Walk On

I read on Yahoo News today that the U.S. is starting to pressure the Myanmar (Burma) government to release Aung San Suu Kyi from what seems to be permanent house arrest. She is the Myanmar leader who won the general election in the early '90's, yet the military of Myanmar, who was (and still is) governing, refused to accept the election results.

Aung San Suu Kyi is the subject of the U2 song, Walk On. Here are some of the lyrics:

And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring
And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for one second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Walk on, walk on
What you got they can't steal it
No, they can't even feel it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight

You're packing a suitcase for a place none of has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom

Walk on, walk on
What you've got they can't deny it
Can't sell it or buy it
Walk on, walk on
You stay safe tonight

And I know it aches, how your heart it breaks
You can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Home, hard to know what it is if you've never had one
Home, I can't say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the hurt is

And I know it aches and your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on


I hope the U.S. continues to do things like this, to seek justice for wrongdoings. The Darfur situation would be another great place to start.

Here is the full article.

Trust In Organized Religion At Near Record Low

Americans trust the military and the police force significantly more than the church and organized religion, a new Gallup Poll says.

Only 46 percent of respondents said they had either a "great deal"
or "quite a lot" of confidence in the church, compared with 69 percent who said they trusted the military and 54 percent who trust police officers.

The figures are among the lowest for institutionalized religion in the three and a half decades that Gallup has conducted the poll. Peaking at 68 percent in May 1975, the numbers bottomed out at 45 percent in June of 2003.

But while confidence is waning for organized religion, the numbers are even bleaker for other American institutions. Just 25 percent expressed confidence in the presidency, while a mere 14 percent say they trust Congress.

Other findings suggest the nation is focused more on political issues than morality issues.

In the monthly pulse-check poll, Gallup asked Americans what they believed was the most important problem facing the country. An overwhelming 34 percent cited the war in Iraq, followed by illegal immigration at 15 percent. The nation's religious and moral decline was fifth among the concerns, with 6 percent.

The poll was conducted by telephone from June 14-17. The margin of error is three percentage points.

(Here's the link to the actual story.)

Prayer For The Simple Way

The Simple Way is a community of Christians who live in the Kensington area of Philadelphia. One of its most "famous" residents is Shane Claiborne, who wrote the book The Irresistible Revolution. Most of their work and housing was destroyed by a fire this morning. Shane lost everything. Their community center was lost in the fire. This is a sad tragedy.

You can read more about it at their website.

Please be in prayer for this community and perhaps think about donating money to help them out.

Willow Creek Conference: Day Three (Part Two)

The conference ended in a great way.

Erwin McManus and Mosaic did an amazing presentation called "Scribbles" - it involved some saxophone playing, professional dancing, comedy, the spoken word, and more. Now some of those elements I'm not the hugest fan of. However, the presentation blew me away. I'm not sure that I can even do it justice trying to describe it, so you will just have to imagine it. However, as usual, I leave you with some quotes from McManus:

- "When you live your life through the eyes of God, you will see something new everyday."

- "Create a future. What kind of church should we become is a wrong question to ask. What kind of future do we need to create - now that's the right one."

- "I was once asked, 'Erwin, if you were stranded on a desert island and only could have one book besides the Bible, which book would you take?' I told this person, 'An empty book - so I could write in it my adventure.'"

Erwin quoted Isaiah 43, a passage that has been very interesting to me and I felt confirmed many things within my own heart (or should I say, my amygdala). Here is the passage:

18 "Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.

19 See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.

I would break into Nu Thang by DC Talk, but then I would be very angry at myself.

All in all, a great conference. Learned a lot, experienced a lot, missed my family a lot. Didn't get to see a Cubs game, but that's okay, I'll live.

Willow Creek Conference: Day Three (Part One)

It's very hard to explain what took place today. I am completely overwhelmed and amazed!

