creativity spirituality funny

brett allen, tidewater, "not just any love"

2012-01-24T19:23:00.001-08:00

an awesome guy, and friend of mine brett allen continues to make waves in the christian music world. his newest video has it's world premiere this week and you can see it here. it really is amazing to see someone you know enter into the fray of fantastic talent that affects so much of the music industry out of nashville and texas. on this same site are videos by greats amy grant, michael w. smith, david crowder...and now brett. really just makes me happy! God is moving in such a powerful way through brett's band 'tidewater'. hope you enjoy!

KICKSTARTING KREATIVITY

2012-01-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

Corey Mann inspired me to think about how to kickstart creativity. Here's what he says:

Get your nose in a book. I recently thumbed through some books at the library that got my juices flowing, and mind jumping. A book on spray paint artists, a comic book artist that I like and his collected works, anything in your creative field...read it.
Try something new. Go somewhere you usually don't go, do something you don't usually do. New activity jump-starts thoughts.
Hang with some new folks. Branch out. Stop huddling in your little clique and meet some new people. Invite some new blood into your circle and see what happens.
Fail. I'm soooo good at this. Can't learn until you try, right? Experiment.
Mash up stuff. I haven't tried this yet but a friend adviced me to try it. Take a drawing, and then maybe write a short story about that drawing. If you are a scrapbooker, add different elements that you wouldn't usually add to your books.
Change your Perspective. Write a blog post from you 10 years from now. Write a letter to yourself 5 years from now.
Mix up your Medium. I draw and doodle. I try other things every now and then, like painting. I blog, but every now and then I start writing some crazy stuff...nobody will probably ever see it, but at least I'm writing it down. I scrapbook from time to time, not all the time...but something different.
Daydream....often. Ask myself, "What if?" Dream it, dreamer.
Listen to music that you don't usually listen to.(Movie soundtracks are the best!)

here with us (live)

2012-01-11T14:04:00.001-08:00

btw, for those folks who are interested. here's the link for the video of our last song on Christmas Eve, 'here with us'.

PASSWORD: thecrossing

my personal mix

2012-01-11T12:16:00.000-08:00

this semester i'm taking a college class for the first time in 10 years. is that crazy or what?! it's called the 'art of mixing' (music) and it's been awesome so far. i was an english major in college, so this was the obvious next step, right? j/k. life is not always what it's supposed to be, all i know is it's looking better to me in 2012. and part of what i'm learning is that 'learning' is what makes life brighter. i remember a time when i would rather do anything but write a paper or read a book. now, i cant find enough time to write and read. ah, irony. youth is wasted on the young...now i get it.

i love the idea of learning how to mix music. it's fascinating that how you mix the components of a band defines the message of that band, as much as, or more than the lyrics or music. how you mix different channels of music is in itself a message. not that this matters to most folks about music, but it crosses my mind that--as far as our lives are concerned--how we mix the different components of our time also says a lot about us.

go with me here. i'm not saying that what we 'do' defines us, what i'm saying is how we blend what we 'do' together--one conversation, another activity, a breath of air here and there--is a mix of life that tells the story of who we are. and just like a studio mix that sounds good or doesn't, i have to evaluate my life, in part, based on how all the different parts fit together...or don't. right now, i'll be honest, things are a little chaotic. lots going on as the new year starts...the mix is a little loud. what's fascinating about this class is the 'art' of finding a pleasing balance has as much to do with subtraction as it does with addition or volume of sound. the most powerful mixes are about what is absent, as much as they are about what is present. in short, i need to learn to be strategic in certain seasons of my life, to subtract some components of my life instead of pushing more and more volume into my mix of daily rhythm.

hope your mix is good for you this new year!

Friends

2012-01-05T09:52:00.000-08:00

in just a few weeks, we're opening up a series at the Crossing on relationships. it's crazy to think how much of our lives depend on our relationship with each other. CS Lewis uses a great metaphor, that life is like ships out on the ocean (or modern day like planes in the sky). there are three crucial things that must be addressed if we are all to swim or fly through life well. 1) how to keep from sinking/crashing ourselves 2) how to keep from crashing into each other 3) why we are here in the first place. Lewis argues that if we can discover the answer to #3, we can finally unlock the answers to #2 and #1.

so, i'm actually excited about this series because i've got a lot to learn about all 3, and it's good to have friends at the Crossing who can help me navigate life with humor and purpose. you're always welcome to come too, even if you can't make it in person. these days we're using technology that makes the series accessible through PODcast and even Roku.

air piano

2011-12-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

it's been a little bit since i posted, and i'm sorry about that. truly, i love to share things with you that i'm discovering as i do creative research for the services at the Crossing. one such discovery i've come across today is the "air piano". want-to-be musicians have been playing the air guitar for years, but now you can play the air piano too, literally (see below).

i'm hoping we can utilize this little gem at some point within our weekend services and i'll keep you posted if we get to.

Pomplamoose: Creativity: Love: Relationships: Commitment

2011-10-09T12:22:00.000-07:00

if you don't know about this web gem, you're like me! i'm just discovering this tiny band that now has multi-million hits on youtube, covering popular songs by recording every sound they make from their home and showing each sound visually. the idea is that you can see everything you hear so that there is no sound they make which you cannot understand how they're creating it. and yet, even when the curtain of the creative process is lifted, the magic isn't diminished in the slightest.

i've heard it said that music has a magical quality that opens people to understanding in a way that bypasses intellect and gets straight to the heart--called the throne of the emotions--awakening us to the spiritual. i think this is true, and i would go a step further to say that if we keep our intellect attached as we listen, we can even be wholly inspired towards something concealed just beneath the surface of every creative work: Truth.

this is not to say every creative work is in itself true, but that there is a universal law at play operating in all creativity: anything that has been created points beyond itself to reveal it's creator AND The Creator. "all the single ladies" points to the creative work of Beyonce, and i might add, to the journey she has been on as an independent woman. but, if you listen closely to the lyrics and emotion, you'll hear/see a deeper truth emerging...something like 'relational commitment is essential to love'. God is love, as He says He is, and Love calls us to fidelity. we are made for sacred commitments to one person and to one God, through thick and thin, and when we fail to embrace this we find ourselves alone, as beyonce says "if you like it, you better put a ring on it."

question: will you trust God, or if that's too big a jump for you at this point, will you trust the universal law and commit (and re-commit again and again) to your love relationship?

Don’t treat me to the things of this world
I’m not that kind of girl
Your love is what I prefer, what I deserve
Is a man that makes me, then takes me
And delivers me to a destiny, to infinity and beyond
Pull me into your arms
Say I’m the one you WANT
If you don’t, you’ll be alone
And like a ghost I’ll be gone

Investors Beware

2011-09-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

are you watching your investments these days? each week the dow is like bungee rope tied to our emotions falling drastically only to rise again...only if we're tied to the dow, like a bungee jump, eventually the ups and downs level out and swing us helplessly upside down--without all the fun of the bouncing back up. i'm being rather candid these days, not because i want to be mr. negative, but because the times are calling for us to be decisive about how we will navigate our futures. which means we need to be realistic about where we are putting our trust (and by extension, our money). don't just take my word for it, listen to trading professionals who are preparing for recession...again.

"Governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world."

"the european market will crash..."

so what? what can we do? first, listen to the candor of wise men and women around you. learn about where your money is invested without blindly trusting that your retirement is secure. make sure you understand what markets your money is in. make sure you are diversified enough so that your money isn't all in one stock or solely in a mutual fund. btw, all of what i just said to you is not my own word but the words of investment strategists and traders like the one here who went even further on live television.

but more importantly, pray. these are times that require great care and discernment. none of us controls the future and none of us can be it's predictor. we need to return to the basics: we are not God and we need Him to walk with us in every season. though we have wandered, He is faithful to forgive us and willing to guide us into truth.

question: when's the last time you spent intentional time alone with God in prayer?

Soulargy

2011-09-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

CS Lewis wrote "we do not have a soul. we are a soul. we have a body." today, i'm reflecting on the idea that my soul is who i am. as i watched this video, tears filled my eyes and my soul felt heard. life is so full of unfairness and beauty, both standing in opposition and immersion with one another. our stories are so similar, we have so much love in our lives and yet somewhere along the way all of us lose love and eventually our lives. our existence is bittersweet because it is filled with seeming contradiction and yet, would we ever trade the joy of having loved?

i feed my body everyday, lots of stuff--some good some bad. all of what i feed my body is energy that allows my body to move forward, grow and live. my body also needs other things like light, water, and rest to function well. those are the facts i know. but, Jesus says i'm not looking deeply enough into the facts--"man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." Christ teaches me that my body is a metaphor for a much deeper reality: i need to nourish my soul as the foundation of my life. the feeding of my body points me to my soul's need for food, light, water, rest--and many other things i'm sure.

Body Needs Soul Needs

food hearing God's voice today

light going where God directs moment by moment

water encountering Jesus's Spirit throughout the day

rest slowing down and remembering God's love for us, for me

Jesus says my primary need is to feed my soul. i can live without food for weeks, light for months, water for days, and rest for many consecutive hours. but, i cannot live without love. how do you measure love? can you see it, touch it, taste it? and yet, it's real...it's my soul's primary need.

today, as i watched this video my soul began to eat the story of love. it is not a story without sadness. it is not a story without pain, loss, and death. the story of love is food for my soul precisely because it reveals the truth: in this life if we want to enjoy love, we must also suffer it's loss. so, when we see, hear, and experience a love story we are looking at a reflection of our own story and our souls are nourished to move forward, to grow again in spite of the pain, and to love those we've been given boldly. this is the energy we all need everyday for our soul.

thank you amy grant for telling us about a new kind of thanksgiving to God. thanks that is filled with the contrariety's of life and the recognition that God is glorified as much through our pain as through our pleasure. our tears speak of broken hearts that have loved, and long to love again because life on earth is worth it.

i'm wondering what fills your soul? what brings your soul-energy (soulargy)?

F.E.A.R. and Love

2011-09-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

False

Evidence

Appearing

Real

i'm learning so much about fear lately. marriage has been wonderful and hugely fulfilling, but it has also brought about a great sense of how completely out of control i truly am over the circumstances of life. like an unplanned natural disaster, every week of marriage has within it an uncertain wind that seems to tear at the siding of perceived safety. great planning can hedge some tornadoes but eventually when it rains, it pours, and somehow i forgot to get flood insurance.

i'm speaking both literally and metaphorically, something that seems more and more common as the outward storms of mother nature mirror the inward storms of navigating everyday life. and no tempest appears more universal and grizzly as fear itself. my heart races, my mind searches for instant solutions, and my tongue (or inner dialogue) begins accusing someone--anyone but me--for the predicament i face this week. such is my lot when i allow fear to rule my perspective. so how do i quit being afraid? how do i see things as they are? how can i know what is true when everything false is louder and it's evidence is more convincing? my life, my family, my world, the world, the universe are in imminent demise!!!

woah there monty. . .going a little over board aren't you?

haha, yes, i am, but bear with me.

i'm learning that i'm always overboard if i'm agreeing with fear-feelings, and i'm not. i'm just growing up, which seems to run parallel with standing up to my deepest fears.

so facing fear requires the opposite of F.E.A.R.: Truth, Evidence, and Reality.

let's start with what i know is true. "I am the way, the truth and the life. the only way to the Father is through me." these are Jesus' words to humanity etched in scripture for all time, spanning the globe so that His fame has spread to the outermost regions of the world. love Jesus or deny Jesus, but i cannot simply say "he was a good guy." Jesus drew a line and said, "there aren't two ways about it. if you want to see things as they are, look at me." Jesus looks like God because He is God's Son--the expression of God's love and justice. Love because He spreads His arms open wide to everyone, justice because my sin killed Him.

now, the evidence. i know beyond doubt that Jesus walked the earth, died on a roman cross, and went missing 3 days later after being buried in a tomb. i know that hundreds of people claim to have seen Jesus only days after His resurrection. Hundreds of these witnesses became willing martyrs as they declared God's love for all mankind--even to their own brutal deaths. the early church spread because those who believed would not refute what they had seen. today, millions of people across the world claim to follow Jesus because they have met Him personally and been changed by His living spirit...so much that everyday now you can pick up the headlines and read that Christian martyrs are dying all over the world because of persecution (see china, burma, indonesia, iran, nigeria and the list goes on). but that is just the historical evidence of Jesus' life. let's also talk about what Jesus taught. He taught that men are sinful beyond their own understanding. He said that without intervention from a new spiritual conscience--the indwelling of the Spirit of Jesus--men were powerless to change the entropic flow of history towards chaos. He said that every man and woman would turn to their own way and deny God in their hearts. He spoke the truth about me.

finally, what has "appeared real" to us for the past century is rapidly disappearing. americans have had jobs, cars, homes, food, clothes, extra stuff and a continuous supply of whatever is needed to replenish us forever or so it seemed. now, we're all learning about globalization. i'm learning that as we ingest 25% of the world's oil supplies, the precious natural resource that has fostered much of our growth as a nation is running out. as more and more countries industrialize, things we have taken for granted begin to become scarce...food, clean water, affordable housing, and then there's jobs. more jobs are lost everyday with the unemployment rate near 10% and a growing number of jobs moving overseas as the US economy waivers in job creation. maybe more than oil is running out...is it possible the necessities i take for granted can disappear also?

so what's reality?

God loves us, all of us, and He places our deepest fears on the cross.

because He loves us, He will allow everything that 'appears real' to slip through our fingers until, finally, we experience life as we were made to...walking with God and knowing His love through the storm. God knows that my best hope of overcoming fear is to face it head on without flinching with Him, and after all the worst has happened (or not happened) to fall on my knees in gratitude that though the world melts away, i have met God face-to-face and found what i can never lose, God Himself. Jesus declares once and for all "that one is mine, and he'll be mine long after the world has gone because i have overcome the grave." Jesus never promised me that i wouldn't die...just the opposite...Jesus tells me that the wage of my sin is death. the good news of Jesus isn't that we can go through life pain-free. the good news is F.E.A.R is overcome by love.

like Jesus, those who stand firm in the face of sin, evil, lies, falsehood, and fear are destined for reality--the place where God reigns, love wins and justice is done on the cross.

false love comforts instead of warns. true love is the antidote to fear. it may be a fearful thing that God sees me as i am--a sinner. however, it is wonderful thing that God so loved me He would judge Jesus in my place. when i trust Jesus, i am not afraid because He promises though i die on this earth, i will one day live beyond the grave!

oh Jesus, help me trust You more. fill me with Your love. amen

You may need to grow up if ...

2011-09-06T09:17:00.000-07:00

(from Relevant Magazine)

You are over 30 years old and still live with your parents. With the exceptions of caring for aging or sick family members or the sudden loss of a job, by your 30s, unless there is a physical or mental limitation, you should be self-sufficient enough to leave the nest.

You have never had a job of any kind for more than six months. If you have never worked, you need a job. Any job will do. Just start somewhere. You need the experience. If you've had numerous jobs over the years and none of them have lasted very long, it may be a sign that you are lazy or easily bored or have a problem being told what to do by a boss.

You are unable to pay your basic bills each month. Without assistance from family members or friends, you simply could not make it financially. This includes car insurance, rent, groceries, power bill and basic medical expenses. If you can't pay your basic bills, you will cause a train wreck later on.

As a general rule, you lack self-control in your life. Whether it's your spending habits, how much you eat, the amount of time you spend watching TV or your constant obsession with being online (checking email, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube), these are signs of immaturity, and are a crucial red flag that points to an inability to control your desires.

