Trust

When I was growing up, my parents predominately listened to Contemporary Christian music. 
No, that's not a confession. Just a statement of fact.

See, both of my folks listened to 'hip' music growing up, but when they became Christians in the 70's they had Christian mentors who suggested they do away with the secular stuff and replace it with Christian music instead. (At least, this is the way I remember the story going, since I wasn't there to confirm it myself.) So I was raised on the likes of Steve Green, B.J. Thomas (post-conversion), Evie, Michael W. Smith , and Amy Grant (my personal favorite growing up was "Angels Watching Over Me" that song just rocked...er...something like that). 
But I can recall one of my Dad's favorite artists to listen to and even see in concert was Steve Green. One of Green's songs I remember was taken straight from scripture and I'm pretty sure the only reason I can recall that scripture today is because of that song. The scripture says:

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. (Psalm 20:7)

Though this might be a somewhat random what of getting to my point (again, my blog, my rules). I have been constantly reminded this should be my heart's cry through all things. 

Right now, in our American culture, we are wrapped up in the election. Only 60 short days away. I confess, I watch news every morning to get my 'fill' of the political game. I also listen to talk radio throughout the day, so I'm not above this cultural event by any means! Some folks are so ready for it to be over while others are so wrapped up in it, once it's all over, they will surely experience that same emptiness you felt when you woke up the day after your girlfriend broke up with you.

You know that feeling I'm talking about, don't lie...

But as I'm watching this political bruhaha, I've started a book called Jesus for President and it's begun to make me think about what a peculiar people Christians are supposed to be. 

Set apart. 

Holy. 

Predetermined for God's purposes. 

We are to worship and serve God only. And often times I think we allow our political ideology to overshadow our worship of God. One friend this week posted the status "Lord, we repent for having more passion for politics than we have for the Gospel."  And it's true! If you look at people's status updates from various social networks over the last two weeks, it's been overrun by passionate political statements on both sides. People writing that so-and-so's speech is going to bring them to tears, or how powerful this person's statements were. I have a feeling it's only going to get worse (or better depending on how you view it) over the next two months.

I can't help but feel like we as a nation are trying to put our faith into a person. A human being. A person who, at the end of the day, is trying to win a popularity contest. To win a popularity contest you say things that are popular with the majority - even if you have no intention of following through with those statements. I was brokenhearted time and time again while watching clips from both conventions as different folks came out to give their rousing speeches for their political platform or a specific candidate and the crowds erupted into uncontrollable applause and cheers. Here, in the midst of something so temporary, were people truly worshiping. Their worship was misplaced, but don't miss it: THEY.WERE.WORSHIPING. 

And it's so easy for us as Christ-followers to get wrapped up in the same hoopla. But what does God's word say? 

"Fear (or worship) the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. (Deuteronomy 6:13) 

 

Our command is to only give worth to He who is worthy. Not to a human being. No human will save this country, this economy or this planet. It's not going to happen because humans are in essence failures waiting to happen. We are going to mess up and miss the mark every time.   

"God is not a human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" (Numbers 23:19)   

  

This is both reassuring and convicting to me. I can so easily fall into the trap of trusting in people and things to be my hope of ' a way out' of difficult times, such as the economic, social and moral failures so much of our world are experiencing right now. But only through the One who isn't human, the One who created the human, the One who fulfills every promise, never lies, never changes His storyline, will I find comfort, salvation and hope. 

"Hope and Change" maybe coming, but they're not coming in the form of a country's leader. They're coming in the form of Jesus. The faithful One who will never leave us or forsake us, who loves completely us in spite of our unfaithful hearts.

So let our heart's cry be that of the sing-songwriter who proclaimed:

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. (Psalm 20:7)

Ready. Go.

Collaboration

Collaboration is a discipline. 

I know I said a few weeks ago I used to hate that word discipline. But I'm learning that discipline is a good, albeit, not an easy thing. However, the catalyst to move from mediocrity to victory is discipline. Check out Proverbs 5:23 

 "He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray..."

Death due to lack of discipline...sounds pretty over-dramatic, but when you think about alot of the foolish ways people die, it often times boils down to lack of personal discipline. 

So back to my subject: Collaboration.