The first session of the day started out with me not being there on time as usual. So I sat in the coffee bar area for a few minutes before sauntering in. I wish I would have gone in on time, because it started out with a very moving story of a couple of worship leaders from Willow Creek and who are married to each other. They have a child who I believe was born deaf. But through some implants in the baby's ears, he could hear his parents' voices for the first time. Boy did I sniffle at that one. It was very moving, and then they sang the song "You Never Let Go" which of course brought a whole new meaning to the song for all of us.

Don Miller came up and spoke next. I got to hear him speak a couple of nights ago, and I was hoping he didn't speak on the same thing. He didn't, which was good. The basic theme of his message was that when the Enlightenment happened, truth and meaning got separated, mystery was abolished or abandoned, and the written word became the only vehicle by which truth was given and understood. The brain, which consists of three main parts - the left brain, the right brain, and the amygdalae, which is the emotional center of the brain - were separated by placing the emotional center, not physically, but in every other way, in the heart.

The problem with all this, according to Miller, is that the artistic part of Christianity was relegated to the background, and narrative expressed through creative expression no longer held a prime spot in how truth was "learned". Donald Miller was the second person this week to talk about the book Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton (the other person was the worship leader from Mars Hill Bible Church, Aaron Niequist), and the basic idea of what Chesterton talks about in the first chapter of the book is that mathematicians are the ones who go insane, not poets. "A mathematician tries to build a bridge to the infinte, the poet swims in the sea. The mathematician tries to fit heaven in his head, the poet is trying to fit his head in heaven." My amygdalae tell me that he's right.

His last part is about Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (not the movie, the actual play), and how the play is an allegory of the Protestant/Catholic war that was happening during the time that Shakespeare wrote it. It was a very interesting point, and it climaxed with the balcony scene (it didn't end with the balcony scene, that's plot for you.) with the fact that Romeo during the balcony scene "switches from iambic pentameter to free verse because what he's saying IS TRUE."

Willow Creek Conference: Day Two

This is going to be a short one. Day Two consisted of four breakout sessions, and I chose sessions that were very practical to what I'm doing now. Here's the brief synopsis of each:

Session #1 - Basic Lighting

- I learned a lot about lighting and where to place lights and stuff. This is practical for the new building.

Session #2 - Programming Moving Lighting

- I realized quickly that this session really wasn't for me. So I went and updated my blog, and did some praying and reading.

Session #3 - Advanced Scenery Design

- This was not what I expected, because it was mostly about fabric and stuff, but it was certainly interesting. I got a CD with a lot of pictures of what Willow has done in the past.

Session #4 - More Than The Service: Designing The Guest Experience

- some interesting quotes from this session:

"Research shows that emotions are as twice as important as facts when making a decision. Emotion leads to action; reason leads to conclusions."

"Get everything telling the same story."

"Don't invite them to the experience - begin the experience."

The speaker had some interesting thoughts on color and on using the five senses in order to design a great guest experience.


That was about it. I'm looking forward to hearing what Don Miller and Erwin McManus have to say tomorrow.

Willow Creek Conference: Day One (Part Three)

I went into session three, very excited. Excited for several reasons. First, Dan Kimball was going to be the speaker for the session. I really appreciated his two books "Emerging Churches" and "Emerging Worship", because not only did each book help me get on this "missional/incarnational" ministry path, but also because each book helped me understand what the usual church's foundation is built on (the Sunday morning service(s)) and what a missional church's foundation should be built on (the mission that Jesus calls us to live out as both individuals and as an ecclesia (gathering of Christ-followers). I touched on this concept, based on what I read, here and here.

Secondly, I knew that after Dan spoke, that there was going to be a panel of people to discuss some of what is in Dan's new book "They Like Jesus But Not The Church" as well as implications in our churches today. The panel was made up of the following people: Dan Kimball, Nancy Beach (Willow Creek), Efrem Smith (a church pastor in Minnesota), David Loveless (pastor of Discovery Church in Orlando), Shauna Niequist (on staff at Mars Hill Bible Church and wife of aforementioned worship leader Aaron Niequist), Sally Morganthaler (author of Worship Evangelism), and the one and only Brian McLaren. I knew that this was going to be an interesting conversation.