Your relationships look more like a roller coaster than a marathon. You are unable to develop long-term relationships with the opposite sex. You've never learned how to push through problems, boredom or conflict, and your default mechanism is to break it off and start a new one. Your past is filled with failure in the area of commitment.

You always play the victim. You're always secretly trying to uncover a conspiracy by your peers to exclude you from social outings, parties, get-togethers or group dates. It's immature to think the cosmic forces of nature and love have combined their powers to hurt you. None of us are that important in the grand scheme of things.

You tend to speak negatively of other people. Whether in one-on-one conversations or in large groups, your habit is to bash or attack someone who is not present to defend themselves. Immature people say things about people behind their backs (or online) that they would never dream of saying to their faces.

You are plagued by jealousy. Little children get upset on the playground when they see their best friend playing with or talking to another child. Grown-ups get past this stage ... at least they should. Are you consistently jealous of other people's possessions, salaries, houses, cars, friends, physical appearance or family? Can you celebrate the blessings of God in others' lives? Or does God's goodness to others stir up envy inside your heart toward them?

You have trouble finishing. My two sons are notorious for starting little projects around the house, getting bored and then abandoning them for us to dean up. They don't know how to finish things yet because they're not even 10 years old. Are you known for beginning things all gung-ho with great passion, but you consistently fizzle out and never see it through? Grown-ups finish what they start.

You are crippled by debt. The most practical area of your life to examine is your finances. If you owe tens of thousands of dollars on credit cards, student loans, your car and so on, then your problem is not your debt. It's immaturity. You haven't yet learned how to live within your means.

You can't say no. If you are the guy or the girl who is always taking care of others, bailing your friends out, staying up til 2 a.m. on the phone trying to talk them out of another crisis, then you will have a rude awakening when your own life expects you to give your undivided attention.

You fall in love too fast. How many times have you told someone that you were "in love" with them since you turned 18? This may be an indication that you need to mature emotionally. Falling in love after every first date shows you haven't really moved very far toward emotional maturity. It also guarantees you will get hurt as often as you fall in love, leaving your heart wounded for years to come.

Your relationships are too physical. If you have a track record of messing around and messing up with just about everyone you've ever liked or dated, this is bad news. When you start out basing a relationship on making out, kissing or fooling around physically, you teach yourself to ignore the other person, their feelings and the self-control that is essential in a godly marriage. Adults draw the line and stand back. Children run ahead without caution and suffer for it.

You have a problem with authority. Children hate being told what to do, regardless of their inability to be responsible for themselves. Are you like that? Do you tend to rebel against all forms of authority in your life? Do you balk at being told what to do by the government, the IRS, even a traffic policeman? Grown-ups understand that submission to authority is in their best interest, and they are willing to submit to God first and then to one another. Immature kids rebel.

the Art of Improv

2011-09-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

for all the planning, scheduling and budgeting we do, life loves to throw us a regular curve, doesn't it? sometimes things work out just like we thought...other times not. and when we're living out the 'not' it's important to learn the art of Improv...making something out of 'not'-a-thing. if i step back from all the wonderful plans i'm making for the future, i can honestly admit that right now some of them are 'not' coming true--not even close. that said, i'm not giving up, just learning how to move forward in the mystery and enjoy the ride.

back from vacation...ready for reality

2011-08-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

i'm back from vacation and so far, this week has already been busy busy busy. i'm grateful to have a job in this crazy economy though and especially grateful to be able to do something i love.

over the vacation i wrote a lot, especially and surprisingly some country songs. how bout them apples, right?! life is really funny, and circumstances always seem to shift and change and evolve into new opportunities. over my break i got a chance to go to nashville, tn and spend time at a songwriting workshop. there were hundreds of crazy-talented writers there learning from the pros and i don't know how but i got inspired and started writing country.

one thing i've truly had my eye on is the tempestuous state of our world, literally. today another earthquake not to mention the last few months of tornadoes, tsunami's, famines and natural disasters. put all these alongside our current political, economic and cultural unrest and i think it's safe to say everybody's affected. not to mention the quiet aching inside so many of us...what will happen next?

i do believe we are experiencing something scriptural, something beyond us and yet intimately tied to who we are and how we live. one day i want to explore the idea of 'end times' further, but for now, the simplest thing i can say is that in times like these a ton of love and grace is needed. wherever we go someone is hurting--whether they show it or not. you and i can't save each other from the struggle, but we can ease the load by being present. now's the time to dig in and serve. now's the time to be gentle, patient, kind and thoughtful. now's the time to ask: how can i help? we cannot turn away from the suffering that nature and bad decisions have brought upon us all. now's the time to face reality for what it is and leave behind our proclivity to worry only about ourselves. it's an exciting time to be alive and to give life away. and for whatever reason, the creative juices inside me are speaking through country music.

"Solid Ground", Written by Monty Hobson

Verse 1:

You have to learn the hard way

Aint no one you can trust

But far from passing the blame

Remember who's the worst

Pre-Chorus:

Cause everyone will let you down

But no one will more often then you yourself

Verse 2:

So what to do with this thing

We can only take so much

How can we keep believing

If the problem’s always us

Pre-Chorus 2:

Cause everyone will let us down

But no one will more often then we ourselves

And what are you to do

When you can’t live without yourself?

Chorus:

We gotta love, forgive

We gotta keep on pressing in

We gotta pray for wisdom, cause no one knows the way of the wind

We gotta stand, we’re in a fight

We gotta live cause we’re all dying

We gotta love each other till there aint no fear around

We gotta love each other till we stand on solid ground

Verse 3:

Times keep getting crazier

There’s no one who ain’t touched

Everywhere is shakier

Mother earth displays disgust

Pre-Chorus:

Cause every storm is breaking down

The world we thought we knew that we could trust

And now the ground is shaking round

And we can’t even tell which way is up

Chorus:

We gotta love, forgive

We gotta keep on pressing in

We gotta pray for wisdom, cause no one knows the way of the wind

We gotta stand, we’re in a fight

We gotta live cause we’re all dying

We gotta love each other till there aint no fear around

We gotta love each other till we stand on solid ground

vacation movies

2011-08-03T21:44:00.000-07:00

i'm officially on vacation for the next few weeks, and i've subscribed to netflix--which is awesome. i realize i'm way out-of-trend, but i'm catching up quickly and loving the value of movies on demand, especially with a month free membership!

so far my two favorite movies have been documentaries both of which i would highly recommend, and one of which is watchable instantly through youtube i.e. loose change.

same old song

2011-07-25T12:58:00.000-07:00

life has begun to slow down a little bit which is refreshing following a very long season of commitments including work, wedding, and family. it's been a season of life transition and i've gained a lot through the entire experience in perspective, in responsibility and in weight :-/ transitioning in life takes it's toll, and sometimes i pick up some bad habits in the process, and have to lose them once i find the rhythm of the new life. the main thing i seem to sense is that what is needed is rest. rest allows for the necessary space to loosen the hold of old habits and begin practicing new better habits. rest gives me the opportunity to see myself from the outside looking in and realize i've got some changes to make. rest helps me understand that change happens slowly and methodically. rest shows me that though circumstances have changed dramatically, the person within that change is prone to the same old song. after all, no matter how much change happens externally, it is the inside that most needs to adjust.

i've always been a person to spend time in the scriptures, and in prayer...and that hasn't changed, but of late the focused time for that has waned, and the bad habit of filling that space with other stuff has crept up. the way i know i'm there is that i start feeling a dull ache and a shortness of attitude that isn't becoming of who i want to be. life begins to shrink instead of enlarge and i try to work my way out of the funk instead of resting in grace. internally i sense condemnation, condescension, and cynicism. . .and the internal begins to leak out. yuck.

the scriptures have a lot to say about someone who lets this unrest get the best of them, but the main idea is that a person in this place is in danger of becoming a pharisee (someone who attempts to win God's approval by following all external laws, but never truly addressing their heart issues) or a wreck (someone who allows the voice of discouragement to beat them down into cycles of self-pity). and thankfully the bible has a lot to say about how to avoid both extremes. . .Jesus says, "come to me and i will give you rest," because like a mother whose child is acting out because they are tired, Jesus understands the cure for complaining is unconditional love--the closeness of healthy touch between parent and child.

monty, rest in Jesus, He alone can restore your heart, mind, soul and strength.

marriage reflections

2011-07-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

it's hard for us to believe but in about 10 days we will have been married for two months. the journey so far has been filled with a ton of love, and bridgette and i are growing everyday. i'm actually more in love with her today than i was yesterday, though i don't know how that's possible. i would have said my heart was as big as it could get after our wedding, but everyday it stretches a little more now. marriage is hard work but it's fun work, and after every stress there is a strengthening. i really did 'marry up'--as they say--and sometimes i can hardly believe this is my life because it is better than i ever imagined possible. the crazy thing is that God is holding us up a day at a time, even as we continue the job search for bridgette, somehow we're staying afloat with hope, faith and love.

i never know who reads this blog, but i'm glad there is anyone out there who finds the words of my heart meaningful. i pray for you, that you may be filled with God's love and to know this love that surpasses understanding.

May You be our Shepherd, Lord Jesus, so that we never want for distracting things.

Yet when we need, make us lie down in green pastures;

lead us beside still waters so that You can restore our souls.

Guide us in Your paths of righteousness so that we honor and magnify Your Name.

Then, even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

we will not fear evil, for we will know You are with us.

We will be confident of Your rod and staff to comfort us.

Prepare before us a table of grace in the presence of our enemies.

At those times, anoint our heads with the oil of faith

so that our cups overflow with love and blessing for all.

Surely, surely Your merciful goodness and loving care

will follow us all the days of our lives.

Just as surely, Lord Jesus, we will dwell in the house of Your Father and ours forever.

Psalm 23

Wisdom for Parents, Teachers, Owners...& for those like me who sometimes get grumpy

2011-07-16T12:43:00.000-07:00

i remember hearing the story of a father who yelled at his wife. in turn, she spanked her son who then hit his sister. later that day the sister kicked the dog and the dog bit the cat causing the cat to jump on the coffee where the father was sitting and knock over his coffee. since the cat was his wife's, he yelled at her and...you know how the story goes now.

powerful emotions, like anger, are a humdinger. they get planted and buried in us very early--even before we know how harmful emotional reactiveness can become--and not only do we carry these emotions ourselves but we begin to pass them on to those we love, and the next generation of people is never the wiser. so, the cycle of pain continues unless we chose a different approach to the feelings that can cause so many ills.

i'm not totally sure yet what that different approach is, though clearly it begins with self-awareness of how the inside comes out. just being able to identify "i'm feeling lonely" or "i'm feeling sad" or "i'm feeling angry" can help us to avoid reaching for the wrong solution i.e. food, drugs, outbursts of emotion etc. awareness seems like a good place to start for sure. oh, but beware of self-hatred, self-pity and self-defense because the moment we become aware of our failings there is this immediate desire to shut down, blame others, sulk or become permanently discouraged. the struggle is learning how to be patient with ourselves even as we wade through the muck--especially when it takes longer than we think.

it is worth it though, and rest in the assurance that wrestling with our junk and learning to lay it down will become more and more a habit, and you'll become more and more a gift to those around you, especially to the next generation.

Billboard Music Awards - Beyonce' Performance

2011-05-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

did you see beyonce on Sunday night? her performance may go down as one of the greatest of all time...seriously. using virtual mapping technology her dance routine seamlessly integrated live elements with media and still was nearly topped by beyonce's self-coreographed dance moves which are so unique as to evoke comparison's in the singular category of michael jackson's moonwalk. i'm sure there is more here to comment on but because of the saturation of creativity, talent, media and music i am/was on observation overload. there have always been extravagant performances but i think we may have entered a new era of over-the-top powerful sensory overloading experience that leaves the audience with no choice but to either respond in silent awe or in raucous amazement.

how did this performance effect you?

quotes to consider

2011-05-19T09:29:00.001-07:00

this morning i started off the day by listening to one of my favorite speakers, erwin mcmanus. he's very quotable...

"if you want to know that you'll be alive after you die, the surest sign is that you come alive before you die."

"it takes more faith to believe that nothing created an intelligent universe than it does to believe that our universe was created from intelligence."

i've been thinking about the first quote for sometime now because i've been thinking about what it means to be alive. but the second quote isn't so far off from the first when i consider that they're both talking about how life happens...

let me see if i can connect the dots.

it's interesting that if you are reading this blog right now, you are alive ("thanks for point out the obvious monty, duh!"). what's even more interesting is that all of us are searching, in our own way, for more life. we want a better job, more money, new furniture, our family member to get well, a better car, a few days off, a refreshing nap, a....better life. so there's something to this idea that even though we're currently alive, we feel like there is more life we could be experiencing. intelligently, we recognize that the better life we're longing for doesn't happen accidentally in a vacuum...life happens when we address our needs and create the life we want out of what we already have. in short, we start with what we have, and then realize that there's more life in what we do not yet have. it is because we have life in the first place that we sense there is more life is available.

so here's the connection: life comes from life, we exist because life preceded us, that's just simple intelligence. now the trick is learning how to tap into this truth, to awaken to full life that begins now...and lasts beyond death.

4-chords and a slightly different melody

2011-05-11T15:35:00.000-07:00

a friend of mine sent this video to me recently. north point church in atlanta, georgia put together a mix-tape of more than 30 great pop-tunes brilliantly weaving and overlapping them one on the other. the songs range from elton john's "daniel's song" to beyonce's "single ladies" and all share the same distinction: they are made up of the exact same 4-chord progression (in other words, the songs are the exact same chord progression with a different melody on top). obviously, i'm fascinated with this tune because of it's creativity. how does it happen? i mean, where does the inspiration come from? and specifically, how can we grow in our own ability to create, ideate, and imagine so that we share joy with the world around us?

two observations:

1) i think we all love a good remix, right? this is just flat out fun to watch and puts a smile on your face. for a moment we realize we're all on the same page because we've all been exposed to the same pop culture.

2) isn't it amazing that the foundation of so many hit songs is identical?! and yet somehow even more amazing is that the melody for each song is distinctly unique!!

okay, here's my simple thought: creativity is rarely about making something from nothing, more often it is about making something new out of whatever you've got. example: it's not about writing an entirely new song, but about combining several old songs in a unique way. example: it's about taking the four chord progression that's already there, and writing a different melody on top.

sometimes when life has gotten sour the best sweetener isn't chucking everything you've been doing, but adding a variation to the way you're doing it... take a new route on the way home from work...add a different food into your dinner tonight that you've never tried before...go for a walk right in the middle of your work day...ask someone around you what the best movie they ever saw was, and then go watch it instead of the TNT repeat...sit down on the couch and turn off the tv, then listen to the silence...call a friend you haven't spent time with and make a time to hang out... sometimes creativity is simply doing things just slightly differently.

note to God

2011-05-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

have you heard this song? it's sung by a gal named Charice whom i have heard some of in the past, but did not know she had reached such acclaim. she performed her song "note to God" on Oprah some time ago, and mesmerizes as she emotionally enters into the words of her own song. i've been hearing more and more stories recently of people's private and personal pain, and how it immediately beckons the question: where is God when we hurt? or why does God allow so much hurt.

it's the most troubling question to engage when you're a person who worships God, because i have to admit that i wrestle with the same reality of painful experiences, and often perpetual ongoing sadnesses and sicknesses. there are no easy answers, and i recognize that it may appear foolish to worship a God who scripture says is completely in control and yet, seems to allow so many evils and death to run rampant.

i'm not going to attempt to solve that conundrum today because it would take too long, and besides...i can't. the thought that came to me and that i'd share is...maybe part of the answer is found by communicating what is really going on inside of us in prayer. i'm not necessarily suggesting getting down on your knees and talking out loud to a God you may not even believe in, but i am suggesting you begin the conversation in your own way. some curl up in the bathtub and just cry, allowing their tears to be their unspoken emotions and words to God. or maybe you're just flat angry and the best way to connect to God is to get in your car and drive to a secluded place where no one can hear you screaming at the top of your lungs. creative types might pull up an empty chair and imagine Jesus sitting there, then they just talk to the chair. and one of the most effective ways to speak with God is to just write it all down. start with "Dear God."

one thing is for sure, you rarely find relief you're not looking for, you don't often hear from anyone you're not speaking to, and you'll likely miss the answer you're seeking if you're not asking the question in the first place. i believe God honors the hard questions we ask by revealing Himself to those who dare to trust Him with what we really want the answer to. He knows what we're stewing over, brokenhearted about, and numb to. He isn't shocked by our emotional response to injustice, it's a part of how He's made us and many times it is our reactions to pain that act as a catalyst, launching us into the unseen realm of conversation with the invisible God.

