Unseen Eternity

Traditionol

2011-12-30T13:59:00.001-05:00

I saw a cartoon a few weeks ago with this simple caption: “Every year American culture embarks on a massive project to carefully recreate the Christmases of baby boomers’ childhoods.” I found it a profound insight.

Tradition is a big deal pretty much everywhere you go, but nowhere else is it more revered than in religious settings. We like our traditions; the lights and greenery of the Christmas season, the parades on July 4 and Memorial day, that one special place every summer. For years before we moved out of Rochester, my wife and I would go to a sushi place called “California Rollin’” on our anniversary and our birthdays. It was our family tradition. We still go when we visit family there, as much for the nostalgia as for the food. Traditions can be true and deep and meaningful and - dare I say it - even holy.

There are two challenges, however, with tradition. The first is environmental: the world is not a static place, but rather, our environment is dynamic, always changing; jobs change, weather changes, economies rise and fall, friends come and go, people get injured … nothing stays as it is for long. Our traditions are subject to the movement of the world around us, now more than ever. The second is cultural: what one person considers a tradition is often different for another. Some prefer the brightness of lights and lasers at Christmas, others prefer the darkness of a candle-lit sanctuary. Some prefer to rock around their Christmas tree, others prefer a silent night. We start to argue about making sure we “keep the tradition” and blacklist anyone who would dare suggest we try something new - they’re troublemakers up to no good, and no good will come of their antics. And we forget that our tradition was, at one time, not the way it was always done.

At some point, the tradition was new.

The lesson to learn here is that there are, really, two kinds of tradition. Traditions are created, intentionally, for a good reason. They are not simply "the way it is," but rather came from somewhere for a purpose. We create a rhythm with traditions; the rhythm is a reminder, a symbol of something deep and meaningful. Sometimes we can keep those traditions fresh and new, ever-imbued with that deep meaning for all concerned. I’d put “Silent Night” by candlelight into this category; every year it takes on a new meaning for me and many, many others; sometimes because of the peaceful tranquility of the soft music, sometimes because of the communal act of creating light together, sometimes just simply because it’s so darn pretty to see an entire room lit only with candles. It’s done every year on purpose, for good reasons that almost everybody can articulate, including but not limited to “because we like it” (though we’d be remiss not to recognize that not everybody does).

All traditions, though, are created for a season, for a culture, and when they have run their course, when the world changes and more people come from other cultures with other traditions, everybody’s traditions change. And it’s ok - we can help each other create new traditions for a new season in a new time and place.

But “Traditionol” (now with fresh citrus flavor!) is a drug that promises, for many, to make it all better, as if going back to old faithful really will change the outcome. Despite a change in the environment or culture, despite the differences in traditions across a group of people, we often fight to keep the way it’s been done for the status quo. [sidenote: This isn’t limited to those that won’t change anything; sometimes “change” can be a tradition all to itself, as in "change for change's sake."] But that’s the definition of insanity; you are doing, as they say, exactly what it takes to get the results you are currently getting, and to expect new results by continuing this same course is simply lunacy.

Sometimes traditions are done only because that’s the way we do it; we can’t remember a good reason to do it beyond “that’s the way we always do it” or “we like it that way.” Sometimes we go so far as to make our traditions into dogma to be enforced on others as the right way, the only way, and despite that those traditions were created for a positive purpose, to foster greater understanding and connection with others, along the way we lost the vision. That is when a tradition becomes the addictive and yet repressive traditionol: when we no longer understand why we should do it, but rather only know that we can’t and won’t stop.

And so sometimes, sometimes the best thing to do is to let a tradition die.

That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a good thing, a helpful thing, a beautiful and true thing. It simply means that it has served its higher purpose and now, something new is needed. Sometimes, to keep a tradition from becoming traditionol, we let it die, and in its death we allow it to birth new traditions for a new time and a new culture. We remember it fondly, as a good thing, as something that blessed many. And then we start over as artists, and from the charcoal of the old, the whisper of the new is born.

Thinking Smaller

2011-12-19T17:43:00.000-05:00

“So Chris, didn’t you used to be fatter?”

“Hey Chris, have you gotten less fat?”

“Chris, did you get new jeans? Your clothes look huge!”

*sigh*

For those of you asking questions like these, the answer is a roll of my eyes and then, yes. Yes I have. For the last four months I’ve been using the weight watchers online program to keep track of my eating habits. There’s less on my body, and more in my head; I’ve learned a whole lot, about both myself and our culture.

Less is More

One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that less is, in fact, more. It turns out that we Americans, in general, eat way, WAY too much, more than our bodies actually need. The first two weeks of this plan (it’s not a diet, in the traditional sense, but a plan for how to control what you eat) were hell for me. Because I had to calculate every little thing I ate into a “points” system, I was surprised to discover that I wasn’t eating that much extra at meals, but rather, I was snacking myself to into the sofa. I discovered that I lacked discipline; every chance I got, I would simply reach for a snack. Sometimes it was for stress, sometimes because I hadn’t eaten properly at my last meal (eating more protein will last longer than carbs, for example), and sometimes simply because my mouth really wanted to do something as I stared at my computer. So the first two weeks brought to light all of these crazy things I had always taken for granted, things that fell between the couch cushions of the fabric of reality. And it was in those first two weeks that I began to see what I had become: an undisciplined food-addict.

Food addiction is unlike any other addiction in that it’s the only addiction from which you can never go cold-turkey. It’s not as if you can simply stop eating and sweat it out in a padded room for a few days and then begin the recovery process. The thing about life is, you really do need to eat … just maybe not as much as you were.

Oddly enough, because I’ve eaten less and had to choose carefully what I ate, I actually think that food tastes better now than it used to. I used to live by the assumption that if you like something, you eat more of it. It turns out though, that if you only have chocolate once every three weeks, it takes on a much more vibrant flavor than if you keep some krackel in a bucket under your desk. The same can be said for eating out; if you don’t eat taco bell every week, eating it twice in four months becomes a whole different experience. Luxury food - and that is what those things are - is actually a treat now, I get excited about it in a way I didn’t used to; it’s made food MORE enjoyable than when I indulged my every perceived whim.

Learn What Things Are Worth

I had to buy several new pairs of jeans by the time I lost 20 pounds because my other pants were literally falling off of my waist. Yes, it is expensive to lose weight. But beyond the need for new, smaller clothes and a few specialty foods, it’s ridiculous to me that our country is the only one in the world where fresh vegetables and fruit and meat are more expensive than a box of mac and cheese. Mass production of carbohydrates (the evil “c-word” of weight loss) has given our country a strange twist over others; the poor in our country are the only ones in the world who are fatter than the wealthy because they can’t actually afford the healthy food. Eye-opening, to say the least, but it meant that for me to stick with the plan, I had to pick and choose what was really important to keep in my diet. Orange Juice was the first thing to go, but then I stopped drinking my iced chai tea every morning - too many points, and too expensive. Why use five points on a small glass of orange juice when I could just get a box of oranges and have those for zero points?

What, in other words, is really worth your time and your money and your effort?

Learn Discipline

It’s amazing to me how different one pound seems from twenty. I wanted this to be easy, to just amputate my stomach and be done all at once. Seriously, I used to have dreams about getting liposuction because it sounded easier. This plan didn’t work like that though; I didn’t get to simply have whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it; if that were allowed, I’d have used all of my daily points by the time I hit lunch. I had to build discipline into my lifestyle slowly. The plan helps you lose weight slowly, up to several pounds a week. While this didn’t seem like much each day (especially in the beginning), six weeks into it I had lost enough weight that I had to adjust my belt another notch. I didn’t even notice it at first! It took the slow accumulation of disciplined effort rather than one day of agony to make a difference. It turns out that this is far healthier than the “immediate-gratification” culture of which we’re all a part; we don’t really know how to say “no” to ourselves.

It also turns out that I’m far more likely to stick with it the longer I do stick with it. Since it took so long to get the weight off, I’m stubborn about keeping to my plan - I don’t want to have to take this much time to lose it all over again. You have to be persistent to learn persistence, in other words, but it pays off big time. Imagine how this applies to a lot of other things in life. Take money, for example. Do you want an iPad? Great - start putting pennies in a jar, or that few extra bucks from not having a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Over time, you’ll save enough to get that new toy. You’ll miss the coffee at first, but when you buy the iPad, you’ll realize it was worth it. It takes sacrifice to get what we really want in life because we can’t actually just have everything. We may try to hide our rationalization, but we really do “nickel and dime” our budgets in weird ways. Do we REALLY need another one of those little things, when over time we could have the big thing? Or how about our time? What if we stopped checking facebook or twitter ever two minutes - imagine how much extra time in a day we’d have because we weren’t addicted to our social media?

Maybe we need to think bigger by thinking smaller - what if we stopped having that one luxury item we crave all the time to instead donate that money to digging wells? We all think that a seemingly meager contribution can’t do much, but over time, and as our influence spreads to others, the wells will get deeper.

In total now, I’ve lost almost 27 pounds, over 10% of my starting weight, and I’m still going. It feels really good, despite the occasional bout of paranoia that I’ve eaten too much. And as I said, people are starting to notice; it was startling to my parents when they came to visit - I’d lost about twenty pounds at that point, and I believe my mother’s exact description of me was “svelte.”

I’m not entirely sure what that means, but it sounded good.

Worship Connect: Volume

2011-11-18T16:34:00.001-05:00

This week's Worship Connect post is worth a read. Thanks to Jo Anne for contributing!

Worship Connect: Why We Sing

2011-10-28T11:05:00.001-05:00

Come join the discussion at the Worship Connect blog for the ECC. Today we're talking about why we sing ...

Music is powerful.

Music has the ability to convey and evoke emotion, even without words. Music is the one thing that every single culture on earth has in common, and while the form of music differs, not a single culture on earth is without it.

Because we are what we sing.

Read the full post here.

Down in the Valley

2011-10-17T20:02:00.000-05:00

The most recent post on the Worship Connect Blog features an article by the most excellent Geoff Twigg that dovetails nicely with my last sermon (about rebuilding from the rubble); I highly suggest you check it out and join the conversation!

Mountain Tops and Muddy Boots

"For most of you this has been a mountain top experience, a rare event – and you don’t really want it to end; but don’t forget… nothing grows at the top of the mountain. If you want to see people growing in Christ, being discipled and deepening their devotion, you need to put your boots on and get to work in the valley.”

We Are the Parable

2011-10-11T11:59:00.000-05:00

Our God builds cities out of the rubble. Sermon #5; enjoy.

Video streaming by Ustream

On Creativity

2011-10-07T09:55:00.000-05:00

"When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something, it seemed obvious after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they'd had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that's too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they didn't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have."

[Steve Jobs]

Navigating the Line

2011-09-24T13:57:00.001-05:00

I’m learning that there’s a fine line between prophet and pharisee.

A prophet calls out a culture on the ways it has strayed from truth and warns of the consequences of bad decisions; a pharisee condemns a culture for every minutiae.

A prophet speaks of the One who sent her; a pharisee speaks of himself and those like him.

A prophet speaks because he cares for those whom he addresses; a pharisee cares only for her perceived superiority over those whom she pities.

A prophet speaks to people now, here; a pharisee speaks to everyone at all times.

A prophet is proactive; a pharisee is reactive.

Worship arts pastors, being of creative mind and spirit, often take on the role of prophet for their church culture, sometimes intentionally, but more often not. Our creativity is often at odds with a culture that prefers to mass-produce, our art at odds with a sports-infused populace, our lingering poetry counter to a bullet-point society. It is only natural that we challenge the status quo, as our personalities and our preferences fit the job description. But the danger is that we can become that which we prophesy against; in our cry against perpetual busy-ness, we become too busy ourselves; in our cry for families to spend time together, we neglect our own; in our crusade against consumer-driven worship gatherings, we don’t have time to curate with integrity and simply throw together whatever comes to the top of our minds. We can become pharisees in the midst of our role.

C.S. Lewis is known for saying that all vices are merely virtues taken out of their proper place. The role of the worship pastor is no different; when we do our jobs properly, the people rejoice because they have encountered God, not us. A worship pastor, like a prophet, points to God, calling attention to His mercy, His holiness, His grace, His justice, His love. But when we distort that calling, we begin pointing towards ourselves, to our congregation, to our culture, and we become pharisees.

When we try to enforce our way on others instead of collaborating, we become pharisees.

When we curate a worship gathering with our own tastes in mind rather than what is best for the community, we become pharisees.

When we condemn others without intense self-examination, we become pharisees.

When we don’t acknowledge the diversity of tastes and talents in others, and instead mandate our tastes and talents as the preference of God, we become pharisees.

When we ask others to make sacrifices without first becoming living sacrifices ourselves, we become pharisees.

When we don’t set aside time to simply be creative (but instead mass-produce what everyone else is doing), we become pharisees.

When we see resources to be used rather than people to be encouraged, we are pharisees.

When we see only ritual instead of relationship, we are pharisees.

A friend and mentor of mine often says that, to detect counterfeit money, bank tellers are not given a class on what counterfeit looks like, but rather are given time to spend with the real thing. In knowing the real thing inside and out, the counterfeits become obvious. So too, I’m learning that we worship arts pastors need to spend time with the real thing if our gifts and passions and callings are to be used well. For if we don’t know God, all our planning becomes clanging cymbals in the ears of those we lead, and WE become the distraction. While the truth of the matter tends to find itself in the middle somewhere, let’s recommit - daily if necessary - to spending time with the real thing. Let us be prophets, and not pharisees.

Worship Connect | Cause for Celebration

2011-09-23T18:14:00.000-05:00

I love that I get to contribute to the Worship Connect Blog for the Covenant. I'd love your input over there in the comments section; let's talk about celebration!

* * *

The occasion of several birthdays in our worship arts family this week got me thinking about the importance of celebration. Throughout the scriptures, celebration plays a key role in the life of the Hebrews; Joseph threw his brothers a party, David danced, Ezra read from the scriptures to a multitude with rapt attention, Isaiah saw the angels singing “Holy Holy Holy,” Jesus and the disciples ate together on many occasions. But we’re left with a picture at the end of the second testament that outdoes them all; a new city descending to a new earth, gleaming and brilliant with light, and a spotless bride dressed to match her husband. A wedding, and a banquet. A dawn breaking. A brand new beginning. And then the passage abruptly ends; we don’t get to keep reading the next adventure …

* * *

Read the rest here.

Broken

2011-09-16T18:02:00.001-05:00

One thing that I don’t know what to do with concerning “the gospel” (the good news recorded in the scriptures) is that it seems to me that in order to accept the good news, we first have to agree with the bad news. It's starting to bug me a little; we have to accept that our world is broken in order to accept that it needs fixing, but more than that, for those of us westerners/americans who subscribe to a general humanist-flavored worldview (and we all do, to some extent), the bad news is that not only is our world screwed up, but so are we. Individually, we are messed up.

I am the problem.

And so are you.

And that doesn’t sit well with Americans. All of us want to not be the one screwed up. Nobody wants to be responsible. “It’s not my fault” is a refrain you can hear EVERYWHERE. I say it. You say it. Everybody says it. Nobody wants to be wrong about something. And yet the good news requires, it seems to me, that we accept that something about us is wrong.

All together.

Individually.

Communally.

We all participate in this broken world. I choose to buy products regularly that are assembled in ~~impoverished~~ developing nations where the people are paid so poorly for their lengthy labor that they can barely afford a decent meal for their family that day, thereby perpetuating a broken system that hurts people. I have hurt people emotionally. I’ve ignored people who needed recognition. I’ve recognized people who didn’t. I’ve bought into a culture - hook line and sinker - that says some people are more important than others, that some people get special treatment simply for having more money than me, for having a nicer smile than me or who simply are celebrity because they say they are. I’ve bought into that.

And so have you.

Now maybe we don’t think so. I know I don’t much think about it while I’m brushing my teeth or eating a hot dog. It’s like water to a fish; it’s just there, but the truth is that I live my life in such a way that validates those principles as reality. My behavior says it louder than my voice ever could.

And so does yours.

Bill Hybels presented the idea of getting from “here” to “there” a few years ago at a leadership summit. In order to start the journey, for him, you need to make “here” look really bad so that “there” looks more appealing. I know it’s so cliche for evangelicals in particular to say things like “if you were to die today, would you go to heaven?” but I wonder sometimes if that’s really the right track, that starting with the problem and ending with the solution is how to go about this whole thing. It would also make sense to me that anybody immersed in our culture like fish in water would have a hard time with that, pointing at them and saying things like “see the crazy fundamentalist?” [side note: I know many evangelicals bring it on themselves by saying stupid things that don’t have anything to do with the gospel, like how you should divorce your Alzheimer’s wife, something totally un-Jesus, and by being “against culture” because it’s easier to dismiss the whole thing by demonizing the other than it is to be discerning and figure out where we ought to agree with our culture.] But the fact of the matter is that just because it’s uncomfortable to be wrong, to be broken, to be in need of a savior … that doesn’t mean it’s untrue, and it doesn’t mean we should shut up about it.

We.

Are.

Broken.

