Made in the USA


Hymns vs. Contemporary Worship


Feb 09

Posted: under Faith.
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Ephesians 5:19 (New American Standard Bible)
speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;

I often hear debates over the music in many churches today.  There will always be people who love the music they grew up in church with.  And when they hear something new they may complain that the church is getting away from the pure form of worship that hymns posess.  The problem arises in what they define as hymns.  On the other end of the spectrum, some want to move away from hymns because they don’t want the music to drive away the younger visitors in the hopes of keeping them coming so that they can hear the messages and become converts.  Again there is a problem with not appealing to the ways in which different people enter into true worship. 

Those who grew up with the old hymns will still enjoy the hymns.  Those who grew up with a more contemporary sound will have a preference for the contemporary worship music.  But neither should be exclusive.  There are also many churches that use a “country” style to hymns or more contemporary spiritual songs.  I personally would find that hard to worship to, but I can’t say it’s wrong.  It just doesn’t appeal to me.

But my real issue is that people, in trying to justify their taste in music will give some pretty lame arguments.  Some years ago a dear lady complained during the Saturday night service that it seems we only do contemporary music anymore.  Then she argued that the new stuff doesn’t talk about the blood and the hymns do.  Well the music for Sunday morning had already been selected and that wasn’t going to change, but of the 5 songs chosen four were contemporary, and one was a hymn (Defined as: it’s in the Hymnal. Conversely: not in Hymnal = not hymn.)  Three of the four “not-hymns” mentioned the blood of Jesus.  The “hymn” did not.  She quit coming I regret to say.  But this was not a deliberate attempt to prove her wrong nor to justify future selections.  She found another church where she was more comfortable.  And although we would welcome her back to worship and fellowship with us, she has a new pastor, and we are not in the business of stealing another shepherd’s sheep.

Some of the things people don’t take into consideration in their pro-hymn inclinations is that at one time those hymns were contemporary music, and in some cases were considered inappropriate for true worship. Also, not every song found in a hymnal meets every individual’s definition of a hymn.  Then there is the “test of time” criterion.  That is, that we should only be singing those songs that have endured the “test of time”.  What I deduce from that is that a song must be sung and loved in the church for a period of several years before it qualifies as a hymn, but until it does it should not be sung in the church because it hasn’t stood the “test of time”.  I’m glad that criterion was not enforced back before we had such beautiful hymns as “A Mighty Fortress”, “Amazing Grace”, “How Great Thou Art”, “He Lives”, “The Old Rugged Cross”, and many, many more.  I must add too that there are many hymns found in many hymnals that I’ve never heard sung in the church in my more than fifty years of faithful attendance.  So I would say that those have not endured the “test of time”.  I’m sure at one time they were well loved, and probably were significant to someone, or to a time period, but they seem to have lost significance.

Now, let’s look at the other end of the spectrum.  There are those who love the more modern, upbeat songs and think the old hymns are boring or irrelevant.  I’m sorry they think that, but I can understand that perception to some extent.  When I first started playing piano back in the ’70s I found hymns difficult to play, not because thay they were complicated, but because they seemed too simple.  The chords didn’t change often enough.  The standard 4-part harmonies were predictable and simplistic.  But over the years I’ve learned to add passion to the music.  I realized that passion had gotten lost in the formality and simplicity. 

That has happened not only with the music, but with the rites and rituals, the formulaic order of service, the pre-written prayers, and many other aspects of the church services.  It’s okay to have order and consistency as long as there is passion, passion for relationship with our Savior, passion for living the Gospel in our lives, our homes, our work-places, the market-places, passion for worship and praise to God Almighty, a passion for righteousness.  Sometimes the desire for the driving force of upbeat, exciting, loud music becomes a substitute mistaken for true passion.  But the message of the songs need to inspire true passion for worship, praise, adoration, thankfulness toward the Almighty Merciful God who gave us His own Son as a sacrifice on our behalf, so that we could become the righteousness of God. 

There are many songs sung in the church today that don’t inspire a passion in me.  Some of those songs are contemporary, some of them are hymns.  But thank God there are many of both that are inspired by the Holy Spirit that breathe into me and others the passion for the things of God.  It’s not about the music.  It’s about the life-giving force evidenced in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  It’s about Singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord.  It’s about pleasing God with the joyful noise and the contrite heart.  And it is certainly not about criticising someone else’s preference in music (even if it is “Country”).