Osama, Obama & the Gospel

2011-05-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

^{by now, no doubt you've heard that the once illusive mastermind behind 9/11 has been found and killed in pakistan. this is very good news for all of us, really it is, for the entire world. the ideology behind osama bin laden's jihad is dangerous and ultimately has cost thousands of people their lives--including those who believed their lives would be resurrected and rewarded with virgins and bliss because of their martyrdom.

i watched last night as thousands gathered outside the white house to celebrate, and as one interviewee stated "exhale in a sigh of relief." i think that's what we're all feeling. no, certain things have not changed--i.e. the recession, our own personal anxieties about life, and the continuing day-to-day battle with the junk in our own hearts that must be acknowledged and forgiven--but we can breath easier because a much greater terror is now finally at another arms length away. death is fearsome, and it's promise looms over all of us, which is scary enough...we don't need someone like Bin Laden threatening peace by continuously ratcheting up our already-present-awareness of our fragile, limited, and ephemeral existence on this earth: we're painfully aware of the brevity of life as it is.

today, one week after easter, i'm reflecting on what president obama said last night: "tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to... Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America." His words were perfectly crafted and again leaned on an idea that brings hope...God is for us. for all the questions we ask, and the accusations we make privately of where is God when we hurt? and why does God allow so much pain and seem so distant? we cannot help but want God to bless us. it's our most natural prayer, and though it is too often connected to desires for prosperity and selfish gain, most often and most simply the cry of our hearts is that God would bless us with life. we just want to be alive, and know that those we love are alive, because life is what we are made for and death is so often an unwelcome stranger.

we can learn a lot from the death of osama bin laden about how we can come alive. his death is an extension of his own ideology of chaos, isolation, hatred towards others, and a refusal to believe God is for all people...not just some. in the end then, God gave osama what he wanted all along...life without the God who gives life. God is not the God of the dead but the God of living, and anyone who lives their life as a reflection of God's radical forgiving love will come closer and closer to true life. conversely, those who refuse to let go of their faulty ideologies--any ideology that would proudly destroy human life--must face the finality of their own belief and the hellish continuation of it in death. and please do not mishear me, i am not saying God killed osama bin laden. bin laden had many many many many chances at grace, forgiveness, and repentance. eventually though we all die, whether because we are wanted for murder or simply because our bodies fail us in old age.

the gospel is good news because it says no matter who we are, we can come alive again. after all, just like osama, we've all hurt others and made enemies out of neighbors from earliest childhood it seems innate that we've found ourselves resenting anyone who had more than us, was better than us, or smarter/handsomer than us etc. but maturity brings with it an awareness that jealousy, hatred, comparison, greed, lust and pride only steal life from us. and when we recognize that the person we're really at odds with is this inner death within ourselves, we can choose to let go of our bitterness and discover the freedom of forgiving others as we have been forgiven. we discover the foolishness of selfishness. we discover life.

the gospel is called "good news" because it says "life wins"! for those of us who will "die before we're dead" i.e. metaphorically let go of our way of sin, we can receive life again literally because God is for us and He made us to live forever, even after we die.

¹ Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ² By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.}

³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

⁹ For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹ Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

--1 Corinthians 15:1-11

How Great Thou Art

2011-04-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

don't know if you're a big country music fan, but even if you're not, i think you'll agree talent is talent...and american idol carrie underwood has "it"!

a friend passed along this performance of hers on CBS a few nights ago and i must say 'inspirational' would be an understatement for this concert. this hymn as been called the second greatest hymn of all time (behind 'amazing grace') and was written some hundred and fifty years ago by a swedish poet Carl Gustav Boberg, and became popular during the early revivals of Billy Graham.

what captures me about this particular performance is the magnitude of the message in the midst of all the hollywood glamor: some of country's greatest stars are brought to their feet in awe of the experience of God's glory through music and talent. for a brief moment the Morning Star outshines all the country 'stars' and takes center stage.

easter is coming...

2011-04-19T23:15:00.000-07:00

okay, this video has nothing to do with easter directly...except that it totally does.

when's the last time you felt alive? has it been a long time?

there are seasons we go through, sometimes days, sometimes months, and sometimes years of feeling stunted, cold, almost lifelessly going through the motions of our day-to-day activities. we hate this experience and yet it is common to all of us, no one escapes the dreariness, the sensation that we've lost contact with the joy of being alive.

so then easter comes along and reminds us that resurrection is possible...more than that, resurrection is accessible, but somehow we miss it again whether we believe in God or we choose to deny His existence. all of us, in the western world, have heard in abundance (and for many in annoyance), "Jesus died for our sins." but somehow the message always misses it's mark because it is lost in a sea of messages that make it seem like an advertisement rather than an invitation, and so, all of us--athiest, skeptic, and believer--are eventually anesthetized to the voice buried beneath the noise...

interesting that our experience, in some seasons--of trudging through life feeling like we're buried beneath the weight of the world--is a lot like that buried voice, that message that is always being repeated in some form or another and recanted because it is lost in translation.

this story is the most famous story ever told--because it is all of our story. this story begins with frustration, overwhelming circumstances, fear, anger...this story begins with death. but it does not end there, death is only the beginning. we face into our story and see beyond the storm, the fog, the numbness a small sliver of light and we move toward something greater, something hopeful, something alive. the deadness of our experience becomes an opportunity to admit that we need more than what has carried us in the past. and for those who reach out, for those who persevere... a new life is unearthed from the grave of our sadness. this is our story, this is God's story too.

what i like about easter is that we finally get to hear something new--something we never really believed...even though we felt our own longing for such a miracle. we hear "Christ is risen." and that tells us something we didn't already know, and something that cannot be anesthetized because it means Jesus is nearby, He is living, moving about, showing up wherever He wants revealing that our story doesn't end in death. whether we believe in Him or not, we're not immune from His voice anymore because it's no longer buried. we understand more than we feel comfortable admitting. He loves us and He's closer now than ever before.

easter is coming...

the Webby Awards

2011-04-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

i couldn't sleep much last night. i had the whooping cough and every time i laid down that tickle in my chest would begin and I'd be miserable until eventually I'd attempt to hack it up (sorry for the vivid picture). yuck. i think it's the collection of the last few weeks allergies trapped in my esophagus and unfortunately it's not much better today. needless to say I'm overtired today and there's lots to do with Easter coming up, so no time for rest just yet.

one thing that does not help me wind down (if it ever did) is watching television or surfing the computer. i tried this at 3am last night to pass time and deaden my senses in an attempt to sleep...but the net result was only more wakefulness...and a mind that would not shut off. statistics say we are exposed to 3,000 advertisements everyday, which is bogus (its more like 600), but essentially the data says what we all know anyway--we're over saturated with messages everyday of our lives. last night as i tried to nurse myself back to health it occurred to me that watching tv was having the exact opposite affect because my mind was being barraged with stimuli that it had no need for. in the course of watching 'house' for an hour i definitely soaked in at least 100 ads, so much that when i turned the tv off i could still hear the dialogue of some of the more memorable clips. my mind was unable to distinguish between what was important to retain and what could be expunged and the result was further and continued delirium (and some fun creative finds online i.e. below).

all this brings me to a simple question: why is it my mind associates television or computer surfing with restfulness, when in reality it is often stress-inducing? i mean, i love watching tv and discovering new creativity through the net etc. so why does it often leave me restless?

who are you and where are you going?

2011-04-11T16:42:00.000-07:00

hola! it has been a little while since i wrote regularly...that's all positioned to change in the coming days. the reason is simple: i think i'm made to write. how do i know? because when i don't do it i feel like something is missing! the truth is that though it is a discipline to sit down and write...once i move past the initial inertia of procrastination i LOVE what happens when i put words to thoughts.

there's a story told of Akiva, the 1st century rabbi called "Rosh la-Chachamim" (Head of all the Sages), in the Talmud. He tells of the time he approached a city gate at night and heard the guard yell down to him "who are you and where are you going?!" Akiva called back to the city guard, "what do they pay you to ask these questions?!" the guard puzzled for a moment and then responded, "2 drachma!" to which Akiva responded, "i will pay you double to ask me those questions everyday for the rest of my life!"

the story crystalizes the great wisdom of the sages: understanding our identity is priceless if we are to discover direction for our lives. Akiva knew the invaluable riches of being able to consistently focus on our identity and our momentum because these more than anything shape our purpose for living.

today as i consider 'writing', i realize that it is a seemingly small part of why i am here. still, my desire to communicate and express what is inside me hints at who i may be...a writer, a communicator, maybe a storyteller. and though i am part of all those things, i still haven't arrived at my core identity as far as i know. so i take a step closer by beginning to ask myself these questions, the theory being that if i can keep these questions before me...i will fulfill the purpose for which i am made.

who are you? where are you going?

it's Friday (almost)

2011-03-16T18:05:00.001-07:00

heaven and hell, rob bell and love wins

2011-03-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

this past weekend one of my favorite speakers and authors--rob bell--was criticized for a promotional video he posted advertising his newest book "love wins". the book in question has not yet been released but the promotional video touches on the always sensitive topic of heaven and hell. Bell raises the question, "how can a good God send anyone to such a terrible place of eternal torment as hell?

the question is one that has been debated from the earliest origins A.D., when an early 3rd century theologian named Origen put forth a complex doctrine called "Apocatastasis", in which he ultimately concluded that everyone would be saved by God--get this--even the devil. though the origins of the word "apostate" don't seem to register earlier than 1300, i might guess that the word "apostate" was originally used by churches in direct opposition to Origen's doctrine.

orthodox christian theology has always taught, in accordance with the hebrew scriptures and new testament scriptures, that there is a final judgement for each individuals life, the outcome of which is either eternal life (heaven) or eternal isolation (hell). in fact, Jesus, the Son of God, speaks more plainly (and more often) about hell in His teachings than almost any other topic besides the Kingdom of Heaven. so how does this have anything to do with us? actually, everything.

all of us want to know what we're here for, and what it means to get real answers about what happens to us when we're no longer here. in this video Rob Bell gets at the heart of what we all ask questions about regardless of whether we believe in God or not. so, let's get after it. instead of dodging these questions as if they're unanswerable and increasing our anxieties when we encounter the unexplainable, let's grow up into the discovery of who we are and explore what is true. by all means, read Rob Bell's book, and any other book that explores our eternal destiny. only make sure to include the Bible in your search too because it claims to be the source of truth...and in fact, is the epicenter for the story of heaven and hell and who goes where.

ignorance is not always bliss, and whatever your level of anxiety about eternal matters is...you are responsible for your own life. though i don't know what rob bell concludes, i do know the title of his book is true: love wins. and it might be added, apathy loses.

LOVE WINS. from Rob Bell on Vimeo.

non-musican's music

2011-03-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

my friend bill passed this onto our programming team last week. pretty good for a guy who says he's not a musician.

wisdom & wind

2011-02-18T00:01:00.000-08:00

as promised, a follow up to the previous TED blog from earlier this week.

there is a concept Jesus teaches in the new testament that there are two sides to every coin...often appearing as extremes but equally coexistent at the same time. he says that no matter how you approach life people will try and write you off based on their misunderstanding of truth--attempting to categorize truth based on personal subjective experience rather than on non-relative absolute truth. in every way, Jesus then bursts the bubble of human understanding...and still does.

Jesus tells a story about how many people of his age attempt to discredit His teaching because He spends time drinking wine with His friends and befriending sinners. He says that the same people who ridicule Him used the exact opposite argument to discredit the prophet, John the Baptist, undermining John by scorning him for his sober isolation from the hebrew/roman culture that had--at the time--spiraled into idolatry and impiety. Essentially, Jesus says that no matter how God reveals Himself to people...many will deny His reality--the truth--by playing this game of extremes i.e. "I would have believed but i couldn't accept what you showed me."

Jesus says that wisdom is double-edged, it includes both the party-goer and the prude...neither better than the other, and both subject to the same God and the same truth. In short, Jesus is saying, "all truth is God the Father's truth." Truth may appear to us in different forms and through different people, but it is still the truth rooted in Jesus Christ. Jesus goes onto say later that one can distinguish the difference between truth and error simply by looking at Him...by observing Jesus, who is the truth incarnate. He is our wisdom. in short then, anything that contradicts the Name of Jesus is false.

in regards to my previous blog about the author of 'eat love and pray' i wanted to address the seeming contradiction that i would post her TED speech on my blog, while simultaneously exposing her conclusion as false.

Jesus says that there is an element to life that is wisdom AND that there is also an element of life that is wind. in other words, we must learn to discern God's voice to us 1) by fact--what is written in the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures--and 2) by what is sensed, felt and experienced in everyday life. so when we listen to authors, speakers, politicians, etc. we must always discern God's presence through wisdom and wind.

why i can so greatly appreciate elizabeth gilbert's wisdom, is because she has spent much time exploring the depths of God's truth through her sense of Him in books, in people and in life. her words affirm many truths of God's inspiration within human beings. i have no doubt that much of what Elizabeth Gilbert speaks has been given to her by God. the wind has blown on us all, and i believe everyone of us has tasted God's goodness and experienced His kingdom in part...though we may not have known where this was leading. where we err is that we interpret God's wind in us incorrectly. that's why it's crucial to ground ourselves by exploring the depths of God's character through the Bible scriptures...which can--unlike any other sacred text--be authenticated by manuscript evidence, archeological evidence, fulfilled prophesy, and statistical analysis.

i'm grateful to God for elizabeth gilbert and the wisdom He has filled her with. i pray that in her unique expression and authorship she will continue to be open to the wind of His Spirit who points gently, quietly, and patiently toward the cross, toward Jesus, the anchor that acts as gravity, the truth revealing God's love to the world.

elizabeth gilbert - eat, love, pray

2011-02-14T13:41:00.000-08:00

WARNING: the talk below includes one very dangerous lie. this blog nor it's author agree with the conclusion that this talk comes to (but has great respect for the God-given right of every man and woman to explore inspiration and freely express their thoughts). normally i try to be very inclusive with any comments regarding matters of spirituality, but in this case, i need to clarify the contradiction below as glaring: elizabeth gilbert is claiming the source of inspiration as a false god, allah, who would subject millions of women around the world to abject poverty, patriarchal property, and in some cases forced silence--basically the complete opposite of freedom of creative expression.

i saw this talk by the author of 'eat, love, pray' and loved her insight. her words about the process of creativity are wonderful and helpful. and though i agree with her whole heartedly that the source of all good inspiration is the Spirit of God, the name she attaches to the Spirit is miscommunicated at best and has the potential to mislead many to attribute inspiration to a source that will ultimately steal the very freedom of thought intended to be shared. true spirituality is a tricky thing and must be closely combed for it's veracity (which i'll talk more about later this week...)