Here’s the thing though: it’s not really good news to tell somebody that God’s here to redeem you if you don’t think you need redeeming. It’s more of an annoyance. Think of it, if you’re a Christian and a Hindu were to come up to you and tell you that you’re broken and that Ganesh has all the answers, what would you say? You’d laugh at them, most likely, or you’d get really uncomfortable and try to avoid making eye contact. Maybe you’d get mad and ask what right they have to tell you something about Ganesh, and who ever heard of THAT god anyway, it’s not real. … Sound familiar?

But I also know that many people already recognize a broken world when they see one. Going up to somebody in the subway and telling them they’re going to hell isn’t really that helpful if the person doesn’t believe hell exists or - worse - if they already think they’re IN hell. You have to speak a language they understand, and to learn that language, you kind of have to know them first. You don’t get to tell somebody they’re broken until you know who they are. In today’s world, we have to belong before we’ll believe; we have to know that these people care about us and have our best interests at heart before we’ll trust them to suggest to us what’s what. We need to know them, and they need to know us.

And so to me, it’s really good that Truth with a capital-T is a Person, not some abstract concept. Truth is in a relationship, not a belief. When we say we know Truth, it’s not a list of bullet-points we can memorize and put on a powerpoint, but rather it’s more like knowing my friend Mike. I know that Mike really likes music and can play a mean lead electric, that he can speak some Japanese, that sushi and Chipotle are always on his menu. But I also know he’s got my back; we’ve been through some stuff that’s built trust between us, and if he were to tell me that I messed up (and he has), I’d believe him far more readily than Bob the Televangelist. I can tell you all about Mike, but until you spend time with him (and you should), you can’t trust him the way I do.

Truth

only

comes

with

relationship.

In the Tension [UPDATED]

2011-08-04T11:39:00.001-05:00

I have a confession make: I've struggled with homosexuality my whole life.

I don't mean I've struggled with same-sex attraction. I think we can all agree that Mark Wahlberg and Brad Pitt are fine specimens of the male gender, but for me, that appreciation turns quickly into envy; I wish I looked like them, though preferably without the effort it takes them.

It's a problem.

No, my struggle is more basic than that; I don't know what to make of homosexuality at all. I struggle to reconcile the people I know with the scriptures I believe, the friendships and relationships and emotions with the principles. When I read the scriptures, I see principles that teach us to love our God and our neighbors, to respect each other, and a way of life that is full of grace and mercy and justice. But I also see a lot of things that show us where the boundaries of sin are, and I find it hard to read scripture in a way that says acting on homosexual urges, regardless of their origin (the nature vs. nurture debate is still far from over), is inside that boundary.

What makes it harder are the names I can put to people I know and care for who have followed those urges. My emotions want me to simply accept their actions, since who am I (a sinner as well) to judge? They seem to love each other, and who am I to say they shouldn't be able to marry who they love? I did, why shouldn't they?

That would be fair.

And frankly, I don't want to lose the friendships and respect of those who so strongly support gay relationships; it seems that these days, if you were to speak out against, or you were to even DOUBT the “ok-ness” of homosexuality, you lose the right to speak at all, about anything.

Apparently, that’s called being "tolerant."

In fact, it’s the very reason I nearly didn’t post this about a thousand times, why I edited it a thousand times, rewrote whole chunks; if somebody misunderstands, misinterprets, or simply is offended, then I lose the right to speak to them.

But then I go back to scripture. Some things in scripture are contextual and others are cross-contextual. Women as leaders, for example, is a contextual issue. The ECC is unashamedly egalitarian because there are actual examples of female leaders in the scriptures, and the two passages we see speaking against this practice are both rooted in the context of their respective situations. However, homosexuality seems, to me, to be cross-contextual, since it's addresses in multiple contexts and multiple authors and multiple cultures, and every time they seem to say the same thing: acting on the impulse is a sin.

I see so many of my peers, particularly in my generation, advocating for homosexual egalitarianism within the church. And I respect their opinions, since they're very smart and well-read and travel to Bolivia to care for orphans. Their character in other areas is so much like Jesus. They make me think hard about the way I read the scriptures, the way I see my neighbors.

And what if they're right?

What if I’ve been reading the scriptures wrong? What if I misunderstood the context? What if this whole thing is wrong in MY head and it’s not actually my peers in the church-world that are crazy? On the other hand, what if they’re reading too much of a 21st-Century perspective on love into the scriptures in a way that was never intended? What if they’ve unintentionally compromised their beliefs in order to sound politically correct or to feel like they fit in or to give themselves a voice where they wouldn’t have one otherwise?

And the argument just goes back and forth,

back and forth,

back

and

forth

back and forth in my head, a pendulum whose near-perpetual motion is starting to make me a bit dizzy.

The fact is that "hate the sin, love the sinner" doesn't help me, since the people who usually say that to me don't seem - to me - to love others that are different from them very well. But I also don't want to compromise the truth contained in the scriptures by trying to make them say something they don't simply to resolve a cognitive dissonance between my culture and my religion.

What seems to keep coming back is the tension within love that you see in the scriptures. The kind of love God has is patient, kind, generous, and trusting. But it also speaks truth into the lives of others, honestly, openly, albeit carefully. Some things are not beneficial, the scriptures say, and you shouldn’t do them no matter how strong the urge, no matter how harmless it seems. And so when someone is wrong, love says so, because the relationship it is based on can handle that tension. Love looks out for others. Love doesn’t seem concerned that you always FEEL love in order TO love.

There's a difference between love and permissiveness.

It seems to me that the "accept me for who I am" argument doesn't work for several reasons. First, I doubt anyone saying that to me would respond too kindly to being told the same in return; nobody accepts a racist "for who they are" anymore, and the same goes for anyone labeled a "homophobe." Even if we say otherwise, we all BEHAVE as if we believe that our actions - and even our beliefs themselves - are actually choices. We behave as though we are not genetically programmed, but that we can choose to do something, choose to believe something. Which means that we really do believe people can change their actions and beliefs, even if we only believe that only OTHERS should change.

I suppose it raises the question though, who ought to change? That could be the crux of the culture war.

Second, while God always accepts us as we are, for Him that is not an end, that is only a beginning. God is ever-challenging us to grow in faith and holiness, to become closer to His image and character, and that means leaving sin behind, a piece at a time. His love is big enough to be dissatisfied with where we started. God believes we can and should change.

It's part of love.

And so my struggle is, how do I imitate God here, in the tension? How do I live authentically, true to both the scriptures and my friends, so they can see that God loves them fiercely, but that doesn't always mean He'll just sign off on everything we want or feel? How do I come out the other side having represented God well to my neighbors? How do I best love God and people in a culture that believes love means encouraging you to do whatever you feel is ok, regardless of the consequences and regardless of how it affects others? In a culture that is passive-aggressive, how do I confront in a healthy way, a way they understand?

How do I live in the tension?

How do I love?

[UPDATE]

Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, responded SO well to the LGBTQ community at the Global Leadership Summit this month, and I thought I'd post the video here.

Sacrifice | Worship Connect Blog

2011-07-22T17:03:00.000-05:00

My latest post over at the ECC Worship Blog can be found here. I'd love to hear your thoughts on where YOUR church has found itself within the tension we all have to maintain between our preferences and sacrifice.

Creativity and Music Architecture

2011-07-08T11:30:00.000-05:00

I've seen a number of remarkable presentations of late on creativity and the arts, and I thought I'd share them with you here.

Inefficient

2011-07-06T10:35:00.003-05:00

I think a lot of the objection to short-term missions that has been raised as of late has a lot to do with the American notion of efficiency. It seems a lot of arguments are built on the idea that “we could do MORE with that money if we’d stop spending it on plane tickets / fundraising items / souvenirs / tourism and just give it to the people, THEN they could rebuild their society.”

I disagree.

Short-term missions do have issues and need to be handled carefully, to be sure. The dangers of “poverty-tourism” where one weeps over the people for a month after returning home and then resuming the life one left are legitimate and fairly well-documented; one can return on an artificial high and feel one has done one’s “duty” for “those people over there” without ever truly grasping the truth that we are just as poor, we are just as broken as they. We create for ourselves a false dichotomy where we put ourselves above those in poverty and are the “benefactors” who go over there to impart on them our wisdom and our ways, to give our money away and feel good about having done something. We forget that to be a true partnership, to truly honor them as human beings created in the image of God, the interaction goes both ways; we need to be willing to learn from them, to recognize that they too have a great deal to contribute to the Kingdom of Heaven if only we were willing to accept their sacrifice and their talents and their experiences. Poverty tourism insults a local culture by making a hierarchy where none exists, putting the tourist as better than the local. And yes, this is a danger that needs to be avoided.

But it can be avoided. Short-term missions work best when they are partnered with long-term missions, with missionaries who have lived in the area a long time and have spent the time building relationships with the locals and can continue those relationships once the team has left. It takes training for the short-term teams to understand a bit of local culture before they arrive (let’s avoid those cultural taboos if we can; don’t bring beef to India!). It takes an attitude of humility on the part of the team to understand that they aren’t the bigger picture here, that God’s been at work a long time before they arrive and will continue to work a long time after they leave. It takes the posture of disciples who are willing to sit at the feet of the long-term missionaries and the locals and learn from them, even as they participate in the mission work they came to do.

And yet many lament the inefficiency of the short-term team. So much capital and time are invested in going over to another place to do this work, so many resources that could be used to build more wells, more community centers, feed more children, clothe more orphans, buy medicine for more wounded and elderly. It’s a touching thought, and while I applaud the sentiment, there are other things in this world than efficiency.

I heard a story once about a missionary in sub-Saharan Africa describing the way we do church here in the West to one of the locals. At some point, he mentioned a heated debate that had begun over the organ in one church, whether to replace/restore it with $10k or be efficient and buy the cheaper electronic version. The local - who himself lived in poverty - looked at the missionary and said something to the effect of “if it takes $10k for an organ so people can meet Jesus, then spend the money! You can’t put a price on meeting Jesus.”

Humbling, for sure.

But it makes an important point: money is just money. We can’t make more of it than it is, because if we do that, we turn it into an idol and give it false power. If we truly believe that God is Lord over all, if everything is His and He can do with it as He pleases, then it’s a false modesty that says we should give all the money spent in short-term missions to the locals because we think that means it’ll be better spent; it’s easy to say because it’s never going to happen, which makes the one saying it feel superior without having to really change anything. And that perpetuates the false dichotomy we mentioned earlier, it still puts us above them, only we leave smelling more righteous, even if it’s only self-righteous.

And that annoys me.

More to the point, however, arguments about efficiency completely ignore the other benefits to short-term missions: relationships and inspiration.

In Haiti a year ago, the locals we worked with were so happy to have us there. [Side note: That was one of my takeaways, how they could live with joy in the midst of such pain, and it has given me better perspective as I’ve moved jobs and gone through a lot of transition in the last year.] The purpose of our trip was to work with a team of Haitians to help them rebuild their church, which was to double as a community center. The relationships forged with Joselin and others there were valuable for us and for them; we learned about each others’ cultures, laughed together, prayed together, played together, and worshipped together. Before we left, the Haitians thanked us because they were so glad to know that the church beyond their borders cared for Haiti, and they wanted us to know that they too were praying for the church in America. That relationship, between Haitian and American churches, requires that investment of people, which requires money. It’s valuable! Think of how easy it is to quit when you feel that nobody supports your efforts, when you are simply ignored.

There is motivation in relationship; Joselin in particular wanted to rebuild his country and this time do it right (Haiti crumbled, in large part, because there is an existing culture of short-changing building materials), and he drew strength from the relationship, knowing that even if his local brothers and sisters wanted to take shortcuts, others like us supported his desire to rebuild properly and were willing to work side-by-side with him to get it finished. And we in return were inspired as a team, drawing strength from his strength. I’d return in a heartbeat, given the opportunity.

To (ironically) pull a page from economics, it always takes investment to generate return. If it takes $2500 a person to send a team to Haiti and help the Haitians know that the rest of the world still cares about them, then DO IT! We can send all the money in the world to somebody but that doesn’t necessarily show them that we love them; it takes the investment of time, the labor of sacrifice to show someone that you love them. If it’s a week building alongside Haitians, do it. If it’s four days in an orphanage in India, do it. If it’s a VBS in South Africa, do it. Be aware of the dangers, check your motivations, but don’t be afraid of inefficiency; it’s worth the sacrifice of efficiency to build the relationship.

Worship Connect

2011-07-03T15:16:00.000-05:00

The Worship Pastors of the Evangelical Covenant Church have put together a (closed) facebook group where we discuss our calling: leading our people in the worship of our Creator. Out of these discussions, the denomination has asked us to contribute weekly to a public blog so that the denomination as a whole can benefit from the conversation. I was so excited to be asked to contribute!

This week, it's been a very interesting discussion on what to do with national holidays; how does one curate worship gatherings and keep Jesus as the focal point - the subject of the story, as it were - but still honor the cultures in which we find ourselves when they celebrate a holiday (July 4, Memorial Day, etc). There have been many points of view and ideas brought to the table, and we'd love you to contribute your thoughts on the subject. The blog post in question (written by our own Matt Nightingale) can be found here. We'd love to hear from you!

Rhythm

2011-06-22T11:53:00.000-05:00

Preached again. First sermon at Community Covenant, and it didn't turn out half bad. Enjoy.

A Prayer of Seeking

2011-05-26T16:02:00.002-05:00

God.

Lord.

Father.

Teacher.

Sometimes we feel so close to You. We hear your voice plainly. We feel comforted. We feel joy. You meet our needs in more abundant ways than we could possibly have guessed or imagined possible. We feel loved.

And sometimes it feels like you don't even answer, like you didn't even hear us to even tell us no. Things don't go as we'd hoped. We feel the weight of silence.

And sometimes you move beyond where we feel comfortable, outside of our boxes, our traditions, our expectations and our interpretations. We feel so small. We feel absurd.

But you've told us we can trust You, and You've proven it over and over again, even if it's in ways we didn't quite expect. May we learn to trust Your mercy, Your justice, Your grace as we walk forward in this uncertain world.

We ask this as humbly as we can, just like Your Son: may it be so.

Potential

2011-05-15T18:01:00.000-05:00

At some point in Drops Like Stars, Rob Bell compares us to a bar of soap. He says that the bar of soap can be turned into a magnificent piece of art - he shows a few examples that others have created - but it must be chiseled away first, that the artwork is waiting to come out if the artist would only remove the proper pieces.

I rather wonder if we Americans should hear this regularly. From a purely physical perspective, I think most of us could stand to be chiseled out a bit more. I look at myself in the mirror and think "I think there's a smaller me in there somewhere, if I could take that piece off and that piece off, and maybe that one ..." I don't know that Rob was necessarily talking about that when he wrote the book, but you never know.

What I think he was getting at was that we as people are works of art in progress, that we as human beings need to let the master artist work on us, transform us, and that involves some pain. Transformation is not easy; it means going through the pain of having our addictions and preferences and time-worn habits ripped away from us, piece by piece, and replaced with ... what? I think it's at this point that I've heard teachers forget that the phrase "God fills that void" isn't necessarily that helpful, even if it is true. God still has to fill it with something, and it's a choice on our part to let him carve out a new picture for our lives. It's all dependent on our willingness to let those holes remain open for God to fill, and not ourselves fill them with the old habits or new albeit broken ones. If we let Him do His transforming work - a process that is by no means instantaneous - God begins stripping away our addictions and bad habits, and then replaces them with new habits, new practices. Where once there were habits of financial debt, God replaces with habits of responsible generosity. Where there was once an adulterer, God replaces with habits of loyalty and interdependence. Where there was once a drug addiction, God replaces with habits of service and hospitality.

If we'll let him.

Hymns

2011-05-11T10:19:00.000-05:00

I would very much like to know the answers to two questions:

1. What are your favorite hymns?

2. Why?

Post your answers in the comments section.

Substance

2011-05-06T09:55:00.001-05:00

"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." [The Apostle Paul, in Philippians 2:1-4]

The church these days has been looking pretty fragmented. We find ourselves all over the spectrum on every conceivable issue. Every day it seems there's another scandal of some Christian getting angry at some other Christian over some theological or doctrinal or political or practical issue that they don't quite agree on; like oil and water, parts of what are supposed to be the body of Christ just can't seem to mix. And it begs the question, whatever happened to Jesus' call for unity?

In John 17, Jesus prays that his followers would be, above all, united together as Jesus is united with the Father. The early church had a word for this likeness: homoousios, meaning of the same substance.

I dare you to try and fit that one into conversation today.

God the Father and Jesus are of the same stuff; if you see one, you see the other. But as you read through the Bible, sometimes it seems that on the surface, God the Father (especially in the Old Testament) and God the Son (Jesus, in the New Testament) aren't really that related; one burns Sodom and Gamorah, the other heals beggars and lepers. But if you look more closely, you start to see that God the Father really is generous, loving, and actually likes his creation, and that Jesus sometimes gets upset and turns over tables. The more you read, the more you see that they are united in the same stuff - the stuff of character - and it is most profound to note that God the Father and God the Son are servants. God begins the restoration of His world by rescuing Israel from slavery, something none of the other religions of the day could claim. Jesus, over and over again, heals people physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually in nearly every place He went. It makes me think that unity in our body, as diverse as we are, as seemingly different as we are in our theology, in our expression, in our worship, means that we need to all be of the same character, of the same stuff.

