the "ba-da-bah!"

Ok, things have been pretty heavy here in blog-land recently; so I’ll share some stuff that I’ve been meaning to share for a while. A few weeks ago, Angela and I sat down to watch “Supersize Me”. What a disturbing movie! It’s a documentary about a guy who decides to eat nothing but McDonalds, 3 meals a day, for 30 days. He is being monitored by doctors the entire time. The rules are, he has to eat everything on the menu at least once, and if they offer to supersize it for him, he has to take it. I don’t even think I can fully describe this movie; you need to see it for yourself. I realize that the entire movie is a bash on corporate America and the brainwashing of today’s youth, but man, it’s hard to look at the chicken nugget the same way again. Will I stop eating McD’s? I doubt it. But there is something to this brainwashing today’s youth thing. Kyra, from about 1 year old started something that was funny, but a bit disturbing. We hardly ever go to McD’s. I go, but usually at lunch. So she wasn’t really exposed to it very much. As we were driving down the street one day, all the sudden she says, “Da Ba-Da-Bah!” We were like, “what?” Then we figured it out. She recognized the golden arches and thought it was called “Ba-Da-Bah”…the newest theme song on McD’s commercials. You know, “ba-da-ba-ba-bah!” So not only do those commercials work, but our daughter obviously watches too much TV. We have since cut back. Now, when she sees the arches, she says, “There’s the Ba-Da-Bah, which is also McDonalds.” I kid you not!

So go get a Big Mac Meal and rent “Supersize Me”. It’ll make for an enjoyable evening.

the final cut

I will first preface this by saying I am about to go to sleep, but my mind is spinning. So read at your own risk :-)

I’ve mentioned a lot lately this whole idea of our live as narrative. This theme first presented itself in early December through some interesting doors that swung wide open in my life (I hope to share more on this at some point) ; then it popped up again at our Elevate planning meeting, and since then I’ve been trying to sort through it. I didn’t get a chance, as I had hoped, to read any of Allender’s “to be told” while at LTC (I had a hard time finding time to eat and sleep :-) but did get to read a bit before and some today. Ironically, I just finished watching a movie with this "life as story" theme. My mom was up this weekend and today was the first day I really got to spend with her. We all ordered pizza and rented “The Final Cut”. What an interesting movie. It’s basically about a guy whose job is “the Cutter”. His task is to take the video footage from a chip that’s implanted in our brains and make “rememorials” to be shown at our funerals. In other words, every memory you have is recorded and someone gets to sit down after you die and edit it into a short version, preserving the memories the deceased loved ones want to remember, the rest of the memories are destroyed. I won’t give anything away, but it’s worth seeing (and not near as cheesy as I just made it sound). It’s got Robin Williams (he such a great dramatic actor), Mira Sorvino, and Jim Cavezel. So this whole idea of our lives as story keeps popping up. Actually, I’m starting to think that this theme is somehow tied to our shift in culture from modernism to postmodernism. Let’s take a very “postmodern” trend like blogging for instance. In essence, it’s the author, presenting the narrative of their lives, in their own words, their own terms, so a greater community can at the very least, be entertained, or hopefully, learn from it. It’s me sharing my story, my world, my viewpoint, with you. This seems to be a very big theme in our shift into postmodernism. We are not islands unto ourselves, each doing our own thing, delivering monologue after monologue, but part of a larger scene, in which we are all improving off each other and our Creator. Our story not only effects others story, but our story effects how others perceive their own stories. But what if when you read my blog you didn’t just get my “version” of my story, but THE version of my story? OK…now I ventured into the “what the heck did he just say” part of my brain I often visit after too much caffeine and not enough sleep :-)
I’ll leave you with a quote from “to be told” pg. 121. He’s talking about our present story and what it means.

~ Do I embrace, take care of, and have gratitude for my current situation?
~ Do I take responsibility for the world that has been both given to me and created by me?
~ Do I bring my story and mission to bear in my present?

…Most of us feel outnumbered and outgunned by our current situation. We want to be freed from our problems so that we can get on with our pleasures. But God has a different plan. He wants our problems to serve as the context for knowing him and living out the story he invited us to write for his glory. This means the present is not meant primarily to be resolved, or even learned from, but to be written in a way that allows us to reveal God to others and to let him reveal himself to us.