Let's go back to Dan. He was a little different than I expected, not in a bad way - I just thought he was more of a "tough surfer" type of guy based on his picture than what he really is. He's definitely more artsy in his speaking approach. Again, not in a bad way, just different. Dan talked mostly about things that are in his book, and I thought he made a really good point. He showed a slide that illustrated two present circles in our culture - the modern circle, which we're all used to and which is in some ways slowly eroding and in other ways quickly eroding - and this is the circle where the church was mostly at until the last forty years or so. The first circle is what I'll call the "Judeo-Christian values" circle, which means that in the past, even if someone was agnostic, they knew about church, they knew about Christian values, etc. The second circle is the postmodern/emerging generations circle, and in this circle there is a growing percentage of people who did not grow up in church and who do not share the same "core values" as those in the first circle. The problem, according to Kimball, is that in the last forty years (or even perhaps less time), the church has made its own subculture bubble that it is hiding in and has been hiding in - a culture with different music, language, ways of approaching life, etc.

The good news, according to Kimball, is that there is a growing interest in Jesus. The bad news is that there is a growing disinterest in the church and "Christianity." Kimball says that one of the reasons this is happening is because the only voices that this second circle - the postmodern circle - are hearing, are those who are the most vocal, the most confrontational, and the most controversial. These would include street preachers, T.V. evangelists, etc. They aren't hearing from the rest of Christendom, because the rest of the church is hiding in this subculture bubble that has been created and does not know how to relate, converse with, and do life with the postmodern culture. Kimball showed a video that his church did where they went out and asked ordinary people what they felt about Jesus and what they felt about the church. The comments were very encouraging about Jesus and were very discouraging about the church. However, fourteen of the sixteen people interviewed did not have any significant relationships with Christians. Which means that their impressions of the church are again based on those confrontational, vocal Christians. I thought this was a great observation and one that made me think for a long time last night.

Kimball listed six things that came out of these conversations with regular people - six common thoughts about the church:

1. The church is all into right-winged politics.

2. The church is judgmental and negative.

3. The church is male-dominated and oppresses females.

4. The church is homophobic. (the comments that Dan had on the screen based on this theme were heart-breaking.)

5. The church arrogantly believes that they are right and all other religions are wrong.

6. The church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally.

Of course, some of these things aren't that bad, really. Some might actually be good things. However, the way that Christiaan represent some of these thoughts might be what hurts people the most.

Then he listed some things that these people wished about the church:

- I wish churches were not just about the sermon.

- I wish the church would respect my intelligence.

- I wish the church was less programmed.

- I wish the church was a loving place.

- I wish the church cared for the poor and the needy.

- I wish the church taught more about Jesus.

As I said, after this there was the panel. Unfortunately, I didn't write down much of what was said, but I know someone who captured it on audio, so sometime in the future, I will list some of what was said. However, I did write down two things: one was something that David Loveless said:

"In Ephesians 2, it talks about how Jesus removed the walls of hostility between us and Him. I need to ask myself, 'Where am I rebuilding those walls? Where is my church rebuilding those walls of hostility? And how can we tear them down again?"

And then something that Brian McLaren said at the end of the panel was great. It was something to the effect that Dan's next book could be titled "The Church Likes Jesus, But Not Us" - obviously referring to the fact that churches aren't very good at loving others.

After the session was done, I went to heaven. First, I went to Claim Jumper Restaurant and had my favorite pizza, and then went back to Willow Creek for their New Community Service. The David Crowder Band led worship, and Don Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz, To Own A Dragon, and other books) spoke. Which means that my whole evening was heaven. Claim Jumper, David Crowder, and Don Miller? Excellent!

Willow Creek Conference: Day One (Part Two)

Session 2 started with a whimper (in my opinion) and ended up with a bang.

The first part of the session was an urban dance troup. I didn't mind the whole urban dance troup idea, but when one of the vocalists starts the song out by saying, "Let's get the party started", and the only thing I can understand for the rest of the song is the phrase "freak show", I start thinking, is this supposed to be worship? Performance? Breakdancing for Jesus? I didn't get it. But that's okay, it's not all about me. Maybe 92% about me, but not all.