Homoousios.

We need to be united because we take on the character of God, and the best way to do that is to love each other. And the best way to love each other is not at first a head thing, and not even at first a heart thing, but is at first an action thing: to serve. Serving is at the very core of God's character, and is, I think, at the very heart of what it means to be a united body, in the name - in the character - of Jesus.

I've never seen people who serve together angry at one another for very long. When we SERVE others WITH others, we can put our differences aside because it's no longer about us, it's about the mission and the One who gave us that mission, it's about the purpose we've adopted that's outside of ourselves. When we need to, we can still work with others we don't agree with or don't even like much because we're all in on the mission together. And when our self-attention goes out the window and we instead gravitate that attention to the mission, so too does our focus on the differences we see between ourselves and others seem to dissipate. Unity is about our focus; when we are not united it is because we are too focused on loving ourselves instead of on loving others. Disunity, at its heart, is about selfishness.

The heart of unity is selflessness and humility, just like serving.

One substance.

One character.

One mission.

One Church.

"The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'" [Jesus, in Matthew 28:16-20]

Worship and Sacrifice

2011-04-18T10:47:00.000-05:00

"I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." [Romans 12:1-2]

When I talk worship with my teams, my congregation, or - really - anyone, I start with this passage because it most closely connects worship with the bigger picture: worship as sacrifice. I once heard a pretty helpful definition of worship: it is to acknowledge greatness and respond. We can acknowledge a lot of things as great, and do on a regular basis: celebrities, athletes, writers, but the key to worship is in how we respond. Worship does not separate the belief from its consequences, the head and heart stuff from the action stuff. To acknowledge something as great does not in itself mean we worship it; what we do in response to that greatness matters.

Worship is sacrifice. A verb. Action.

For me as a missiologist and worship pastor, I need to be able to see worship as more than just something that happens once a week in an hour on Sunday. We can’t reduce worship to something as trite as a performance or an event, as good as those things are, because according to Paul, true worship IS sacrifice. Worship can’t be just accepting some set of beliefs or codes or laws, it has to be practical, something to be lived out.

Worship is a lifestyle.

Which brings me to Lent. We’re in a season right now that celebrates and remembers the life and sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus and I’m drawn to ask a question: could Jesus’ time on the Cross have been an act of worship? We tend to think about what the Cross did for us, how Jesus died so we can live (emphasis on the "so we can live") but if we look at the cross as an act of worship on Jesus’ part, it puts it in a whole new context for us as followers, as worshippers, as imitators of Jesus. In Ephesians 5:1-2, Paul writes that we are to be imitators of God, to follow His example. And what was His example? He gave of himself for others. His worship was to love others and to love God in the fullest way possible: his worship was sacrifice, both as he lived and as he died.

Philippians 2 contains one of the first recorded worship hymns, and here too Paul puts Jesus’ sacrifice in the context of worship for his followers. In verse 4, we are to look to the interests of others. In verse 12 and following, worship becomes an action, we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And so I guess my question in this season where we usually give up stuff as a way to benefit our own journey, how are we giving up of ourselves for others? Are we taking the time for people, or do we hoard it? And on the other hand, what are we doing that’s new? Are we giving more of ourselves, or simply ceasing activity for a while hoping that we will receive something?

What are we doing that is sacrifice?

What is our worship?

Contest

2011-04-11T20:26:00.000-05:00

Our video and graphics ministry could use a major tech upgrade, which is why I'm entering the contest featured below. It looks like it could be interesting software, so here's hoping ...

New church presentation software is coming out soon called Proclaim and it’s located here. Unlike all other church presentation software systems, this one will allow pastors, worship leaders, and worship team members to all access and add to the same presentation before it’s presented, and then use the same application to run the presentation during the service.

Click Here to See

To add to the excitement of the release of Proclaim, they are giving away $25,000 in worship resources in The Great Worship Resource Giveaway. They are going to have 100’s of winners of some of the best worship resources on the market. The giveaway is located on the

Postures of Confession

2011-04-11T17:08:00.001-05:00

Did you know that your posture changes the way you think?

It's true that your body shows the rest of us what's really going through your head at any given moment, but the reverse is true as well: the way that you carry your body will change the way you think, the way you feel. A quick example: on a day you're not feeling so great, take a pencil and hold it in your mouth, forcing the corners upwards in an approximation of a smile. See how long it takes before you start feeling better.

The simple fact is that we behave because of what we believe, but we also believe because of how we behave. The two are a cycle, influencing one another in our lives, egging the other onward. This is the reason why actors often become uncomfortably close to a character they work on particularly closely; Heath Ledger became chronically depressed after he spent so much time on his character the Joker, and the world is now lesser because his exceptional talent is gone, lost to a drug reaction.

We think and feel how we behave. We behave how we think and feel.

Think about this the next time you're in church. I was leading one of our services this past weekend and, as I sang "Jesus Paid it All," I couldn't help but notice several people standing with scowls on their faces and their arms crossed. I didn't know any of these people and so I can't speak to their hearts, but I really wanted them to grab a pencil. Such a posture speaks very loudly, to me as a worship leader, to those around them, and to their inner dialogue - their posture tells THEM something too. What I saw were people not engaged, people unhappy with something, people closed off to the movement of the Spirit in their lives. But In the same service, I saw people smiling, their hands open and heads bowed; engaged, singing, worshipping, people who were also speaking to themselves, and people around them, and to me on stage.

In our contemporary service.

In our traditional service.

In every church I've ever been in, both kinds of people are there.

Side by side.

What all of this tells me is that we can, if we want, intentionally change things. If we are closed off to God, perhaps changing our physical posture towards Him will help us change our mental and emotional postures. I have to wonder if the difference between those two groups of people was their posture, if making an intentional change could have helped them engage with God and those around them. They could have worshipped if they had purposefully changed the way they stood, held their hands, arms, and heads. It's a question of attitude; why am I here at church?

It's about choice.

I find that on those very rough days when I travel all the way to church tired, worn-out, discouraged, it simply takes picking up my guitar and playing to remind me who I am, why I'm here, and put me back into my place. Not in a bad way, in a good way. They say that to confess is to agree with God about who we are; as I play, yes, I agree with God that I am a sinner, but THEN, then I agree with God that I am His child. Forgiven. Given grace.

Deeply Loved.

The next time you're in church - traditional, contemporary, emerging, wherever - try changing your body language; open your hands instead of holding the pew or chair in front of you, or maybe raise them over your head. Sing. Move. Dance. Worship.

Confess.

Caricature

2011-03-30T10:27:00.000-05:00

I've tried to write about this before, but I think it bears repeating; maybe I can do it more justice this time.

Last week I was without my family for a few days, which gave me a little extra time for reading. I think ordinarily I'm so brain-dead by the end of the day that I end up staring at the TV for an hour or two then pass out. Somehow, this last half-a-week has been a bit different; boredom set in with the TV by about friday, so that on Saturday I spent the entire day reading - I finished two books, and today started a third one, which I'm about a quarter of the way through. The first two books were Permission to Speak Freely by Anne Jackson and The Next Christians by Gabe Lyons. I highly recommend both to you. However, while Jackson's book was very experience-oriented, and Lyons' book was academic but easy-to-read, this third book has been challenging me a bit, bringing up book after book from grad school, pushing the envelope of my vocabulary (he likes big words like "epistemology" and "contextualization" and "syncretism"). I love it. And it's inspired me back to some thoughts I had a few years ago about the differences between what Jim Belcher, in Deep Church, calls "traditionalism" and "emerging church," particularly the issue of relativism.

Since I did my degree in anthropology, I've come to look at everything through the eyes of culture. What some people will label in terms of their contrasts along the same spectrum, I tend to label in terms of their cultural conditions, and so when I look at the conditions of today's shifting American climate, I see not a clash of ideological groups or political groups, but of cultures struggling to coexist. Culture, as Andy Crouch writes, is "what we make of the world." According to Belcher, Traditionalists to find their home emerging from the enlightenment philosophers, the rationalist thinkers, and scientists. This group of people takes strong issue with what he calls "postmodernity," a term that has been defined and redefined ad infinitum by everyone grasping for what's actually going on today. Traditionalists, he writes, take issue with the moral relativism and hyperindividualism (another great word) so prevalent in the emerging postmodern culture. Many of them say that postmodernity is taking the enlightenment project - a singular truth understandable in its entirety by all people through the five senses, rationality, and logic - to an extreme. They say that the postmoderns have become SO individualized that they no longer feel accountable to those around them, and so truth becomes "relative" to the individual. My truth is mine, and you can say whatever you want yourself, but it doesn't change my truth. Because of this, the Traditionalists say, morality goes out the window and the individual does whatever he or she wishes.

It is not so. Would that it were that simple.

From what I can tell, "relativism" is not really a word from the emerging postmodern culture; they do not use this word to describe themselves. The word "deconstruct" is used a lot, as is "tolerance," and so I think the problem is in the most basic assumptions about the world from both sides.

The priority of traditionalism, based on the enlightenment project, has been Truth with a capital T. THE Truth, to this group, is solid, discernible with the right resources and time, and ultimately knowable for the betterment of mankind. We can build utopia. WE can build utopia. However, in practice what has happened is that the Truth has been subject to the interpretation of the individual's cultural upbringing; each individual was sure they had it figured out, but did not account for the influence of their personality, their parents, their social context, their schooling, etc. Egos got in the way, agendas were thrown into the mix, and ultimately relationships took a back seat to proving one's theories correct. In the Church, to use a practical example with which I'm sadly very familiar, it goes thusly: one person has an idea about how a passage of scripture ought to be read. A second person disagrees, stating that obviously it's meant to be read another way. Each side polarizes and assumes only two options, (which is absurd but in the heat of the argument, what is one to do to win?). Assuming that the issue is important enough to the both of them, a rift is formed between the two; instead of agreeing to disagree, especially on something "fundamental," they sever the relationship. Evolution and Creationism is one example of which I've grown quite tired of debating, and more than one person has dismissed me as person because of my views on the issue.

I'm not sure it's worth it.

Postmoderns observe this and want nothing to do with it. To them, the relationships broken by so many Traditionalists should have stayed intact, and so the postmodern individual will instead go to the other extreme: to preserve the relationship, to coexist with one another, they insist that everyone must tolerate everyone else, that each person is entitled to their view of truth because nobody really knows for sure anyway; even if you did know the truth, you wouldn't know you knew it for 100% certain. Insults are thrown by the Traditionalists, the Postmoderns shrug it off and do whatever they want to, and it just goes downhill from there.

You can practically see the pendulum smack the other side of the clock.

See, "relativism" is a label by traditionalists for the phenomenon of being so caught up in preserving one's relationship with one's distinctly different neighbor that one is willing to say that both peoples' conflicting claims are right. The issue is not whether a postmodern believes in an absolute reality (nobody behaves as if such a reality does not exist; we all still believe gravity will pull us rather abruptly to the bottom of a cliff if we were to walk off), but rather setting different "default" priorities. The Traditionalist will default to their understanding of the Truth at the expense of the relationship; the Postmodern will default to their friendship at the expense of their claim to the Truth. In some respects, the postmodern sees relationships as truth, while the traditionalists see facts as truth. Each culture has a different set of assumptions about what is a priority.

Now, of course, this is a caricature in and of itself to make a point; nobody in either camp is THAT extreme - postmoderns still sever relationships, and traditionalists still maintain them with people unlike themselves. The point is that the labels that get thrown around by either side become straw men to be pulled apart to demonize the other. We're all still human, after all. Ultimately it's a conflict between cultures based on mismatched assumptions about what is a priority for humanity. It's ironic to me that both sides are so much alike, despite how much they dislike each other, because like it or not, it's important to maintain a healthy tension between relationships and facts.

Because both are required to be human.

Choice

2011-03-14T16:17:00.000-05:00

A caviat: this is the first post I've published in a long time - I'm aware. About a year ago, while working at my last church, I was asked to stop writing because my thinking was, apparently, "too controversial" for some people of influence to handle. While I've since moved to another church (who do not hold that opinion), it's been very hard for me to start thinking like a writer again ... my thanks to Shawna for giving me a kick in the mental butt to just start writing again and see where it goes. Please be kind; it's been a while.

I think our culture is bored.

We Americans have so much, and it's not even that challenging to get more, relatively speaking. Middle and upper-class kids have the easiest lifestyles on the planet; everything is handed to them on a silver or gold or platinum platter (we have options), and so what else do they have to do but find ways to seek thrills in one form or another? Girls go online and take their clothes off not to make money but just to do something dangerous and "taboo," something against their parents' wishes, something that gives them a rush (though they'll take the money too). Guys and girls alike experiment with drugs, sex, alcohol, parties, and the like to find some sort of high, artificial as it may be, to stimulate their minds without all the hard work of learning something useful or meaningful. Their parents' body language and actions - if not outright verbiage - have told kids that they are entitled to this lifestyle of privilege. As human beings, it's easy for us to believe because, let's face it,

we want to.

But it leaves nowhere to go except to consume, and we human beings are not meant to be consumers, we are meant to be people who make more of the world, who create and love and learn and build and grow.

Our culture's obsession with sex and the adrenaline-rush (in one form or another) seem, to me, to stem from a search for meaning. But that search has been limited because we've been looking only in the only places we've been taught to look: the places we're most comfortable. Instead of breaking out of our boxes, instead of moving beyond the world of consumption, we simply try to find new ways to consume, new thrills, ever more exotic and provocative, but fundamentally the same as the last. A girl taking off one more piece of clothing each time she gets on a webcam is thrilling for her, but it only can escalate once the thrill wears off - one more piece of clothing, one more provocative act. Likewise, a guy drinking only demands that he drink more and more to get the same thrill. More parties, more drugs, more violence, more more more ... we will consume ourselves into oblivion, all because we have become bored, lost in our search for meaning to the point that we've essentially given up, numb to the pain we're really causing ourselves and others but unable to break the cycle for fear of losing the pleasures that we think are all we have; we don't want to give up what makes us feel good, even if for a moment. Our happiness is fleeting, but it's all we know; we want more, but are not willing to sacrifice to get it.

But perhaps that's the very thing keeping us from finding meaning that will last. Perhaps joy is something found when we give up what makes us feel good in the short-term, when we stop seeking pleasure for ourselves and instead seek to do good to our neighbors and to better our world. Perhaps moving beyond our ease is exactly what we need to do; perhaps the meaning we seek only comes in conflict and blood and sweat and tears, the things that make us uncomfortable. Perhaps joy is found in the midst of pain and work and sacrifice.

Perhaps the problem has been choice all along: we didn't know we had one. Maybe what we've done is bought into the lies of consumption because, deep down, we don't WANT to sacrifice, we don't WANT to give up of ourselves because it's HARD. But instead of facing the facts, instead of owning up to our own decisions about what we do and why we do it, we make it the fault of others, of our culture, of our parents, of our genetics, of our family, of our history ... of our world ... of anything except the one place where blame must eventually fall:

ourselves.

Yes, things happen that are not our fault, but it is WE who choose how to handle those things, whether to let them make victims out of us, or innovators. Do we accept the subliminal messages of the matrix and so doing commit ourselves to a mental and cultural prison, or do we reject the lie and instead choose to move beyond, to a new way and an ancient way, a way borne of mercy and justice, love and sacrifice,

... death and resurrection ...

Altar: True Worship

2010-10-13T12:18:00.002-05:00

I preached again, this time with Pastor Will Kallhoff, who did part 1 and I did part 2 on a sermon about worship. I thought it turned out really well, people responded well. When you listen, one thing to know: when people start laughing, it's because a sword was pulled out of its sheath. That is all.

Another Sermon

2010-08-16T09:37:00.001-05:00

I preached another sermon and thought it was worth putting up here. The video of the sermon itself isn't that exciting, but the video before the sermon is somewhat important - so video first, then sermon audio. Enjoy!

Responding to Greatness

2010-04-20T22:28:00.002-05:00

What does it mean to lead worship? How is it different than performing?

I was confronted with questions like this tonight at a meeting, and they're good questions. I also did a terrible job of answering them on the spot, which is sort of sad since I should be able to talk about this stuff easily - it's sort of my job. Now, obviously on some level it depends on how you define the various words in question, particularly "worship" and "perform" but lots of people think they're very clear about what those words mean and think everyone else agrees with them. So it's worth exploring the questions if just to finally agree on what the words mean.

We started thinking about this in youth group recently: what is worship? What does it mean to worship someone or something? The definition we came to was this: to worship is to acknowledge something's greatness and to respond to it. It's a great definition because it's both simple and concise. It's also modestly disturbing because it means we could potentially be worshipping a lot of things that maybe don't deserve it.

Worship is in the attitude and behaviors of a person. As someone whose job it is to lead others in worship, I have to start right at the beginning and say that my job is, by definition, impossible if I think that leading means it is my sole responsibility if someone does or does not worship God. When it comes down to it, a person cannot be forced or even coerced into worship; they have to respond freely for themselves. If they were coerced, it's not worship. If they were forced, it's still not worship. Now, I can be very distracting in many ways (I can make it all about me, which distracts, I can be really bad at what I do, I can make too many changes, I can keep everything too the same ... the list is long), but it will always come down to a decision, a choice of behavior made by the individual.