Tracy Henness

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A Gift of Love for Christmas


Dec 11

Posted: under Faith.
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Christ was, and still is LOVE

Christ was, and still is LOVE

Yes, this is a re-run from last year.  But time is getting short and I wanted to get something posted.  I hope you all have a wonderful and happy Christmas, and a prosperous and joyous New Year.

Tracy Henness

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But I Wasn’t Invited


Dec 08

Posted: under Anecdotes.
Tags: ,

Last night my wife, Kathy, and I hosted the women’s Bible study Christmas party.  Not being a woman, and by inference not invited, my options included:
1) drop in on Darrell (taking him up in an invite)
2) go Christmas shopping
3) act as a waiter
4) disappear to the bedroom to finish up some grading before the next day’s final exam

I hesitated to take option 1 since I had a sore throat and he has two kids, and I didn’t want to risk infecting them.  This of course turned out to be a lame excuse since one of the ladies brought her 11 year old daughter, and another brought her month old daughter, so it was two kids at Darrell’s house or two kids at my house.

As for the second option I didn’t want to waste gas so I did the Christmas shopping on the way home from Rock Valley College.  Since my wife does the vast majority of our Christmas shopping there’s not much left for me to do.  So this quick stop delayed me just enough for my wife to call me and ask me to stop by the bank and then swing over to pick up one of the ladies coming to the party.  If I hadn’t stopped to shop I’d have already been home before she called.

The first two options were also out of the question after guests started to arrive.  Both cars got blocked in so I had to stay home.

I explained to the ladies later in the evening that I had the option of acting as a waiter, but chose not to on the grounds that I would probably spill something and ruin the evening.  They seemed to buy that excuse.

I included option 4 in my actual participation.  I helped move furniture, managed coats, directed parking, made myself generally helpful while trying to maintain my relative invisibility, finished my grading, directed traffic out of our driveway, and helped cleanup the house afterwards.

Overall it seemed the ladies had a delightful time.  It was good to hear all the laughter in the house (although it seemed loudest while I was alone in the bedroom grading assignments).  And Kathy, my wife, seemed please about the outcome of the evening (which was all I was really concerned about).  Kathy thanked me for sticking around and being helpful.

Tracy Henness

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Alternative Energy Resources


Aug 13

Posted: under Economy, Going Green.
Tags: , , ,

I’ve heard a lot of people arguing against photovoltaic (solar) power, wind generated electricity, alternative automotive fuels, etc. They all have the right to have and voice their own opinions. And they may well be right in their perceptions. It is undeniable that many of these new technologies are inefficient, costly, and possibly potentially hazardous.

But we live in an age where, aside from the idea that we may run out of the resources we currently so readily consume, we have such a high rate of unemployment and a downwardly sliding economy. These technologies have the potential for decreasing unemployment and improving our economy. If you are against decreasing unemployment and/or against improving our nation’s economy, you don’t need to waste your time reading further.

Many of these technologies attempt to harness immaterial or intangible natural forces such as solar energy, wind, and magnetism in ways that supplement the ways we currently generate electricity and mechanical motion. The problem is that we have not found ways to make these technologies truly economical and efficient. But to draw a parallel here, think back to the 1980’s when desktop computers were just coming on the scene. Most people, and some major corporations such as IBM, scoffed at the idea of having computers in the homes and occupying valuable desk space in the offices. They couldn’t possibly be really all that useful, and one certainly couldn’t justify the cost factor. This was something for the hobbyist and for those who had money to burn on expensive toys. But as technological advances improved speed, made better use of current flow, reduced the gaps between components, reduced the size of components, streamlined instruction sets, improved multimedia capabilities, improved storage capacities and portability, the price of hardware was drastically reduced. Additionally, software applications and operating systems became more user friendly, more efficient, more interesting, more flexible. And the overall general acceptance of the personal computer became overwhelming. Very few homes are completely without desktop or laptop computers or other portable computing devices of some sort. The same goes for mobile or cellular phones, and many other recent technological wonders.

Each of these technologies saw surges in research and development and in production during periods when many people were still skeptical of the devices. Unfortunately, in order to meet demand for these devices at prices the masses were willing to pay, the developers and producers outsourced production to foreign soil. Can I get an AMEN when I say we should have kept American jobs in America as much as possible?