Read that last sentence again…

the weekend

Well, I must admit, I’m glad this weekend is over. LTC went great, but man, I am worn out! It is always great to see so many young people developing and using their talents for Him. There are a lot of events for them to participate in from Bible Bowl to Scripture reading, puppetry, group singing to drama, speeches to song leading (although I wish they would help develop Worship Leaders, not song leaders…but that’s a whole different blog subject) But my favorite event is the Christian art. That gets me the most excited. I am super passionate about raising up young people who are not afraid, and are in fact, encouraged, to use their gifts in the church. “art” is something that has gone pretty much unrecognized in most churches of Christ for far too long. I am encouraged to see this change. I think the total attendance figure was around 1,100. The worship times went OK; although I must admit, besides being completely beat by the time I go up onstage; the venue is not exactly what I’m used too. I love everyone at LTC dearly, but the crowd is generally much more conservative than I am. I know I often talk about North Central being conservative; but at weekends like this, I remember that North Central is pretty “out there” comparatively. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the LTC crowd; it just puts me even more out of my element than I am at NC. Friday, we had a short worship time and the sound was rotten! It was by far the worst conditions I’ve ever led worship under. The system sounded like a bad megaphone. Saturday, everything was fixed and sounded great. Autumn from Rochester College helped me out as the Praise Team. They are a great group of college students, good hearts and good voices. For the 1st couple of songs we used vocal percussion. It sounded great; but when we went up for the extended worship time, I was asked to cut the percussion. Ouch! Opps, I had forgotten where I was :-) Then, before we launched into “Above All”, I stared sharing some thoughts on Easter. Opps! I forgot where I was again :-)
I quickly sensed the Spirit’s (thank you God) nudging that I was going to lose some of these people, so I (HE) found a way to bring it back home to convey the same message without offending. Is that compromise what Paul was talking about? And I think some people weren't quite sure what to do with "This is How We Overcome"...mourning into dancing?...spinning around? :-)

This mornings gatherings at North Central went well. The first was dragging a bit. But the 2nd, WOW…the singing was awesome. Yes there were more people, and yes, they were more awake…but I think it was more than that. God’s presence was just very strong. I got lost in His presence. I still have not figured out the differences between services. I think it goes to show you, it’s not really about you (what is planned, how well everyone does, etc.) Same leaders, same message, same set up, same location, totally different vibe. Anyway, I am constantly amazed how great the acoustics are when we have a full crowd. My ears were ringing on a New Anointing! WOW! Jenn did a great job on "For all You've Done". The Praise Team did OK on “Your grace still amazes me”. That is such a powerful song! It was a bit rocky in parts, but it ended strong and the video really helped solidify the message of the sermon.

As I prayed this morning, I hope that God’s Spirit touched someone there who does not yet realize the gift we have in receiving a new life, NOW! I can only trust that those who worshipped with us this morning came to know Him more deeply than they did before they arrived, and those that don’t yet know Him, fell in love today.

I’m going to sleep in Monday. Hey, anything more than 5 hours would be a record this weekend. Blessings.

mongolian barbecue and our life story

Last night's Easter practice went great. I was honestly worried about it. Our Praise Chorus is doing the song "Your Grace Still Amazes Me" with a special video. Last week, things didn't sound so hot...but what an imporvement. North Central is blessed to have some wonderfully talented people. I'm looking forward to a great Easter!

I picked up a new book today to read during all my free time between preparing for Easter services, overseeing the A/V at this year’s LTC convention, leading praise and worship for the big LTC Celebration, and transferring hours of video footage to DVD. It seems that at moments like these, when life is most hectic is when I start to get introspective. Why is that? Seems like poor timing to me.