Performance, in Christian circles, is often thought of as the polar opposite, the Joker to worship's Batman. Performance is, in this vein of thinking, trying to get others to acknowlege MY greatness and respond. And by that definition, I have no problem saying that I'd prefer never to perform again. If all we're on about is ourselves, then we've missed the point of the gospel entirely. And yet it's a constant temptation; I want others to say "wow, Chris, you're so great because that service rocked my world" or "Chris, you make my life complete when you sing every sunday." Nobody's ever actually said those things, really, but I'd be lying if I said I'd never wished they would. I'm weak that way. But it's important that I catch that before it goes too far; it's one thing to desire excellence, it's quite another to be excellent for the purposese of being acknowledged. The compliments that help me the most?

Them: "Chris, I can't believe I met God like that today, He talked with me today and it was awesome!"
Me: "Sweet. What did you think of the band?"
Them: "What band?"

It's really not about us, it's about God's glory, it's about acknowledging how incredible God has been and continues to be in our lives and then responding accordingly. But I'm glad God asks us to be a part of it.

But let's take it a little farther because there is still the issue that performers are among us, and often enough, we're the ones guilty of trying to call attention to ourselves. The grace of it all? It is still possible to worship God in a place where those who say they're leading are actually performing. See, others can HELP you worship, but they cannot worship FOR you. It used to be, back in the day, that the priests were to be the representative of the people, to present the sacrifice of the people to God for them, but when Jesus came that changed. Now, we are to present ourselves as transformed by the gospel as a spiritual act of worship, we are to be imitators of God, we are to love others as we love ourselves ... we are to love God with all of our beings. Worship happens corporately, but only because lots of individuals agree together about He who is being worshipped. So when I'm in a place where others are trying to call attention to themselves, it might be harder, but I still need to acknowledge God and then respond; it's still on ME to be in a place of worship, even in spite of others.

As a worship pastor (or more properly, a creative arts pastor, one who strives to lead others in worship through artistic endeavors), it is both a humbling responsibility and a frustrating exercise. On the one hand, everything I do is to be an example for others to follow, and yet it does not guarentee that they will ever truly worship. Flip it around, and I can be doing my absolute worst and others may still worship God simply because they love Him so much that nothing I do can distract them. Sometimes I get frustrated because it makes me feel sort of redundant, but then I remember, God still wants me here, God still wants my help leading others.

Control

2010-03-02T22:55:00.004-05:00

We Americans are obsessed with control. Some churches push the value of excellence; many want to plan ahead not becaue it is pleasing to God to do one's best, but because it gives them some assurance of their control over the outcome. A whole movement of church growth was built around this concept, called the "seeker-sensitive church." Other churches are petrified of change; for them, this means keeping everything the same, week to week, month to month, year after year. We can control what we know, and so we introduce no new ideas, no new music or art, and consequently no new congregants.

This is not to say that excellence is a bad value - God does ask for our everything, from hearts to minds to strengths (it actually does please God when we do our best) - but to say that it needs to balance with other values such as flexibility, compassion, and understanding. Nor is this to say we should change just for the sake of change - that would be a terrible use of resources and time, and would likely hurt many in its pursuit of novelty over tradition. It is a call to intentionality, for excellence with purpose and change with direction and design. Jesus called his disciples out of their cultures and comfort zones for a purpose, a mission, a grand design.

Subsequently - and I think, because of Jesus' example - Historic Christianity has challenged and continues to challenge every culture in some fashion. For the Greeks and Romans it challenged pantheism and emperor-worship; for the Jews it challenged notions of messiah and Torah; for the African it challenges notions of marriage and of the supernatural; for Polynesians it challenges notions of the "Big Man" and materialism; for Americans and most Westerners, it challenges notions of control, individualsm, and consumerism. No culture is left unchanged in the wake of true Christianity, a religion that confronts a culture's demons at their source. But so too is no culture left empty when confronted with Jesus, who makes the culture more whole, more complete, more alive than it had been. Jesus does not ask us to obliterate a culture, nor does he ask us to become one with it. Rather, we must always keep the two in tension with one another; we must not allow our own cultural prejudice and bias to contort the free expression of Jesus' spirit manifested in another culture. But this does not mean we have nothing to say to it; rather, the global, multiethnic, transnational church is to keep itself accountable, each culture challenging and subverting notions of superiority over others. Jesus liberates culture to be more full, more complete, more whole than it could have possibly been without Him. The Romans were freed to a life focused on the One True God, the Africans liberated to a life without fear of the darkness, and Americans emancipated to a life surrendered to the Will of God, serving others instead of themselves.

Cathedral

2010-03-01T21:21:00.003-05:00

It's amazing how buildings can be symbols. In St. Gallen, Switzerland, there is a Catholic church building dating back somewhere between six and eight hundred years ago, and it stands as a symbol for Western Christianity today.

In its time, it was an awesome sight: painted ceilings soar above intricate baroque latticework in copper and bronze. It was meant to inspire awe, for the congregant to walk in and immediately fall to his knees in awe of God and of the Church, and in so doing, inspire the heathen to convert.

They didn't do "seeker-sensitive" back then.

The confessionals - of which there are many - each depict a different scene - Christ walking on water, the martyrdom of Stephen, and others. The altar stands separated from the congregation by several ornate wooden railings; a golden cross stands at the front, and above it, three symbols depicting the Trinity; in the back, a massive pipe organ. All is the finest that can be had, crafted by the best artisans and architects, spared no expense. It would have shone with unmatched brilliance when the light hit the windows, making the inside almost glow as a choir sang the Gloria or the Agnus Dei before the pious masses.

Today it's a tourist attraction.

It was restored a few years ago, but only to a point; what was once copper and bronze is now green and oxidized, the gold and the paintings faded, the pews worn and empty. Sometimes the acoustics are used for orchestral or choral concerts, at which point a few people show up to listen. The rest of the time, tourists come in groups and admire the fine artistry, gawk at the organ, sit in the wooden pews, take pictures, make light conversation about the paintings, and take pictures of the altar. And then they leave, unchanged, uninspired, untouched.

It speaks so well to where we find ourselves. An empty building, forgotten except by a few tourists and its own meager congregation, an icon of glory days passed, of lost power and of waning influence. Europeans look elsewhere for their spirituality now, to science and Buddhism and New Age and - for a growing number - to Islam.

It's because of Church buildings like this that such a change began. The altar, for example, is separate from the congregation, peasants, who were deemed unclean and ineligible for communion. The masses were expected to come to church because - so far as they knew - their only option for a life better than their own was in the hands of those in power, and those in power took their money and their goods to pour into large buildings and to make themselves comfortable.

It is at this point that I run into conflicted feelings. There were obviously many who abused their power, but there were a few - some of the artisans, a few priests and bishops, many monks, and perhaps even a pope or two who were not in it for themselves, who genuinely believed they were living as Christ commanded. They poured their time into their congregations and into creating the artistic masterpieces that now sit in our cities, victims of entropy. They did what they could in a corrupt system (though most didn't challenge that system). But eventually, the people had enough and stopped going when other voices gave them a better option.

What do we do with this picture of a building, a masterpiece of art that is at once a historic marvel and contains many tragic stories? Do we chalk it up to the heathens, to those who chose to leave because they stopped believing (did they ever start), and call upon them to repent and return to the cathedral? Do we call it a failed experiment and abandon it to history and to the concerts and the tourists? How do we learn from this? How do we at once celebrate those that were truly faithful (if somewhat misguided by their culture) and avoid the pitfalls of a bureaucratized institution that would take the resources of the poor (and the rich, yes) to build a mere building when many were without food? Can art be created without exploiting others? Do we really need the building? If not in this massive all-but-abandoned structure,

where

is

the

Church

now?

Family of Four

2010-01-29T20:01:00.004-05:00

Caedmon Jace Logan, born 1-29-10 at 4:09am, weighed in at 8 lbs 9 oz. He's got his daddy's height and his momma's pouty lip; the girls are and forever will be going wild because of that. Liz is doing really well after being induced and having a subsequent 25 hours of labor. She's gotten sleep, I have not (but am looking forward to bedtime). Thanks to everyone who was praying for us, God listened; when it seemed that we'd be inducing for two more full days, she suddenly went into active labor and dialated 7cm in the span of an hour. Caedmon was born not too long after, just a few hours - 45 minutes of pushing (very short).

His name is Gaelic; "Caedmon", the warrior, and "Jace", derivative of "Jason", healer. Warrior-healer. Liz calls him CJ. We pray he lives up to his name.

Pictures via Flickr

Music and Mission, part II: Incarnation

2010-01-16T11:00:00.006-05:00

I was perusing my files today to filter out the old stuff and noticed an incomplete post for a series I started a while back. If you're interested in the topic, here are links to the first few posts from the series:

Introduction
Part 1a
Part 1b

And now, we continue the story. Thanks for reading ...

Once I started thinking like this, it occurred to me that perhaps I'd been thinking in all the wrong ways about worship arts. Maybe instead of treating worship as another duty on Sunday, I could use that service as a means to teach the congregation about being missionaries. Maybe, as Neil Cole writes, it was about lowering the bar on church and raising the bar on discipleship. The more I studied, the less I saw wrong with having paid worship staff, so long as they used their positions as pastoral positions. If a church's worship service was less about trying to convince people who are not there why they should be Christians and more about sending the Christians who ARE there to the people who don't want to be, maybe, just maybe, there could be hope for the world yet. To say it another way, I started to take issue with what some called the "attractional" model of church.

God didn't just do the same thing He'd been doing - pillars of fire, large clouds, plagues, prophets who parted the sea - he didn't stay apart from His people, but instead came down to live among them. And not just as a fully-grown adult either, God came down as the Son and spent time growing and living with the first-century Jews. Sometimes, I think, we want our missions and evangelism to look different, to be easier than that - we want to just go in assuming everybody already knows where we stand and call them to repent. That's the story we often tell with our actions, right? We sign big declarations about what we think are important issues, preach sermons about repenting, and have long conversations with each other about "the way of the world," and all the while the people who need to meet Jesus aren't involved in the conversation because it never even occurred to them that the Church might have answers to their questions. I think if we ignored three of the four gospels, we could continue to think like that, but since we don't just have Mark, but also Matthew, Luke, and John's accounts, we can't ignore this idea of incarnation because it affects SO much of church life. We can't just isolate or even insulate ourselves from the world and then expect it to change; like Jesus, we have to invest ourselves in it, even preparing to pay a heavy price to see change - good change, positive change, godly change - happen.

Israel did this time and time again; they'd isolate themselves from the world around them or they'd use military means to make change happen, and over and over again things didn't seem to work out for them. Worse, they couldn't seem to stick to their own rules! Time and time again, God sent prophets to inform Israel of her misdeeds, of her affront to the poor, the broken, and the downtrodden. God asked Israel to be a light to the world in the midst of darkness, to show the world the way in which they could live well, the way in which they could know God. But instead, Israel continued to forsake that charge. And thus Jesus came.

If our lives are to be imitaitons of Jesus, and if our collective body of churches are the body of Christ, then it stands to reason that our worship services can fit into this story. Churches ought to begin by learning the culture around us, applying it to the way we design services, and using those services to make better disciples of the Christians and non-Christians alike who come.

(to be continued ...)

You Vs. God

2010-01-07T19:47:00.000-05:00

Equilibrium

2010-01-04T20:51:00.007-05:00

When I was a kid, my parents had this habit of taking me and my sister to a dentist every six months or so. I always wondered if he intentionally tried to fit most of his little tools into my mouth at the time just to see if he could, but by the end of the appointment he’d be satisfied that my teeth were in satisfactory health and give me a new toothbrush and a stern warning to floss better. And if it had been a really good appointment, I’d be told to walk out the door into the lobby and press a doorbell button that lit up a big sign that said “hey hey hey, no decay.” This was a really big deal to the dentists and hygienists that I would be able to press this button.

Why?

I mean, nobody expected me to get more teeth, only to keep them healthy. Our basic assumptions tend to be limited to maintenance, not expansion; we don’t expect growth, we expect things to stay just the way they are now. Obviously our experience tells us that a single person can’t actually have more teeth, but aside from that, we think it’s a silly question because we don’t like decay. We don’t like teeth that can rot and cause pain and make us eat only yogurt and applesauce. We don’t like that things break down, that they wear out, that it takes energy and effort to maintain them at their present state. In the science of thermodynamics we call this “dynamic equilibrium,” the way that it takes energy and effort and work to just keep things the way that they are instead of decaying – we call it “entropy.”

It takes an extraordinary amount of effort to keep things at dynamic equilibrium. Your body’s mitochondria, the little powerhouses of your cells, are feverishly working day and night to produce chemical energy, something called ATP, from your food. Furthermore, maintenance requires more than just energy, it also requires your cells to die on a regular basis as they wear out, and are replaced by new versions with new mitochondria and take up the call to keep being a body. When a person’s body decides to stop fighting the entropy, something called static equilibrium begins to take hold. Without all that effort, the body re-equilibrates with the environment around it and the elements begin doing their own thing. Another word for static equilibrium is “death.” When your body stops fighting the decay, it dies.

All this effort to keep one thing going.

But let’s say that my assumptions were different, that I still wanted the world to have more teeth. What would it take? Despite the limitations of my own mouth, there is a way – I could always get together with a girl (she’d have to be a cute girl if I wanted good teeth) and then make a few tiny people that could then grow their own teeth. Speaking from experience – I’ve done it twice now – I can say that it works. There are now more teeth in the world than before.

You can sleep easier tonight.

In order for growth to happen, it requires one to transcend dynamic equilibrium. Massive changes have to take effect in order to reproduce; new hormones are created, entirely new structures are built to house this new creature until it can sustain itself, great amounts of energy are spent in the making. And when at long last the day comes, there is pain and discomfort and separation. We literally cut the two apart sometimes when the growth hasn’t gone exactly according to plan. But in the end, there’s this beautiful new infant, fragile and vulnerable. And the process is still not finished; more energy is poured in, more effort is made to make muscles and bones and organs bigger, brain cells grow and fit into new patterns, and eventually, there is no longer an infant, but a fully capable, mobile adult that can make decisions, laugh, cry, and eat sushi.

God asks us to grow.

See, growth doesn’t happen when we simply try to maintain what we have. Sure, it takes a measured amount of energy to fight decay. But in reality, the amount of energy it takes to fight against decay is best spent growing bigger, in reproducing. In the end, it is in reproducing that we are able to live as a species. But when we reproduce, we cannot make the other into clones of ourselves, we must allow them to be unique, capable on their own, with their own set of gifts and talents. We don’t dictate who they are, God works with them so they can be the best they can be.

If nature is any sort of reflection of God’s intentions – and the scriptures and our tradition resonate that it is – then we are to move beyond simply maintaining ourselves. Life is not, in the end, about us, but about something bigger, more than ourselves. God’s assumptions are not our assumptions. And so our church programs have to give up on being static, because if we try to maintain them just-so in a changing world, we’re simply prolonging the inevitable move to equilibrium. When it’s about keeping it just like it always was, we’re really saying it’s all about us. But if we grow, if we reproduce and allow the children to grow up and think for themselves, we’ve begun to act out something bigger, something grander. We act in the very character of God.

Photo Update

2010-01-04T18:33:00.003-05:00

I finally got a chance to post a few new pictures on Flickr. New house, Christmas, and lots of others of Rori. Enjoy.

The Silent Monks

2009-12-29T13:23:00.000-05:00

A Few Over-generalizations

2009-12-29T12:52:00.006-05:00

Some of you may remember that I’d basically given up on the whole evolution “debate” out of what amounts to sheer exasperation with pretty much every side involved. Recently, however, I seem to have been drawn in again, mostly through discussions with several youth members at church. It has led me to do some more reading in the area, on two sides (of many) in particular, and yet I still find myself at a place of …

… “So?”

The issue that keeps coming back for me is this: how is it that the two sides in question seem so full of paradoxes, and how then can we then make these central debates to any sort of worldview?

For example, young-earth creationists claim that the universe was created in six, 24-hour days (because time was measured that way already) by a benevolent God who told them to be fruitful and multiply and to take care of their garden and the people of the earth He loves so much. I get the opposition to abortion, it seems to fit pretty well with “God loves all creatures”. However, they then oppose social health care, as if it would be such a terrible thing for everyone to be healthier, for more people to live, and for more people to live well. Now, I know there are issues with health care reform and socialized health care from an economic perspective (i.e. we can’t really afford it), but how on earth can you claim that these are issues that scripture can oppose? Sure, they’re not particularly consistent with traditional American values, but scripture isn’t particularly for or against America. I’ve yet to hear from any of the conservatives/fundamentalists how the two go hand-in-hand. Now they may, there’s the possibility since everything is really a religious issue, but I’ve yet to hear their justification for it. What the world does is only my concern inasmuch as I need to understand it to then show them the love of Christ in a way they can understand.

