isaacdowning.com

"Idleness is the burial of a living man; an idle person being so useless to any purposes of God and..."

Mon, 07 May 2012 20:48:39 -0500

“Idleness is the burial of a living man; an idle person being so useless to any purposes of God and man that he is like one that is dead; he lives only to spend his time and eat the fruits of the earth like [a] vermin. [And yet] a man may be very idly busy, and take great pains to so little purpose, that, in his labors and expense of time, he shall serve no end but of folly and vanity. There are some people who are busy; but it is, as Domitian was, in catching flies.”

- Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)

Family photos by the talented Ashley Brown of Brown Photography.

Sun, 06 May 2012 21:56:09 -0500

Family photos by the talented Ashley Brown of Brown Photography.

Worship Leaders, We Are Not Rock Stars

Tue, 01 May 2012 09:53:01 -0500

Worship Leaders, We Are Not Rock Stars:

“The church is the bride Christ gave himself up for, rather than a stepping stone for my own fame and glory. John 10 reminded me that the church are his sheep and they need a shepherd, not a rock star.”

Alive inside.

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:56:13 -0500

Alive inside.

"I thank you, Lord Jesus, for becoming a human being so I do not have to pretend or try to be God. I..."

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:42:17 -0500

“I thank you, Lord Jesus, for becoming a human being
so I do not have to pretend or try to be God.
I thank you, Lord Jesus, for becoming finite and limited
so I do not have to pretend that I am infinite and limitless.
I thank you, crucified God, for becoming mortal
so I do not have to try to make myself immortal.
I thank you, Lord Jesus, for becoming inferior
so I do not have to pretend that I am superior to anyone.
I thank you for being crucified outside the walls,
for being expelled and excluded like the sinners and outcasts,
so you can meet me where I feel that I am,
always outside the walls of worthiness.”

- Fr. Richard Rohr

John Mayer Trio: Out of My Mind from Where the Light Is: Live in...

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:00:05 -0500

John Mayer Trio: Out of My Mind

from Where the Light Is: Live in Los Angeles

Don Clark from Invisible Creature & Jesse Bryan from Mars...

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:32:24 -0500

Don Clark from Invisible Creature & Jesse Bryan from Mars Hill, talk about why Jesus creates art. Definitely worth the time it takes to watch it (especially if you’re skeptical about the Christian subculture and it’s contributions to the art world).

"I see the Church spending 20% of its energy on the things that make 80% of its impact and 80% of its..."

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:13:53 -0600

“I see the Church spending 20% of its energy on the things that make 80% of its impact and 80% of its energy looking in the mirror.”

- Nathan Peterson, “Church is Not Cool.”

Early Friday morning, January 27th, my grandma Katie Hoerr...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:41:00 -0600

Early Friday morning, January 27th, my grandma Katie Hoerr entered into eternity. She was a true Proverbs 31 woman who raised 12 kids (and had 35 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren) with my grandpa George, to whom she was married for over 58 years. They were inseparable and had an affection for one another that most people can only hope for. Together they influenced countless families and individuals through their many friendships and during my grandpa’s work as a pastor in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Tennessee.

Yesterday morning I had the incredible honor of being asked to sing In the Sweet By and By at her memorial service. It was by far one of the most humbling experiences of my life, but it was really the best way that I could offer a final farewell to a life so well lived.

In the Sweet By and By
by S. Fillmore Bennett, Joseph P. Webster

There’s a land that is fairer than day
And by faith we can se it afar
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there

In the sweet by and by
We shall meet on that beautiful shore
In the sweet by and by
We shall meet on that beautiful shore

We shall sing on that beautiful shore
The melodious song of the blessed
And our spirits shall sorrow no more
Not a sigh for the blessing of rest

To our bountiful Father above
We will offer our tribute of praise
For the glorious gift of His love
And the blessings that hallow our days

Ethan

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 20:51:04 -0600

Ethan

Downing family Christmas dinner (Taken with Instagram at Mom...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:29:40 -0600

Downing family Christmas dinner (Taken with Instagram at Mom & Dad’s)

Ethan loves his new hat. (Taken with instagram)

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:01:33 -0600

Ethan loves his new hat. (Taken with instagram)

Currently reading: Christ Centered Preaching. Highly...

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:32:22 -0600

Currently reading: Christ Centered Preaching. Highly recommended. (Taken with instagram)

Glorious is one of my favorite worship songs to play at...

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:42:15 -0600

Glorious is one of my favorite worship songs to play at CrossPoint. Today I came across an interview from Worship Musician Magazine where the author, Paul Baloche, gave some insights to the lyrics…

Glorious is very New Testament. Looking “beyond the cross,” could almost sound offensive but, I’m saying, “Look beyond the cross”—if you will—and relate as the Apostle Paul did, to the living, resurrected Jesus. That was a revelation to me: the Jesus that Paul knew was not the Jesus that walked around in sandals, healing the sick in person and who related to the Disciples—it was interesting. The Apostle Paul was actually trying to kill people who were following Jesus at first and then he had this encounter with Jesus-the risen Christ on the way to Damascus, and it rocked his world. Then he ended up writing practically the whole New Testament! And he said, “I didn’t get this from man, I got this from revelation.”