Anyway, the book is “To Be Told: know your story, shape your future” by Dan Allender. This whole idea of our lives as narrative has been on my mind lately. We are looking at Elevate summer camp to deal with this; but a lot of my interest is personal. For the last few months I’ve been wondering where my story is going. So many strange things (circumstances) have presented themselves. I tend to shy away from reading too much into life circumstances, but man, sometimes it’s hard to ignore. But here’s the problem with circumstances, just when we think God is penning a new chapter in our lives, something happens that makes you question the whole process. We think, “Perhaps I was way off, this circumstance was actually God setting the stage for the next scene.” And so we launch off, thinking we now understand the scene; but in reality, we don’t. We only know the scene we’re currently in. And some of us don’t even know that. So what to do? For guys like me who think in terms of what will be, (i.e. vision) not knowing what the heck is going on is tough. You keep throwing ingredients into the mix, and hope it doesn’t come out crap. I guess that’s where the faith comes in. Faith that God knows what’s going on. He knows just what ingredients are needed to have your life tasting just the way He intended. Sort of like the restaurant, Mongolian Barbecue. If you’ve never been, basically you pick your own ingredients, and they cook them on this huge grill in the center of the room. They have recipe cards that tell you just how much of each meat, spice, vegetable, etc. you need to put in. That’s what I do…grab a card and follow in the instructions. I have no idea about food. I don’t know what 90% of the stuff is that the card tells me to put in. Most of I’ve never heard of, or if I have, it’s something I normally wouldn’t eat. But I follow the card anyway. The grill guy cooks it, and you know what, it tastes good. I trust someone whom I’ve never met who wrote out a recipe on a little card that my $10 meal, full of stuff I don’t like is gonna taste good. It should be easier to trust that my Lord, who loves me beyond belief, knows my hearts desires, knows my strengths, my weakness, my insecurities…my taste buds, can take all my life’s characters, triumphs, tragedies, and circumstances and come out with the life I was made for. I know in my heart, in the end, as long as I put one foot in front of the other, reaching out for Jesus, my life is gonna be all that I could ask for and more than I could ever imagine.

oh, yeah...if you read this blog, post a comment and let me know. I keep hearing from different people when I don't post for awhile, but was honestly unaware that anyone but my mother-in-law actually reads it :-) Feel free to comment, I'd love to hear from you.

I don't know if I'll get to write much this weekend. I leave tonight for LTC and then will be pretty busy with that. If you're in the area, stop by the Marriot on Saturday evening. We'll have a great time of worship. Autumn from Rochester College is gonna serve as the Praise Team. Or better yet, stop by during the day and check out the kids use their gifts to glorify God.

Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame Inductions

OK, last night as I transferred tons of LTC drama’s into my computer, I got the catch the repeat of the Hard Rock Hall of Fame inductions. As a music lover, I love music shows, and was bummed that I missed it Sunday.

Anyway, did anyone see it? I’ve heard tons of introductory speeches for these things, but I’ve never heard one as good as Bruce Springsteen’s introduction of U2. What an intro!
Here’s a quote as he spoke of U2’s music and message.
“How do you find God, if he’s not in your heart, your desire…your feet”

Then, the various members of U2 each gave speeches. Those guys are the most articulate, deep, thoughtful guys in music. Not your typical rocker acceptance speeches. Bono spoke of the time his life was threatened at a concert to get Martin Luther King’s Bday observed as a national holiday. The FBI had pleaded with him not to perform…but he did. And during the song “in the name of love”, Adam (the bassist) stood in front of him, shielding him from any attacks. Bono also made a plea to the recording industry. He mentioned that today, U2’s second album (about God) never would have been made. What does U2 believe about god, Jesus, and the Bible? I’m not sure. I’ve read several books about them and their faith, and they all paint a different picture. But I do know this…listen to the lyrics of “I still Haven’t Found what I’m looking for” (which happens to feature George Pendergrass from old school Acappella days :-), or “Yahweh” from their newest CD. We need more music like this...plus, just listen to "the Edge" play guitar! :-)

Take these shoes
Click clacking down some dead end street
Take these shoesAnd make them fit
Take this shirt
Polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt

And make it clean, clean
Take this soul

Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul

And make it sing

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn
Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don't make a fist
Take this mouth
So quick to criticise
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh

Still I'm waiting for the dawn
Still waiting for the dawn, the sun is coming up
The sun is coming up on the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, tell me now
Why the dark before the dawn?

Take this city
A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city
If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it break

deep thoughts by oswald chambers...

Man, what a weekend! Today is my crash day. I was at the building from 8:30am to 9:45 PM! We had our Tech Ministry training day in the morning, and then I spent the afternoon getting final details set for Sunday’s services. We hosted the Lipscomb A cappella Singers Saturday evening. They did a great job, what a blessing. We had a pretty good turnout. We had a last minute showing for our house scheduled for Sunday afternoon; so Angela had to miss the concert to get the house ready. We slept up here on the northside with the Sellers…they are the best! Unfortunately, Angela ended up bringing me the wrong pants for Sunday; I have a pair that shrunk and make me look (in her words) like a gump! I was so tired, I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do for Sunday, so Angela and Vanessa went out at 11PM to Meijers to find me some pants that fit :-)

Sunday, as I already mentioned, went awesome! But today, I have hit the wall. That’s not good, because this week and weekend is actually much busier than last. LTC is this weekend and I take care of their A/V as well as the worship leading. That’s enough, but somehow I ended up transferring hours and hours of video tape to DVD for their Bible Talks and Christian Drama. When I said I would do that, I was under the impression I would have a few weeks to do it, I got the tapes on Friday! On top of that, it’s Easter! I’m a bit nervous about our special music…hopefully things will go a bit smoother at practice Wednesday. This should be fun.