My beef with the other side is that they’re just as paradoxical. Most naturalistic evolutionists would say that there was no particular cause for everything, just random chance (if we can label it that). They also would tend to say, by definition, that everything arose through natural selection of genetic variation, the fittest genes survive, the most cunning are able to pass on their genetic material for a new generation. However, what I don’t understand is that the same group of people – to over-generalize – also seem to be most often in favor of universal health care, socialism, etc. This isn’t to knock those ideas one way or the other, but to notice an inconsistency: if you’re so in favor of naturally selected survival, then why on earth would you try to guarantee everyone surviving? And THEN you say that it’s our freedom of choice that we should make abortion legal. It seems a contradiction and a paradox to me as to how these can all coincide in the same worldview.

Just some thoughts, hoping that maybe it’ll get my writing juices flowing again. I’ve been away from this for far too long and I miss it. And yet I also seem to have very little time for it. Ah well.

Cheers.

Snowball Fight

2009-12-17T12:18:00.002-05:00

So Will put this together and then sent it out to the whole staff ... I was almost worried about worship and youth pitted against children, spiritual formation, and senior leadership ... almost ... but it's too funny to pass up. Cheers.

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Celebrities Conquer Africa!

2009-11-22T21:16:00.001-05:00

Sermonizing

2009-11-10T12:06:00.005-05:00

I know I've been terrible about posting since I moved to South Dakota, but let's be fair, I've been so incredibly busy that life has afforded me very little time for scholarship and writing. In addition to moving into our new house and leading worship this past weekend, I preached my first sermon as a pastor. More to the point, I've only preached twice before - once in my teen years in a youth service, and once with five minutes warning in India. So this isn't coming from a lot of experience. But I've done my share of writing.

Below is the text of the sermon text and audio.

Many of you know this already, but for those of you that don’t, my wife Liz and I were missionaries in Australia for a year, planting a church in Melbourne. Moving into a new place can be a bit scary, but it’s exciting at first. You spend a lot of time “oohing” and “ahhing” over the cool things you see, hear, and taste. But somewhere around month two, you start to realize that not everything is as shiny as you thought. What comes to mind is that when we were in Melbourne, I could never figure out why people kept running in to me when I’d go places, especially in the Central Business District of the city. We’re talking pretty much anywhere I’d go; I’d be walking along crowded city streets, and people would just walk right into me. It took me forever to figure out that it was me, not them, who was the problem.

When you walk along a sidewalk here in the states, we tend to make the assumption that it works like we drive. We drive on the right side of the road, and so we also walk on the right side of the sidewalk; it’s just common sense, right? Well, Australians drive on the left side of the road, and so I assumed that they’d walk on the left side of the sidewalk. And yet every time I would stick to my brilliant plan, I’d inevitably walk right into people. And so one day I was in the city and decided that instead of getting hit over and over again, I’d stop and watch and see what I was missing. And sure enough, as I watched, I began to notice that people didn’t actually walk in straight lines, but instead wove in and around each other as they bustled from place to place. It wasn’t until I stopped to watch and then imitate their behavior that I could walk unobstructed through the city.

Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery, but I want to suggest today that it’s probably got to be more than that if we’re to be Christians of the highest caliber. Around the year 61 AD, in a letter to a group of churches near the city of Ephesus, the Apostle Paul wrote these words:

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly beloved children, and walk in the way of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” [Ephesians 5:1-2]

I think you'll find that a lot of the really profound things in scripture are built on "therefore" statements. This usually forms the hinge of many of Paul's writings in the New Testament; because God is, because of what came before, because of how good God has been, therefore we act. So in order to understand what we're reading here, we'll have to start with what came before.

1. What Came Before:

Ok, so what did God do?

Well, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's how the greatest story ever told starts, right? First there's nothing but God, and then God sets aside something that's not Him and calls it good. In fact, He created an entire universe.

But we all know how the story goes after that, right? Another part of creation, something or someone else not-God, referred to as the "serpent," decides to try and get us, the creation, off track, to pull us out of that relationship we had with God, and we fell for it. We made a choice, and a rift was created between the divine and the mortal, a barrier built between God and humanity.

But God already had a plan in motion.

You hear about it all over the place. Whispers at first, really, and then growing anticipation. God is moving, God is working, God is seeking redemption with His creation. All the way back in Genesis it says that God called out a particular family to be the vehicle for this, to be as numerous as the stars if they'll strive to be faithful to the way of life He's set aside for them.

The LORD had said to Abram, "Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing." [Genesis 12:1-2]

And God kept His promise – Abraham’s family grew and grew and grew, just like God said. But growth can be scary, especially to your neighbors, and eventually, Abraham’s family, who became the Hebrews, were enslaved by another nation, Egypt.

And so the desire for redemption, for reconciliation turned into a longing, a plea for freedom. One day, in the midst of this oppression and slavery, God called a man named Moses to be a voice for Him, to speak out and demand that God's people be set free. When they were, they were sent out to cross the wilderness. They were given a way of living that would honor God, who would honor their freedom if only they'd keep to this way of life. In Exodus we read that, because God freed them from Egypt, they were to obey His law.

And God spoke all these words: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Therefore, you shall have no other gods before me. Therefore, don’t make graven images … therefore …" [Exodus 20:1-17, abridged]

We know the rest of the ten commandments, right? In remembering the things God has done for us, we are to be moved to Obedience.

But we don't always obey too well, and neither did our predecessors; no sooner had the Israelites been freed then they fell back into their old ways. And so God decreed that they move back into the wilderness, until, when the last of those freed from Egypt had passed on, they were once again called to move, only this time into the land God had promised.

And so they took the promised land for their own, but once again, they disobey. In fact, God spends centuries trying to teach them to obey the law He'd given them. Over and over again, but worse each time. Prophet after prophet was sent to remind the Israelites of their calling, and prophet after prophet was cast aside by King after King. Even removing the Israelites from their home as punishment only worked for a short time, and all the while the world groaned for redemption. But God had not forgotten, and through His prophet Isaiah spoke these words:

"Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. … He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives life to those who walk on it: I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness." [Isaiah 42:1-7]

And when all seemed darkest, God chose to act. On a seemingly ordinary night, some shepherds were going about their business as usual when the skies lit up with beings the likes of which they'd never seen, announcing the birth of the world’s redemption.

But notice the manner in which God chose to act: He chose to come in the most humble means possible: He was born to an unwed teenage girl in enemy-occupied territory. He only told two groups of people about it: a bunch of peasants, nobodies, and then several years later, a small group of astrologers (Bibles often translate the term "magi"), who found the child and presented gifts intended for burying a king. Nothing about this story makes sense to our understanding of things – and yet this is how God chose to enter history; in the most ordinary means available. Isaiah 53, a prophetic chapter talking about the messiah, says that Jesus would be ordinary, plain, simple.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. [Isaiah 53:2]

It’s like if you took a group picture of Jesus with the disciples, you couldn’t pick out which one was Jesus! And yet, THIS is the man who history hinges on. He then spent thirty years growing up, learning how to speak and write, memorizing the Torah and Talmud, learning Hebrew customs, and working with his adopted father as a carpenter before he began any kind of public ministry. And when he did begin, who did he call to work with him? The second-rates, the guys who flunked out of Rabbi School and had to instead work as fishermen and tax collectors.

Then he had the nerve to further challenge the religious establishment and tell them that in the two thousand years since Moses, they STILL hadn't managed to understand the intent of the Law they'd been given. He taught with authority and conviction, telling stories about fields and wheat and coins, stories drawn from the very lives of the people who followed him. And for simply teaching Truth to people who were not considered clean, Jesus – God himself – was betrayed, sold out to the very enemies that occupied the promised land, then tortured and killed in one of the most painful manners that history has ever devised.

THIS is why Paul writes that our gospel is a stumbling block, a folly to Jew and Gentile alike. It doesn't make sense to us that God would act like this!

Paul tells it like this:

Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a humble servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even a criminal's death on a cross! [Philippians 2:6-8]

This was the fragrant offering that Paul is speaking of in Ephesians 5. In the Ancient Hebrew Temple, incense was burned 24/7, its smoke a symbol of the prayers of the people drifting into the Holy of Holies, where God Himself lived. At the exact hour that Jesus died, the Scriptures say that the very curtain separating the rest of the Temple from God was torn, top to bottom, from God's side to ours.

Of course, we know that the story doesn't end there. In the hour that humanity reached its lowest, Jesus was resurrected. He beat death, and having become the very offense we were supposed to be – He wiped the slate clean. He began the story anew, and fulfilled the redemption for which the world had been longing since Adam and Eve first chose themselves over God.

2. Therefore:

God came in skin, into a zip code and sandals and mortality and all the trappings that went along with that. John’s gospel says that “the Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood,” that He was “generous inside and out,” that he was “true from start to finish.” Not just the stories about Jesus, they are true, but JESUS HIMSELF was TRUE! He told stories, he ate food with people, he healed those that were sick, he touched the untouchables, he taught with authority. And then when it became necessary, He gave Himself up as a sacrifice for us and died at the hands of those that opposed Him, and rose from the grave and defeated death.

And we are supposed to be different because of this story, because it is THE true story.

In each of Paul's letters, it is this story that he starts with. For Paul and the early church, the gospel story is one in which we remember what came before, because it's in remembering that we are inspired to action. Because God did this for us, THEREFORE you ought to imitate God. Matthew 28 - because all authority has been given to Jesus, because of what he's done, THEREFORE go and make disciples of all nations. Romans 12 - because of what God has done, THEREFORE offer your bodies as living sacrifices and don't conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds as your spiritual act of worship. Philippians 2 - THEREFORE if you've been encouraged by your life in Christ, have the same attitude as Christ, value others above yourself and be a servant!

It’s sort of like God was a missionary. Historically, one of the ways that theologians would describe God was with the term “Missio Dei.” In English, it means the Missionary God. And this story is why! If we are to imitate God, then we need to imitate Him as missionaries. Because God IS a missionary, we too are to be missionaries. We all tend to think of missionaries as those people who go off and move to exotic places with lots of sand and people with bones through their ears. But not everybody can do that; it’s just not possible, and I don’t think God asks that of everyone.

So the question comes, what does that look like? For those of us that don’t get to go to those exotic places, for those of us that feel a bit too ordinary, how are we missionaries to our own culture?

Well, again, what did Jesus do?

Jesus, I think, used the ordinary to point to the extraordinary. He told stories using ordinary things like plants and coins and wedding banquets and lamps and fields. What’s more, even when He did do extraordinary things, like healing, He STILL asked people to do the ordinary things like wash in a river and put mud in their eyes. It was through the ordinary that their extraordinary faith was shown.

Jesus was like a tour guide for the way that God was already at work within the world. And that’s what we’re supposed to do! We say, “God is working in the ordinary!” God didn’t just abandon the world to its own fate, He intervened, and the stories are all around us just waiting to be told. Paul said it this way:

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. … To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. [1 Corinthians 9:19-22, abridged]

A great example of this in action can be found in Acts 17. Paul has just come to Athens, Greece. Now, a little background about Athens. You’ll remember from grade school that the Greeks were polytheistic, that means they had a lot of gods that they worshipped. And by a lot I’m not just saying like, five or six, I’m talking hundreds of them. There were so many that what they’d do was make a little statue, or sometimes a really big statue of those gods to remind them who they were worshipping. They were so nervous that they had forgotten someone that they’d gone and made up a statue called “the Unknown God” just in case!

Another thing that was really common in those times was the public debate. A guy would get up in the street and start giving a monologue, and inevitably someone else would come along and start debating with him. It’d be like a guy getting up in Walmart, and starts to tell everyone why the Packers are so great, and of course that doesn’t go over so well, so then someone else gets up and starts telling him no, the Vikings are far better, and here’s why. And they go through player stats and game stats and history and maybe trade a few insults, and all the while everyone’s standing around going “huh, that’s interesting, I never thought of it that way.”

Well the same thing happens to Paul. Now Paul walks into the scene and is worried by all the statues everywhere. The scriptures say that when he saw the idols he was “greatly distressed.” He starts doing this whole debate thing in the marketplace and some philosophers come along and start debating with him. But it gets to the point that they hold a formal meeting and invite Paul, and at the meeting Paul sees the statues all standing there, including the statue to the unknown God, and of course he knows what that means, because he’s spent time with them. So what does he do? He gets up and gives them a huge compliment – “I see that you are very religious!” The Greeks all smile. Then he says, “I see you have this statue to an unknown God. And maybe you didn’t know who this is, but I know this God, I know that He’s THE God, the one who made everything and you and me and that a relationship with Him is beyond anything you can possibly imagine …” Paul used His surroundings, the things that the Greeks took for granted, and turned them into a gospel message! He gave them a tour of their own religion, of their own culture and showed them how God had been working the whole time, even when they didn’t see it!

Now, not everyone believed. But some did. “All things to all people so that some might be saved.” Paul could take the ordinary and show them how it pointed to the extraordinary.

What ordinary things in the lives of those around us can we use to point to God’s work? What parables can we tell? What questions are there being asked that we can help to answer? Who is seeking that we can seek with? What in our lives is ordinary, and how will God use it to do extraordinary things? What about garden gnomes? Or pheasants? Cows? Corn? There’s a lot of that around here. Taxis? What stories are there waiting in the ordinary to be made extraordinary?

But Jesus didn’t just USE ordinary things, He didn’t just talk about them.

What did Jesus do? Jesus actually became ordinary!

Why would he do that? I mean, if I was omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent and all that, I wouldn’t want to give it up. I’d like being that, I think. But Jesus, Jesus was better than that. Jesus really loved the people he came to serve. What we need to remember the most is that we too must actually care about those that we are here to serve. Not just out of obligation, not just because we have to or because it makes us feel better about ourselves, but because we genuinely care for them, about them. The same way that God cares about us.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Those who live by the truth come into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” [John 3:16-17, 21]

A friend once told me a story that illustrates this well. Some Navy SEALs were performing a covert operation, freeing hostages from a building in a dark part of the world. The team flew in by helicopter, made their way to the compound, and stormed into the room where the hostages had been imprisoned for months. The room was filthy and dark, and the hostages were curled up in a corner, terrified. When the SEALs entered the room, they heard the gasps of the hostages. They stood at the door and called to the prisoners, telling them that they were Americans. The SEALs asked the hostages to follow them, but the hostages wouldn’t; they sat there on the floor and hid their eyes in fear. They were not of healthy mind and didn’t believe that their rescuers were really Americans.

The SEALs stood there, not knowing what to do. They couldn’t possibly carry everyone out. Then one of them got an idea. He put down his weapon, took off his helmet, and curled up tightly next to the other hostages, getting so close that his body was touching some of theirs. He softened up the look on his face and put his arms around them. He was trying to show them that he was one of them. None of the prison guards would have done this. He stayed there a little while until some of the hostages started to look at him, finally meeting his eyes. The SEAL whispered that they were Americans and were there to rescue them. “Will you follow us?” he asked. Then he stood to his feet and one of the hostages did the same, then another, until all of them were willing to go. The story ends with all the hostages safe on an American aircraft carrier.

A long time ago, God came into our cell, took off His powers and His immortality and everything that made Him God and curled up next to us. And then He rescued us. What he asks is that we be willing to do the same to those around us who haven’t heard about that rescue, who don’t know what true freedom is like.

During this song, I want you to think about how you’ve been telling the story. The purpose of this time is for reflection; the words will be up on the screen for you to think through, not to sing. To that end there’s a blank space in your bulletin if that would be helpful for you, or listen to the music if that would. But think about this: do you know the story? If you know the story, how are the ordinary parts of your life given over to God? How well do you dwell in your neighborhood? Do you take offense at their habits or their language, or do you extend grace? Do you try to learn about them, about who they are and what motivates them and whether or not they like baklava and how they feel about the Huskers?

[Sing "Worlds Apart" by Jars of Clay]

The Church of Starbucks

2009-10-21T13:46:00.002-05:00

A friend from church sent this to me, and let me say, I think I've seen pretty much everything in this done in real life. Ah, Christian Culture, how you frustrate me!

Culture Shock

2009-08-21T09:56:00.006-05:00

Allow me to apologize for the lack of blogging in the recent past. It's been far too long since I've written anything here, but I do have a valid excuse: we moved.

We're now residents of the sprawling suburb of Mitchell, South Dakota. It took us three days, 1500ish miles, $800ish in gasoline (diesel and unleaded), one truck, two minivans, too much fast food, and not enough sleep to get here. We have an apartment for now, hopes to get a house, and I'm working as the worship arts pastor at Mitchell Wesleyan Church. And I can't tell you how weird it's been adjusting to the new culture.

Let me first say that I tend to not be big on "christian culture"; I'm more comfortable in and around a more religiously, politically, and ethnically diverse crowd because as a missionary, that's what I've been used to. The most religiously diverse it gets here are the various denominations, who mostly seem to get along. But it's as if everyone speaks another language here - I hear things like "what a blessing!" and "take a stand!" and "the Lord is good!" on a regular basis.

And they all call me "pastor."