So, I love the Apostle Paul’s desire to look inside the mystery, as it says in Colossians 1:27—“the mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory.” It’s kind of mystical, and that sounds like a bad word, but I heard it said years ago that “not every mystic is a Christian, but every good Christian is a mystic.” Paul was a mystic, he was trying to see into the eternal realm, and he was trying to get us to see.

Check out the full interview on his blog: leadworship.com.

New coffee for the house (Taken with instagram)

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:36:19 -0600

New coffee for the house (Taken with instagram)

This is Jacob’s story of his experience working in human...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:04:24 -0600

This is Jacob’s story of his experience working in human trafficking.

“We all have responsibility to the victims of this injustice…

But who’s going after the victimizers? Really…who’s made it their ambition to kill this thing at the root? If we rescued every victim today, we’d wake up to a demand for 100+ million new slaves tomorrow. If a victim’s care is the only weapon in this battle, it’ll continue to do a cyclically miserable job of winning.”

Is Mormonism a Cult?

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:04:20 -0500

Is Mormonism a Cult?:

A well reasoned and in-depth look at Mormonism, and how it lines up with what the Bible teaches.

"Art is our opportunity to to make an invisible God visible."

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:12:00 -0500

“Art is our opportunity to to make an invisible God visible.”

- Gary Molander, Pursuing Christ. Creating Art.

God as artist...

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 23:28:34 -0500

“A Mirror Up To Nothing”
by Howard Jacobson, originally published in Harper’s (link).

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. —Genesis 1:31

It won’t get much better for God or for his creations than it is on the evening and the morning of the sixth day. Genesis 2 ends on a high romantic note, with the first man and the first woman naked in each other’s trembling presence—I’ve invented the “trembling” but I think it’s warranted—and entirely unashamed. But by the time Genesis 3 is through, the gates to the garden are shut fast and Cherubim with flaming swords bar the way back. What went wrong is usually what engages our attention, but what went right in those thirty-one verses of Genesis 1 is no less arresting if you are interested in art.

You don’t have to believe in the Judeo-Christian God to be pleased he was an artist. When it comes to making something out of nothing, an artist-god beats a warrior-god every time. As though on a whim—there are some who say he must have been lonely, but it could just as easily be argued that he was bored—he creates the heaven and the earth. “And God said, Let there be light”: who he said that to has long been a matter of theological controversy—a council of angels? himself?—but it is clearly not an order, or even a wish that needs to explain itself. He would have it that way, that’s all. The creative urge is upon him. No sooner does he speak for light, than light is. “And God saw the light, that it was good,” meaning that he didn’t know for sure how it was going to be before he made it.

The question of the artist’s autonomy has plagued literary criticism; can the artist be said to owe responsibility to anything outside his work, does he hold a mirror up to nature, or is the nature that the artist manufactures the only one safe to refer to when it comes to art? If God is the model of the artist, then the question is settled: there was no world prior to God the artist’s creating it, not even a blueprint for one. He holds the mirror up to nothing. Seeing the light, he doesn’t worry that it fails to measure up to some idea of light existent already in his mind or in the still formless void. He conjures up the concept at the same time that he creates the thing, and sees that it is good.

Had God not turned out to have a plan for the man and woman he went on to create, he might be open to the charge of mere aestheticism, and his work dismissed as art for art’s sake. With a plan, the question of how art that cannot refer to anything outside itself can nonetheless have a function beyond itself is also settled: the art both is and isn’t all there is. With the creation of beauty comes the responsibility of purpose. The light is good in and of itself, but what is it good for? It’s good because I say it is, God will later tell Job. But that’s just the bluster of the artist. It’s good because it reveals an idea. The artist isn’t obliged to explain what that idea is.

Hour by hour, what he has done reveals itself to him. Only when the six days of creation are complete is he able to stand back and admire. “… and, behold, it was very good.” This revelation is profoundly touching in its innocence. Behold—look, somebody! If he was lonely before he started to make art he is even lonelier now, like every artist, in the moment he seeks appreciation. He is thrown back on the only praise that ultimately counts—his own. “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was” … no longer just good but “very good.”

In the delight it takes in itself, in its childlike self-wonderment, this is the most perfect expression of artistic satisfaction. No wonder Coleridge echoed it in his fanciful encomium on Shakespeare, who, once he is satisfied that “creation in its outline” is perfect, “seems to rest from his labour, and to smile upon his work, and tell himself that it is very good.”

Later on, when laying down the law, God remembers his long-abandoned artistry—morality has come to occupy his time now—and in language recalling his original dynamic cosmogony, forbids his people from making any “likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” No artist will be surprised by the jealousy of this. One impulse in the making of art is the negation of the art of others. When it comes to the creation of worlds, yours, if you mean what you are about, must prevail.

Ever since Moses conveyed the second commandment to the Israelites, Jewish artists have trembled at their own temerity. Hence the in- tense seriousness of Jewish art. You do not set out lightly to rival God. But also, you do not set out without his example forever before you. The light you create must be like no other. Nothing less than its being very good will satisfy you.

And you must not expect that those it shines upon will either thank you for it or behave well as a consequence. That disappointment inevitably waits on art explains why God the artist first destroyed his work and then walked out on it.

A little father-son jam session (Taken with instagram)

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 17:08:22 -0500

A little father-son jam session (Taken with instagram)