Anyway, I took a moment today to read some great words from Oswald Chamber’s from his great book, “My Utmost for His Highest”.

“…the only test we should use to determine whether or not to allow a particular emotion to run its course in our lives is to examine what the final outcome of that emotion will be…if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately. But if it is an emotion that has been kindled by the Spirit of God and you don’t allow it to have its way in your life, it will cause a reaction on a lower level than God intended. That is the way unrealistic and overly emotional people are made. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many of your decisions as possible irrevocable, and let the consequences be what they will.”

We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides,
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides;
But tasks in hours of insight willed
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.

Thanks Oswald!

1st Service!

Wow! What a powerful service! We just finished out 1st service, and thought I would blog about it. This weekend the A cappalla Singers from Lipscomb University are here with us. They did a concert for us last night. This morning, our gathering centered on the theme : The Journey to the Cross. We are taking a look at the last week of Jesus life. The Lipscomb group sang our opening call to worship and also did a selection during our abbreviated lesson time. The gathering used a lot of media. And the singing was amazing! Having 50 trained singers with you sure helps. One of the students did a dramatic reading of Jesus Prayer in the Garden. For any who weren’t able to join us this morning, here’s our order.

Welcome/Prayer
Plenty Good Room – Lipscomb A Cappella Singers
Reading from “And the Angels Were Silent” – intro
Matthew 20:18-19; 21:1-3; 6-11 (NCV)

Reader #1 – “this is the One who was born to die.”
Reader 2 – “this is the One who shows us the way.”
Reader #3 – “this is the One who bears our grief, and carries our sorrow.’
Reader #4 – “this is the One we have grown to love…
Leader – “The Ancient of Days…

Ancient of Days
All Hail the Power of Jesus Name
Hosanna!
Here I am to Worship

Mark 12:28-34
Offering
The Greatest Commands
“Mary Anointing Jesus” – from Max Lucado

Last Supper video (Matthew 26:17-30, the Message)
Communion
Let Us Break Bread Together
Boundless Love

Matthew 26:36-38

Jesus Prays in the Garden – Lipscomb Student

Short Teaching Time

Pilgrim’s Hymn – Lipscomb A cappella Singers

Invitation

Who Can Satisfy My Soul Like You?
All in All

Shepherd’s Prayer

Ancient of Days (reprise…”every tongue”)


Well, got to go get ready for 2nd service! Have a blessed Sunday!

tuesday, march 15

it's been 2 long weeks since my last post. our "vacation" ;-) was great; but it sure wasn't long enough. mike did a great job (as usual) filling in for me while i was gone. the video lesson i put together for the gathering seems to have been well received. after the video and some discussion, John B presented an intro to the prayer technique lectio divinia. Mark W. did a great job leading worship. it was fun to help put together the gathering, but i wish i had been present to experience it. its great that NC has folks who can lead in capacities such as these. although i still worked at the planning stage, its humbling to know things can go on just fine without you...every minister needs to remember this.

ever since getting back, i have wanted to share what's spinning around in my head, but i'm just not able to at this point. some of you who read this, know there's been a lot on my mind recently. god is definitely teaching me patience and trust. one of these days, i know i'll look back and i'll see how all this makes sense (like the director's cut idea for elevate camp this year.) but at this point, it's just a lot of questions without answers.
Ironically enough (or is it?) i'm writing this as i take a break from planning church stuff...listening to the CD, Chillout: a Worship Xperienceand the song "why" is playing. vamping over the ambient drum loop, a women with a cool Australian accent is saying,

why does my mind wander off in so many directions?
why does my heart desire the things that lead me astray?
let me sense your presence in the midst of my turmoil.
take my tired body, confused mind, give me rest,
simple, quiet, rest
give me rest, simple, quiet, rest

Amen! Lord, this is my prayer.