Well the sun shines here and the wind blows here just as much as the rest of the world. Lets put people to work finding new and better ways to harness these resources not just because we “might someday” run out of oil, coal, and natural gas, but because we can’t imagine right now what breakthroughs we could develop in the near future. Yes, it takes an investment that may or may not see an immediate return, but in the long run we will be better off with people employed rather than seeking handouts. God put so much potential in the brains of so many people who are currently being discouraged by the scoffers. Shame on us for holding them back. And shame on us for letting ourselves be held back.

Tracy Henness

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Big Bang Theory


Jul 10

Posted: under Uncategorized.
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Recently I caught an episode of the comedy series on CBS called “Big Bang Theory”.  I can’t say I’m a fan, I didn’t even note the date and time, in fact I even had to do a search to find out which network just so I could write this blog.  If you’ve never seen an episode you’re not missing much.  I can’t really present a valid critique of the series since I’ve only seen such a limited quantity of the show, but I do want to state something I found interesting.

I’m as guilty as many others who subscribe to creationism and intelligent design as the explanation for how we got here in the first place.  We pre-form an opinion from the title and decide that we want to send some kind of message to the networks and writers by refusing to watch such garbage.  But on this particular instance I was sitting in my recliner with my laptop on my lap playing solitaire, and the remote was clear across the room when this program came on.  So I didn’t get up to change the channel.  So there it was, and I probably focused more on the cards than the TV, but nonetheless it was infiltrating my senses.  Here is my analysis of what I perceived from this episode.

The show has little or nothing to do with the “Big Bang Theory” other than that involves a small group of guys who presumably have higher than normal IQs; have an interest in math, science, and sci-fi; and the catchy title gives the cutesie theme song a reason to exist.  The general premise of the show seems to center around this clutch of “geniuses” who can’t seem to comprehend the realities of life that revolve around them.  In a very real sense they echo the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:21-22: “Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

So, as a comedy the show tends to be ridiculous.  We see the intelligentsia as eccentric, pathetic, blind, and foolish.  Perhaps we come away from the experience with the thought, “the ‘Big Bang Theory’ is ridiculous”.  And maybe we’re just referring to the show, or maybe we’re referring to the alternate explanation for our existence.  The Big Bang Theory is ridiculous.

Tracy Henness

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Why Economy is Failing


Jun 23

Posted: under Economy.
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Government imposes regulations on the way companies do business, keep records, affect environment, and compensate employees. These regulations add expense to business activities which must be offset by raising the price of products and services. The additional cost causes a decrease in sales, resulting in decreased profit. So companies compensate by finding ways to reduce costs, usually resulting in decreased quality, which lowers customer satisfaction and consumer confidence, which again reduces sales, decreasing income and profits; and as a side effect gives government more incentive to impose additional regulations. So the workforce is reduced due to the decreased demand for goods and services because the cost of those goods and services cause consumers to more stringently evaluate the cost versus its necessity. Decreasing the workforce causes a drastic reduction in consumer spending across the board. Companies become unable to profit from sales of goods and services, prompting the decision to shut down rather than continue to operate at a loss, leaving more of the labor force unemployed and unable to afford to buy goods and services that were once considered necessities. Loss of jobs and loss of income reduce the number of citizens from which the government can collect income tax, causing government to either operate at a deficit or find ways to increase taxes. Taxes on businesses get passed along to consumers in the form of price increases. Consumers think twice before making a purchase, leading to lost sales, reduced demand, decreased production, diminished profits, reduced workforce, higher unemployment, failing economy, government intervention, higher production cost, price increase, fewer sales, reduced demand, decreased production, diminished profits, reduced workforce, higher unemployment, failing economy.

So what can be done about this downward spiral? This is an unpopular proposal, but one that should be considered before the US economy becomes too unstable to prevent disaster. Reduce minimum wage for new hires and limit automatic wage increases. There are many who will refuse to work for such low wages, but those who really want to work will be more likely to show their worth to the company. And with the lower initial wages, companies will be less likely to ship US jobs off to foreign soil. Having more US workers on the payrolls will increase spending, strengthening the economy.

Wage increases should be rewards for valuable service to the employer, for innovation, and for improvements to the processes and procedures. There should not be rewards for laziness. If all workers are given the incentive to find innovative way to improve production, introduce new product, find better ways to provide service, to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, business will have an extended resource base from which to draw. Better products and services will improve consumer confidence, customer satisfaction and loyalty, and have a positive effect on the nation’s economy.

