Archive for February, 2010
Relevant Article: Do We Really Need Another Worship Song?
This article – Do We Really Need Another Worship Song? – a former blog post, went up at Relevant Magazine last week.
Lie #16: What Lie Worries You?
I’m beginning a series of blog interviews with friends (some well-known, some not). My hope is to get a range of people from a range backgrounds, communities, and situations. I’ll ask each of these people one question:
What lie do you see floating around the church that worries you?
These are the thoughts of my friend David Odom, a musician and worship pastor in South Carolina.
David said:
“Everyday people lose their jobs, marriages, families, homes, and many times the first response is, “I need to get back in church”. Which I think can be a really selfish way of saying, “How can the church help me?” I think sometimes people use the church like they do Band-Aids.
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Resist The Cardboard Butterfly
I read this last week and can’t resist sharing it. Annie Dillard penned it in her little book The Writing Life:
“An intriguing entomological experiment shows that a male butterfly will ignore a living female butterfly of his own species in favor of a painted cardboard one, if the cardboard one is big. If the cardboard one is bigger than he is, bigger than any female butterfly ever could be. He jumps the piece of cardboard over and over again, he jumps the piece of cardboard. Nearby, the real, living female butterfly opens and closes her wings in vain.
Films and television stimulate the body’s senses too, in big ways. A nine-foot handsome face, and its three-foot-wide smile, are irresistible. Look at the long legs on that man, as high as a wall, and coming straight toward you. The music builds. The moving lighted screen fills your brain. You do not like filmed car chases? See if you can turn away. Try not to watch. Even knowing you are manipulated, you are still as helpless as the male butterfly drawn to painted cardboard.”
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My Only Joke
I was in a meeting last week, and I got to tell my only joke. It’s not a superb joke but for whatever reason it’s the only joke I ever remember. In the meeting we were talking about a recent gathering we had at the church for recently graduated college students. The gathering was designed to talk about the tough issues of transition that hits people moving into the working world – issues of isolation, finances, careers, and relationships.
Of all the transitions I’ve been through so far – including marriage and having a child – the transition from college to working world was the toughest. I was in serious depression for eight months. I missed the friends I lived with and the life of ease I knew as normal. I had to work a job of necessity rather than fulfillment, and I was hopeless in the relationship category.
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Tick, Tick, Tick
We renovated the back portion of our house last fall. We moved a doorway, sealed up another, and added on a new master bathroom and closet. We sealed up the old doorway between the back bedroom and the existing bathroom, creating a nice private master suite in the back of the house. So now our bed, in our new master suite, sits with the head of the bed against a newly sheetrocked wall. About a month ago the noise began.
Tick, tick, tick.
It’s a slight noise. It’s like a drip but more mechanical. You don’t hear it till you lay in bed and become silent. Tick, tick, tick. It’s continuous and rhythmic. I got on the floor and looked under the bed. I pressed my ear to both sides of the wall. I went down to the basement and looked around just below the wall. Tick, tick, tick.
It’s been a month, and it’s still ticking. It definitely in the wall, and I’m not sure what I can do about it. There’s something more to the story, but I’m not sure what it is. It’s possible in the future something will happen and the reason for the ticking will be explained. It could continue forever, and we pass the ticking on to whomever we sell this house to in a few years. It’s also possible it will just stop. There is always more to the story. I sit with people all the time and hear the explanation for their ticking.
We often become irritated by someone’s behavior or their inability to get their life together. We make judgments based on surface analysis, but we forget there is more to the story. I think often times we just want to see people get their lives looking good, who cares if there is a tick under the surface. The sheetrock looks nice and freshly painted.
Sometimes we do this with ourselves. We fix up that which people see, but never deal with what’s under the surface. I think about these things as I try to ignore the tick and fall asleep. I lay there and hope the tick isn’t a bomb.
New @ Relevant Mag: A Different Way to Pray
Take the jump to Relevant Magazine for my new article – A Different Way to Pray.
New Burnside Article – Why Jesus Was a Carpenter
Make the jump to Burnside Writers for the new article: I Think I Know Why Jesus Was a Carpenter.
Lie #15: If that didn’t move you nothing will.
I usually hear this statement made in church by somebody on stage just after an emotional song or video. I know I’m probably over-analyzing the statement but it’s always bothered me, because sometimes the comment is made and the song didn’t move me. And I feel a little bad, like my heart must be particularly dark and cold.
Perhaps the song was an 80′s gospel song that rings cheesy to me but moving to the generation before me, or maybe I’m preoccupied thinking about the young lady who just told me she left her husband and is walking through hell. Either way, just because the song didn’t move me doesn’t mean I’m dead. Perhaps it’s the opposite. I wonder how many people are sitting wondering what is wrong with them because they didn’t have an emotional rise.
Furthermore, an emotional rise is nice and can be honoring to the Lord but it is not the goal of a Sunday morning or a given song. I think it’s this line of thinking that causes many of us to leave worship saying absurdly narcissistic things like, “I didn’t like that worship, or worship wasn’t very good this morning.” We evaluate and rate services like we do movies. We consume them like we do popcorn.
The goal of worship is not our liking, though that’s nice when it happens. The goal of worship is declaring God’s goodness and truth. It’s for His glory. We sing songs to declare before the world and ourselves that we desperately need the rescue of Jesus and God is worthy of our lives, whether we are emotional or not, whether to the tune of a rock band, piano, or organ.
You may have seen this before, but I’ve always found this little vid hokey but amusing:
(RSS and email readers make the jump to the site for the vid.)
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Relevant Mag Article – Jesus Will Disappoint You
Hop over to Relevant Magazine for my new article Jesus Will Disappoint You. It’s a quick read about the rest and peace we can have in a good all-knowing God.
Those Happy Danes (Gratitude: Part 2)
I wish I was a more content person. I get tired of wanting more. I think Christians should be content people but it’s difficult when you are also an American – wonderfully motivated for success but cursed with the gnawing feeling that if I had a little more then I’d be happier.
I recently read an article on ABC.com about the happiest people on earth – the Danes. Here’s the bottom line, they are so darn happy because:
- the government provides health care and education
- they live in community – 90% of them belong to a social club
- they are a post-consumeristic society (getting things isn’t all that important)
- they ride bikes instead of driving cars
- there is a sense of trust in society between individuals
Saving any political thoughts about governmental health care, these other lifestyle characteristics would be pretty great. So what are my choices – move to Denmark or something else.
I think the cure for our discontentment is gratitude. Heck, we once believed in this so much we created a holiday about it. By being thankful for anything, small or large, our hearts are returned to places of humility and rest.
So I ask, today what are you grateful for?
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