I didn't realize they were even talking to me at first - I thought they were talking to Keith, the Senior Pastor, since he was around often enough when they said it. But it finally dawned on me when they were helping us cart boxes into the apartment and someone called me that directly to my face ... I suddenly realized how many people I'd just ignored for the past hour. It's taken some getting used to, and I can't decide if it'd be a cultural faux pas to insist on being called by my given name.

Also it's very flat out here.

But let me tell you, these are some of the most generous people I've ever met. We've had dinners made for us almost every night since we got here (Liz was especially thrilled), and the leftovers alone will give us another week at least. But on top of that, the - bags - of veggies we've gotten from various people (corn especially, but also peppers, jalepenos, tomatos, etc.) will go well with the full quarter of a cow that someone from the church gave us. That's roughly seventy-five pounds of South Dakota beef, to the uninitiated.

They've been very good to us, and we are very grateful.

We continue to work on getting settled, change our government papers (car plates, mailing address, etc.), organize our stuff out of boxes, and generally learn the area. Rori has been doing well in the new apartment, with so much space, she gets to run around a lot and ends up sleeping longer at naptime. Life is a little crazy right now, but as soon as it starts to get a bit more routine, I'll be sure to start writing again - I do miss it. But thank you so much to all of you who've been praying - God has been very good to us.

And Other Ill Effects

2009-08-04T15:00:00.002-05:00

As global warmi ... sorry, "climate change" began to take its toll, it seemed that nothing was left sacred ...

We're Moving!

2009-08-03T07:16:00.003-05:00

We've been busy: I got a job (w00t!) in South Dakota, and so we've been preparing all our stuff, finding an apartment (still none yet), and making other arrangements. And so naturally we took the opportunity to visit Rhode Island once more before we move into the midwest where the only saltwater is the sweat beading off your brow in the summer heat. We're not sure quite when we leave yet, but it's soon. Very soon.

Thanks for all your prayers :)

New pics up on Flickr.

Gig at Lakeshore

2009-07-23T15:22:00.002-05:00

We led worship at a church up in Rochester called Lakeshore Community Church, and they were kind enough to post the videos of the worship set online. I've put them up here for your thoughts - what did we do well, upon what could we improve? Also, it's just cool to finally have a recording of us at a church with HD video technology and a sound board that's plugged into the recording.

He Was There (David Crowder, arr. Chris Logan)

Blessed Be Your Name (Matt Redman, arr. Chris Logan)

From the Inside Out (Hillsong United, arr. Chris Logan)

Take My Life (arr. Chris Tomlin)

End Child Politics! (and other Onion videos)

2009-07-18T21:49:00.004-05:00

Human Rights Group Campaigns To End Use Of Child Politicians In Africa

New Live Poll Allows Pundits To Pander To Viewers In Real Time

Obama Axes Pentagon Plan To Build Billion Dollar Tank In Shape Of Dragon

The Outcome of Bad Evangelism

2009-07-15T12:06:00.003-05:00

Words From the Dark

2009-07-08T12:06:00.006-05:00

To all those who still check this blog, thank you. It's been a rough few weeks for me, mostly because of the amount of work I've been doing for various churches and applications. But also because, last week, my HP Tablet Laptop died on me, in a manner of speaking. I say it that way because, technically, it still works, but barely. I couldn't turn it on for hours every morning, and by the time it worked, it worked so slowly that it made getting anything done very worrisome - I never knew if it would shut off on me and lose my data.

So after much thought and research, I decided that it was time for a change. I went up to the apple store and did not buy anything - they were out of the laptop I wanted. So instead I ordered it through the website: my new 13" macbook pro.

Relax.

I know I've never been much of an advocate for Apple products, but they've grown on me as they've added to the features and their quality has become better and better. For instance, my new laptop has a keyboard that lights up when a little sensor tells it that the room is too dark. I can now see my keyboard when I'm anywhere, anytime, and that makes me very happy. It also has a possible 7-hour battery life, assuming that I've got the LED-backlit screen as low as it'll go. But even if it's about half-way between low and high, it lasts around 5-ish hours if I'm careful, and this also makes me happy. With the 2.53 ghz dual-core processor and 4gb ram, it's very fast for the 4.5 lbs it weighs.

It also runs Windows, which means I didn't lose any of my programs. It seems to run windows faster than my previous laptop, which was a bit of a surprise, but not bad. So I've been using Vista Ultimate, trying to adjust myself to the multi-touch trackpad with no buttons, and generally getting a lot more done than I did before. I'll also be dabbling with Garage Band and Keynote at some point in the future when I'm able to get the DVD for iWork out from our storage area.

All in all, it's been a weird change, but a really good one. I still like Dell, but sadly the laptops I looked at there didn't quite compare with their options. Those that had lit-keyboards and the power-saving LED screens were also the same ones that had reviews worrying about how hot they run - the same issue I had with my HP. While the apple was a bit expensive, I'm hoping it'll last longer than the 3-year warranty that it came with.

Odds are good, I'm told.

Eco-Friendly?

2009-06-30T12:55:00.001-05:00

Taco Bell's New Green Menu Takes No Ingredients From Nature

The Parable of the Soils

2009-06-16T18:55:00.004-05:00

A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

So as you all know, I've not been at a steady job of late because, well, I can't seem to find one. I'm sure that some of the blame goes to the economy for the lack of new jobs, but I'm starting to wonder if in our season of need, God's been closing doors for a reason. But God is good, and He takes care fo us even when we can't; we've got a wonderful family, and to that end, my grandparents have "hired" us to garden for them. As they've gotten older, they've had a harder time taking care of my Grossmami's addiction to all things green and flowering - she's literally surrounded the house with one big garden, which, over time, has become somewhat an extension of the yard. So our job has been to turn it back into a viable garden again. And wouldn't you know it, as we've had time to talk, I've been learning a lot, things my seminary career never taught me. As Morgan Freeman says in Bruce Almighty, "people underestimate the value of manual labor." I am no exception.

What came to mind has been this parable in Matthew 13, where Jesus describes a gardener (ok, farmer) that goes out to plant his crops and what happens in the garden after the farmer walks away. And let me tell you, when my grandparents walked away (so to speak), their garden started to look an awful lot like three of the four types of soil in this parable.

The garden is so wide that in one area, my grandparents had to put down a small path to get to their tomato plants and currant bushes. The path is made of several stone pads and some packed dirt. Wouldn't you know it though, nothing grew there, even in the packed dirt which, when we tilled it, was otherwise healthy and fertile. The idea of a "hardened heart" makes a bit more sense to me now. As the metaphor goes, the person's attitudes (their "heart") become very monotone, very set; you can't convince them of anything new! God can't plant the seeds of wisdom or knowledge or anything in a hardened heart ... but give it a good till (assuming it's not hard as stone) and suddenly all sorts of things can grow. Also, you now have to weed carefully.

I can't say that we've encountered any thorny soil yet (it is, after all, a garden), but the whole of the place might be a good example of why weeding the thorns out is a good idea to do sooner rather than later. The more weeds that grew in the garden, the more obvious it was that there was competition for nutrients; the garden plants weren't producing as many flowers or as many new bulbs as when they had freedom to expand. Lots of the newer seedlings of the garden plants were weak, small, and flimsy; they were easy to take out, but I hope they'll grow strong now that they have room to expand. The longer you go, the bigger and deeper the thorny plants get, and eventually take over completely. Ironically, all it takes is some weed killer to take them out, but the weed killer takes out both the weeds and the few good plants that are left. But still, we have to remember that good soil is REQUIRED for the thorny soil; remove the thorns (whose roots often go deep), give it some time, and the soil will be ready to plant good seed. Think of those people who have begun to recover from addictions; often, their lives are somewhat empty for a while as they remove the thorns and struggle not to let new thorns take over. But they are often the most fertile soil of all, and once the thorns are removed and the good seeds planted, they become extremely fruitful fields.

Today we spent two and a half hours weeding a small patch of ground. In the center was a large bush full of flowers, but around it, very rocky soil. The parable mentions rocky ground being a place where weeds spring up and then wither and die because their roots never get very deep. This is true - we discovered that the weeds came up really easily, but the shrub we couldn't budge (good thing) because its roots were very deep and very wide. The rocky soil is a problem, not only because seeds grow without depth and die, but because turning it into good soil is nearly impossible. As I said, two and a half hours spent on maybe three square feet of ground, and we barely made a dent in the number of pebbles mixed in the surface dirt. In order for this patch to become good soil for healthy, useful crops, it would require literally pulling away everything on the surface, a total transplant of the upper layers. I've heard of this happening before - remember Paul? But it's not an easy thing, nor is it terribly economical (God had to blind Paul in order to 'exchange the soil,' so to speak), but it IS possible, and often it can be worth it.

It's a parable about discipleship, and I understand why it was that Jesus cautions his audience about what they're up against. Matthew, for one, loved to tell the parables of Jesus that had missionary implications; a person could spend a LOT of time tilling ground and weeding and removing rocks or thorns before good soil might bear crops with fruit. Sometimes I worry that we use the parable as an excuse to just avoid those people who don't look like "fertile" fields to us. Something that Jesus never quite mentions in the parable is that any field ALWAYS starts out like one of those three soils; there's no such thing as a perfect field that's born ready for planting. It starts out with weeds and rocks and sometimes stone paths; it takes work and dedication and love to produce a fertile field on which to sow the good seed.

The question is, do we give everyone that chance?

Brilliance

2009-06-16T16:39:00.001-05:00

Had a beautiful day today and decided to take a few pictures in my in-laws' flower garden. These were the best. Enjoy.

The Day That True Love Died

2009-06-15T19:04:00.004-05:00

Jon did this piece at Crosswinds this past weekend, and I'd never heard it before. But it hit me hard, and I went home and bought it off of iTunes. I highly recommend you have a listen, it's quite a good piece. Lyrics are below.

Come close listen to the story
About a love more faithful than the morning
The Father gave His only Son just to save us

The earth was shaking in the dark
All creation felt the Fathers Broken Heart
Tears were filling Heaven's Eyes
The day that True Love died, the day that True Love died
When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Search your heart you know you can't deny it
Come on, lose your life just so you can find it
The Father gave His only Son just to save us

The Earth was shaking in the dark
All creation felt The Fathers broken heart
Tears were filling Heaven's Eyes
The day that True Love died, the day that True Love died
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com
When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Now, Jesus is alive

Jesus is alive
Jesus is alive
Jesus is alive
Jesus is alive
Oh, He is alive
He rose again

When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Come close listen to the story

Strategies for Unwanted Career Change

2009-06-15T18:12:00.001-05:00

Gymnast Shawn Johnson Euthanized After Breaking Leg

Facedown: Final Version

2009-06-04T14:00:00.003-05:00

Here's what I'm calling my "final" arrangement of Matt Redman's "Facedown". It's not actually a ton different from the last one, although I did mess around with a few suggestions from people (more reverb on the sax, pulling the guitar arpeggio out of the first chorus a bit, etc.). Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

Now onto my next project, something I actually wrote this time. Guess we'll see how it goes!

Facedown [UPDATED]

2009-05-28T18:30:00.004-05:00

So my good friend Dan pointed out a way in which I could post an mp3 here on my blog. I've completed the audio demo that I've been working on. It's a song by Matt Redman called "Facedown." Enjoy!

Welcomed in to the courts of the King
I've been ushered into your presence
Lord I stand on your merciful ground
Yet with every step tread with reverence

And I'll fall facedown
As your glory shines around
Yes I'll fall facedown
As your glory shines around

Who is there in the heavens like you
And upon the earth who's your equal
You are far above you're the highest of heights
We are bowing down to exalt you

And I'll fall facedown ...

So let your glory shine around!
Let your glory shine around!
King of glory here be found!
King of glory!

Please, Talk to Your Kids

2009-05-28T08:54:00.002-05:00

The Story Continues

2009-05-26T13:17:00.002-05:00

For those of you following our little story, there's not a whole lot more to report. I've continued working on (and am in the final phase of) recording and editing a new audio demo that I really hope will wow all the churches to whom I apply. On a totally random note, if you know a way to put such recordings up on a blog (without putting them in a video), let me know, I'd love to post the recording here to get your opinion.

We're currently in Canandaigua, and going back and forth between Crosswinds Church and Little Lakes Church, as Crosswinds has been home for a long time, and Little Lakes has given us a stream of opportunities to lead worship and keep on top of our skills. We've met some wonderful new people and been reunited with some old friends, which has been nice. The search for a job, however, continues in earnest, and we'd appreciate your continued prayers in that direction. Maybe you might also mention to Him that I'd love to be writing again, if only I could work up the words.

On that note, however, I have some fun stuff too: pictures. It seems in lieu of writing, these days, I've been overly inspired in the arts of recording and photography. I've just put two new sets up on flickr, here and here. But this is my favorite shot, from my sister's party celebrating her graduation from RIT this past weekend. Enjoy.

Neon

2009-05-15T14:43:00.001-05:00

I Feel His Pain

2009-05-06T15:49:00.000-05:00

Special Boy With Freakishly Large Brain Wins Spelling Bee

Hear and Remember

2009-05-01T09:00:00.004-05:00

"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."

[1 Peter 5:7-10]

Thanks to Matt for the reminder this morning ...

Another Question

2009-04-28T21:07:00.004-05:00

I've been having a rough time of it lately, both for writing and with the job search. For those that haven't heard, we're moving back to NY until we get said elusive job. So in lieu of the writing that I can't seem to get myself to do, let me ask you all a question:

What, in your perspective, does the ideal "local church" look like?

Outsourcing

2009-04-20T18:11:00.000-05:00

More American Workers Outsourcing Own Jobs Overseas

Currency Recall

2009-04-15T16:20:00.001-05:00

Treasury Department Issues Emergency Recall Of All US Dollars

Pictures

2009-04-14T13:26:00.003-05:00

New pictures up on flickr. Two new sets: here and here.

Project

2009-04-12T13:10:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the silence of late. I've had writers block on the next post in the "Music and Mission" series (it needs to be just right). More importantly, I've started a new blog in the hopes that it'll get my brain juices going to write a book I've been working on - in my head - for a while.

You may be wondering about the URL - "enter the numenous." Rudolf Otto once wrote a book called The Idea of the Holy, a book that has inspired me to this day. I find that Otto did a phenomenal job of putting into words the fact that God is a beautiful mystery. To talk about this, he had to make up a few new words. God's holiness is partly known, and partially mysterious to us, almost unknowable. It was this mystery that he called the numenous.

The journey of the Christian Agnostic is one of diving headfirst into a life of mystery, of danger, and of uncertainty. We entrust ourselves to God by suspending disbelief and allowing Him to work in our lives, to reveal Himself to us through our investigation and through our experiences. To enter the numenous is not safe, but it is good.

I encourage you to take a look, comment, and contribute in any way you think will be constructive.

Thanks in advance.

Music and Mission, part I: Terra Nova, part 2

2009-03-31T19:02:00.004-05:00

It was through the course of our fundraising that I started to wonder if I really wanted to be a pastor; after all, the church wasn't exactly on top of things when it came to postmodernism, and besides, I was starting to wonder how much Christians in general actually cared about Jesus or what He had to say. Church started feeling a bit bitter to me, with every disappointment another confirmation that I might be barking up the wrong tree. But Ruth had the same discontent, and our church plant was the chance to do something about it.

So off we went. I had delusions of grandeur in my head, about how all my theories of postmodernism were going to come in handy, how I was the expert, yadda yadda yadda. Naturally, this was all obliterated in the first month when I realized that I had no clue what I was talking about. Theory is, after all, nice and tidy only until it's actually put into practice. So since I had the chance (how many times was I going to get to live in Australia?), I enrolled in the FORGE missional training program to get some perspective on Australian culture and maybe learn a few things about being a missionary at the same time.

It turned out to be a life-altering decision.

If you've never heard of FORGE, I'm not surprised - most Americans haven't. However, some of you may have read The Shaping of Things to Come, by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost, both of whom happen to be the co-founders of the FORGE program (the book was actually written as a textbook for FORGE). In any case, FORGE is based on the principles of "action-reflection" learning, the opposite of most seminary educations. The idea is that one must participate in an internship as the cornerstone of the program and thus praxis, action, and activity are the basis for learning; one then reflects on the actions to garner the theory, which is then put into papers and then reapplied back into the internship. It is supposed to be a holistic model of education, and it seems to fare rather well.

I was placed in a social-poverty agency in the inner city called Urban Seed for my internship, which changed my perspective on a lot. In fact, what I hadn't expected was that the whole cross-cultural experience in the inner-city showed me more about being an American - and an American Christian in particular - than I learned about Australian culture. Take consumerism for example: we in the west, and especially in America, are prone to it because our culture is founded on acquisition. I was once asked if "Desperate Housewives" is what suburban life is like. I laughed it off as ridiculous and said no, but started to wonder how much of a charicature it really is. I wondered if our worship services hadn't become much the same, weekly (or more often, several times a week) performances to be consumed, dramatizing an otherwise mundane and selfish culture. In the first six months, this persuaded me that my dreams of being a worship pastor may have been misplaced, that maybe what American churches needed were not more worship pastors, but more people who were missionaries in their own culture, people who were more concerned with being a positive influence in their local communities in the name of Christ than with tauting the party line or overworking themselves to maintain their steady salary. Worship without relationship is meaningless.

