Meet Bob 3 - Maintaining Healthy Tensions

Meet Bob #4 - Right Relationships Meet Bob Part 2 - What is our task? Meet Bob part 1

24th November 2008

It's been a while since my last entry. Life, as ever, has a tendency to be a tad on the busy side. Actually, I've changed decade since I last posted - I celebrated a very significant birthday the other day and my good lady wife whisked me away off for a weekend on the north coast, the place where we met and fell in love when we were students.

The weather was spectacular - gale-force winds whipping up the waves into a frenzy as they pounded the proud granite cliffs at Porstewart. Weather like that in a setting like that is a great reminder of the power of our Creator God and helps us get life into some sort of perspective (including the potential trauma of turning 40!) There's nothing quite like the north coast in the winter...

But then there's the north coast in the summer. Leisurely days spent on the beach as the sun bathes us all in its soft warmth. Having wonderful imagination-filled hikes through the dunes with my three daughters, as we throw ourselves mercilessly off the edge of giant sand cliffs to save ourselves from pursuing sand monsters. Paddling in the sea as what can be a roaring ocean in winter gently bubbles and gurgles around our feet. There's nothing quite like the north coast in summer...

If you were to ask me which I prefer, I'd have to say ... both! I don't want to choose!

Healthy tensions in worship
In this, the third video by Bob Kauflin introducing his excellent book Worship Matters, Bob talks of some things in corporate worship that we should not force ourselves to choose between. Rather, these are things that are best held in a healthy tension, things which complement one another, the one bringing balance to the other. Check out this video where Bob outlines what he believes some of these healthy tensions to be.



In introducing this section of his book, Bob says the following:

‘One year on our family vacation, I tried to set up a volleyball net by myself. Fortunately, no one had a video camera. I set up the first pole with guidelines attached to stakes in the sand. Then I ran as fast as I could to the other side before the first side fell down. I didn’t make it. I tried again. I repeated that process three times before realising I was an idiot. Yes, it took me that long. I needed someone’s help because the net could be set up only when there was a healthy tension between both poles.

On most of these issues discussed in the forthcoming chapters, our default setting is to prefer one side over the other. It requires a consistent submission to God's word and a humble dependence on his Spirit to make sure both poles are standing.'

For a free mp3 download of a message by Bob that provided the basis of these chapters in this book, click here.

Alistair Hamill