21,000,000 youtube hits

2011-02-08T10:10:00.001-08:00

how does this happen?

1) play your commercial at the superbowl...

2) tell a story that everyone can relate to

yep. that simple. the advertising world is abuzz with their most recent win i.e. this volkswagon commercial (see below). our creative guru, tony, showed this today in our brainstorming meeting and it almost brought one of our pastors to tears. a short simple story and yet so powerful. tucked into selling a passat is a picture of a father's love for his son...echoing the gospel.

life is complicated and like this little boy, we're all trying to figure out a complex world, attempting desperately to make things happen by our own strength...we're like little darth vadars. we keep exerting all our power on the task at hand, and many times eventually we even have some success. we feel surprised by our own strength...and sometimes we even think we've accomplished a great feat all-by-ourselves.

i love this commercial because it reveals the truth: behind so many great accomplishments stands a loving Father who has given us the power to complete the task at hand. The Father quietly and adoringly empowers the good works of our lives. His power is what starts and finishes all our efforts. Even Jesus, our Father's One and Only Son, could do nothing without the Father's permission.

May You be blessed Father for revealing these things to little children and concealing them from the wise and learned. May You be blessed Father for adopting us as Your sons and daughters.

and for us, may the grace of Jesus Christ, the Father's One and Only Begotten Son, be our strength, our hope, our trust, our power and a constant reminder--we are not loved because we can do anything for God, but because He loves us we are able to do all things.

10,000 Talents - Jordan McCabe

2011-01-26T11:53:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine sent me this youtube link about a 6th grader named Jordan McCabe. He's a little basketball prodigy that can do things with a basketball that will amaze you...even if, like me, you're not an athlete. it got me thinking: how much time does it take to get this good at something? and could we all be this good at something and not know it? is there simple stuff that we do so well that if we were showcased others would look at us and say 'wow, that's amazing'?

i heard about a John Maxwell book that talks about "talent" in which he says that talent is the cumulation of anything you do for 10,000 or more hours. by that standard all of us are talented at watching tv, typing on the computer, sleeping, eating and using the bathroom. :-) but what else have you done for more than 10,000 hours that you're not even considering a talent because it's just apart of what you do? have you spent 10,000 hours caring for a loved one? have you spent that much time reading, writing, cooking, creating, dreaming, walking, communicating with others, or soaking in the goodness of God? i think the amazing thing about humans is that we've all become experts at something without even knowing it, and if we'll slow down and think for a minute we can begin to value some part of ourselves that we'd never considered as a gift before.

so here's a question for you; what have you done in your life--maybe even without thinking about it--for 10,000 hours?

How to Feel Alive - Jane Herman

2011-01-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

just ran across a great article as i was researching for our series on philippians. it's called "how to feel alive". it's something we all struggle with as the pace of our lives picks up and we become overwhelmed. i've been there this week, but then today it snowed...and that seems to slow the whole world down doesn't it? i can't remember the exact scripture, but the book is Job, where God says to Job "can you make it snow on the earth to keep men from being able to go to war?" it's like God is reminding Job that our brokenness will always make us run, run, run, and sometimes God just says "okay, if you won't stop, i'll make the whole earth stop to keep you from destroying yourselves." i know how hard it is for me to sabbath, to rest, to slow down. i pray today you're snowed in, and able to relish in the present moment. this article is a great read with that end in mind. lots of love to you.

When was the last time you said to yourself, "I feel so alive"? Or do you more often find yourself saying, "Why do I feel so numb? I feel like a robot. I feel like all of the "highs" have been edited out of my life." The slide from excitement and anticipation of each day to boredom and dread happens over time and is often so subtle that it is hard to notice. Yet when you have arrived at the "dead zone" you know it and wonder how you got there.

The good news is if you are ready to wake up and reclaim your rightful sense of openness and wonder there is one clearly identifiable thing that can help you get back what you lost - and it's called "living in the present moment." Sure you have heard of it - but have you ever really thought about what it means or how to do it? Let's explore together.

Why is living in the present so important?

Life happens in the moment. In fact our lives are made up of millions of present moments, but most of the time we are not actually there experiencing them, we are mentally somewhere else - in the past (rehashing old moments) or in the future (anticipating future moments). When we withdraw our attention from the present, we limit our experience of it - we lose the richness of it in the "now" and as a result also store only colorless versions of it in our memories, if the impressions even make it into our memories at all. When you think about what you did last week or last month, how many moments really stand out? Can you re-imagine them with vividness and pleasure? Can you retrace your reactions and emotions of those moments? Feel their texture or significance in your life?

When you shut down your attention in the moment, you find that you can recall no "standout moments" as you look backwards over days, weeks, months, sometimes even years. Now you may be thinking that standout moments must involve momentous events (e.g., getting a new job or promotion, a birth or death, or a graduation of some sort) or involve a radical departure from your normal routine (e.g., a vacation to an exotic location), but such is not the case. You have the potential to create standout moments simply by bringing the full focus of your attention to the present moment, allowing all of your emotions their full play, and drawing that experience into your being as you would welcome a cherished friend.

"Yes!" you say. "I would like to experience the energy, involvement, and excitement of living in the moment, but it just isn't happening. Now What?"

Here are seven key things you can do to bring yourself back to the present:

1. Allow yourself to experience sensations

Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell - these are how you experience the world outside of you in the moment. But how much are you really noticing and how much is really registering? When you fold the laundry do you really smell how clean it is? Do you feel the warmth of the fabric through your fingers? When you wash the car to do feel the coolness of the water or notice the glint off the chrome? Why do you care?

With so much information coming at us, we tend to filter out much of it to prevent processing overload. And maybe it's okay to filter out the sensations associated with folding laundry or washing your car, but ask yourself the following: if you are not paying attention to these things, then what is it that your mind is focused on? Is it something else more important or enticing you are noticing about the world around you? What senses are you using and what sensations are you experiencing in the present moment? Most likely, almost none. Most likely your attention is focused in your head - on thoughts you are creating and rehashing - and most likely these are thoughts about what you have already done or need to do - not what is happening right now. Most likely you are ignoring your senses and living in your mental gymnasium.

If you hope to find your way back to living in the present you must begin to direct your attention back to experiencing sensations in the moment. The good news is that you can willfully direct your attention. Ask yourself "What is my favorite sensation?" Then find a way during your day to take moments to really experience that sensation. Better yet, find ways to really dazzle that sensation.

2. Reclaim your right to your emotions

As we are raised and socialized we are often taught to ignore, rein in, or deflect our emotions. Clearly this instruction is not all bad. There are many situations where it is nor productive for others to be exposed to the full range of our emotional swings. Yet in learning to temper our emotions all too often we go overboard - learning to dampen not only disruptive emotions, but also any intense emotion (even the highs). We tighten the screws on our "emotional dampers" and keep them operating full force in all situations and environments (even when we are by ourselves) until our emotional lives flatline.

Our emotional lives are meant to be rich and satisfying, but to many people emotions feel like strangers. Some people even believe that they have no emotions - but in reality there are feelings and emotions attached to every single thought you have. Feelings and emotions are a natural and spontaneous part of your experience of the present - that's why it is so important to reclaim your right and ability to feel and express them.

A second key step to living in the present is to reconnect with your emotions. Doing so requires that you recognize the difference between the "present moment" emotions of pleasure and pain and the secondary or manufactured emotions of anger, guilt, shame, depression, etc.

The cycle of emotion begins in the present, where only pain and pleasure are felt, and ends up with complex feelings centered exclusively in the past, such as guilt and depression. He describes the cycle of emotions as follows:

Pain in the present is experienced as hurt.

Pain in the past is remembered as anger.

Pain in the future is perceived as anxiety.

Unexpressed anger, redirected against yourself and held within, is called guilt.

The depletion of energy that occurs when anger is redirected inward creates depression.

If you have a burden of stored hurt, it will disguise itself as anger, anxiety, guilt and depression and color the nature of your emotional reaction to things that happen in the present moment. To truly reclaim your emotions you must do what you need to do to clear yourself of past hurts, and then learn to experience, process, and release your emotions in the present as they occur so that you don't create new layers of pain that insulate you from a full experience of the present.

3. Get back to what's real

I read an interesting statistic the other day - it said that about 76% of the people polled said they want to retire in the country or in a small town (i.e., out of their current urban surroundings). What is missing from people's lives that so many seek a major change in environment for retirement? My sense is that these people are looking to get back to "what's real." Back to a pace of life where rich experiences are possible. Have you ever thought about "what's real" for you? Living in the present means being able to create your real life here and now - instead of waiting until retirement for your real life to begin. Ask yourself what makes your current life "unreal", "superficial", "constraining," "dehumanizing" and then ask yourself the opposite question: What would make my life more "real" in the present? Is it a different pace? A more natural and pastoral physical environment? Different activities? A different social group with a different set of values? Most people don't have the resources to reconstruct every aspect of their life to make it "perfect" - but everyone has the power to make adjustments to their actions and environment to bring them more in line with the reality of what is important by their personal definition. Retirement for you may be 5, 10, 20 or more years away. What can you do right now to make your life "more real?"

4. Put your habits in reverse

Habits are an efficient way to operate. Rather than having to think through each step of an activity, over time we can delegate our actions to our subconscious mind and allow the activity to proceed, once initiated, with little thought or attention. The downside of habits are the same as their upside - they are unconscious. If you are living mostly "by habit" you are not truly living in the present - you are running on autopilot.

I have heard the process of forming habits described as a process of moving through the following stages:

Unconscious incompetence

Conscious incompetence

Conscious competence

Unconscious competence

To really live in the present you must be willing to backtrack one step - to move some of your activities back from unconsciousness to consciousness. One easy way to do this is to perform a process or activity you know well in some slightly different way (e.g., by using the opposite hand than you normally use). This will help you to heighten your experience of activities that have become hum-drum habits and bring you more fully into the present.

5. Pare back your huge To-Do list

Being able to experience the present moment requires that you have the mental bandwidth to focus on, and appreciate, what is happening right this minute. I read another intriguing statistic the other day. It said that 80% of what we think about each day is exactly the same as what we thought about yesterday. I can't vouch for the accuracy of this statistic, but it feels about right when you realize how much of most peoples' mental energy is spent doing things like continuously rehashing their To Do lists. Massive To Do lists are huge enemies of living in the present. The first step to escaping the tyranny of your To Do is to get it out of your head and on to paper. Writing it down will release your mind of the duty to remember it all. The second step is to review your To Do list in the light of your commitment to live more fully in the present. If you really do want to be "more present" you simply must have less looming over you. Keep what is important, meaningful, or fun for you and then be willing to do, dump, or delegate the rest.

6. Stop multi-tasking

Simply put multi-tasking makes living in the present completely impossible. Experiencing the present moment requires that your mind and your attention be focused on what is happening right now. Each time you switch between tasks you move from one goal to another and your brain must recall how to do each new task. It takes time for your brain to reorient and disrupts your ability to stay deeply engaged and in the flow. Research shows that multitasking is inefficient and potentially dangerous (depending on the nature of the tasks being time-shared in your brain) and it also keeps you mentally juggling versus really experiencing the depth of the moment.

7. Change your relationship to time

How you perceive time is a big factor in how "present" you are able to feel. If you are constantly focused on the scarceness of time - if you believe that time is limited, that time is running out, that time is the enemy - then your experience of each moment will feel pressured. We all know that the pace of our lives feels like it is continuously accelerating - with ever more to do and more deadlines. But there are environments that you can be in, and activities that you can engage in, that will remind your brain that time can expand, flow, and even appear to stand still. Here are two examples. When you step out into nature (e.g., take a hike in the hills, walk on the beach, bike in the mountains, or kayak on a lake) you immerse yourself in a place where a different sense of time exists. The natural rhythms of nature do not feel rushed or forced, and they help realign your internal clock. Also, when you engage in activities that you truly love, and do them at depth, you subtly teach your spirit that you need not always skim along the surface and move as quickly as possible to the next thing. As you experience delving into the depths and getting absorbed in a process your sense of time will slow or disappear from your consciousness. Such "timeouts," if you allow yourself to take them, will help to change your relationship to time and allow you to live more fully in the present.

In summary:

If you can reclaim your ability to live in the present you will be much more likely to be able to say with enthusiasm - "I feel ALIVE!"

Joyful or Judgmental: Which Describes You Best?

2011-01-16T18:32:00.000-08:00

We are currently doing a series at church on the book of Philippians. yesterday we talked about JOY. it's a word that can be misunderstood as 'happiness' and trivialized as ephemeral. but it is what we all want... so how do we live this life of joy? that's what our lead pastor, Greg, will be talking about for the next many weeks.

in the meantime, i found a fantastic blog entry from a college friend of mine Piper. she is a fantastic life coach and trainer for corporations who want to maximize their employees potential. she is also someone i watched actively live out unshakeable joy everyday...she's really quite an amazing human being. check out her blog entry below

Joyful or Judgmental: Which Describes You Best?: "Recently, I was on a leadership retreat, and in a moment of vulnerability a few of us disclosed that it had been years since we could descri..."

12 ways to become more creative

2011-01-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

2011 is here and God is already beginning to challenge me, break me down and create something new within me. He's like a potter remolding a solid clay pot that's hard at first, but slowly and increasingly softer, more maleable and eventually (hopefully) useable. i ran across this article from an e-mail, and it spoke to me about the kind of exercises that i can do to melt, to plan for the surrender that it takes to be transformed into something new. i believe it can happen, and i hope some of these ideas can help you too.

Here are 12 ways to becoming more creative:

1. Practice being sympathetic.

2. Practice looking at your art as a series of decisions.

3. Practice making better decisions.

4. Practice the art of gathering stories, phrases, melodies, ideas.

5. Practice turning your assumptions on their head in order to see things in new ways.

6. Practice being inspired by others’ works.

7. Practice going in new, unfamiliar directions with your art. (Whether internally or externally).

8. Practice what you’re good at.

9. Practice what you’re bad at.

10. Practice listening to the feedback of other people. Practice trusting yourself. Now do both at the same time.

11. Practice patience with yourself as you grow, learn, struggle, change, and change again as an artist.

12. Practice, practice, practice.

Bonus rule: Then practice breaking any of these rules that aren’t working for you.