But contrary to my proposal, the state of Illinois is raising the minimum wage in July of this year. I know several people who have waited through years of wage freeze wishing they could at least get caught up with the rising cost of living, while people who have more recently been hired may be getting a mandatory wage increase. Some of those who’ve worked faithfully for years may soon feel they’ve just been slapped in the face by the company. Companies that are struggling and trying desperately not to cut staff are once again faced with the dilemma. Do they increase prices, reduce quality, just ride out the storm and hope things turn around soon?

I don’t have all the answers. Pray that God will bless this country with technologies or resources that have global market value, restore our economy, and bring prosperity back to this land.

Tracy Henness

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The Case of the Hopeless Husband


Jun 15

Posted: under Faith.
Tags: ,

I was talking with a lady after church who started off by asking me what I would call someone who refuses to have anything to do with church because of all the hypocrites, to which I replied, “Deceived.” There are hypocrites in the bars, at sporting events, and in the stores. Does such a person stop going to these places? Probably not. She went on to explain that her reference was to her husband. He hates the church and religion in general; he derides her for desiring to attend services; he doesn’t want her around any more.

I told her we need to pray for him. She said, “It won’t do any good.” That’s where she like so many of us failed. She had basically determined that her husband is beyond God’s ability to reach, that he is not worth her effort, that he is hopeless. Too often we make judgments on people that it wouldn’t do any good to witness to this person or that one because he or she engages in a certain sin, or espouses another religious belief, or even that they are having too much fun to trade it in for salvation (isn’t that a pathetic view of what God offers us?).

I don’t know the man, and I may never get the chance to meet him, but I promised this woman that I would pray for her husband, and told her that it is important that she pray for him, too. She didn’t seem too thrilled with the idea, but she reluctantly agreed.

I’m not sure what her motivation was that she even brought up this issue to me. I don’t get the sense that I told her what she wanted to hear. Maybe she was hoping I’d tell her it would be okay for her to leave her husband, but I couldn’t do that. She needs to know that God is big enough to change someone from the inside out. God can get someone to say just the right thing to make him stop and think about his own hypocrisy, his need for a savior, his need to know and experience God. She needs to hear true stories from wives who’ve had to pray for years for their husbands and finally saw their conversion. She needs to hear from husbands whose lives were changed because of their wives’ persistent prayer and gentle urging. And she needs people committed to praying that she will renew her love for him and her faith that God is able to do what she now thinks is impossible.

Tracy Henness

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The Cross is Ugly


Apr 26

Posted: under Faith.
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This might come as a shock to many who know me, but I hate the cross. The church for many years has sung the old hymn which proclaims, “So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross”. I hate the cross. Now before you ostracize me as an heretic, let me explain. The cross was only necessary because of sin, including mine. But so many artisans have tried to beautify the cross to turn it into jewelry. These symbols of faith in stylized gold and silver, studded with jewels and other attractive ornamentation have been used as a silent indicator of Christian faith. The real cross is ugly, burdensome, uncomfortable, embarrassing, torturous.

Sin is ugly. Admittedly, there is pleasure in sin for a season, but there are consequences. There is penalty for sin. There is punishment for sin. God’s righteousness and justice dictates that there is no remission of sin (or its penalty) without the shedding of blood. Sin brings death. Unrepentant sin brings eternal punishment. But God in His mercy, His love for mankind, His wisdom, devised a plan whereby Jesus, the Son of God, would pay the penalty for all of us who believe. God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. (Jn. 3:16, 17)

Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world, our sins, not His own for He had no sin. Only the sinless one could pay someone else’s penalty, since those who have sin have incurred penalty of their own. They cannot pay for someone else’s sin until they have payed for their own. But that penalty takes an eternity to pay for. So we need a sinless Savior, the perfect one. For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor 5:21).

So you see, the cross represents and reminds us of our sin. I hate my sin. But my sin is not my sin any more, for He took my sin upon himself, once for all. He did this not that I could go on sinning, but that I need no longer sin. Sin has no power over me because of the blood of Jesus Christ, because of the sacrifice He chose to make. I hate that ugly old cross, covered with sin, including mine. But just like the writer of that old hymn, I cherish the old rugged cross because without it there would not be that symbol I truly love and adore – the empty tomb.

The empty tomb is hope. The empty tomb is assurance that God accepted the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf. We have part in the resurrection because the tomb is empty. Jesus conquered death and the grave. Jesus conquered and eradicated sin for all who believe in Him. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 8:1)

Too bad we can’t wear an empty tomb around our necks.