Anyway, Nancy Beach came on after to speak on "The Audacity of Hope". She admitted she stole the title from a certain Barack Obama, but since this was a Christian conference, no one has probably read a book by a Democrat, so...

Okay, so I'm watching Last Comic Standing right now, which is why I'm trying to tell a lot of jokes. I'm going to stop now.

One of my favorite parts of Nancy Beach's message was the excerpt they showed from Bill Hybels' interview with Bono. And I became extremely jealous of Nancy as she described going to Ireland and sitting down with Bono at dinner and stuff.

Here are some of the quotes I wrote down:

- "We must not gloss over the difficult questions. We need to live in the contradiction."

- "Life is not problem to be solved, but a mystery to be entered into."

- "Cynicism lacks courage."

- "If we don't cling to hope, our souls will die."

And then, Nancy almost lost me because she mentioned she was going to play a Nickelback video. I hate Nickelback. Actually, I only hate one of their songs, which would be all of their songs, because they all sound the same. But the video was actually really good.

But the best part of the session (except for maybe the Bono part) was the last song of the session, which was written and performed by the worship leader at Mars Hill. Some of the lyrics say:

O God give us new eyes to see
Give us new skin to feel
Give us new lungs to breathe
The wonder underneath

Faith like a mustard seed
A holy naievete
To swim in Your mystery
We need to be free

It is a great song, and it was a great song to end the session with.

Willow Creek Conference: Day One (Part One)

Well, the conference started out with a bang.

First, David Crowder came out and he and his band sang a few songs. Here are the songs they played:

1. Coming Toward (instrumental)

2. Here Is Our King

3. I Saw The Light

4. (a new song, pretty good)

5. O Praise Him.

They then left the stage, leaving me wanting more.


But the first speaker for this conference was amazing! His name is DeWitt Jones, and he was a photographer for National Geographic for over twenty years. He had some amazing stories, and then of course showed us some of his stunning photographs. Here are some of the notes I took during his session:

- "The best way to give of ourselves to God is to give of ourselves to one another."

- "Creativity is that moment when we look at the ordinary yet what we see is extraordinary this time."

- "I could either do what I love, or I could love what I do."

He told a story of how he was asked to speak on creativity to some workers in New Jersey, people who only thought of the bottom line - money. It wasn't going that well, and then he had them do an activity. He had them take out a piece of paper and write down five things that fill their cups up, in other words things that give them joy. Then he had them write down the last time that they did any of them. One man stared at his piece of paper for fifteen minutes and then just broke down sobbing. He didn't have anything to put down.

He told another great story of a photo shoot for a scotch company in Ireland where he went out to the "Highland Games" and took photos of these big Irish men throwing stones. The biggest man of all was actually just sitting there, and so he started a conversation with this man. He found out that he used to win the Highland Games all the time. DeWitt asked if he could take some pictures of him at his house, so they went and he took a picture of him throwing a stone, the first time he had done that in many years. Well, that picture became one of the advertisements for this scotch company, and underneath the picture it talked about how this guy still practiced throwing stones all the time (which of course he didn't). It became an award-winning advertisement. Well, this old Irish stone-thrower asked DeWitt to come out again and he showed him that advertisement that he had framed, and on the back were all these signatures. DeWitt asked him where they were from, and the man replied "Well, all these people started calling and writing me to see if that really was me throwing the stone. They wanted to see me in action, so they all showed up, and we had our first family reunion in 200 years!"

Next post will be about the second session, which was some weird urban dance number, Nancy Beach (she works at Willow) and a great song from the worship leader at Mars Hill Bible Church.

Willow Creek Conference: Day Zero

I will be reporting on the Willow Creek Arts Conference - mostly for Rochelle, but also in case anyone else wants to know what I learned and what I experienced here in Chicago.

Today is Day Zero, which means the conference hasn't started yet. However, there were two cool things that took place.