Quote from the article, "And don’t believe anyone who sells you more of the ridiculous myth that you need to suffer for your art. We ALL have broken hearts. You’re plenty crazy enough. Now accept THAT as your license to start (or continue) making good creative decisions."

the drop 2010 - new music for YOU

2010-12-13T09:12:00.000-08:00

hey gang, here's a link for the drop, some new music. all proceeds go to living water which builds clean water wells for 3rd world countries. music is free and if you want to donate please do! some of the Crossing's artists like Aaron Krause, Eikon, Jared Foldy, and Ashley Aucker is available.

enjoy!

iChristmas

2010-12-07T20:20:00.001-08:00

a church in atlanta called northpoint put this creative number together. a full band of iPads, iPhones, and iEverything apps. Christmas is coming :-)

the writing on the wall

2010-11-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

last week the creative team was doing research for Christmas and our creative director led us to something called 'wall projection'. basically, it is 3-D projection overlaying a wall or building. the artist maps out the exact dimension and picture of the wall or building, and then creates imagery that will make it appear that the wall is morphing into something else before our very eyes.

now, i'm going to share how my mind works, so bare with me for a second...it'll all connect in just a minute.

this larger then life advertisement captivated hundreds as they watched, and then hundreds of thousands more on youtube. the building-sized creative canvas began with a vision of life that opened us: laughter, spontaneity, imagination, wonder, curiosity etc. and then as we began to dream, there written on the wall was "there's more to life than a volvo." just as we were getting lost in the glorious expansion of something bigger then ourselves, we were sucker-punched . . . we were being sold a volvo.

when i saw the sucker-punch art it took me back to a song line from the simon & garfunkel classic, sound of silence i.e. "the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls". the song references the historical Hebrew stories of 4 jewish men who are commanded to bow down to an idol that the wicked king of babylon, Nebuchadnezzar and later his son Belshazzar, has created to display their absolute power. though the entire nation of babylon bows--literally--before these idols, the 4 Hebrew men, Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego refuse to do so...and are thrown into pre-modern extermination chambers (a lion's den and a fiery furnace). but that's just where the story gets really interesting, because God rescues each of the men and issues a sentence against the evil kings of babylon by writing on the wall of the king's palace (read it here).

have you ever heard that phrase "the writing on the wall"? that's where it comes from. what's interesting is that simon & garfunkel bring this pre-modern story into a current setting, as if, in a sense God's words are still being written on the subway walls, and in the case of this volvo ad, on the side of a building.

look at simon & garfunkel's lyrics:

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the signs said the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence

more than 2000 years after babylon's evil kings forced nations to bow down and worship golden idols, we are still being bombarded with images and messages that call us to give our money, our time, our attention...to a product, to a company, through a "neon god" made by human hands. and these days this happens more than ever during the holiday season. the promise? if we buy this car, this object, this ideal, we'll have a better life.

yes, my brain is strange...connecting an incredibly creative wall art advertisment, a s & g classic, and a couple thousand year old story from scripture...but what's even more strange is that we spend so much of our time watching a neon image tell us what we want/need, all-the-while knowing those things won't give us what they promise.

it's not true monty. don't buy the lie. . .literally, don't buy the lie. slow down, waste time allowing your soul to sit still instead of zoning out in front of the techno glow. allow for the possibility that there is a God who is not made by human hands, who can still be heard beneath the never endng white noise of the tv, and the chaotic pace of holiday consumption.

go slow, open up your spirit monty. there is a word of hope waiting, quietly whispering, "stop the rush...soak in the sounds of silence."

Virtual Choir - Christmas Eve

2010-11-15T13:25:00.000-08:00

Hey Blogging Friends,

Can I ask you for a favor? For Christmas this year at the Crossing we’re closing our Christmas Eve services with the song “Here With Us” by Joy Williams. For the experience of the last song, we’re going to have a choir on-stage and a “virtual choir” projected on the walls (see video above for roots of where the idea stems from). Basically we’re sharing the idea that all over the world, and in churches around the St. Louis area people are worshipping Immanuel together, especially on Christmas Eve. God's here with all of us.

So here’s the favor and the disclaimer, disclaimer first: if you attend the Crossing on a regular basis...this is not for you because we only want folks who're outside the community as a part of the virtual choir, but read further down for how Crossing folks can be involved too.

Now the favor, if you love God and love to sing, would you feel comfortable recording yourselves on your laptop singing parts for the Christmas Eve virtual choir? The whole process is laid out online at the link below and is a ton of fun. For everyone--even if you are from the Crossing--if you enjoy these types of online experiences, i’d love for you to pass this link onto as many friends, and folks that you’d think would have the necessary talent and be interested...the more the merrier.

http://www.wcrossing.org/virtualchoir/

Let me know about your experience either way, and thanks for being apart of this blogging, community, spiritual, fun, creative experience.

Monty
monty@wcrossing.org
Music & Worship Development

the LORD's Prayer

2010-11-01T13:24:00.001-07:00

the 'our Father' or the Pater Noster, or LORD's Prayer is probably the best known prayer worldwide. it is the prayer many have heard at their first communion, had sung at their wedding, or recited at their beloved ones funeral. it is the prayer Jesus gave His followers as the model for which we are to pray...not just the words, but the heart and posture symbolized within the words.

one of our crossing songwriters, aaron krause, wrote and recorded a fantastic version of 'the LORD's Prayer' which closed our Unfrozen Series. he has graciously agreed to make this recording available to you for FREE! you can download the song HERE

thanks to Aaron for allowing God to inspire him and for sharing his gift with all of us.

truly, this a beautiful song, and i hope it can be energizing for you. may your conversations with God become more and more unfrozen. amen.

and if you're looking for what the original version sounds like, check out this cute little 2 year old version. ah, parents exploiting their kids on youtube...so cute :-)

Life, Loss, Love...Longing

2010-10-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

one of the best friends i've had in my life is a professor and mentor of mine at colby college. she had a passion for 15th and 16th century poetry and especially John Donne and Shakespeare. she inspired me to memorize tons of poetry and wrote often about the intersection of what fascinated her most: life, love and loss. i think of her today as i watch this beautiful story reflecting the same crossroads. life and love are bittersweet because they can be lost, or can they? why does everything we enjoy in life fade away, or does it? all of these questions revolve around relationship ... because what matters to us is, after all, each other.

so, what do we do when we lose the life of someone we love? i don't know, but maybe there's another word missing in this mix...

hope.

somehow in all these intersections we know somewhere in our guts that ...there is hope. there is something to be found in losing, something to come alive in dying, a love that is stronger then death. there are so many questions but somewhere in us, we long for a love that overcomes the grave, a love that last long beyond life-as-we-know-it, a love that never ends. if there is one word that inspires hope, i'd add to the list: longing. i long to know life and love that never has to be lost. and when i watch this video, something shivers down my spin and resonates within me because i believe there is hope, and i long for that everyday.

owl city blog entry

2010-10-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

have you heard the owl city song fireflies? it was number 1 on itunes for a long time and an aberration in the music industry...because it's writer adam young was relative unknown with a large myspace following before he was discovered and signed. he wrote most of his music in his parents basement. :-)

why does any of this matter to you? it doesn't really, but i read his blog today and found his faith inspiring. he's not a person who foists his beliefs on listeners through his music, and simultaneously remains transparent about who he is. these kind of people are my heros.

http://owlcityblog.com/2010/10/25/my-hope-is-found/

i don't love you

2010-10-14T09:17:00.000-07:00

have you ever said those words to someone? have you ever had someone say these words to you?

"i don't love you..."

i cannot think of one more painful sentence.

i've been listening to a new song called 'poison and wine' by the civil wars, and the refrain begins with, "i don't love you." it resonates deeply within my core...i can't stop listening, and i think i'm starting to understand...

like a disciplined kid in reactive anger discovering the power to hurt mom with four short words, i hear my own inner dialogue--everyday. the love i want the most is the love i push away the most. it's that short word i speak in response to her gentle conversational question. that afterwork project i just won't put down, instead of sitting together and soaking up her laugh. everyday, i say "i don't love you..."

life pulls me forward: i'm stuck dwelling on the past.

i miss the present.
i miss her.
i miss love.

i'm striving for the one thing i can't hold onto. i'm reaching out for someone who i will distance myself from, over and over again. oh, the longing...

the truth is, 'i don't love you,'
but,
'i always will'.

i always will keep reaching for you, even when i shut down and turn my back. i always will comfort you with the same pair of hands that have neglected to serve you. i always will pour out words nourishing life after i have spilled the toxic speak crushing your spirit.

i always will
love you.

dunlap disease

2010-10-11T13:49:00.000-07:00

the wonderful world of facebook has revealed a most disturbing reality...i suffer from dunlap disease i.e. my belly has 'dun lapped' over my belt. yesterday my fiance and i attended our friend's wedding and i saw my friend snapping photos from afar, so we posed as if in a tabloid magazine. we nailed the pose, but i had no idea the camera would pick up my pooch so accurately as well. haha

ever have one of those telling moments of awareness where you finally see yourself as you are, and don't really like what you see? makes me want to delete the photo forevermore...but alas, the longtail of the internet strikes again to immortalize the worst of us. they say that to get where you want to go you must first recognize where you are, so the good news is now i know where i am. thus, the challenge of getting healthy again begins in earnest...

funk busters

2010-10-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

here's some GREAT ideas from a friend and fellow blogger elizabeth. thanks elizabeth!

1. Read a great book. Two days ago, I picked up my copy of The Shack and started reading again. This book changed my view of Jesus (and God and the Holy Spirit) from impersonal to one of companionship. In my funk, I need that reminder, so I chose this book to help me find that place again.

2. Get behind the lens of my camera and take some photos. Using my camera awakens my heart in ways that are indescribable to me. Looking through the lens helps me to figuratively and literally focus my brain and get into the Flow.

3. Help someone else. This is a no brainer, right? At least I hope you think so too! When I’m down, helping someone else makes me feel less alone. Even if it’s just paying for the person behind me in the drive through line, it still makes me feel connected to the world in a bigger way.

4. Go swimming at the gym. The rhythm of my arms pulling while my legs kick and my mouth breathes in while my nose breathes out helps clear the clutter from my mind. At the end of my swim workout, I always hook my legs on the side of the pool and let my body float in the water so the only thing poking out is my face (for breathing). I close my eyes and focus on the sound of air rushing into and out of my lungs, and I find my center again.

5. Craft something. On Tuesday, I got my stamps out and set about making covers for my fabric scrapbooks. I recently decided to stop scrapbooking. I feel like these fabric scrapbooks I’ve been making will suffice for my family and my lifestyle. I gathered them all in one spot and hung them on the wall, but they needed some extra oomph. I crafted some covers and love the end results. It’s amazing what a good craft project does for my outlook on life!

doom clouds

2010-09-19T16:34:00.001-07:00

i saw this on randall's blog a few weeks back and think it is the most ominous and aggressive storm cloud i have ever seen...it seems almost unbelievable. my mind took me to two places and neither of them was good, haha. one was the movie-like theme of the end of the world--the apocalypse. the second thought can sometimes relate to the first, and it is the overwhelming sensation i get at times of doom. do you ever have that? it's hard for me to describe exactly, but maybe the best analogy i can give is your worst day, when everything in life seems to be pitted against you. have you ever been there? it's like a trip to the DMV, you barely get there in time to hear the person behind the counter tell you "sorry you're missing a form." haha. really though, have you ever had a day, or a season of time where you genuinely felt like the force of the universe was pitted against you because nothing would go right?

maybe it's just me because i have definitely struggled with depression at times, but i get the sense that many of us--especially in this day and age--can get trapped in an overwhelming sensation that no amount of effort can break us out of the funk we're experiencing...at work, at home, with family, within ourselves, with God, with life altogether. and when we're living in that emotion it seems like a storm cloud is constantly pursuing our trail and we're surrounded with despair.

so how do we break the same? how can we escape the madness and chaos of the feeling of living under a curse? ...no truly, i'm asking because i don't know. the truth is that these experiences are very real for everyone. even if we're not currently in that place, there will be a time when life deals us our blow too, and what will we do then?

this week, i'm going to explore the idea of 'doom'. what are some non-clinical ways of dealing with dark clouds in our life? and i'm going to try and offer up some ideas that i seek out through good counseling, good friends, good books, good prayer, good kids, and good good love. come on back if you want this week for some hopeful remedies...and don't hesitate to throw out your own too.

beautiful day

2010-09-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

life can become so complicated, so fast-paced, so hurried, so clogged up with things to do, places to go, people to see. in the process of all the noise i can just feel my soul shrivel up and hide (and truthfully sometimes i feel like hiding out or just sleeping till the rush is over). the madness of this life rarely ceases completely...except occasionally when we HAVE to slow down because there's a tragedy...and it's never good when that's what it takes to get us to take stock of our lives and realize that we're missing so many beautiful moments as we go along.

so i'm making a point of opening my eyes more and more to the beautiful day i've been given everyday and here's my list of simple things i'm thankful for: a body that is currently without physical aches, theraflu (my allergies have been crazy...and this stuff is magic!), drano (unclogged my bathtub, woo hoo), thunderstorms and lightning outside my window while i'm hitting my snooze button on a rainy morning, conversations that lead to tears of comfort, a new song to sing along to, a new movie to go and see (can't wait to see 'the town' with ben affleck), getting a text/e-mail/phone call from a friend, a computer to blog on! :-), time to sit in a quiet room and let my thoughts grow still, getting to work with people i love, having a car that runs (though it runs LOUD, hehe), having money to pay for gas/rent/phone/food/bills etc., EVO phone apps that calculate daily calories and help me lose weight for FREE (myfitnesspal), a new season of life found in surrendering old ways of thinking, love, the love of someone i love, the slow awakening of how everywhere around me there is love if i will just slow down and notice and "taste and see that Yahweh is good..."

@ the crossing yesterday we played a simple version of a sweet song. today, i pray this song can help you slow down and, even within the craziness of your life...and maybe for a moment--even if you're facing something incredibly difficult--maybe just for this moment now you can reflect on something in this life that makes today a beautiful day. and, if you're willing, i'd like to know...what makes your day beautiful?

love is on the move

2010-09-15T14:54:00.000-07:00

spent the weekend in ny, ny. flew into la guardia on 9/11. surreal. i stood at the wtc and watched people move throughout the city streets, everyone of us with the same sense of reverence mixed with uncertainty. i walked to the site of the proposed mosque on park and on the way found myself in front of the WTC cross on broadway. do you remember the image of the cross that still stood days after the rubble of 9/11? it had brought hope to so many firefighters and onlookers in the ashes of death and destruction. now that same cross stood over me and thousands of others as we passed by, many stopping in silence to remember the hope we ALL have in the God who suffers on our behalf so that we will not be at war with each other and within ourselves.

i ventured up to park and noticed that police had shutdown the street where the proposed mosque would be built. thankfully, the police stood guard, as there were fears that some foolish american or radical hate-zealot would attempt something dastardly. i thought to myself how tragic and beautiful that we live in an amazing country where freedom of speech is allowed for all. truly, this means hate will be spewed, but we cannot allow fear to become the overarching narrative of our times b/c no matter who is threatening violence, it is unacceptable to God when anyone plots evil upon his/her neighbor. As He passes in front of Moses, God calls Himself "the LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love." Exodus 34:6. and Jesus reflects the very face of God by telling all of us, "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven" matthew 5:43-45." no matter where we are from, or what we believe, Jesus tells us we are loved. and those who have received this love are called to reflect Christ's love to everyone...even if there are disagreements about how to live here on this earth. violence cannot change a heart, only love can move us to take care of each other and accept responsibility for our own individual choices. behind the curtain of time waits the Eternal One, who is the only wise Judge. He alone knows the heart of a man and He alone can see if it is filled with His love or with the evil of man's hatred.

i for one am trying every day to open my heart to love.

have you seen - jacki evancho?

2010-09-08T11:47:00.000-07:00

have you seen this incredible little girl (10 years old)? she's been competing this summer on 'america's got talent', and she is something of a phenomenon. she sings opera like a seasoned professional and carries each performance with unusual maturity, candor and grace. last night she was showcased in a heavenly backdrop as she sang the 'pie jesu' or "merciful Jesus", a classical motet.

it strikes me that few of us listening/watching fully grasp what we are hearing/seeing. in fact, we admit that we don't when we say things like piers, "i have never seen anything like this before." even the words we hear are foreign to us, i had to look up the term 'pie jesu' to figure out what it meant myself. but the irony is not solely in the words we don't understand, or the image and sound of a 10 year old angel. the irony i'm speaking of cannot be seen or heard without spiritual eyes and ears.

listen to the words in english and a layer of the spiritually unseen unfolds:

Pie Jesu Domine, Kind Lord Jesus,
dona eis requiem. grant them rest.