Tracy Henness

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Major Application Vendors Should Support *NIX


Mar 30

Posted: under Business.
Tags: , , ,

I read an interesting post (followed by a host of comments and replies) entitled “Why does Microsoft not respect my firewall?” For most people this is just a bunch of techno-geek-speak, but some good points are made regarding network security.  Businesses invest a lot of time and effort on the part of their Information Technology (IT) departments to make sure their local area networks (LANs) are protected from the hackers, crackers, sniffers, snoopers, spammers, scammers, and other technology sinners and devients.  We set up firewalls with complex, convoluted rules to baffle and thwart attempts to break in.  We put our web services in Demilitarized Zones (DMZs) to convenience the general users needing access to our business websites, online catalogs and shopping carts, etc.  We use firewalls to allow us to export data to our web servers to keep them current and synchronized with our internal databases, without allowing traffic to pass from web server back into the internal LAN.  We get everything working efficiently, securely, and reliably.  Then Microsoft sells a new service or application or system or update/upgrade that requires us to punch a hole in our firewall so it will work.  Why? 

I’m glad for now we can do everything we need to do using Linux servers.  Unfortunately one of our primary application vendors has announced that their next version will require installation on Microsoft SQL Server.  To my knowledge this won’t require us to lower our defences, but if Microsoft continues this trend we may have to be ready to work around the problem.  It would sure be nice if this application vendor will rethink their resolve to force all us UNIX / Linux / AIX / *NIX users to switch to MSSQL Servers.  Let us keep our stable, secure, reliable, beloved technologies.  Support or at least allow installation on platforms other than Microsoft, please.

Tracy Henness

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Are We “Green” Yet?


Mar 13

Posted: under Going Green.
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There has been a lot of talk about “going green” and reducing one’s “carbon footprint”.  That’s all well and good, but there is much debate about how much good or harm we are actually doing.  The fact of the matter is that everyone needs to be responsible stewards of all they’ve been given.  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning. (James 1:17) All is His and He is able to take care of it. But He does expect us to be responsible and not wasteful.

In periods of tough economic times, businesses naturally want to find ways to cut costs, reduce overhead, optimize raw material inventories, maximize efficiencies, etc. Some of the things companies do to save money automatically reduce their “carbon footprint”, while some try to bypass government regulations such as proper waste disposal, thus harming the environment and offsetting the efforts of the responsible.

Some of the things we have done in recent years at Clinton Displays that has reduce our carbon footprint include consolidating the number of servers in our computer room and installing motion-sensing lights in the cafeteria. We also try to be responsible in our use and reuse of raw materials, sustain equipment as much as possible to keep from cluttering our landfills, etc. We used to have 3 Novell file servers, a Linux file server, a web server, an e-mail server, as well as all the routers and switches and UPSs and firewalls in our server room, all consuming electricity, generating heat, causing us to use more energy just to keep the room temperature under control. We have outsourced our web and e-mail services and consolidated the 3 Novell and one Linux servers into one small-footprint, high-capacity Linux server, thus cutting our electricity usage in that room significantly.

But the question comes regarding what happened to the hardware that was taken out of service. Did it get thrown out only to clutter a landfill and leach harmful elements into the environment? No, we reutilize the components as much as possible. Anything salvageable or reuseable either gets used to enhance existing equipment or stored for replacement of failed components, or recycled when possible. It’s just a matter of being responsible and not wasteful.

Not everything that is done in the name of all things “green” is truly environmentally friendly, economically effective, or even successful.  But interesting technological strides are being made, and we should applaud those efforts.  It is said that “necessity is the mother of invention.” And as long as we keep being told that we must do more to save the planet there will be an increase in innovation, some good, some not.  Be it far from me to discourage good innovations.

Christians, for the most part, don’t worry about trying to save the planet from the future destruction resulting from everyday life activities.  We know that scriptures tell us in several places that this world will pass away, that there will be destructive forces, both in the spiritual and natural realms.  Jesus tell us that these things must be (Luke 21:8-11).  Peter tells us the earth will be destroyed by fire and melt away with fervent heat (2 Peter 3:10-13).  John also tells us there will be a new heaven and a new earth, for the old will have passed away (Revelation 21:1).

We are not out to bring about the destruction of earth, we simply know our efforts to save it will not hinder God’s ultimate and wonderful plan.  It’s not a waste of time to act responsibly, but it is a waste of time to worry about the condition of earth tens of thousands of years into the future.

Tracy Henness

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