Seth Hedman

After much prayer and reflection, I gave this spoken word poem at Vineyard Community Church on 4/6/14 over the life of Daniel the Prophet. On The Shores of Babylon Daniel's Answer to The King by Briton Riviere (1890) God is my Judge That’s what my name means You may know me as Daniel But they even tried to take that from me I know you live in an age of plenty You think yourselves quite mighty And scoff at the idea of tyranny But take a minute, remove this cultural context which is so blinding And step into my shoes, you’ll see what I mean

"The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano" is the autobiography of a man captured as a child and spent most of his life in slavery around the world.  He wrote it to give to the English Parliament and help with the abolition of the slave trade. It is fascinating and I highly recommend reading or listening to the audiobook for free (its in the public domain). Most awesome is the story of him finding Jesus and true joy for the first time in his life, resting in the assurance of his Salvation by the blood of Christ and the hand of Providence through his life. If you go online and scroll down to  read chapter 10 , the description of his final run in with the grace of God is astounding and reminds me a lot about my own story. He describes how in a flood of tears he saw his utter sinfulness before a holy God, he saw the insane loving atonement of Jesus on the cross, and saw the hand of God as He had worked in his life.  All of the pain and sorrow which he carried ...

On Wednesday the 5th I was scheduled to give a talk at InterVarsity about Worship.  As I continued to pray and fast about what I might say, I felt God calling me to not merely tell people about worship, but to show people how to worship. This began taking shape around the idea of getting people out of their comfort zones and routine in order to really engage with God.  I had some ideas but then after the Super Bowl party on the 2nd, I got in my car and begin talking through what I might say... and it started rhyming.  I went home and began writing. Three hours later my entire talk had come out in spoken word poetry.   Before it was all over, that Wednesday took shape by doing an old school Liturgy, the Rite of Eucharist from the Common Book of Prayer, with modern worship songs, communion, and a 12 minute spoken word sermon.  It was an amazing night of pushing through the monotony of routine and entering the Throne Room of God in worshipping with my brother...