The Gathering during lunch at Credo Cafe (part of Urban Seed) messed with me a lot. The lunch is a time for people of any stripe - housewives, prostitutes, lawyers, heroin addicts, and anyone in between - to gather together as one community for a meal and fellowship. Everyone learns an awful lot from each other, the ultimate liminal experience (as the sociologist says), and, for the most part, is better for it. But the Gathering is their once-a-week worship gig just before lunch, and everyone is invited to come. But let's face it, the group, while mostly artists, is not full of professional musicians. They take whoever they can get to lead singing, and to someone like me who had been usd to much more professional sounding music, it was ... harsh to the ears.

But it was also passionate in a way I'd never expected.

By the time we came home, I had no idea what to do with my life, once again. The Gathering made me wonder how necessary worship arts staff are in a church; if they could worship without the "show" part of it, maybe it wasn't something in which I should invest my time. The time at mimos, too, was a time of less-professional worship, a smaller community gathering in the back room of a pub and playing quiet, reflective music for singing, but also providing times of reflection over scripture and candlelight and holding communion as a meal bought from the pub. Let me tell you, they had wonderful french fries and a fantastic Kangaroo dish that melted in my mouth. I've missed it since I've been home. The community was genuine - everyone wanted to be there and felt no obligation to it; people even volunteered to pray on a regular basis, negotiating with others for the chance. With a church like that, who needed all those paid positions? Worship was as much participation as it was singing, and the dawning realization made me frustrated with my chosen career path.

But seminary still seemed important for some reason, if only because I had no clue what to do next. If anything, at the very least it meant I'd be able to influence people in the church because I had "MDiv" on my resume, and, after all, people listen to other people who have that sort of thing. Naive, I know, but it was my first ESJ class that began to get me thinking again. On a whim, I took a class called "The Change Agent in Missions" with a professor named Mike. Mike is an anthropologist, a student of humanity through the ages, but more importantly, he's also a missionary. Mike talked a lot about culture, about how we view culture, how we participate in culture, and finally, how we change culture. But his views on this were once again participatory - we are to change culture from within, as "change agents", rather than as outside directors. We are to be with the people, living as they live, eating as they eat, but using our growing understanding to show them in terms they understand how their decisions could be better. His rationale? Jesus was like that.

What if worship was like that?

(to be continued ...)

Update

2009-03-26T09:46:00.004-05:00

Just a quick update, for those of you waiting with baited breath (weirdest phrase ever, by the way) for the next post in my series on music and mission. I've been in the process of re-vamping my entire laptop because HP programs were slowing it down ... a lot. You might say I gave it a personality transplant; I obtained Vista Ultimate from a friend and have since been installing it and formatting hard drives and installing drivers and all that. But in the process, I may have lost the text file I'd saved for all of the work on this series. So it may be a few days before I'm back up and running again, but at least the lappy is working faster.

Evasion Stratagem

2009-03-24T12:41:00.004-05:00

Jeff found these pictures on the interwebs this week and ... let's just say you ought to view them before you drink anything.

Question of the Day

2009-03-23T15:57:00.000-05:00

What, to you, are the most pressing social issues facing the Church today?

Post your thoughts in the comments section!

Twitteriffic

2009-03-21T08:37:00.003-05:00

I'd say this is about the way I feel about it. Thanks for the head's up, Greg.

Music and Mission, part I: Terra Nova I

2009-03-19T09:24:00.006-05:00

This is a story of discontents, of how one discontent after another led me to where I am now. I know it's a long story, but if I'm going to get to the bigger picture, this is necessary material. I hope it's not TOO boring, but bear with me.

I suppose I should start by saying that this is not exactly the path I had planned. I know that everybody says that, but in my case, it's pretty easy to tell. See, when I was a kid, everybody knew I was going into science. I excelled in all of my science courses, pursued science on the side, ate, slept, and breathed science. Biology, in particular, became my biggest obsession; living systems fascinate me. I couldn't decide between biochemistry, evolutionary biology, and neurobiology - they were all fascinating. Eventually, however, neuroscience won out, and I enrolled at the University of Rochester, one of few universities in the US with an undergrad neuro program. Everyone expected great things.

Somewhere in the midst of my freshman year, though, I started to have doubts. I know everybody does, but these were on a more fundamental level. I was doing pretty well in my classes until my advisor, a geologist (who knew nothing about neuroscience) advised me to enroll in an advanced biochemistry course in my second semester of college, a course that required organic chemistry, which I had not yet taken. Needless to say, I tanked it with a D, something I'd never done before. It threw me for a loop, but it was the wakeup call I needed. I had always enjoyed working labs for science, but they were controlled labs with predictable results; I started wondering if I really wanted to do true research, the kind where I had to invent the experiments myself, the kind where I had to spend my every waking moment in a white polished room in a jacket with goggles on.

I hated the goggles.

By my sophomore year, when I realized how terrible I was at memorizing chemical formulas in organic chemistry (using them was easy, but remembering what they were to use them was another matter), I realized that R&D wasn't my thing. I briefly toyed with the idea of changing to Evolutionary Biology, but my parents convinced me I shouldn't do that (although I still don't know why it was such a big deal to them). My music minor suddenly started looking more and more promising; I've always been a musician, but never had it pegged as a career simply because everyone told me it wouldn't help me earn a living.

Apparently, artists only get paid, like, a dollar or something.

Still, the idea of excelling in something that might not earn as much money beat trying to be mediocre in something that might pay more. I changed my major a week later. But something was still missing. It was when I realized that I play too many instruments that I couldn't focus exclusively on music; I'm sort of a "jack of all trades, master of none" sort of guy; I'll play what I play decently well, but I'm not exactly Dave Matthews on my guitar, Kenny G on my saxophone, etc. I can't even name a famous horn player, but I wouldn't be him either.

But I really, really liked leading worship. I had started a worship team for Campus Crusade in my sophomore year at the urging of my friend Rob. I'd never realized how much I liked it, how much the glove fit, as it were. I signed up for an internship that summer at a local church, and after that summer, I was hooked.

Sort of.

So I'm wishy-washy. Fine, I'll admit to being occasionally dissatisfied with the status quo, but it's worked in my favor so far. I wouldn't be where I am without what I hope is a healthy discontent with mediocrity.

I loved my music theory classes, but the history courses were tailored for music education majors; I wasn't one. I finished two of them before I couldn't take it anymore - and not for want of a good professor either, Dr. Meconi was a wonderful storyteller and very encouraging of my interests. Still, something just didn't sit right, and it was then that I "happened" upon a unique program at the University of Rochester: the Department of Interdepartmental Studies.

That's right, it gets a whole department.

Basically, it's a cross-disciplinary program that allows students to build their own majors. The idea is that since the world is becoming increasingly specialized, the students shouuld be allowed to pursue specialized interests from the start and not "waste" time on parts of majors they don't need. For example, if one wanted to major in music recording, one need not waste time with a lot of music history, and can instead take extra courses in recording; my friend Steph did that.

In my case, I decided to build my own worship arts program at a secular university. I called it "Music in Christianity" and it combined courses in Christian history with music theory, and tied it all together with an eight-credit thesis project. In the course of my study I'd come across a word that I couldn't shake from my mind: postmodernism. It kept cropping up everywhere, but nobody seemed to know what to do with it, especially my Christian friends. So I decided to do my research thesis on this "postmodernism" idea, and since I had to talk about music too, I decided it was the perfect chance to talk postmodern music in the Christian sphere - where did postmodernity come from, and how has it influenced Christian music.

I graduated with a 95 page paper in one hand and an honors diploma in another. I had every intention of going to grad school somewhere with a worship arts program, when God once again stuck his nose in the mix. This time, it came in the form of an invitation from a friend of my wife. Ruth wanted to know if Liz and I wanted to take a year and help them plant a church in Melbourne, Australia.

And how do you say no to something like that?

(to be continued)

So Cool

2009-03-18T15:08:00.000-05:00

The Onion: Special Reports

2009-03-16T11:31:00.004-05:00

I love the Onion. Every so often, though, they totally outdo themselves. Like their magazine cover section - these are some of my absolute favorites:

The Dog Who Saved the Stimulus Package
Natural Childbirth: The Smart Choice
School Edition: Is This Your Year to Fail?
Uncomfortable Furniture You Can't Afford
Should We Bring Our Astronauts Back from Space?
Could an Asteroid Solve the Problem?
Our Fragile Ecosystem

Music and Mission: Introduction

2009-03-14T22:08:00.003-05:00

They've been called the worship wars for a reason. Congregations have split because of differences of opinion; new churches start because they don't find a style they prefer; relationships have been broken, people have been hurt, and worst, fewer people are shown the love of Christ, but are instead shown the malice of the humanity of his followers.

Music is a powerful tool. It provokes the deepest passions in all of us like little else can. Even the ancients knew of this; the Celtic Bards and the Greek Eunichs told stories through song. In the middle ages, music was what kept the hope of the peasants alive. The great composers of the renaissance and baroque were the celebrities of their day. In modern times, the best composers are no longer sought for their live performances, but for their ability to pair video with a soundtrack. And through the ages, music has been used to express the adoration of every ethnicity and nationality on earth to their respective deities.

But music is a cultural phenomenon. The music of one people, of one generation, of one composer, does not necessarily evoke the same response in others. The gregorian chant will quickly put a modern music history class to sleep, while the tones and rhythms of U2 or Coldplay will keep their attention riveted for hours. Most Americans have only heard a didgeridoo in movies without ever realizing that it is an Aboriginal storytelling instrument. Few even know what a Zither is, and none could replicate a 12-tone scale - but many Indians could. Every culture has their own form of audible art, and thus every culture has a language of worship entirely unique to themselves.

But have Christians been paying attention?

Rather than take the more traditional seminary courses, I studied anthropology, sociology, and psychology in preparation to be a worship pastor. I've decided it's time to explain why.

Missionary Networking

2009-03-14T15:18:00.006-05:00

One of the ideas that has been increasingly fascinating to me of late is the idea of the "network." Basically, a hierarchy, is like this:

CEO -> SVP -> VP -> Peons

It's centralized at the CEO, who makes the decisions and communicates them via peons to the SVP, and so on. Instead, a network has no leader, no "center." It is "decentralized," and yet for some reason, it works. Think of a flock of birds, who for no apparent reason all decide to change direction mid-flight - all at once. Or a school of fish. Or a protest rally. Or a protest rally that turns ugly. Or Al Qaeda. Human nature is more complicated than was previously thought; we don't need to have a solid leader to do things together, it seems, but rather we need some sort of idea that can be easily "sneezed" from one person to another, a guiding principle that motivates action. Sometimes, we will even do things in groups that we wouldn't do otherwise; we get caught up in the moment, a sort of "collective-consciousness" that nobody can quite explain.

It's amazing.

Obviously there are plenty of negative applications, but what about positives? The internet is a good example, one that has been used for both. Similarly, over time, the church has been just such a "decentralized" structure; no matter how many denominations pop up with a CEO-style visionary at the top, there are always enough others that make up for the deficiencies of the others. When one denomination suffers a major setback - say, one of its leaders gets frisky where he or she shouldn't - there are always others to pick up the slack. It's like having a spider-web; even if one node in the web breaks, the rest still hold it mostly together. Sure, they miss the one, and the web doesn't look quite as nice, but it still works.

What if this idea could be harnessed for beneficial means?

I was talking with a missionary friend the other day, and he was telling me about the environment he's working in. It's a hard place he's working in; high rate of unemployment, lots of poverty, and a culture quite at odds with the larger culture that surrounds it. And he's struggling just a bit, trying to figure out not only how the culture works and thinks, but what he can do as a missionary to help improve things in a way honoring the people and their heritage.

And it occurred to me, I know a few people who might have something to say for him, but just happen to be involved in missions in cultures around the globe. And then I thought, surely there must be other missionaries who I don't know that could help him, or at least give him some good principled advice that he could apply to his situation, stories of "well this is what WE did ...".

And then I thought, hey, this is that networking stuff.

The more I thought about it - in the shower, at my desk, during sermons at church (sorry Mike), before I fell asleep - the more I thought "this could work, we just need a place to start it." I've talked to a few friends, professors, and the like, and they all agree - a place for missional networking is desperately needed. Missionaries have so many stories that have good, practical solutions for everyday problems, stories that can help other missionaries in other cultures with solving the everyday problems a mission agency or a sending church is not equipped to think through.

We've had a few ideas; but I would love to hear yours, especially if you are a missionary. We talked through the idea of using a centralized office, but that was too impractical in this time of financial crunch. We talked through the possibility of each seminary having a small office and networking - this is, I think, the best option, but sadly a ways off. We talked about web forums and a database ... but it seems like too little, especially for missionaries in places without web access.

So that's where we are. I want to open it up, ask for some creative help.

Who out there has a good idea?

Construction Tools

2009-03-11T21:19:00.003-05:00

If you look closely, you can see Jim Carey and Jeff Goldblum.

Experts Agree Giant, Razor-Clawed Bioengineered Crabs Pose No Threat

Milestone

2009-03-07T14:04:00.002-05:00

I just happened to notice that my blog had 499 posts ... before this one. It's been five years of randomness, and this is post number 500! Not only that, but my little tracker-gizmo says I've had over 20,000 hits to the site since year number two (when I discovered the tracker-gizmo). That is a lot of people with very little time on their hands, but thank you to each of you for taking the time to read at least a little of my rambling.

So where do I find myself? Still job-hunting, of course, but feeling like an end may be in sight. I don't know what that end might look like, though.

I gave up, temporarily, the recording I was working on for "Prophesy" to try working on something a bit easier for my first time; it turns out that recording vocals is extremely difficult, and I picked the hardest song I'd written to try first. Figures, right? So I started a few "test-projects" to experiment, giving the vocals to a more ... experienced singer (my wife) so I can focus on the intricacies of recording without wondering why I sound like ... that.

Anyway, thank you to all of you who've read this long; I promise, I'm trying to think of some new topics to write on. Perhaps suggestions are in order from you, the readers? Just leave them in the comments section.

[The Management]

Socialism is SO 1970's

2009-03-05T18:33:00.003-05:00

I thought it was just a lolpundit cartoon, but here's the actual story. Yikes.

Jon Stewart and Brian Williams

2009-03-03T15:32:00.002-05:00

Just about the funniest interview I've ever seen. Seriously.

Auto Bailouts, Onion Style

2009-02-27T15:12:00.003-05:00

I love The Onion. This was in their news today, and once again I find that I admire the style they bring to telling it like it is. Enjoy.

Dawkins on Missing Links

2009-02-27T14:47:00.002-05:00

I've seen this mentioned a few times as an evolutionist being stumped by a creationist's question. I think that's ridiculous; just because you can't answer the question right away doesn't mean you're stumped - it just means it's a hard question, and those take longer to answer. In fact, I think the answer he gives later in the video is actually quite well-spoken, though it takes as much a leap of faith to believe what he's saying as any other perspective (it would seem odd that we haven't found any of the failed-intermediate species). Anyway, just thought it was interesting. Thanks to Matt Stone for the heads-up.

Post-Apocalyptic Preparation

2009-02-26T17:32:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the silence of late; I've been visiting family.

Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

Drug for the Annoyingly Cheerful

2009-02-12T08:58:00.002-05:00

I Thought As Much

2009-02-09T22:33:00.001-05:00

Poverty and Spiritual Gifts

2009-02-09T12:22:00.004-05:00

I tend to reminisce on the sermon from Sunday during my shower on monday morning; scrubbing myself just doesn't seem to occupy my mind enough, it seems. Anyway, yesterday's sermon was well-written, articulate, and on the whole, interesting. Bill presented the analogy of a toolbox and the building of a deck to the Church and its use of spiritual gifts for a purpose. But as I lathered, rinsed, and repeated, it occurred to me that what you hardly ever hear in the same breath are ideas on spiritual gifts and those in poverty. He presented the idea - correct, I think - that our spiritual gifts, when best used, compliment and reinforce each other to produce the best results; you can't build a deck without a screwdriver. Without the right tools, the deck just doesn't get built. It's a community project - spiritual gifts are for the building of the Church (metaphorically speaking, not like an actual building), as a group; they are not for the appeasement of the individual.

But I started thinking, what about those in poverty? Are they "spiritual-gift"-less? If not, why aren't their spiritual gifts being used, and whose fault is it? Is it something that can be fixed? How would we do that?

Your thoughts?

A Prayer Request

2009-02-08T13:08:00.004-05:00

Please be praying for Australians living in Victoria. As you no doubt have heard by now, the state is in the midst of the worst natural disaster in its history. While bushfires rage every year, this year has been particularly harsh, as the heat has gotten intense (46.6 C, roughly 116 F), destroying millions of dollars in homes, and claiming 93 lives ... so far. To my Australian brothers and sisters, you are in our prayers.

UPDATE: Mark Sayers has more to say on this tragedy from Doncaster, one of Melbourne's eastern suburbs.

Economic Stimulus - Addendum

2009-02-06T12:59:00.003-05:00

Jon Stewart says the same thing I did.

