability to lead themselves anywhere safe. That’s why they need a shepherd, so they don’t go astray and get picked off by a wolf.”
Billions of Unnoticed Gifts
“Why the extravagance? Why does God give us billions of gifts every second (even the chance to marvel at a myriad of strange insects) when most of us won’t end up seeing the majority of them? Why is God so spendthrift?”
The Value of a Secure Identity
There are some helpful reflections here on the matter of identity.
Beware of Stoical Dangers
Christians are sometimes called to “do what we have to do and get through it. However, “gritted teeth Christianity is not Christianity, for mere external obedience has never been the Christian’s obligation.”
Beauty in the Eye
“The whole discussion of beauty in art was much simpler before technology. ” That’s an interesting notion…
Flashback: How Many Children Should We Have?
The decision I make ought to be right for my family, but I have no business making a decision on behalf of someone else and then despising or condemning them.

It is the students of the Bible, and they alone, who will find it a weapon ready in hand in the day of battle. —J.C. Ryle