Several weeks back, my wife and son were out of town visiting family and I had a chance to jam with a few other musicians. It was then and there I started remember something I love about music that I seldom have the opportunity to enjoy at this point in my life: creating music on the fly. 

During my college experience, it was a regular occurrence. (Oh how I wish I could go back and tell my younger self to drink that time in, because of all the elements of college I would miss - this would be at the top of the list.) It didn't matter the genre - though for us it was often jazz or jam rock. It was more about the give and take, the introduction of ideas, the tension of trying to refine those ideas into cohesive thoughts and musical expressions that would communicate to a listener. It sounds very lofty when I put it in those terms, but for us, it was just doing what we knew to do and trying to do it as best we could. Man, it was fun. 

So here I was with a few other guys, all of us in our 30s, far removed from the collegiate scene. Yet the process was still the same. Taking raw ideas and refining them, trying to put them into cohesive expressions that could, in this case, relate the idea of worship to Jesus. It was the first time this particular group of musicians had gathered together. There were alot of ideas, several wheels off moments, but a few really 'magical' moments I hope we can come back and explore in deeper detail soon! 

Then, this last week, my pastor and I met on two different occasions to talk about some upcoming messages and events where we needed to collaborate in order to prepare well. It was pretty cool that we were both on the same page for a lot of the elements that are going to be a part of those different events. We were tracking on the same page at around the same pace. We've been working together now for four years and it feels like we are arriving at that place where we can begin to anticipate the other's ideas and suggestions. It's a good place for the two of us to be. It makes the process of collaboration go a little smoother. 

Last night, my close friend and I started going back and forth on an idea for a graphic for something our church is doing in october. The funny thing we started off in completely different creative places with our ideas of where things were going to go visually. And there was an unexpressed tension between the two ideas. Don't worry, like I said, this creator is a very close friend and we both recognize that, so I'm not worried he's going to 'take his ball and go home' so to speak. 

But see, here's the beauty of collaboration and creation. Creation comes from a very deep and personal place in our hearts and minds that's hard to articulate. So collaboration on those creative ideas becomes very tense at times. The internal dialogue: "How can I give up my idea? I like it and I think it's the best!" becomes faced with the stark reality that someone, who's creative interpretations you trust are in direct contrast to yours. Is one person right and one wrong? Maybe. There are tough questions one must ask when creating and collaborating, some personal and some professional: 

Personal
"Am I being selfish and just wanting my way?"
"Am I missing out on a really great idea because I've got tunnel vision?"

Professional
"What does each idea communicate?"
"Which idea communicates the emotion we want better?"
"Which one is more accessible to our audience?"

Even before those questions, it's important to know what the emotion you want to communicate, or as one creative team I've studies calls it: What is the 'win'? 

All this to say collaboration is incredibly important to creating good, accessible artistic expression. Especially in the church where the idea is to express the fullness of Christ in all we do. And while collaboration is important, it's not easy. It can be full of difficult conversations, dying to self, humility, tension, and disappointment that my idea wasn't the one used in the end. But if our hearts are humble before the Lord and we recognize the goal is to give God the glory rather than our saying "Hey, I made that" then we have successfully created something that will have it's intended affect on it's intended audience. 

One last humbling thought: (Hey, it's my blog, I can roll like this if I want!)
Who am I to be so self-centered with my creative ideas? The only one who's ideas are not in need of refinement or replacement is The Creator...
So yeah, I need to swallow that pill of humility and keep on creating for His glory.

Collaboration:

Step outside of your own world and into the bigger world of creativity.

Ready.Go. 

Power Untapped

As our church is growing closer to starting our Wednesday gatherings back up for the fall, we've been preparing for a much different schedule than normal.

Typically, like many evangelical churches that host a mid-week event, we'll have dinner then break up into various groups such as a Women's Bible Study, a Pastor's Study, a study on Biblical finances or something like that, and Adult Choir (my favorite for obvious reasons).

While I have no problem with any of these studies, or as they've been labeled, "programs", earlier this summer the staff took a day retreat where our pastor told us that God was clarifying some vision in his heart for the future of the church. I think his exact words were "I want prayer to be the engine that drives everything that happens around here." So we as a staff made some changes to how our wednesday night gatherings will look this fall. Instead of various studies we're going to host a time of community where we both learn about prayer and have chances to implement it in small groups.

