Twitter/Blogging/Posts/Web 2.0 etc...

I guess it's more than I thought it would be, but honestly... there are folks out there who post stuff on Twitter like every few minutes. Almost as if they have nothing else to do. Or maybe I just can't multi-task as well as I thought I could. Do they have a degree in that somewhere or maybe even just a class where you can effectively communicate with people in real-time while also communicating with your 7000 follower and trying to let them know that they've won something for being that lucky number 7000.

It's fun to post stuff about where I ate lunch or with whom, but having to take a pic of the slice of pizza I just took a bite of and then post that with a short URL so it will fit within 40-something characters is just a little too much! Wait let me hash-tag that... #pizza

I guess I'm saying for all those 12 folks out there who follow me on this blog, and the few more who do pay any attention at all to what I may occasionally "tweet" about, I won't be making it a point to blog every day, week, or month, but I will try to make it meaningful and helpful, and occasionally, sometimes just plain humorous, whenever I do get around to posting.

As David Crowder*Band so aptly put it, Twitter_will_kill_you. (that was funny stuff, Dave.) BTW, how'd you pul off the hit-by-car scene? That was brilliant!

Check out David Crowder*Band rock-u-mentary on their website or on YouTube. Good 4 minute time-waster.

TTFN BFF's!

In the New Building

This is a collection of statements that were supposed to be our dream within a dream realities of finally being in the new building. Feel free to add to the list in the comments section if you have something worth adding.

In the new Building…


1. Everyone will be perfectly lit all the time, no matter where they are.

2. If you put your ear up to any wall, you can hear the ocean.

3. There will be a constant breeze.

4. Services can go as long as we want, but it will never seem like more than an hour.

5. Justin will never go longer than he’s supposed to.

6. Everyone will know all the words to all the songs, all the time.

7. Phil won’t ever have to mix sound, it will just be perfect.

8. Everyone will be 8 feet tall.

9. People will be able to levitate at will.

10. Water fountains and toilets will be filled with wine.

11. Nothing will ever melt and the temperature will be a constant 74 degrees.

12. Everyone will have a perfect hair day.

13. People can fly.

14. The children will never be sick.

15. We will never have to rehearse.

16. Everyone will have perfect pitch.

17. The worship team will be beamed onto the stage.

18. People from all over the world will automatically speak English.

19. There will not be an offering, just a tree out back that money grows on.

20. Jesus will actually pray every night that Chuck Norris will protect the new building.

21. The church owns the land all the way down to the center of the earth.

22. The church is actually a self-sustaining Ark, good for up to 3 years.

23. It’s impossible to miss a basketball shot from half-court.

24. Everyone can dunk.

25. There will be no need for “in the new building jokes”…because we’ll be in the new building.

26. We will have a separate list of things that we couldn’t do in the Old Building.

27. Background Music will be in the Foreground.

28. Pictures of people will magically have halos over their heads.

29. Food will generate out of thin air whenever you are hungry, from whatever restaurant you want.

30. Everyone will know everyone’s names before they even meet them.

Walking the Walk, Talking the Talk.

It's been a while since I posted anything here and it's mainly because I've been working a lot (probably too much) but getting ready for Easter and all that, y'know...
Anyway, I've dealt with some pretty hard stuff at work and in life in general, and it's caused several things to happen. I realized later that these attitudes and reactions are shared by more than just me. Below is a short list of some of those...

1. anger.
2. sadness.
3. depression.
4. emotional numbness.
5. spiritual intensity.

These are just a few, and I'm sure that you could add your own to the list. The point for me was that it caused me to finally get to #5 on the list, and I want that to be my first reaction. Not my last. I thought it'd be appropriate to look at our responses to circumstances in our lives and then put them up against the biblical standard God wants us to follow.

Easy enough, right?

So the way we'll do this is, I will post the scenario and then the "typical" reaction, or reaction(s) and you can comment with scripture references that hold God's standard or God's action up for everyone to see and comment on. Also, if there is a different reaction that you may have experienced, put it down and then share the biblical standard that helps to make our process the one the honors God. My hope is that we produce dialogue that will affects life change and allows us to "live lives worthy of the calling of our Lord." (Col. 1:9-11)

So, here is the first of our situations.
(you can respond in your comments with the corresponding number)

#1

A friend from church invites you over to his house for dinner and when you get there, you realize that the other party guests are folks you have never met and, in fact, are quite opposite in regards to their spiritual walk. You soon realize that you are very much in the minority when it comes to eternal beliefs and even your friend is reluctant to share any kind of kinship on that level in the current company. (you know you've had friends like that...)

Typical reaction might be:

• politely leave and call that friend later and express your disappointment.
• try to blend in and be "one of the guys/girls" for the night.
• get angry that people are such hypocrites and leave vowing never to talk to your "friend" again.

#2

The rumor mill has started and you find out that it may have been one of your closest friends that started it and what is being said about you is a horrible lie. You never did anything to provoke what is being said and you can't even figure out how someone would get that impression of you.

Typical reaction might be:

• start your own bad-mouthing about that person.
• blog about it! (that one's a joke... :) )
• Track down all the people that perpetuated that rumor and tell them what you really think.