Cross-Cultural Relations: A Case Study

2009-02-06T12:24:00.002-05:00

A Thousand Words

2009-02-05T14:24:00.005-05:00

So ... shall we discuss?

via Scott

Economics, part X: Stimulus

2009-02-04T11:31:00.007-05:00

I know, I've talked about money a lot lately. It's by far the longest series I've ever written, although I hope I haven't bored anyone. By now, though, I'm sure you've jumped ahead and concluded that I am a capitalist. You'd only be partially right, however, because as I've learned more about anthropology and sociology, I've started to think that perhaps it is as much a cultural issue as any other. For example, socialism seems to be working well enough in China, particularly because Chinese culture lends itself to a more group-oriented approach that will keep itself accountable (the honor-shame dynamic plays a vital role here, but that's another discussion). Sure it has its problems there, but this is true of any economic system in a world where men and women are flawed creatures. Socialism can be a good thing in China if it were always run by honorable, God-loving, others-oriented men and women. Likewise, I believe that capitalism is the best choice for the West, but we have to use it properly.

This brings me to a disturbing trend in our culture: the bailout. I've grown wary of the tendency for our culture to expect "handouts" from its government, precisely because of our culture's views on freedom. We believe we are all entitled as individuals to have a shot at happiness on our own terms. However, as our culture has changed over time, we've also grown a tendency to also want to be free of failure. We've been so successful as a culture in our endeavors that we've grown accustomed to getting our way. It started out innocently enough, the way success should come - hard work, perseverance, and sacrifice. But as the successes started piling up (success is a relative term, by the way), our culture began to expect them. And when something wasn't going according to our view of "success," we began to search for ways other than hard work, perseverance, and sacrifice to make our endeavors fit our ideas on success. One such measure is the stimulus, the theory being "throw money at it and the problem goes away." It's taken many forms over the years; sometimes we throw money at the military, who go and "take care of the problem." Sometimes we throw money at EHMs, who throw money and false promises at those in the way, and then the problem "goes away" (for us). And sometimes, when that doesn't work, we simply try spending money on ourselves make us feel better about not getting our way; enter the 2008 and 2009 economic stimulus packages.

The idea of the stimulus package subverts freedom because it quietly avoids the issue of responsibility. If we are free to choose our own path and insist on doing so, then we must necessarily be free to make mistakes - it's how we learn. The stimulus package is the government's way of pandering to culture, saying "it's ok, you can do whatever you want and we'll be there to hand you money when you fail; don't feel bad about yourself, be happy!" A stimulus package is subversive to freedom because it takes away responsibility of the individual, the family, and even the local and state governments to spend their money responsibly. They are in debt because they made some stupid choices, but being "bailed out" does not force them to re-evaluate their spending or to cut out unnecessary "fat" from budgets (like, why don't they try to skip on the brand-new corporate jet this year when they're laying off 10,000 people?). It simply perpetuates the problems, delays the inevitable, and ultimately makes the problems that much worse for future generations.

Let's face it; do you really want the same people to handle your health care that make you wait in line at the DMV for hours? Or do you want the same people to handle your finances that award themselves a raise when declaring a "financial crisis"?

What is all the bailout money being spent on? Well, Wall-Street executives awarded themselves $18.4 billion for a job well done. But hang on, did they actually do a good job? President Obama doesn't seem to think they deserve it, and I'm inclined to agree; but what did we expect when we handed them free money? And now we want to hand them more? I realize that there are new rules built into the measure to - theoretically - prevent abuses (for example, companies must pay their president less than $500k if they want government aid, which seems a bit high to me - why not $100k?), but it seems that they trust their rules a bit too much; the abuse of the loopholes in the rules is a major part of the problem in the first place.

This is not saying that a stimulus package can't work. However, it IS saying that the way we use it must be responsible, or else it will fail. In some ways, this package is useful(take, for instance, the money being devoted to rebuilding infrastructure such as highways and public transportation - my father, for one, is very happy about that because he sees the state of such things all the time, and they need help). However, perhaps more money ought to be devoted to the businesses that actually need the help, rather than those that are simply being evolved out of the market for building crappy products (ahem, GM) or for spending money irresponsibly (pretty much all of Wall Street). Take, for example, small businesses who are constantly forced to lay off one more worker because they can't afford the taxes on their income (I used to work for such a business), which naturally cuts back the amount of work they can do, which cuts back revenue, which perpetuates a cycle. These small businesses do not generally overspend on things they cannot afford; yet they are suffering because of the large businesses that do.

When it comes down to it, I do think that capitalism can work here in the West, but only when those who are part of the system take responsibility for their financial decisions and factor in others. Asking questions like "how will this purchase impact the people and the world around me?" are a good way to start, and then deciding to spend or not to spend based on the answers in a way that helps others, even if it means sacrifices for you. The most responsible thing we can do is consider the impact of our decisions on the world and act accordingly; that is the responsibility we are endeared with as free citizens of the world, and one we ought not take lightly.

Ice, Ice Baby

2009-01-28T21:48:00.003-05:00

We had an ice storm in Wilmore. I took some pictures:

More here

And of course, pictures from Christmas:

More here

Have Purgatory, Will Travel

2009-01-27T12:56:00.004-05:00

Just thought I'd post a quick update about what's going on for us right now., for those interested in such things It's, sadly, a very quick update because in spite of the time available to me to write about what we've been doing, there's very little of substance on which to report.

My life, of late, has revolved around several things, first and foremost of which is applying for jobs. No, I do not have one yet, despite my best efforts. I've applied locally for anything I could think of, and nationally for worship pastor, young-adult pastor, and missions pastor positions at churches (my training qualifies me for all three). Nothing yet, though one or two prospects on the horizon.

This has left me with more time on my hands than I had anticipated, but for some reason, writing has taken a back-seat. I don't know if it's just worrying about my financial and professional futures that has wounded my passion for writing, but I'm thinking that if it plays a part, it's only a part. The other big part of my time lately has been recording, which has likely sapped my writing creativity for its own purposes. My grandparents gave me a cool little gizmo for Christmas that allows me to plug any instrument into my computer via a nifty silver box with dials on it. The other grandparents gave me a microphone and stand, so the possibilities are limited only to what I can play. But then, my wife suggested that I upgrade my Finale notation software so that I can use their sampling technology to write and record music without knowing how to play the instruments (case in point, drums and oboe; I can't play those, but Finale can if I write a part for them).

Together, the three give me pretty much an unlimited vocabulary of recording possibilities, which is pretty cool, since I've only ever recorded one song and that was before my wedding five years ago. For my first project, I decided that I should record a piece I wrote in college that tells the story of John the Baptist. I'm not sure why I wrote the piece in the first place, but suffice it to say, it's probably my best in terms of poetry and interesting sounds. And then my roommate Mike helped write a cool guitar part.

So I've been playing the same song now for two weeks, and it's slowly coming together. I think I'm nearly done with the guitar parts, and the drumset part sounds decent. Now I'm working on an oboe part for it in Finale and maybe some strings. And then vocals. I've never done this before, so it's sort of an exercise in trial-and-error, and lots of frustration with "but why did it do that?!" But it's starting to sound better. Actually, it's pretty sweet, if I say so myself.

But it hasn't kept my mind off of our situation. If you're the praying sort, I'd love it if you'd mention us to God at some point soon. He's been good to us, and hasn't let us down yet, and I keep reminding myself of this, but I'm not going to lie, it's hard. Thanks to those of you that have been praying for us.

And now, the lyrics. Enjoy.

There's a voice in the desert calling out to the wind
Dressed in robes of burlap, telling of the end
of the sin of man in the Father's eyes
He who has ears to hear, then let him hear
Prophesy ...

Water from the Jordan into fire from the Lord
Saved by the mercy of the One who is to come
For the least of the Kingdom is even greater than He
For a dove will be a sign, make straight the way
Prophesy ...

Prepare ye the way, prepare ye the way

Cast aside to prison in a foreign land
Sent to live and die for the Son of Man
Blessed is the one who doesn't fall away
on account of the Son, who is the Lamb
Prophesy ...

Unrealistic Expectations

2009-01-19T18:27:00.001-05:00

Bratz Dolls May Give Young Girls Unrealistic Expectations Of Head Size

Economics, part IX: Fair

2009-01-17T15:16:00.003-05:00

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII

One of my mantras is "when in doubt, question the question." And so I was on my way to pick up some new contacts the other day when a thought struck me: why does it matter whose fault any of this is? The economy, the war, whatever - why does it matter who gets the blame? Then I began asking myself why this particular idea suddenly struck me as odd. I mean, I've lived with it, used it, and been used by it every day of my life; why should the concept of "fair play" strike me as strange?

I think it's because 'fault' or 'blame' makes little difference, practically speaking. Causally, there is no reason to think that there is a connection between the one who causes a problem and the one who fixes (or should fix) it. But in our culture, we use assigned blame as the means to getting a party to enact action - the person who caused the problem should be the one to fix the problem. You probably don't think that's weird, but it's actually somewhat unique to American, or at least Western culture. Let's ask the question - why would we think that a person who screwed something up be any better at fixing it?

For our culture, it's a matter of resources; a person who depleted the resources of another should be the one to deplete some of his or her own resources in compensation. We do this in almost every facet of life: in business, in our judicial system, and even in friendships. How many times have you gotten a gift from somebody and felt like you should get them something in return? It's this weird little quirk of our culture coming back to haunt you.

Back to blame, let's say that a friend comes to my house and, by accident, she knocks an expensive vase off a table. Now, our culture says she ought to replace that; she broke it, or at least, she was the cause of its demise, and so she should be the cause of its restoration. But why ought this be the case? What if she is unable to financially afford this replacement? Our culture tends to dictate that the relationship with this friend will be damaged until she offer some sort of compensation (maybe not over a vase, but let's just overgeneralize to make the point); I will not likely trust my friend as much if I follow this path. But why should this be the case? If my friend cannot afford to rebuild the vase or buy a new one, but I can, does it make sense that I feel as though she owes me?

I think our concept of fairness is built, not just on "she should have to pay for it because that's objectively fair," but on "I don't want to pay for it." We like to pass the blame because it makes us feel better about ourselves - it wasn't OUR fault. I want to restore my sense of self-worth at having lost something; when I blame others, I feel more righteous by comparison. Somebody else has to take care of the problem, and I am freed from any responsibility towards fixing it.

The trouble is, the gospel challenges those assumptions to their very core. If Jesus did in fact die on the cross to take our sin "upon his shoulders" (as they say), and we can do nothing to repay him for it, we are left at an empasse, in an awkward situation. It comes down to this: I can't repay God for what He did, and that bothers me. As an American, I have a hard time accepting a gift unconditionally because I feel like I owe something back. In short, this is a point at which the gospel and American culture part ways, and as a community of Christ-followers living within that culture, then, we have to tread lightly when it comes to addressing this issue in our own lives and in the lives of others.

Ultimately, it's about what we value; if I value the vase, the economics of the situation, then of course "fairness" dictates that I make her replace it, no matter what the subsequent consequences to her; once I get my vase back, the issue is no longer important to me. But if I value the relationship, maybe a whole other set of possibilities rises to the surface. Maybe the vase isn't that important after all and doesn't need to be replaced. Or maybe if it is important to me, I ought to replace it myself instead of holding my friend to something she can't afford. Of course, if she can afford to replace it, she is more than welcome to offer that herself, but it ought to come from a sense of giving rather than a sense of obligation.

The bottom line is, how are we living as an alternate economy? Are we living sacrificially, living in a way that honors and serves our neighbors and values the relationships we have? Are we living in a way that honors Jesus and the way He taught and lived himself? Jesus valued people, he valued relationship; by blaming others instead of assuming responsibility despite cause, we are not enacting the economy of heaven. Taking responsibility for the plight of the Other in spite of who they are, what they did, or why they did it is the mark of a Christian - scripture calls it "love." Life is not and never will be "fair," and anyone who sells visions to the contrary is doing just that: selling something. True good comes when we become servants, when we stop using "fairness" as an excuse not to help others. It means putting aside one's pride and one's sense of "fair play," and instead donning the servant's towel and washing the feet of others.

The best economy only comes when we get our hands dirty in the service of others.

(to be continued ...)

Finding Jesus

2009-01-13T12:28:00.002-05:00

I just had to put this up. Thanks, lolcats!

Survival Rates

2009-01-13T10:22:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Dan for this amusing quiz. I suppose my results are moderately accurate, given that I've actually graduated and didn't die. I suppose the question remains, where is there a quiz to tell you your chances of getting a job AFTER seminary?

77%

Visit Going to Seminary for seminary tips and advice.

Petrol

2009-01-12T19:22:00.001-05:00

It would seem that today's the day of videos. Enjoy!

Survivors Of Gas Station Explosion Mourn Tragic Loss Of Gasoline

Wooten!

2009-01-12T14:17:00.000-05:00

Economics, Part VIII: Freedom

2009-01-09T15:24:00.003-05:00

Neo: The Architect told me that if I didn't return to the Source, Zion would be destroyed by midnight tonight.
Oracle: Please ... You and I may not be able to see beyond our own choices, but that man can't see past any choices.
Neo: Why not?
Oracle: He doesn't understand them - he can't. To him they are variables in an equation. One at a time each variable must be solved and countered. That's his purpose: to balance an equation.
Neo: What's your purpose?
Oracle: To unbalance it.

I know, the Matrix trillogy has been done to death, but let's face it, the fact is that freedom is more or less THE theme of the three movies. They also happen to be a personal favorite, and this is my blog. Off we go ...

We have thus far considered the nature and the endgame of economic systems. Both have their advantages and their disadvantages, yet both tend to work to the same ends, through different means. Why is it, then, that the world continues to turn? Why haven't our economic systems fallen so far into disarray that we're all subjects to a single human power? Given our collective memory of the endless cycle of rise and fall from power, why do we bother to cooperate? The answer, I think, lies in one element in this system that we have not yet considered, an element that makes or breaks the very nature of the system itself, put to good use: choice.

Choice is what gives us our ability to go against the flow, to disregard our "fight or flight" instincts, or to do something contrary to the popular opinion of the society. We can choose to go to the store or to make do with what we have; we can throw the subsequent garbage away or recycle it or even just pitch it out the window. We can wear the popular clothing or we can wear something comfortable; regardless of the pressures placed on us from many sides - society, culture, even the laws of nature - we are still able to choose.

It was C.S. Lewis that said that predestination and free will are the same thing, two sides of the same coin. Actually, to be honest, so far he's the ONLY one who I've ever heard say this. We are hybrid beings, he wrote, born into a world of sin through no fault of our own, yet we are asked to begin making choices that will affect the rest of our own lives, even our own salvation. Our choices have consequences - destinies, as it were - and our destiny presents us with choices to be made which will make or break the path we're on. Choice is to causality like yin is to yang; the one must go with the other. Freedom, then, is our capacity to make choices, our ability to weigh the consequences and choose, however consciously or subconsciously, a course of action based upon what we perceive is the best outcome. This includes our ability to choose a couse of action that might not actually be the best outcome.

Put another way, we are not held to one set of actions. The choices we make change, and indeed, shape the very future that is so uncertain. I can choose to eat a hot dog or to eat something else or even to eat nothing at all. Perhaps I choose to wait for a while and THEN eat something. Either way, the choice is still mine; I can choose to follow the law or I can choose not to. I don't even have to eat if I don't want to (though the fact that I usually want to could tell you something about my waistline).

But in the end, there is another sort of freedom which we do not have, and that is freedom from consequences. This is the "yang" to the "yin" of choice. We are not free of causality as popular culture has led us to believe; we will reap what we sow. I cannot jump from a bridge and then expect not to fall into the river below, gravity being what it is. Every choice sets in motion other events, provides new decisions to be made and eliminates others.

For example, a choice was made a long, long time ago, but human history has reflected this decision ever since. We could talk through the story of Eden at great length, but even if the story is merely metaphor, something happened to distance humanity from its Maker. The author of Genesis records that a couple ate "the fruit" of a tree of knowledge. At some point, our species made a choice that blinded us to the consequences of doing things on our own, without the Creator. We began to think - deceived or not - that maybe there were no consequences. We were wrong.

One reason that the Incarnation is such a miracle is that God did (and does) what no one else could: he interrupted us (as a species) somewhere between cause and effect. We sin, and yet he gives us the chance to avoid the ultimate consequences of those choices, taking the penalties upon himself instead. As a missionary, I usually like to look at the incarnation for the way in which it exemplifies God making himself known and making the effort to relate to us on our own terms - in the flesh, face-to-face, sandle-to-sand. But in another way, in the grand scheme of things, this is not enough by itself. It is a lot, for sure, but it is not the whole picture. The Christian story is one in which the One who was not the cause took the effects; He removevd the consequences of the actions of another and took them upon himself. God, in essence, unbalances the equation; he alone understood the consequences of our choice and took it upon himself to give us back our dignity to choose a path, rather than allowing us to reap the ultimate consequence. The Creator found a loophole in the rules; he took the fall for the Created.

And that changed everything.

(to be continued ...)

The iGizmo

2009-01-07T13:48:00.000-05:00

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard