My father used to tell of a conversation he had with a man outside of MSMBC one day. The man had overheard the services as he passed by and he said that he would have come in, but he didn’t have any nice church clothes to wear, like the other people he saw. This conversation deeply impacted my father. And it resulted in him designating the month of June as “Old Clothes Month” at Mt. Sinai. When I was a boy, it was actually “old clothes” month. For instance, the men would wear overalls (or, are they called “coveralls”?). It...

There are several books I consult when I am studying Christian worship (besides the Bible, of course). These books have been trusted friends and advisors to me over the years. But when I turned to them to research “praise dancing” or “liturgical dance,” they were silent. I searched the table of contents, skimmed the pages, and scanned the indexes. Nothing. So I Googled the subject. And I found a lot of websites that offer praise-dance training. I also found many links that sell liturgical dancewear. But the few articles my searched produced were not very beneficial. Some dismissed the practice...

In the Bible, the word “anoint” simply means to pour, spread, or rub oil onto something or someone. For instance, Genesis 28:18 says, “So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and sat it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it” (ESV). In other words, he anointed it. Then he consecrated the place (28:19) and made a vow to the Lord (28:22-24). Literally, anointing is about oil. But it is spoken of three different ways in scripture. First, there is a physical anointing for healing (James 5:14-15),...