How long to sing this song?
“How long to sing this song?”
These lyrics from the 1983 song “40” animated the deepest groanings of a generation—or two!—through the music of the band U2. I (Kara) have actually sung these lyrics live with Bono (well, along with the 40,000 other fans at the same U2 concert in the late ’80s). The words resonate so deeply because they speak authentically about human experience.
Pain.
Loss.
Questioning God.
Questioning life.
The words are directly from Psalm 40, one of the many lament psalms that articulate these questions and cries in expressions that translate across centuries. Except when the words and phrases leave us even more confused.
Eugene Peterson describes reading the psalms as a 12-year-old boy and being utterly perplexed by the language. But through the psalms he was introduced to the power of metaphor, and ultimately, the psalms “showed me that imagination was a way to get inside the truth.” Pairing that imagination with biblical scholarship, eventually Peterson rephrased the psalms—and then the rest of the Bible—into modern language in The Message translation.
The Message translation deeply moved Bono and U2 in the early 2000s, and when Peterson found out about this, his first response was, “Who’s Bono?” (The above is from a recent email newsletter I receive from the Fuller Youth Institute.)
The school I (Jeff) went to, Fuller, works a lot with the intersection of faith and pop culture. They recently produced a short film on Bono meeting Eugene Peterson, the translator responsible for The Message. I found the video (see above) interesting. It’s a little over 20 minutes, but it may be of interest to some of you. Enjoy!
…oh, and this would be a good time to remind you of the upcoming class we have on the psalms:
Beauty of the Word: The Poetic Structure of Psalms
An inductive study of the book of Psalms, giving attention to the various forms of the psalms — including their function within ancient Israel. The course will focus on the formulation (lament, royal, pilgrimage, wisdom, messianic, praise, etc.) and interpretation of the psalms.
This will be a 4 week class with some teaching on the structures and an interactive time exploring the psalms together. It will be on Thursday nights at 6:45pm beginning April 20 (the week after Easter).
Comment below if you’re interested or connect with Jeff on Sundays or look for the signup.
Connect on Facebook
While you may already “like” us on Facebook (and if not, please do here!), some things are better posted and responded to in a group rather than a fan page. For those things, we have a Facebook group meant to be a place for people connected to Deep Water Church to share prayer requests, swap baby/kids clothes, ask about good apartments, places to buy used cars, suggestions for contractors, recommendations for doctors, etc.–all those things people do when they are in community.
While we prefer to do everything openly and without secrets, we have chosen to make the Facebook Group private so people feel comfortable sharing prayer requests, etc. It’s also the place we often talk about upcoming events and places to engage/serve our community. If you want to be a part of the online community, please ask to join!
So, click here, connect and make new friends!
Check-in and do good!
66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world. No child should ever go hungry! That’s why, this March, we’re stepping in to help stop hunger. Through our partnership with feedONE, check-ins at Deep Water Church in Dover, Delaware will provide meals to children in need around the world!
Every 2 check-ins provides a meal to a child in need.
What is feedONE? feedONE Children’s Feeding Initiative serves over 146,676 children. The goal of feedONE is to see lives changed as they promote healthy children and communities that are free from poverty and hunger. Many of the children enrolled in this initiative have their only meal of the day at school. FeedONE feeds and monitors the health and growth of children each day in El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Ethiopia, South Africa, Guatemala, and Tanzania.
Visit their Facebook page or website to learn more about what they do!
By the way, the hashtag this month is #meals4kids. Thanks for checking in for children in need!
We’re Live on Facebook
We started a new series: Last Words of Jesus. The series explores the last seven things Jesus said as He was being crucified and what they mean for us today.
We invite you to join us each week; but we know sometimes work schedules, deployments, etc., don’t make that possible. Several people were beginning to upload videos and make them live elsewhere, so we decided to officially broadcast the messages on Facebook live.
So, you can tune in during the 11am service and view from our Facebook Page; or you can check out the video any time after that on the page as well.
Wednesday Night Class: Jesus Among the Other Gods
We started Jesus Among the Other Gods (on Wednesday, March 1 @6:45pm). There is still time to join us for the three weeks left as we learn more about how following Jesus differs from other faiths.
Description: Jesus Among the Other Gods:
No such thing as absolute truth? Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias’ work is a brilliant defense of the unique truth of the Christian message. Exposing the futility of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, he also highlights his own journey from despair and meaninglessness to the discovery that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. This will be a 4 week class with a 15-20 minute video and a discussion following. (The class and video will be based on the book; but reading the book is not required.)