Pie Jesu Domine, Kind Lord Jesus,
dona eis requiem sempiternam. grant them everlasting rest.

are you beginning to understand? listen again to the next part:

Pie Jesu, Merciful Jesus,
Qui tollis peccata mundi Who takes away the sins of the world,
Dona eis requiem. Grant them rest.

Agnus Dei, Lamb of God,
Qui tollis peccata mundi, Who takes away the sins of the world,
Dona eis requiem Grant them rest
Sempiternam. Everlasting.

is it possible we can perceive the presence of the same Lamb of God, Jesus, about whom this 10 year old sings with such brilliance? or have we missed God reaching out to us one more time, in the same irony with which He took away the sins of the world? have we forgotten the story at the center of time splitting our very calendar between B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (anno domini - at the birth of Christ)?

it occurs to me that the great sadness of God is the blindness with which we walk throughout life, missing His appeal to us day in and day out. if only we could perceive Him speaking to us, reminding us of His love for us... and the story of His love is written into the fabric of our time, our entertainment and is always before us. God proclaims His mercy, kindness and rest through the birth of His Son, Jesus, a child whose innocence is eternal, heavenly, and whose sacrifice alone can take on the weight of all our sin. and though Jacki is not and should not be confused for Jesus, it is ironic that once again from the lips of a child has come the message of everlasting rest and salvation.

and still somehow we cannot receive the presence of Majesty standing within this irony.

Jesus told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that,
" 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!

Then Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable?

How then will you understand any parable?"

--Mark 4:11-13

phil wickham

2010-09-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

i have written songs for about 10 years now, and i can honestly say that i have not come close to writing something this inspiring. i rarely get the chills listening to christian music, but this singer/artist, phil wickham, seems to incarnate the message he sings about with clairvoyant splendor. have you ever met someone in whom you could see God living? watch this:

things fall apart part 2

2010-08-31T18:57:00.001-07:00

i promised the rest of my car purchasing saga so here goes...

as i began driving home from purchasing my 1996 nissan altima, it did not take long for me to realize that i had made an erroneous decision. i'm not sure what was awakened first, whether it was my olfactory nerves or my auditory senses, but as i drove back over the alton bridge, i heard and smelled a most unpleasant offense. you see, i soon discovered that the car i had purchased was an old smoker's car, and the son from whom i purchased the vehicle was fond of 'fart cans.' yes, you heard me correctly. the car stunk of a sour combination of no-longer-masked-air-freshener blended with years old heavy-smoke-infiltrated-air-vents AND on the highway--which i was now driving upon--sounded like a stock car at the indy 500, minus the joy of driving accelerated speeds (the car had an aftermarket muffler on it designed to be excessively loud, like a race-car...minus the speed, as i discovered the car begins to shake at 65mph). the short of it, i'd purchased a car in haste and failed to do the requisite investigation necessary to discern the cars minor flaws...har har.

immediately my throat closed up, partially from the sense that i had been bamboozled (and/or made an unwise decision which i would now have to live with), and mostly from my bodies allergic reaction to the smell of moldy cigarette smoke being blown on me through the vent.

i was bummed...to say the least.

so has begun a new journey in which i am learning the art of cleaning the air i find myself within. so much could be said about this new undertaking, but that'll be a story for another day.

things fall apart

2010-08-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

it's funny how life can be. one day you're full of gratitude, the next day you're stressed wondering how life can be so difficult. hehe. today i've got to return the car i've been driving all summer. my wonderful friend amanda lent me her beautiful 2006 jetta this summer because she was in San Diego working a job that did not require her to have transportation. it has been GREAT having an almost new car to pedal around in for the last 3 months, but alas, my amusement ride is coming to an end.

so for the last week i've been scouring craigslist and trying to find a good deal on something used...and yesterday i found something...sort of. it's a 1996 Nissan Altima with 128,000 miles...oh yeah, only the best for yours truly. okay truthfully, i really am a fan of buying used cars. ever since i was little my dad taught me never to buy something new because it loses so much value immediately. for the past 15 years i've bought used cars and done really well spending almost nothing--relative to buying something new. besides, i never understood how people could afford big expensive cars until i learned that lots of folks are just driving around a second mortgage. wah wah...

still, there are problems with buying used cars, and today may have been the day those troubles finally caught up to me.

the full story coming shortly...

Thank You

2010-08-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

i came across a picture a friend of mine took a few weeks ago at the wide open concert.

it occurred to me how rich i am. not like $ rich, but love rich.

i've never had a ton of stuff or money, but i've always had a roof over my head, food on the table, and people to love me--even when i was unlovable. that's a lot.

has it ever crossed your mind how blessed we are?

don't get me wrong, i've faced great pain. i've struggled with depression for 10 of 30 years, lost love ones, faced seemingly insurmountable pain...

but still, i can't help but remember all the goodness that's surrounded me also.

what have i done to deserve the love i've been given in these 30-years of life?

there is so much pain happening in the world around me,

and none more sharp than the loneliness felt by so many.

i can't ever repay this love i've been given.

but today as i soak in this beautiful day i'm asking God to inspire me.

God, give me an unshakably grateful heart, and help me to give my life away to those who need love. Your love endures forever, but it is so rarely 'felt'. Please help me to share Your love in such a way that those i encounter can truly experience healing love.

Thank You for loving me.

will stern - you are holy

2010-08-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

in this season of re-prioritizing my life i've discovered some wonderful inspiration along the way. my friend will stern is a producer and songwriter whose song 'all that i need' was apart of wide open summer 2010. will's now leading worship in another state but recently he released his third solo worship project. if you are a worshipper, please take what i'm about to say to heart, you need to purchase his new album for your own times of worship. will's music is set apart and unique in a generation of worship music that rarely sees past itself. this is a meditative album that will call you into prayer, worship and the word of God. you will be refreshed.

a few brief minutes

2010-08-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

i know it's been a while since i've written regularly, but i'm ready to begin again. i've had a couple great conversations with some of you recently, and it's good to know that i'm able to serve folks with my thoughts on creativity, spirituality and stuff that really doesn't matter but is fun. :-)

the unstated goal of this blog has always stemmed from a quote i heard years ago by erwin mcmanus "creativity is the natural outworking of spirituality." in short, if you're connecting with your Creator, you can't help but reflect Him by becoming a creator yourself. creation is about bringing life to others, and this blog displays creative elements of music, media and scripture with some commentary to tie it all together. and then of course there's the stuff that's just to give you a belly laugh, because truthfully there's nothing more life-giving than a good laugh, right?

my prayer for you as you spend a few brief minutes here is that you'll experience how present the Creator is, right now. may He energize you with the traces of His nearness.

what's most important to you?

2010-08-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

it's been a while since i've blogged. recently, i've been considering how i spend my time and what's most important to me. time is so valuable, and so short, and when i reflect on my life i realize how much time i waste on things that don't really matter. like tv, internet and yes...sometimes even blogging. but every new season of my life i feel change begin to blow threw me and ask "what do you need to let go of?" somehow it still shocks me that every year i discover there are things i have held onto that won't help shape who i'm to become. and every season i find it difficult to admit that i've gotten hooked again, and i need to let go. spirituality is so much about 'letting go' and embracing the freedom of life lived with open hands. somehow when we do we are free to receive the gifts that reflect the invisible best...love, grace, peace, what scripture calls the Spirit of God. i ran across this video on vimeo.com and it startled me because i don't like the terms it uses "idol worship." and yet, i understand what whoever made this video is saying "what should be most important to you and whatever that is, honestly what has taken it's place?" for me, my relationship with the Invisible is most important, and so many things are currently in His place. i'm praying for help to let go, and trusting that--in doing so--i will receive everything my soul longs for in return...the Spirit of God and relationship with those He gives me to love.

Sermon Video - What is your God from Churpedia.Com on Vimeo.

Ghosting- my new favorite sport :-)

2010-08-05T08:08:00.001-07:00

have you ever felt like you were being followed? well...maybe you were (dun, dun, DUN!)

Robot Priest Marries Japanese Couple

2010-08-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

did you see this article?

Wide Open - Summer 2010!!

2010-07-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

Hello Wide Open Friends,

This summer on Friday night July 30th, 7:00pm @ the Crossing in Chesterfield,

Wide Open presents "Unified" w/ worship artists

Mark Roach (Morning Star ), Lamont Rich (Grace) and Monty Hobson (the Crossing).

This will be a beautiful night of worship and media featuring filmmaker John Carrington

and the C2 Artist's Experience, as well as several guest appearances including Aaron Krause.

Tickets are available in the bookstore at the Crossing, Morning Star and Grace.

For more information and online ticket sales go to www.wideopen.cc.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.

Hope you can make it out for a great night!

Monty

producer steve lillywhite

2010-06-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

steve lillywhite was in town last friday evening, and along with several others, i got a chance to spend some quality time with him asking a ton of questions and learning from a master producer. for those of you who may not be familiar with steve, he is the producer of many of U2's albums, as well as three of Dave Matthew's Band blockbuster albums, and most recently he produced 30 Seconds to Mars' hit record. in short, he's a big deal, and a very funny person to boot.

here are some quotable highlights:

"for me the voice is everything."

"when i am true to myself in the recording process it gives me strength."

"there's no genres of music, just good and bad."

"a manager during the recording process is like a father whose wife is pregnant. he can't make anything happen but wants the baby now. a producer is like the doctor who says 'i'll deliver the baby (the mix) when it's ready."

"the great thing about bono is that he cares about every gig no matter how big. bono doesn't care about the person in the front row, but the person in the back row. he's a traveling salesman who kills himself in the studio because his vaccum cleaner has to be the best if he's going to travel the globe selling it for two years."

"bongolese is bono's introductory language as a songwriter. he sings phonetically then writes the words."

"bono believes that truly great art can only come from chaos. he plants seeds of chaos in every record so that each of the songs go through many stages."

"there is no rule book in making records...there is pre-sergeant pepper recording which is structured and logical and there is post-sergeant pepper recording which is experimental and chaotic, and both are good."

"'whose gonna ride your wild horses' is the only U2 song that makes me twitch when i hear it. it can only be described as 'brown.'"

"if there is ever a time in the recording studio that the band thinks i'm worried...then i'm not doing my job."

"i look for the weak person in the band and try to bolster them."

"the artist is always right. it's their record."

"90% of corporate america don't do anything but safeguard their job. record companies rape artist's. you don't need record labels because you can go out and play live."

"U2 would have been dropped after their first album if it had not been for Chris Blackwell."

"i'm a bit like a boxer now, i need longer breaks in between bouts (albums) to regain my enthusiasm."

"i'd like to be on america idol...i'd be perfect for the show because i know talent...let's face it, the show is going down hill without simon cowell...i believe we need to discover the next elvis presley...i would focus on picking a much stronger group of 24..."

Lay 'Em Down - Live @ the Crossing (loft)

2010-06-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

i'm a fan of a new-ish band called needtobreathe. they've got an entire CD of tunes that are just plain good. a couple weeks ago the Crossing did a tune of theirs called 'lay 'em down' and someone from the seats taped it on their camera phone. alas, these days even church can be broadcast via youtube from the ever-present media presence of a cell phone. hehe

i love the energy of this song because it is the invitation we all long to hear. come, lay your burdens down and rest. stop faking it, stop pretending everything's okay and you've got this life figured out. admit that you're a mess and bring your brokenness into the blessing of grace, full acceptance, unconditional love, seventy-times-seven forgiveness, and peace that transcends understanding. that is what scripture says life is like in the Kingdom of Heaven.

"wherever you are now, whatever evil you've found, bring all of your troubles, and come lay 'em down."

Self-Motivation & Self-Destruction

2010-05-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

my friend introduced me to a website called epicfail.com. it's content is in the title, a website that captures pictures and videos of people failing at something...epic-ally. :-)

one of the funniest videos i saw was the one above. whether this is a joke or not i have no idea, but it is a perfect illustration of how self-motivation is NOT the answer to what ails us. i find myself trying to 'better' myself all the time. there's so much i want to accomplish in life and so i set my mind on a goal and attempt to achieve it by sheer discipline, focus and hard work. but the results of my efforts are usually only a headache (as i'm sure they were above :-).

the truth is, it takes way more than self-motivation to break the boards of my life that stand in between me and whatever it is i've set out to achieve. even if i am successful in motivating myself through discipline, focus and hard work to achieve what i set out to accomplish, i become a disaster to others because i believe the lie that everyone should "just be more disciplined, focus and work harder because after all--i did it."

the method by which we accomplish our goals becomes the message we communicate to others about how they are able to do the same. but if the message we tell others--about breaking through the boards of their lives--has become 'self-motivation' we are leading people into 'self-destruction' (as seen above, ouch). in short, if we can accomplish our goals solely by ourselves...we fail to discover the greater reality of life: we all need help. we need help to break through our 'stuff'--our debt, our behavior patterns that we've been stuck in for years, our anger, our selfishness, our denial about how bad things have gotten. we need help to become the person we're destined to become.

Answerer of prayer, i lift up my friends to You. they are so much like me. together we are always believing there is some simple fix to what is ailing us. we're constantly trying to 'feel' better by our own efforts. we're trying to solve our problems by working harder, we're trying to mend our relationships by moving faster. we're trying to heal our wounds by getting busier. and all of this only makes us spin our wheels in the myth of motivation never catching true traction. help us to slow down and listen to our souls. help us to consider stillness and rest in the love that has been available to us since the beginning of time. as we unplug from the inner voices of our own determination, speak to us and infuse us with a quiet confidence that You are in control and You will rescue us, again and again.

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
"In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,

...but you would have none of it. "

--Isaiah 30:15

Mr. Crowder's Fantastical Advertising

2010-05-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

David Crowder's fantastical church music conference is coming up this September and early October in Waco, TX. if you are a fan of Mr. Crowder's music and happen to be a worship leader, this is for you. but, if you're just someone who likes fun creative advertising. . .this video is for you too.

sunday's coming cynicism?

2010-05-10T13:26:00.001-07:00

a friend of mine wrote me this e-mail a few days ago, and i thought it might be a good conversation for us here as well.

Hi Monty,
I have a worship leader friend who posted this http://www.thebetaversion.org/2010/05/sunday-blueprint/# on his Facebook wall today and I am struggling with what I believe about this. What do you think? I mean I see it as helpful to Christians in many ways but I also see it as he sees it too, over programmed, only for the "selfish" needs of Christians who are not being mission minded and going out into all the world, etc. It's churches that perpetuate the idea of Christians serving other Christians and that's about it. Not doing what God commands. I guess I just wanted to get another worship leader's two cents on it. What do you think? I would appreciate it if you had a few minutes to let me know your thoughts.

Thanks so much!
(see my response below)

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

My concern after viewing the video wasn’t as much about whether that has become the “formula” for a worship service. My concern with it was that it seems to reek of cynicism AND was created by people inside the church (northpoint). There’s no question that there is a liturgy that has developed in non-denominational churches, but to take a swipe at the intensions of that liturgy is to suggest that somehow all non-denominational services are human-centered. The truth is that the very church that created this video (northpoint) abides by the same liturgy it denounces and sees hundreds of people coming to Christ each year.

I assume the film-makers think they are only poking fun at themselves and/or those churches that gravitate towards these stereotypes...but the problem for me rests in the unawareness of people outside of the church that will not ‘get’ this video as a family-joke, but as a confirmation that—in fact—churches, at large, are shallow communities within an increasingly shallow American culture that has already begun dis-integrating because of self-focused living.