____________________________________________________________________________

There's a few scenarios's to get us started. Let's get the Word out and let's see what God says for us today. Can't wait to hear from you guys.

Songwriting and people who write them

Writing songs is hard. If you don't think so, try to do it right now. I'm serious... stop what you are doing, quit reading this blog post and go right a verse, chorus, and put it to a melody and sing it to someone today. I bet you get about three words in and you go, "aww... this is dumb."

On the other hand...

You could sit down and in 5 minutes have a masterpiece! Melody is perfect, verse makes sense and flows right into the chorus. It's memorable, catchy, has a good hook, speaks to a felt need of our humanity... all those things that we love songs to do for us when we hear the good ones.

I find that I'm usually somewhere in the middle of those two places and the only way to finally land on the upside is to work at it and work at and work at it and work at it. It's a hard discipline, but it is so rewarding when you find those nuggets of wisdom in a lyric and people can latch on and sing with you. Nothing is more satisfying than when other join in singing the songs that come from your heart.

I imagine that's how God feels when we write songs. After all, they have been His for so long. When we finally put pen to paper and jot down those few lines that rhyme and sing that melody that leads to harmony, I think God smiles because He feels the same satisfaction as we sing a new song to the Lord. The journey of God's people as it is chronicled on songs throughout the years is an amazing tale. I want to encourage you as a worship leader, songwriter, musician, to take a few moments and add your voice to the story.

Go ahead, hum a few bars...

My Doxology

This week I've been studying the word "Doxology" and I came across some really good material. For years, especially as a kid, I was under the impression that whenever the worship leader would stand up and most of the time at the end of the service, he would say, "Let's stand and turn to the front cover of your hymnal and sing the 'Doxology'.", I thought that meant literally, the song that ended the service. Silly, right? (I know you've been there too.)

Now with a little clearer understanding (and that I'm not a kid anymore), "Doxology" simply means to attribute praise to or the act of attributing praise to God. We are singing the familiar hymn, Doxology, this weekend in church and I wanted to unpack that word just a bit before we sing it, in hopes of bringing people to a new place of worship as they ascribe praise to our God together.

As Paul was writing to the churches, he writes a great doxology in the first chapter of Ephesians. Here are a few key passages to give you an idea of what he is doing in giving praise to God.

³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
In love ⁵he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.

It is to our benefit and his pleasure that we praise him. What Paul was writing describes the church praising God because of his glory made known to us and in us. We praise him for his grace. We praise him for every heavenly blessing. We praise him for the Holy Spirit who is a deposit of our inheritance of our future eternal glory in heaven. Any one of those is reason enough. I hope that I get this in my life. All of what I have is a reason to praise him. All that you have is a reason to praise him. I would even go as far as to say that all that I don't have is still reason to praise him.

In the end, I think what Paul might be getting at (and what I think he hoped for in his own life as a servant of Christ) was that our lives should be a Doxology to Him.

Let me know what reasons you have in your life to praise Him...

Samurai Worship

“One who is samurai must, before all things, keep constantly in mind, by day and by night… that he has to die.” - Daidoji Yuzan (16th Century)

From what I understand about samurai, their lives were lived with the utmost respect given to the power of their enemies, yet all the while knowing full well that to do battle with such an enemy would bring glory either way that engagement ended. To die honorably was to have lived honorably. To defeat the foe was to have done ones duty with honor and respect. Both brought glory to the lord or emperor represented by the samurai.

That’s what worship is for us. A simple, yet determined practice of living that will one day bring glory to the Lord that we represent.

“The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.” – A. W. Tozer

I love that quote. It emphasizes the need for us to be completely holistic in our response to God's Word. To be samurai-like in our pursuit of Christ-like perfection. Christianity and the practice of it, we call it worship, it not something to be given a brief glance and then discarded like the practice of most mundane thing. It’s much more than simply, “time to make the donuts”. It’s a diligent devotion, carried out in the every day happenings from the actions we take to the thoughts that make those actions come to life.

It is God perfecting in us, the art of servanthood.

Worship Fool

Here I sit on a Wednesday afternoon, throat hurting and sinuses aching, waiting for the weekend because Future of Forestry is coming to town and they are leading worship in my stead this weekend. "Gazing" brought me to tears last night as I was listening to the set list for this weekend's services. It got me thinking...

In all of God's creation, I am created as the epitome of it all. No other thing in all of creation was given as much power, thought, energy, time, consideration, likeness, and potential sin as I. God in all of his wisdom thought it the very best thing to create me in his image knowing full well that I come with baggage. A life full of sin. A life full of questions. A life full of annoyance for lack of a better excuse. And still He chose to love me and put me above everything else in creation.

What a foolish, benevolent King! (If only I were that foolish...)

1 Corinthians 1:25 says, "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."

What if we began to act in godly foolishness? What if we began to worship with a holy, foolish abandon? What if... I'm tired of asking the "what if" questions. As if that ever prompted anyone to make a choice one way or another. As for me, I'm going to do my best to step outside my "foolish" comfort zone and try to present myself to God in the most foolish way possible. Yikes.