First, the car rental company messed up my reservation, so at first they were going to give me a PT Cruiser for the same price as my economy car, but they didn't have that, so they gave me what you see below:



Yep, a Chrysler Sebring Convertible.

So, I had the top down tonight as I drove to eat (I forgot a hat, so I had to buy one), blaring some music and enjoying myself immensely.

And then I got lost. But in getting lost, I found something that made me very happy:



One of my favorite restaurants has made its way to Chicago. I will be going there, most definitely (shhh - don't tell Debby, it's one of her favorites, too!)

Tomorrow I'll report on actual conference stuff, but I'm a pretty happy guy right now.

Jim and Casper's Church Visit #4: Willow Creek (Part One)

It's been a little while since the last church visit, but there's a reason for that. Next week, I will actually be at the fourth church that Jim and Casper visit and talk about in their book "Jim and Casper Go To Church." That church is Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois (a Chicago suburb) and I will be there for an worship arts conference. I went last year and thought it was pretty good, but this year I'm really excited because of the main speakers (and the Wednesday morning worship band - that would be David Crowder). I have not been at a church service there, however - and there is an opportunity during the conference to go to their Wednesday night "believer" service. Which is an interesting discussion point in the first place. What is the purpose of having two separate services for a church? According to Willow Creek, the weekend services are "seeker-sensitive", which means essentially that they are designed for those who aren't churchgoers. Thus, the music, message, dramas, etc. will all be seeker-sensitive and will be relatable (or is the right word relevant) to those who are seeking God for perhaps the first time. The Wednesday night service is for those who are already churchgoers and who perhaps want something a little deeper message-wise, more worship, etc.

An interesting strategy, and it seems to be working at Willow, but it begs a couple of questions:

- It seems that when you look at NT passages that are related to ecclesiology (church structure, mission and instruction), you would be hard pressed to find anything that talks about having two separate church meetings: one for the unbeliever, and one for the believer. In fact, there are a few passages that describe the impact that having everyone together for worship has on someone who does not know Christ (1 Corinthians 14 being one of those passages). I agree with Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost that Christology should determine our mission, and then our mission should determine how our church is structured and operates. With what we know of who Jesus is and what he did while he was here on earth (although you have to factor in the concept that while he was here on earth, his "mission" was mostly to the Jewish people, and that he commissioned his disciples in Acts 1:8 to expand that mission to the Gentiles), and then letting that determine our own mission, would that mean a church structure based on Christology and missiology would produce two separate services for two "target audiences"?

- Secondly, something I've really been thinking about is something that I've been reading in an incredible book by Hirsch called "The Forgotten Ways". Does right thinking produce right behavior? Does the dispensing of information produce change? Let me quote from the book:

"If our starting point is old thinking and old behavior in a person or church, and we see it as our task to change that situation, taking the Hellenistic approach will mean that we provide information through books and classrooms, to try and get the person/church to a new way of thinking, and hopefully from there to a new way of acting. The problem is that by merely addressing intellectual aspects of a person, we fail to be able to change behavior. The assumption in Hellenistic thinking is that if people get the right ideas, they will simply change their behavior. The Hellenistic approach therefore can be characterized as an attempt to try to think our way into a new way of acting. Both experience and history show the fallacy of such thinking. And it certainly does not make disciples. All we do is change the way a person thinks; the problem is that his or her behaviors remain largely unaffected."

This concept of the Hellenistic approach to change vs. the Hebraic approach to change is definitely a huge topic for another post (or five), but this is why I brought it up: it seems like one of the reasons to separate your church into two target audiences (seeker and believer) would be because you subscribe to this Hellenistic approach to change (which would be right thinking leads to right acting which leads to change). Because you want to produce a different change in your seeker audience (changing from someone who has not accepted Jesus to someone who has) than your believer audience (continual change/transformation to become more like Christ), you separate them so that the different information processed (through sermons, music, and the arts) will produce the correct needed "change" in the person.