In short, cynicism is dangerous because it is one of the thickest layers of hopelessness that covers over our hearts ability to believe there are people today that truly do focus their attention on God and serving others--for no other reason but because they have been loved/forgiven and want to give love/forgiveness in return. And if people changed by grace are to become God’s face on earth—the literal representation of Jesus in skin--cynicism within church leaders may be a litmus test for how healthy the heart of Christ’s body is...

Ergg.

Monty

what do you think?

Insecurity

2010-04-29T07:51:00.001-07:00

this morning i have been praying into a weakness of mine: insecurity. it's the darndest thing that no matter how i much "know" i am loved, accepted and affirmed, many days i awake to a tangible sense of broken incompleteness. i am not yet who i want to be and everything inside me aches at this reality. the way this insecurity is primarily exposed is when something that i'm leaning on--to give me a sense of security--is taken away or questioned. for me, one of the primary sources of security is my sense of calling--what i feel i'm good at. in short, one of my primary insecurities revolves around my job. therefore, when i feel un-affirmed in the work i am doing, or in the particular contributions i'm making to my work...my insecurities are emboldened to cry out. but how many of us, at times, have felt this same lack of

as i drove into work today i stopped by jiffy lube to get my oil changed, and as i waited a man came in wearing a UFC hat. for those of you who do not know this, UFC is the abbreviation for Ultimate Fighting Championship, which is a very violent sport growing in popularity by the millions of millions of fans and billions of dollars being spent to consume t-shirts, hats, sports drinks, and the events where we watch two people attempt to beat the other into unconsciousness. that said, i engaged the man in a conversation and discovered that he himself was not only a fan but a fighter, and his particular specialty was ninjutsu. he told me his sport was particularly unique because it focused--not on striking--but on submission. the art of ninjutsu was 'wrestling' primarily on the ground in order to defuse a fight. what was even more interesting was that unlike karate where the student must take tests to earn their way to ever increasing belts (white, orange, red, blue, black etc.), in ninjutsu the student does not earn their belt by a test but by the day by day application of the art of wrestling. as the student learns to apply the techniques the master is teaching the student, the master bestows the increasing belt upon the student as the master sees fit. the belt is not a reward for passing a test, but a mantle signifying that the student has become like the master in the day to day art.

i left the jiffy lube realizing that this summarizes the human journey. we all have something we lean on for security, some measurement by which we access our worth, whether it is our job, our outward appearance, our car, the amount of our paycheck, the number of friends we have on facebook, the affirmation of certain individuals and the list goes on. however, until we've wrestled with this human weakness and centered ourselves solely in the spiritual life we will be without the true source of our security. unlike the constantly unstable crutches we lean on to find security, our Creator is unchanging. and when we focus our worth (and our work) on the immutable truth that we are loved simply, as a parent loves their children, we discover our security isn't something we can earn...only something we can accept as a forgiven son and daughter of the Most High.

what if, instead of fighting and striving for significance today, each one of us chose instead practice the art of submission? and what if, when we were done wrestling with our own weakness, we quietly surrendered to our beloved-ness?

whether you believe in God or not, He believes in and loves you. He knows you are in denial, stubborn, selfish, and resistant to anything outside what you currently think you know. the good news is, He'll wait patiently to secure you--even if it will take you wrestling with Him until you accept His reality and His unchanging love for you.

BiC Pen Art

2010-04-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

i'm blown away by artists. i don't mean musical artists, i mean artists who create with their paints, recyclables and in this case--pens. i wish i could draw. i still remember my 1st experience with art in mr. vanecek's 1st grade art class. we were all given the project to color and stay inside the lines. i can't remember what the image we were coloring was, but i do remember getting done and comparing my picture to karl carstensen's drawing and realizing that drawing/coloring/art was not my gift. karl had perfectly shaded and colored his image inside the lines, while i had fudged the line over and over again. my picture looked sloppy, karl's looked vibrant and almost real...like this BiC artist's recreation.

on another note, i've gained quite a few pounds recently. there's been a lot going on and i think the stress is expressing itself through my gut. :-0 today when i went to get lunch after church, i found myself wrestling over whether i should purchase a soda and finally convinced myself that if i wanted to return to my former health, i needed to stick to the plan of cutting out soda.

i'm thinking about it now and realizing how many areas of our lives would be more vibrant and healthy if we would just stay inside the lines of our commitments. as hard as it is to say "no"to ourselves, we know it's good for us to set boundaries around what we eat, what we watch, where we spend our time, who we spend our time with, how we spend our money, where we sleep at night, who we sleep at night with etc. and when we're inside the lines on these issues we can find the joy of a simple life. but when we reach for "just one more" and push the lines of our commitments to other's and ourselves, we end up complicating life and trapped in unhealthy circumstances.

wouldn't it be nice if BiC could create a tool that would ensure that we'd all stay in the lines of our lives? but as i think out loud, it really isn't important what the product is that gets us back in health. for people like me losing weight maybe it's P90x, for people trying to cut back on their spending maybe it's Dave Ramsey's financial advice, for people trying to stop drinking maybe its AA...but whatever tool we use to help us get healthy, the key to staying inside the lines isn't actually the tool. the key question is who is holding the tool?

karl carstensen is the guy i want holding the pen if it's a coloring exercise to stay inside the lines. but, for the big boundaries that help me stay alive and well, i need someone besides even the best drawer--someone who sees the whole picture of my life and knows how to keep me out of trouble. and i can start to engage that bigger someone through acknowledging my need for help through a simple prayer. Creative Creator God, i cannot live my life on my own...i will never become the person i'm made to become if it's up to me alone. Help me discover who You are as You help me surrender to You the tools You've put in place to bring me fully alive. You alone know how to save me from myself because You sent Your Son to destroy the power of sin. Destroy the power of sin over my life as i learn to become the person You made me to be. Amen.

Slugs and Bugs

2010-04-07T11:33:00.001-07:00

If you're looking for a great family + kids event, Slugs and Bugs Live w/ a friend of mine, Randall Goodgame, is coming up next Friday Night April 16th@ Grace Community Chapel. www.slugsandbugs.com. Tickets just $10 per family.
call 636.577.4523 for sales.

refreshing redemption

2010-03-28T15:56:00.001-07:00

i went to the movies last night, and watched a really dumb one, which i am embarrassed to endorse (so i won't). however, i did notice an add before the movie that caught my attention because of it's creativity. it made me think that i've been in a bit of a funk creatively speaking, not really seeing the world through new eyes. i'm not sure when or how blindness set in, but i know the sound of darkness and it is "me-centered" thinking. sadly, that's where i've been as holy week arrives--the week commemorating Jesus' long walk to the cross and eventual crucifixion and resurrection. i've been stuck in a pattern of thinking that is more concerned with my own happiness, then the greater good. blech!

the best creativity never seems to be by one individual. certainly there have been incredibly creative individuals, but even their art cannot be showcased without a great engine of teamwork. writers cannot function without editors and publishers. directors cannot function without actors and film crews. songwriters cannot function without promoters and venue owners. and all art relies on an audience to understand and appreciate it's beauty because nothing is created in a vacuum.

today i'm going to spend some time thinking about how Jesus never sought His own self-fulfillment over His Father's plan for everyone--forgiveness. though certainly Jesus carried the cross to calvary, His Father surrounded Jesus with friends and strangers--like Joseph of the cross--who helped Jesus every step of the way. not to mention that in the unseen Jesus' Father was encouraging Jesus in Spirit. Jesus was in constant partnership with others, God and man, and only for a brief moment--which was hell--Jesus was disconnected from community. and the end result of the Father, the Son and the Spirit's teamwork was grace for us all, a new creativity that in church words is called redemption. in other words, God takes something broken, and makes it beautiful.

He'll Take Care of the Rest - Keith Green

2010-03-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

for a few years i've heard my co-workers talk about a guy named keith green who was a very unique songwriter in the early genesis of the christian music industry. he was unique because of his lyrics, his transparency, and his refusal to be commercialized...as he did most of his concerts for free.

today i've been enjoying this song--which is new to me, and old to others--because it so captures the sentiment of trusting in the invisible God. it's difficult. it's messy. it's improvisational at times. it's frustrating sometimes. and mostly it calls out of us faith = being certain of what we do not see. if we're growing in our trust--in the words of keith green--"He'll (God'll) take care of the rest."

good morning

2010-03-09T05:52:00.000-08:00

hope your tuesday is off to a blissful start.

the weather yesterday was certainly hopeful wasn't it?

one thought for this morning: change happens slowly.

when i resolve in my mind to make a change in my life

i need to be wary of the impulse in me that attempts to

'change-everything-right-now!'

that never works.

change is slow,

change is something that happens with help,

change is a lifestyle.

change is an attitude that i adopt to continuously grow in every area of my life

(spiritual, physical, emotional, relational, intellectual, and every other -al).

whatever you're thinking about changing 'instantly' today,

step back from that impulse,

instead spend a little time in prayer,

ask God to help you commit to the long-term rhythm of transformation

that starts internally and only becomes visible externally

when gradually, one moment after another in your life reflects

the person you've become.

what are you trying to change about yourself today?

fun theory 3

2010-02-25T21:15:00.000-08:00

i'm a big fan of the tv show scrubs, and for a moment this little fun-raiser reminded me of the joy i feel when i watch that show. it's good to know the people who save our lives every day have such a good sense of humor, and a true joy in what they do. Btw, when this video gets 1 million hits, MEDLINE will be making a huge contribution to the hospital there in Oregon, as well as offering free mammograms for the community, so just by watching this you've donated to a wonderful cause!

this also connects to the idea that we are more likely to do something good, if it is fun!

the fun theory part 2

2010-02-24T14:54:00.000-08:00

the theory is: given the choice between two decisions, people will more often choose whatever is most fun.

what do you think, is it true?

El Salvador

2010-02-23T13:20:00.001-08:00

Marisol, Monty, Shaun, Kyle (my trip buddies)

hope your week is starting off well! sorry it's been so long. i recently took a trip to El Salvador to build a fresh water well, and i've been getting back into rhythm ever since. the trip was a blast! that's little Marisol to the left. she was our constant companion as we worked. the week was unforgettable and i continue to meditate on what i learned from the villagers in Monte Rico, El Salvador. their community was incredible and generous to a fault. though they have very little in the way of material things, they give ample love and invite everyone into their families.

this week i have a VERY dry cough which has not left me and i'm currently wishing i could reach my hand into my chest and grab the little tickle by the neck and cast it into the pacific...but alas, i'm no longer near the ocean and my chest cavity prohibits me from this approach anyway. uggh!

anyone else got this two week cold sickness thingy?

Tonight 7pm!!

2010-01-29T12:11:00.001-08:00

Tonight!!
Haiti Prayer & Worship Night - Grace Church 7pm
http://www.gracestl.org/directions

- all donations go to compassion int'l

http://www.gracestl.org/Haitiprayer

Haiti Prayer & Worship Concert - Friday night 7pm

2010-01-27T21:42:00.000-08:00

if you're anything like me, you've felt almost powerless to help the survivors in Haiti, except to send donations. undoubtedly many of us are thinking of our brothers and sisters overseas. if you've been looking for other tangible ways to help the people of Haiti, here's a great opportunity:

this Friday night Jan. 29th @ 7pm, there will be a Prayer & Worship Night @ Grace Church uniting several churches in the St. Louis area. myself and some others from the Crossing will also be apart of the night, and all donations go to compassion int'l, an organization rescuing children from poverty.

everyone who wants is invited.
the night is free.
if you can make it, come on out!
directions are here

from Grace's website:
Join pastors, worship leaders and members of several churches as we gather in Grace's Auditorium to pray for the survivors in Haiti. Through worship we will reflect on the goodness of God, whose heart is broken over the devastation in Haiti. Through prayer we will partner with God to see salvation and supplies reach these precious people. Through our financial contributions, we will put our compassion into action as we send aid to Haiti through Compassion International.

jimmy kimmel on jay leno

2010-01-26T15:50:00.000-08:00

wow, jimmy kimmel lays into jay leno about the late night show snafu. how bout you? who do you want to watch on late night tv?

a) jay leno
b) conan obrien
c) dave letterman
d) jimmy kimmel
e) craig fergueson
f) anybody but jay leno after what he did to conan

perfect love...like a 15-year old

2010-01-17T15:25:00.000-08:00

how old do you think adam and eve were when they took a bite into the forbidden fruit and tainted perfect love forevermore?

a couple months ago i blogged about a rising kiddie-pop icon named justin bieber (see blog here), and told you to be on the lookout for his foreseeable career trajectory. at 15 years old his newest album has already charted all 7 songs on the top 100 billboard chart in the months of December and January. that's 7 songs...at one time. this is a major accomplishment for any artist, much less a 15 year old kid. and when you listen to the songs, you can understand why...they're incredibly cute/sweet songs articulating simple affirmations of love for his muse...whoever she may be. 100 million people have already viewed his youtube videos, and he is fast becoming a global success, already charting in the top 100 in more than 3 countries.

i listened to his newest single "one time" today, and was considering what it is that people so gravitate towards in this little boy. and as i've contemplated it, i can only answer for myself: he is innocent. when i watch him perform the songs that he wrote, i see an honest, sincere, albeit young boy who is expressing the feelings of his heart towards his beloved..."i will love you forever." and you know what? all of us can relate to those feelings--even us adults. sure, kids can grab a hold of these songs quickly because they are laced with unchallenged idealism, and reflect the intensity of feeling 'in love' for the first time. but, surely 100 million people consists of a few million adults, right? so why are adults connecting/buying/absorbing what justin about?

for me, the answer is equally encouraging an troubling.

encouraging because - i like that someone is actually writing about faithful, committed love that will last a lifetime.

troubling because - the person writing about everlasting love is 15 years old and has no idea what goes into such a love.

this is not to slam the young man in any way, but to point out that as a culture we're not maturing beyond 15 year old proclamations of love into a fuller, complete version of love that walks beside us into everyday reality. after all, all adults know that as wonderful as those 'in love' feelings are, they fade quickly and cannot permanently sustain a long-term relationship of any kind. and so it's interesting that as a culture fewer and fewer songs are being written by adults making confessions of fidelity, and it is a 15 year old boy who reminds us of the enduring virtue of single-minded devotion to one woman.

have we adults so abandoned the belief in true love that our wounded skepticism has caused us to connect to those feelings vicariously through a 15 year old boy? and what happens when predictably this once innocent prodigy succumbs to the same cynical numbness that governs our own thoughts? will we continue to consume bieber's music when he is writing from a place of objectifying women as his career 'matures'?

is it possible that shattered idealism and maturity do not need to go hand in hand? is it possible for adults to heal and retain the same innocent wisdom of youth that is now richly rooted in a fuller expression of romantic fidelity and true love?

i think so, and i'm hoping that maybe, just maybe justin will be well guided into such a love. wouldn't it be amazing if every child pop-icon decided not to take the low road as they matured in their career's? wouldn't it be something if they learned to dig into love until it expanded far beyond romantic sentiments and into full grown fastidious love? and if these kiddie-pop icons could carry the torch of mature love, could we all begin to believe again that perfect love is possible?

many rabbi's--teacher's of the Hebrew scriptures--believe adam and eve were 15-years old when their innocent trust in perfect love was shattered by disobedience. do you think maybe those intense 15-year old feelings of 'being in love' were lost in that moment never to be so easily sustained again? or maybe just maybe those feelings adam and eve--and all of us--feel, were meant to point us back to a deeper truth...we long for perfect love. if we do, then we must guard our lives and hearts so that we can grow into fuller, more consistent and truly mature expressions of obedient, committed-to-one-person, true, perfect, pure, strong, patient, faithful love.

i pray this perfect love for you as i pray the same for justin bieber and his mentors.