this weekend, we celebrated angela's birthday. we went over to her parents on saturday and kyra spent the night. we didn't get to go out as i had planned, but we cleaned the house all saturday night :-) we had a showing sunday while we were at church. they better have been impressed, because our house looks great! :-) i have no idea how it went; but i sure hope this is the one. please keep praying for our house to sell...as i've said before, this is getting ridiculous! between the gas, time in the car, the loss of the buick's 4th gear, and over-mileage fees (our sentra is now costing us $11/day to drive to NC!) i'm ready to go back to Jesus' days when everyone walked everywhere...OK, not really :-) back to work.

have a blessed day!

college nostalgia and a 2 year old on my head...

what a cool last 2 days! We made it to MI and stayed with Angela's grandmother Sunday night. I did not get much sleep. Angela, Kyra and I were all in the same room. Angela and I were sleeping in seperate beds, with Kyra in her pack-in-play. About 5 am, Kyra decided she didn't want to be in her bed anymore. She does not know how to share a bed with someone. She kept trying to lay on my face. I kept waking up with her just laying in all sorts of very uncomfortable looking poses on my face. Then about 6:30 she lifts up my eye lid and goes..."daddy, change my diaper." Well, good morning to you to! :-) After not much sleep, we all managed to have a decent morning and afternoon and then I left for Rochester. I'll be picking the girls up to go to my mom's on Wednesday.

****************************

I am now up here at Rochester College. Sara Barton asked me a while back to come and lead the worship for their morning assembly (a.k.a chapel, as we called it back in the day :-). Holly J. put together the praise team. I thought it was gonna be students; but it ended up being people I sung with back in the Autumn days. Holly J, Steph C, Dave C. and Jason R. We got together Monday night and ran through the songs. Those guys are all so awesome! I am continually amazed at how much musical talent lives in and around the college. We ended up scrapping one of the songs..."Your Love is Amazing (Hallelujah)" It was just not working acappella. Some songs just need a guitar! As it turns out, things are so different around here, I probably could have brought my guitar and led...
After we practiced, we hung out for a bit, and then I went and stayed with Dave and Lisa.

I think things went pretty good this morning. I have nothing to compare it to, but the college students seemed to engage in the worship.
Tonight I went with Brandon (a former member of FCC's youth group when I was a youth minister...man that makes me feel old!!) to the offering. That's their instrumental worship on Tuesdays. I was looking forward to just participating and not leading for a change. Unfortuanely, I've pretty much wore out my voice, so i couldn't really sing. That turned out to be a huge blessing. I just sat there, among the college students as they lifted their voices in praise. Very cool. One of the girls next to me had just a beautiful voice. And on the other side, a guy who really couldn't hold a tune at all. And it was powerful. He was pouring out his heart to the Father. For a brief moment I think God let me into his kick-butt listening room, and I got to hear things how he hears them.

So it's been great to visit with old friends, see familiar faces on staff and get the chance to give back something to the community here at RC. I don't know if any students felt blessed from our time together this morning; but I was blessed.

I spent the rest of the day catching up with staff members. I spent some great timw with Jan Coe. I happend to stop by her office and we ended up talking for quite a while. She is a such a blessing that campus. We shared some stuggles in our lives and prayed together. I miss those times with people like Jan. I then decided to spend some R&R with just myself. I headed over to the big Barnes & Nobles, pulled up a book and just read for awhile. I'm always so "busy", I don't make enough time to just be still. I was reading through the book, "...figures, as I go to type it, I can't remember the title..." (no that's not what the book is called) oh well, but I did write down 2 good quotes from the book in my palm pilot. I'll probably wake up at 3 am with the book title on my brain...anyway, here's the quotes:

"I am convinced the great tragedy is not the sins that we commit, but the life that we fail to live."

AND

"We have defined holiness through what we seperate ourselves from rather that what we give ourselves to."

I though that last one was especially profound...unpack that for a while.

As to not paint myself as the object of spiritualness...I didn't just read "god" books, I also had to give into the tempatation to once again drool over a mac by thumbing throw some Mac magazines...is that lusting? :-)


One things for sure...I can't live the college life anymore. I'm writing this entry from Brandon's dorm room. (it's weird being back in here) , it's 11 pm and they all left to go "out". I'm dead-tired and feel like an old foogey (did i spell that right ? :-) ah...to be 20 again! I'm going to sleep...