However, if you subscribe to the Hebraic approach to change (right acting leads to right thinking which leads to change), then you would want both groups of people, seeker and believer, in the same room, in the same setting, because your believers would be the example you would want the seekers to follow. And as those seekers saw the "right behavior" demonstrated in the lives of the believers (hopefully through more than just sitting in a worship service, i.e. relationship building/mentoring/modeling), this would produce lasting change.

I hope this makes sense. I'm not sure if this is exactly the way I was planning on this post to go, but it really has opened up some thoughts within my own head. Hopefully yours as well.

The next part of visit #4 will be posted during the conference, after I have had the opportunity to actually experience a worship service at Willow.

Brian McLaren on the "Worship Industry"

The video below is really good - Brian McLaren talks about worship, art, propaganda and more. Even if you think McLaren is a bad, bad man (I don't), his words on worship should at least make you think. I especially like what he has to say about worship leaders, since I am one. And I agree that there is a pressure there to please people at church with what I do every week. There's a line somewhere between experiencing God and making sure people are there with you doing the same. Anyway, check out the video. If you can't see the video, go here to see it.

On The Move by Bono

As if I didn't have enough reading material to last a couple of months (at least), I picked up a book called On The Move today. It's by Bono from U2 of course, and it's actually some of the remarks that he made at the National Prayer Breakfast this past year (I think, it may have been the year before that). You can watch all of what he said here.

All proceeds of the sale of this book go to the One Campaign, which makes it a worthy purchase. (I almost put "in my book" at the end of that sentence, but that would have been silly.)

What I'm Reading and Listening To

Just in case you don't look at the sidebar of my blog, I wanted to let you know that I've finally updated it after several months.

Just in case you still won't look at the sidebar, here is the music I'm listening to and what I'm reading. By the way, in case you didn't know, I read a lot of books at the same time. I don't know why. I just do.

What I'm reading:

Jim & Casper Go to Church: Frank Conversation About Faith, Churches, and Well-meaning Christians
- I've read through it, but I'm still blogging on each chapter. I'll get back to it, don't worry.

The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church
- The author of this book (Alan Hirsch) co-authored a favorite book of mine called The Shaping Of Things To Come. So far this book is really good. It's one of those books where you read a few pages, and then you have to close the book and chew on what you read for awhile.

The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus
- I love Brennan Manning's books. All of them. I started reading them when I was in college (The Ragamuffin Gospel and The Signature Of Jesus), and have continued to buy his books as he comes out with a new one. It's a lot easier to swallow the concept of grace from someone who was a priest, squandered away everything on alcohol, and then sobered up and started writing about grace.

Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples
- Simple church. Who would have thunk it? This is something that I've been thinking about for at least a year, the idea that less is actually more, and that when you have a million things going on in your church, it doesn't necessarily mean your church is growing. It just means the church is really busy. It's better to do a few things well then to do several things really poorly.

The Passionate Church
- This book is written by a couple of pastors at a church in Arizona that was really close geographically to the church that planted a church that I worked at. I love their concept of "LifeShapes". Perhaps I'll blog about this book next.

Your God Is Too Safe
- Get this book. Now. I'm serious. This is like the twentieth time for me in reading this book.


What I'm listening to:

9
- Damien Rice. Nothing like an acoustic playing Irishman, in my book. His songs, in the words of Chris Elliott from Groundhog Day, "move me, man."

Sam's Town
- I didn't really listen to The Killers's first CD (Hot Fuss), but this CD is great. It's kind of like Bruce Springsteen and M83 getting together. Okay, not exactly. But it's good.

Twilight
- Future of Forestry is a worship band out of San Diego. They are really good. Buy this CD. And if you live in the Cincinnati/Dayton OH area, go to the FoF concert at The Garage at the end of August!

The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Of Me
- Listening to this right now. Thanks Pat for introducing me to this CD. It makes me happy. (and sad. and mad.)

All of the Above
- This is the first Hillsong United CD to be recorded in studio, and I'm not sure if I like that. It has some good songs, however. We're doing "Take Me To The Cross" on Sunday. When I say "we", I mean "me", because it will be just me on acoustic this Sunday.