This got me excited. I realized that I needed to be preparing for this so I started by picking up a few books on prayer. I've already talked about Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire in a previous post but, I'm also reading through a devotional book on praying scripture back to God by Ken Boa and then reading a book called Indescribable  by Louie Giglio and Matt Redman. The purpose of that last book is to regain perspective in the immensity of the God we serve and follow. Each short chapter talks a bit about some aspect of the universe and the ties it back into our personal relationship with God. It's a great, yet easy read.

That was a lot of back story to get to my point of this week's post.

We serve a big, big, big GOD. 

If that's all you get from this post, that's fine, but if you've got the time, and the attention span - keep reading.

In a chapter entitled Superstars, Louie Giglio talks about the Sun and the next biggest stars, Betelgeuse, Mu Cephei, and Vy Canis Majoris...don't get me started on the names. Astronomers, I would wager are all Trekies too.

Back to the point.

Giglio quotes Galileo saying "The Sun, with all those planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the Universe to do." Then, with articulacy Giglio goes on to explain the sheer size of the subsequent stars I listed above and how, compared to the Sun, they are all millions of times larger and more powerful than the Sun in all it's generous, atomic terror.

Then Giglio sties Ps 33:6.
"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth."

God breathes out the stars.

Did you read that?

Do you get that the most powerful elements we know of in humanity are but EXHALES of breath to God??

What???

God truly is big and not only that, He's powerful too! More powerful than anything we can even come close to comprehending.

Finally, Giglio challenges the reader by saying "...a good plan would be to pause more often, turn down the volume of the earthbound "super-stars" we so quickly gravitate toward, and rest in the shadow of a God who exhales luminous balls of uncontrollable combustion as if they were merely fireflies on a warm summer night."

So I did.

I sat there at that coffee shop and just pondered it for a few minutes (though not nearly long enough).

Then my eyes caught the next book I wanted to read a few pages in - Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire.

As I opened toward the middle of the book, I began reading more about Brooklyn Tabernacle's prayer meetings and the power of God on display through those people.

And it struck me.

Here's where my brain just fell into a fetal position.

The God who just "...exhales luminous balls of uncontrollable combustion as if they were merely fireflies on a warm summer night" is the same God we have direct access to. He is a God who has immense power to hear and answer our prayers. He can choose to intervene in any situation He chooses to, and change the course of people's lives. If He can create this Universe in all it's unbridled power and enormousness, how can I stand here and have such a pathetic prayer life that barely ever calls upon the power of God to move!

We serve a big, big, big God. 

My prayer life is something I am trying to allow God to grow in me. But I'm realizing that for my prayer life to grow, my perception of who God is must also expand to something much bigger, beyond my imagination, beyond my understanding of what big even is.

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us..." Ephesians 3:20

Starburst Cluster NGC 3606
"Like a fireworks display, a young, glittering collection of starts looks like an aerial burst. The cluster is surrounded by clouds of interstellar gas and dust - the raw material for a new star formation. The nebula, located twenty thousand light-years away in the constellation Carina, contains a central cluster of huge, hot stars called NGC 3606" (Taken from NASA, ESA, R. O'Connell (University of Virginia). F. Paresce (National Institute for Astrophysics, Bologna, Italy), E. Young (Universities Space Research Association/Ames Research Center), the WFC3 Science Oversight Committee, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))

Ready. Go.

Discipline

Discipline is a word I can't stand.

Well. That's not entirely true anymore.

But for the majority of my life it was true.

It's a word that has so many implied negative connotations for me over the years.
From childhood to college to married life and now fatherhood, I struggle with being disciplined.
It wasn't until about 2 1/2 years ago that I started seeing what could happen when I was disciplined in an area of my life.
I lost 150 lbs and have kept it off for a little over a year now.
I was amazed at how effective a life of discipline was in this area and how, once implemented, it became easier to follow.

God is convicting me, as of late, that discipline shouldn't just be reserved for physical health. We see God telling his people this in Paul's letter to Timothy.

