For Your Assistance - The XStreamWorship "Cat"

Q1. Why have you misspelled extreme in XStreamWorship?

Well for one, "X" is how a lot of people like to spell "Christ", especially around "X"-mas time. Next, if you recall, Jesus make references to a river flowing from you with living water, hence the "Stream". In order for "Worship" to be real, it must be Christ centred and flow with life. So really there is nothing extreme about this (apart from the fact that life is extremely different from death), just XStreamWorship.

Q2. Why do you call your FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) a "Cat"?

The question and answer format typical of FAQs is not a new thing. It dates back to the Reformation period when Martin Luther and John Calvin were on the scene. They discovered that the common person was ignorant of the truths of Christianity even though they regularly attended church. They initiated Catechism as a question and answer genre of literature to present many of the basic tenets of Christian belief. This quickly caught on amongst Lutheran and reformed camps and amongst the Roman Catholics. All I have done is take Catechism and shorten it to "Cat".

Actually, I am kind of wondering if this may catch on. ;-)

Q3. What's this I hear about lambs howling at the wolves?

For years, we have been worried about what the enemy is up to. We get overly worried about "wolves in sheep's clothing". Sure the Lord warned us about this, but He also said, "I send you out into this world". We have been instructed to be "wise as serpents, but harmless as doves". So we are in effect, "sheep in wolves' clothing", so the enemy had better beware, because the lambs are out, and when the lambs begin to howl, the wolves will cower and shiver and whisper a barely audible, "bah"! So in all this, pray! Get together with other like minded believers and pray. Don't be afraid to intercede for others and to press against the enemy. God has given us the victory, so howl away!

Q4. What's this I hear about the Grand Circle Tour?

Every now and then, we will mess up in our Christian lifestyle (either personally or corporately as a church body) and then we wind up on what I call "The Grand Circle Tour of the Wilderness".

This is a forgivable things since we all make mistakes.

On the other hand, the really stupid thing is if, on completion of the tour, we budge in to the front of the line at the ticket booth to purchase another ticket! Man! what a mess we are in then! Augh!

Q5. What's this about Coffee Aroma?

This is actually a reference to how we preach and teach the word these days. For years, the church has been able to get away with legalism and formulas to keep people on track and to keep things simple, but this doesn't work in today's pluralistic society.

To borrow from science and technology fields, models used to abstract a part of reality in order to understand how things work are always based on a simplification of facts in a specific context. In the church, we have typically dealt with one or two cultures at a time in a region. Not so anymore, and now we wonder why things fall apart and the church seems to be irrelevant to a lot of people these days.

So I say wake up and smell the coffee! It aint the old swill we have been serving for years that people want anymore. Now they want cappuccino and expresso!

The whole philosophy of ministry and how we work out relationships between church leaders and people in our communities has changed. We have to be on the ball.

Q6. What's this about "No Starch"?

For quite some time now, the church has been "stiff". Now this may not be a bad thing of itself, however lately people have mistaken us for dead and nearly hauled us off to the city morgue thinking were were just another "stiff" to be processed.

It is time to get lively, shake the dust off of the robe of righteousness and get the starch out of the garment of praise!!!!

Q7. Isn't this kind of taking things a bit XStream?

Duh! That is kind of the whole point!!! ;-)