A Beautiful Lie
- I really like this band (30 Seconds To Mars). Sure, it has that actor guy Jared Leto in it. But they are good. I only wish my daughter would like more than just one of their songs, though, because I have to hear that song (From Yesterday) at least ten times a day.

Neon Bible
- I actually like this Arcade Fire CD better than their first one. And that's quite an achievement, because I really like their first one.

EDIT: I also just purchased The Fountain Soundtrack. Amazing. Truly, amazing.


Well, that's about it. Comments? Questions about my sanity? Let me know.

American Idol

Not a big fan. At all. I haven't watched any night of any season, although last night my brother-in-law showed me a couple of the songs from the finale.

But, I was surprised to hear of all of the Christian connections that some of the top twelve finalists have. From GMA contests to songwriting, I was surprised. As for Paula Abdul's strange behavior (although I heard she was sick or something), not surprised.

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On Wednesday night, Jordin Sparks, who is just three years removed from winning the Spotlight Overall title at the GMA Academy in D.C. event, was crowned this year's "American Idol" in front of a live audience of 4,000 in the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, and the 30 million people who were watching on FOX. A record 74 million votes were cast to determine Sparks as the winner over Blake Lewis. And in a storybook ending that could only be appreciated by those involved in the Christian/gospel music community, Sparks, a 17-year-old from Glendale, Ariz., capped the evening by performing "This Is My Now," the winning song in the "American Idol" songwriter competition, which was co-written by veteran Christian artist/songwriter Scott Krippayne. The GMA has followed Sparks' journey, along with several other contestants, during an "American Idol" season that seemed to be filled with Christian/gospel music connections. Besides winning at GMA Academy in D.C. in 2004, Sparks also competed at GMA Music in the Rockies that summer where she placed second in the Southern Gospel vocal category. She also befriended Michael W. Smith and family and traveled as a singer with his Christmastime tour. When she became a finalist for "American Idol," she included her GMA Academy win as one of her proudest moments in her life. Sparks was not alone among the Top 10 "American Idol" finalists with such ties to he GMA. Chris Sligh also competed at GMA Music in the Rockies, placing first in the Pop-Adult Contemporary/Inspirational song category in 2003. He also served as the worship pastor at his South Carolina church, the same position held by Phil Stacey at his church in Jacksonville, Fla. There also was Melinda Doolittle, from Brentwood, Tenn., a long-time background vocalist for many Christian/gospel artists, never betraying her own powerful vocal skills. Even LaKisha Jones, while having no "professional" ties to Christian/gospel music, often declared her love for it and the influence it had on her life. So, while only Sparks won the title of "American Idol," all five of the finalists that GMA followed throughout the competition returned for Wednesday's finale, all five will participate on the "American Idol" tour this summer and all will most likely be offered the opportunity to record their own projects. As the winner, Sparks is already confirmed to sign a recording contract with Sony/BMG. In addition to Krippayne's song, which he wrote with his pastor and friend Jeff Peabody and is already among the top downloads on iTunes, Wednesday's finale featured an on-stage reunion of BeBe and CeCe Winans, who joined Doolittle, one of their former back-up singers, for an electrifying performance of "Hold Up The Light." The finale also served as a reunion of sorts for previous seasons' winners and finalists with Mandisa and George Huff among the many in attendance.

Great Quote on Pastor Professionalism

"Pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. The mentality is not the mentality of the prophet. It is not the mentality of the slave of Christ. Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry. Brothers, we are not professionals! We are outcast. We are aliens and exiles in the world (1 Pet. 2:11)...You cannot professionalize the love for His appearing without killing it. And it is being killed."

- John Piper, as quoted in "The Passionate Church"

Element - Re:flect (05/20/07)

Here are some pictures from the latest Element worship service we had. We did a prayer labyrinth, and I think it turned out really great.

Jim and Casper's Church Visit #3: Mosaic

Before we begin, I need to tell you: I'm a big fan of Erwin McManus and his books. An Unstoppable Force is probably in my top ten "Emerging Church" books. If Mosaic was around when I was in college in Southern California, I would have most definitely wanted to go and be part of an artist community like that. I'm excited because I get to hear him speak this summer.