 "For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come."   (I Timothy4:8)

Why has it taken me this long to come to this conclusion? I am a slow learner and who I am is constantly in between what I want to be and what I am. But I realize now that specifically prayer is something in which I must be disciplined. Not because I feel like if I regiment myself and pray at four certain times a day God will love me more or I'll get on the 'inside track' to God. But because discipline does truly build character and if I build my character to a constant mindset of prayer, then maybe when stressful times comes I won't make prayer a last resort but a first response.

I'm reading a book right now, it's been out for over a decade, but I haven't read it since college where I started it but never finished it.

Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire.

I am astounded by the power of God when people truly seek God in prayer. And the beautiful thing about these prayers is they weren't full of "please pray for my 2nd cousin, Bobby who lives in Wisconsin, he's dealing with kidney stones."

Though there's nothing wrong with praying for family and health, etc, but I am continually astounded by the spirit of crying out I'm reading about from the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York. These are people that are crying out from their heart about the brokenness of their neighborhood, and the personal pain and struggle with which they are dealing. In short - these are people who are authentically hurting for their community and who aren't afraid to show themselves as they truly are. This is the kind of authentic heart that time and time again in scripture we see God calling for.

When David was calling out to God after he'd been broken of his sin, he said:

"...a broken and contrite heart, 
O God, you will not despise."  (Psalm 51:7b)

That is what God wants of me. Continual humility. Continual reliance upon His grace and His mercy.

My goal is to have the heart of the Puritan who penned this prayer:

"GREAT GOD
In public and private, sanctuary and home,
    may my life be steeped in prayer,
    filled with the spirit of grace and supplication
    each prayer perfumed with the incense of atoning blood
Help me, defend me until from praying grown
I pass to the realm of unceasing praise." (from Valley of Vision, P. 146)

Ready. Go.

Thoughts on...

Wonder.

I am reading G.K Chesteron's Orthodoxy right now and so most of the blogs for the time being will stem from my quotes from his book.

"In the fairy tale an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an incomprehensible condition. A box is opened, and all evils fly out. A word is forgotten, and cities perish. A lamp is lit and love flies away. A flower is plucked, and human lives are forfeited. An apple is eaten, and the hope of God is gone" (p. 53)

Right now, I'm sitting in a coffee shop, connected to the internet which, thanks to sites like Wikipedia, now has all the answers to any question you might have...though these answers are extremely biased at times. What Chesteron is suggesting is that the condition of man has been tainted by our desire to have all the answers. When we open the box for the answer we lose some of our innocence. Some of our wonder has been taken away because we now know how something works, or why something is the way it is.

This incompressible condition which Chesterton refers to flies in the face of our post-modern practice of knowing all the answers and being connected at every turn.

I'll never forget my first church business meeting in 2000. I had begun working at this church as their VERY part time Worship Leader. It wasn't that it was a bad meeting or that fights and arguments ensued, but there was a loss of innocence in my perspective because I realized Church had the propensity to turn into a platform for people's soap-boxes and deranged ideas on organization. I had lost some of the wonder that I had in viewing church and it's ability to be this wonderful place. I lost some of my innocence. And while the old term 'ignorance is blisse' might be a bit extreme, I think there is a balance that our western, want-to-know-how-it-all-works, society has lost.

I don't know alot about ancient Jewish Culture, but I know they were more interested in the stories about peoples accomplishments and events then they were interested in the 'how'. That's something we in the west have really championed.

When Chesterton finishes the paragraph tying that desire to open the box, light the lamp or pluck the flower into The Fall found in Genesis 3. Our desire to know the unknown gets us intro trouble sometimes. It makes us loose some of our innocence and wonder when we learn there is no Santa Clause or when there are bitter angry people hiding behind the guise of a church business meeting.

What would it look like if with our Christian Faith, we began to recapture that Wonder with which we started? Remember when we were small and we all heard about Moses and the Parting of the Red Sea? We were all amazed at that story! Then somewhere along the way, scientists wanted to find a 'logical' explanation for that and so they searched for that answer...
Maybe the logic was in the illogical nature of it? Maybe the only logic was that God, the creator of the Earth, had a plan for His people and wanted to lead them safely out of harm's way? That WAS the only "logic" needed! The story wasn't about how it happened, it was about why it happened!

I want to continue on this journey of recapturing wonder in my Christian Faith. I hope you do to.