Mosaic has several locations I believe, but their main "facility" is actually the Mayan Theater, a bar.

I thought it was very interesting to get an atheist's perspective on how they feel when they tell a Christian that they don't believe the same as them. At first, Casper describes it as having a different poker hand than what everyone else at the table is expecting, but then later changes it to what it would feel like if everyone thought he was a man, when actually they find out that he's a woman disguised as a man. At Mosaic, it actually wasn't a big deal, in fact the person that he told actually went and got the man himself, McManus. I thought it was cool that this "celebrity" pastor actually was available to talk. In my experience, when you have celebrity pastors or pastors of large megachurches, they are pretty much unavailable to the general public. I think part of it is because there is no way in a large church that this one person can meet everyone, know everyone's name, or be friends with everyone in the church. But I also think, and this is just an opinion, that when someone gets that well-known or famous or whatever, that a huge distance begins to separate them from the common people, and that in some cases, this pastor actually begins to think that they are better or more spiritual or whatever than everyone else. It was good to see that McManus is not that way.

However, it was interesting that Casper's perspective was that he really wasn't listening to him during the conversation (which was an interesting one, with a discussion about whether an atheist has a belief system or not and whether Casper would understand what's taking place because he was an atheist) but rather trying to control the conversation. This made me pause and really think about the conversations I have with people, especially at church. Do I try to control the conversation, or am I generally trying to listen to what people have to say? I remember hearing someone say once that most of the time when we are talking to people, we aren't really listening to what they have to say, we're thinking about what we want to say next.

I thought that Casper's comments about Mosaic's offering time was really profound, and I want to include it here (along with Jim's comments):

"It was both laid back and insistent. First, I thought it might not be coming. After all, these are mostly kids here with little cash. But he did it with an unusual approach."

I wasn't sure what had been unusual about the offering at Mosaic. "What did you think was unusual about it?"

"Well, he said that for those of us just visiting today, we didn't have to give anything. Then he said that the congregation only gives because they love Jesus and this church. I wondered what that implies then about those of us who didn't give: We don't love Jesus? We don't like this church? Although it seemed so lackadaisical, I think it was actually one of the most aggressive solicitations yet."

It can be dangerous to equate someone's love for God with how or what they give. Perhaps a person gives to the church, but also gives to outside organizations because they feel that those outside organizations do a better job of distributing the money to the poor and needy. Perhaps a person would give to a church but because of things that have happened in their life, they just don't have the resources available to do so. Of course you could counter with the idea that if someone gives to God first, that they will always be blessed financially. I know that has happened to people, but I also know people who have given financially and have been essentially screwed financially because of it. What was the difference? Their lack of faith? Their heart? I don't think it has to do with their love for God.

Anyway, this was an interesting chapter. I would really like to visit Mosaic. I think it would be kind of like the Element worship service that we put together every other month at my church, except probably a lot better and even more artistic.

"Psst...President Putin...here's a breath mint for you."

After 80 years, the Russian Orthodox Church reunited, bringing together factions torn apart by communism. You can read the article here.

If these two groups of Christians can be united, what does that say for churches who split and stay apart over the color of carpet in the worship center or the way communion is served or worship styles or whatever?

And we wonder why they call it the Idiot Box...

I love my T.V. shows as much as the next person (those shows would be Lost, 24, Heroes and The Office), but these statistics were rather disturbing to me. A recent America Online poll revealed these statistics:

77% of Americans can name the Seven Dwarfs,
24% can name two Supreme Court Justices.

60% identified Homer as the father of Bart Simpson,
21% could name one of Homer's epic Greek poems.

73% could name all Three Stooges,
42% could name all three branches of government.

60% knew Krypton was Superman's home planet,
37% knew Mercury was the closest planet to the sun.

23% could name Taylor Hicks as the last winner of American Idol,
11% could name Samuel Alito as the last Supreme Court justice to be confirmed.