(3 of 7) ways to get your music noticed

2010-01-12T12:18:00.000-08:00

3. The Agent Strategy Most bands start out promoting and representing themselves because they start out small. But it’s human nature to think more of someone when they have someone acting on their behalf. In fact, it’s been shown to be true in various psychological and sociological studies. Even if you’re just starting out, find someone to represent you and you’ll have more successes.
Having an agent is even more useful during negotiations, because they can be as tough as they want to. If you negotiate for yourself and you give the other side a particularly hard time, they might start to dislike you, rather than your agent.

john mayer songwriting clinic #1

2010-01-06T15:27:00.000-08:00

songwriter's and creatives. here's a great video from a master songwriter--john mayer--discussing the art of creating (specifically songs).

step #1: begin with the end in mind.
--define your goals
--what does success look like for you in this particular venture
--if you don't know what you want to accomplish, you'll never get there

some more pictures from AC Christmas

2010-01-04T12:49:00.001-08:00

the scrapbook i got to give my mom with help from her friends, filled with pictures, notes of love, stories and memories.
love you momma!

AC Christmas

2010-01-03T14:00:00.001-08:00

This year our family participated in our first all-AC Christmas. (AC) Advent Conspiracy is a revolution that has spread across the world (literally) which calls people who follow Christ to spend less during the holidays, give more of that saved money away to those in need, to worship fully by remembering the true story of Christmas (i.e. Christ's birth), and love everyone around us by giving relational gifts rather than material gifts.

so in the spirit of loving all, this year instead of buying my family the usual check-out items at Walgreens on the way home from church ;-) like a snuggie, some new cheap gadget or cologne they don't need...i challenged myself to get creative and come up with a gift that would truly express my love for them while simultaneously loving other folks around the world. for me this meant signing up for a trip to build fresh-water wells in El Salvador this February, and giving some of the donation money on behalf of my family in the form of a Living Water Card: Love Well, Give Wells. then, on the cards i inserted a voucher of some kind that could be redeemed at any time. for my brother it was a free movie night hanging out together (we're both movie watchers). for my sister and her husband it was a double-date night out at a restaurant they love, Olympia, in Maplewood. for my other sister, whose a fitness guru, i got a free crossfit workout with my trainer, Brandon Jackson, and he pushed us to our limit exercise-wise (which for some reason my sister thinks is fun). i gave my parents cards as well, but with them i'd put together a photo album--for my dad--full of pictures of the guitar we built together, and a scrapbook full of notes--for my mom--from my mom's friends mixed in with pictures as well.

i was shocked that to-a-person, my family was more impressed with the simple relational gifts than i can ever remember them being moved by material gifts i'd given them in the past years. it really was a special christmas, and i spent a TON less then i ever had before, and expressed far more value to my family. as a result of the experience, we've decided to start a pattern, and do it again next year as well. and AC all started--in part--in st. louis, missouri. how bout that? our town is a big small town, but it's alive and full of some incredible people, with great generosity, big ideas and huge hearts. thanks to the teams of dreamers at the Crossing in Chesterfield who've inspire all of us to live differently at Christmas...and all year long.

2 (of 7) approaches to get your music noticed

2010-01-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

from CD Baby

2. The Piggybacking Strategy
When you’re not well known, the quickest way to get the word out there is to piggyback on something that people already know about. One the best known forms of piggybacking is listing out the bands you “sound like” on your web site. This gives new listeners a clue as to what to expect by drawing on what they already know. Of course, another popular piggybacking tactic is to cover a well-known song. Often, these covers become your initial best-sellers. But they also act as a gateway. If listeners like your version, they’ll likely check out your original material.

But piggybacking on other bands or cover songs isn’t the only thing that you can piggyback on. You can piggyback on anything that already has an audience.

For example, our own band, Beatnik Turtle, wrote a song called “Star Wars (A Movie Like No Other)”. It summarized the entire original Star Wars trilogy in a single song. Around the same time, StarWars.com released a video mashup tool and so we decided to make a video for the song. The video ended up getting played over fifteen thousand times thanks to the active community at that site. That popularity led to it getting picked up by Atom.com which in turn led to it being aired on SpikeTV to celebrate the Star Wars 32nd anniversary.

Current events and popular culture provide opportunities for piggybacking as well. When a topic is hot, a large number of people will be searching for information about it. For instance, The Brobdingnagian Bards, a Celtic Renaissance musical duo, are always looking for trends to ride, so when the Monty Python musical Spamalot got popular, they posted a blog entry about Spamalot and also mentioned that they covered a Monty Python song previously. The post got a ton of hits, got them noticed by new fans, and resulted in sales.

But piggybacking isn’t always about how to get publicity. It can be for a good cause as well. Grant Baciocco of Throwing Toasters put together two compilation charity albums called Laughter Is a Powerful Weapon, with music donated by himself and many other well-known comedy artists. The money from one went to the Twin Towers orphans fund and the other went to the Red Cross for Katrina victims.

new year lifestyle change

2009-12-30T10:01:00.000-08:00

i was driving on the highway a few years back and saw a funny A-B billboard. it showed two sweaty women who'd just worked out, drinking lite beer. the slogan read "it's a lifestyle, not a resolution."

ironic that beer marketers understand true change better than i do, isn't it? every year i do a little self-assessment of where i am currently and what needs to change. however, inevitably the changes i need to make happen SO slowly because they are not persuaded by my dogged resolution. rather, i need help--something or someone--for me to make a lasting change in areas of my life. i need a new lifestyle.

that said, i don't think a lite beer is going to shift my life dramatically towards the real goals i have: daily consistency in my dealings with people, being on time or early for all scheduled appointments, saving more money towards the future, giving more boldly to those in need in the present, turning the tv off, writing more and more songs, listening to God in prayer and then doing what He tells me to do--love, love, love everyone--all the time.

what lifestyle change do you need God to help you become a reality in your life?

1 (of 7) excellent ways to get your music noticed

2009-12-16T18:30:00.000-08:00

from CD Baby

1. The Standing-Out Approach
The first thing most musicians think of when they want to promote their music is to get it reviewed by a music publication or played on the radio.

Don’t start there. Publications and media that cater solely to music are probably the hardest place to get your music noticed.

The competition for attention in music publications and sites is overwhelming. For instance, National Public Radio’s “All Songs Considered” receives 200 to 300 CDs submitted a week. Out of that, there are only eight that get featured. And those are sandwiched in between other songs, and played just once. The same is true with music reviews. Although they are good for getting quotes for your press kit, it probably won’t get you many new fans, since it’s a music review in a pile of music reviews.

Instead of focusing on music publications and media, think in terms of audiences. Put your music where it will stand out from the crowd. As an example, consider one of the biggest sellers in the early days of CDBaby.com: an album about sailing. Instead of following the crowd and sending the album to a music magazine, the band instead cleverly sent their album to a sailing magazine.

The sailing magazine, which wasn’t used to receiving music, much less an entire album dedicated to exactly what the magazine was about, ended up getting reviewed in the magazine. The band’s CD stood out. It didn’t have to compete against stacks ad stacks of other CDs to get noticed. And because the magazine had a large audience and the CD got a great review, sales shot through the roof.

This is what we call the standing-out strategy, and the great thing about it is, there is room for everyone. While your music is in a musical niche, targeting the people that like that kind of music directly, represents only one, highly competitive channel for your music. By putting your music where there usually isn’t any, your music can get noticed.

Psalm 86:11

2009-12-16T09:41:00.000-08:00

Teach me your way, O LORD,
and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.

do you ever have trouble going forward in your life? for me it's the hardest thing i've faced over the past year. it's as if a fierce wind has been blowing in my face all year, trying to push me back, slow me down, or at least neutralize any movement at all. but what makes it all harder is that i start wondering if i'm going in the right direction at all...and my thoughts get cloudy with doubt. i second guess my decisions and wonder if i'm even travelling on the right road. and then it occurs to me, that whatever road i am on, is the road i am on. i've got enough obstacles on my journey externally that i really don't need to be wrestling internally.

it's as if clarity comes in a word--undivided. once i commit myself to moving forward regardless of the internal/external wind blowing against me, i discover the way of living that has no pre-charted path because it is uniquely my own. but it is not my own in the sense that i control it's outcome...it is my own because it is the only journey created for me. all of our journies are that way...created for us. our sole purpose is to move forward living as an undivided person, walking down One unique road unmoved by fear, doubt, pride, shame, guilt, confusion, circumstance and any other wind that blows. that is the truth.

and if the truth is that i'm not proud of the road i'm currently walking down, it is also my responsibility to be convicted and set a new course. and i always know i'm on the right road, if in my heart and conscience each step i take is in reverance (fear) of Yahweh, in conversational prayer with the One who created my life uniquely to have an impact still undiscovered. "fear of God" keeps me centered because fear of anything else throws me off track. after all, whatever you fear most you become like.

CNN - advent conspiracy

2009-12-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

for the last 3 years our community at the crossing has taken part in something called 'advent conspiracy'. it's a movement greg started with a few other guys, to inspire churches around the country to approach Christmas differently by spending less, giving more away, loving all people and re-centering our worship on Jesus (and His birthday) rather than on consumerism.

this year the movement has taken on a new significance in a recession economy, and as a result, the conspiracy has spread throughout the world--literally. news media all over the country are asking, "is this thing for real?" CNN even did a piece recently which you can see here.

i'm tickled to be a part of a community of people who take their spiritual journey with God seriously, and continually connect their faith with giving to those who are most in need. as a result of this movement there are more than 200,000 people with fresh drinking water across the globe this year. to me, that's who Christ is, the One who saves the whole person...not only our soul for eternity, but our body here and now. and a church is supposed to be a community of people who are so alive with Christ's presence in their life that they cannot help but move in His footsteps and serve those He serves...everyone.

if you don't know about the conspiracy yet, check out the video below, and consider how you might make a difference, and how you might meet the One True God in the process. Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam, "Praised are You, LORD our God, King of all the universe."

my friend Randall

2009-12-03T08:28:00.000-08:00

i agree with my friend randall's blog from a few weeks ago about social networking, but this little stunt is still pretty funny.

musical tree, creative people, american idol?

2009-12-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

last weekend we opened our services of worship with this media. this incredibly creative guy got the idea to place microphones on the tree in his front yard, and record the different sounds it would produce. i'm not sure there's any sound more resonate than a human voice, but this tree certainly rocks out. it made me wonder how an american idol contestant would fare if they were competing with the tree for the judges feedback?

of course that question is completely ridiculous isn't it? i mean, we would never compare a tree's voice to a human voice...would we? i only ask because about every 3rd reality show has a "judgment" of some kind towards the end of the program, and A LOT of these shows have gotten pretty ridiculous about what's being judged, right? it's tough enough that we're watching person after person get judged for their beauty or lack thereof, but now we're judging everything from cooking, to fashion, to weight loss, to survival abilities, to scheming for power, to making money...and of course, we're judging people's singing ability.

and when i saw this video, though it reminded me of a scripture in the Psalms (which means 'sacred songs') Psalm 96:12-13, i never would have considered the verse that came after it...

12let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them.
Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy;

13they will sing before the LORD, for he comes,
he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples in his truth.

how is a tree singing for joy being used as a comparison with God's judgment of "the peoples" of the earth? quick side note: that word righteousness comes from the hebrew word tzedek, which has connotations that one day God will come and re-order the broken world we live in, and make all things right.

maybe God is coming to judge the earth in truth and righteousness because He's the only One who can. He's the only One with the 50,000 foot perspective, the only One who isn't corrupt, isn't selfish, and is wholly good. if He's the only One who created all things and if He's the only One knows the core of all that He created intimately, then doesn't He know that there's a song of praise at the core of the trees He created? what's more, doesn't He also understand whether the same song of gratitude is at the core of our own hearts?

what's interesting is that this tree's core sings for joy "before the LORD (Yahweh)" even though it appears to us that it is silent (so long as the wind isn't blowing through it ;-). but ironically, even though most of us make tons of noise, and maybe even sing in the shower or in the car at full volume--so that we're almost never like a silent tree--not all of us sing a song of worship, as if we were "before Yahweh." and these scriptures suggest that God is less interested in how well we sing or even that we sing at all, but that at the core of us is a song of thanks to Him for creating us, for pursuing us everyday, for forgiving us in His Son Yeshua, and for His coming judgment that is perfect, clean, good and will one day make all things right.

ya know what i still don't fully get? why is singing a song of worship to God so important to Him? i mean, i get why we're called to have grateful hearts. but let's say we do, what's so important about us having a song of praise to Yahweh in our core? how is that somehow singing to God "makes things right"? how is it that our singing brings God's salvation to the world?

guitar is finished!

2009-11-23T11:21:00.001-08:00

last weekend my dad brought home the finished product from our guitar-making excursion to indiana, and these guitars are beautiful. of course, my dad's is way nicer, but then again, he's had a little bit more experience with woodworking :-)

the last week, the whole experience of playing a guitar i made with my own hands has been surreal. i cannot explain how meaningful it is everytime i pick the guitar up. i'm amazed on so many levels, it's overwhelming. i got to build a guitar with my father and whenever i pick it up i think about how incredibly lucky i am to have a dad like mine. he is generous to a fault, sincere, wise, funnier than snuggies commercials, and kind--to everyone. he is a gentleman in the truest sense of the word, and there's very few people on earth left like him.

he reflects Christ in so many ways. i only hope i am half the man he is. and though he doesn't read blogs, and will probably never know this one exists, this thanksgiving, i'm eternally thankful for my dad.

advent conspiracy

2009-11-20T15:27:00.001-08:00

the fun theory

2009-11-13T15:38:00.000-08:00

have you heard of this theory? it goes something like: whatever activity people have the most fun doing, they will choose, all other things being equal. companies have known this for years, trying to make their advertisements the most fun, in order to win customers. shoot, chuckie cheese has always known this! hehe

i'm pretty sure i agree with this theory, and what i really like is the idea that people can be trained to do good things, simply by making good things fun. can you imagine if you could make eating broccoli more fun than french fries? (i mean, isn't that why we put cheese on it?!). we could all lose a few pounds this year! can you imagine what would happen if we could make giving money away to the poor more fun then spending it on the movies? we could make poverty disappear as fast as the electric toothbrush has made sweater-teeth (plaque) disappear! or we could start cleaning up the environment--like the electric car attempted to do--through alternative fun incentives to recycle.

in february, a group of 10th and 11th graders from the youth group here at the crossing are planning to have the most fun by putting on a concert for our friends. and instead of collecting the money for themselves they're giving it away to Living Water, an organization that builds clean water wells. the students are all helping out in some way. some are playing in the band, performing original music. some are making their own food and selling it. some are using their organizational skills to administrate the event, while others are using their math skills to make sure we break even. some are using their hospitality gifts to welcome people at the doors and get the word out for folks to come. some are using their design talents to make up flyers and create a colorful set-design.

erwin mcmanus says that "creativity is the natural result of spirituality." obviously, i think that's true, and i would add that 'fun is the process of creating something from nothing" (and i think that is spiritual). after all, that's what we are: something from nothing.

and the scriptures say after God created you and me, "God saw what He created, and it was good". i can just read the subtext of this as God looking at us with a smile saying to Himself "now, that was fun." :-)

what do you create from nothing, just cause it's fun?

"Who Killed the Electric Car?" EV-1

2009-11-08T15:42:00.000-08:00

about 15 years ago now, the EV-1--an electric car--was made and distributed to select
owners under the condition that at any time the cars could be recalled, no questions asked. when the calls were recalled in 2002, to an owner, everyone wanted to keep their car. the cars were obviously run on electricity, and could go for 50 miles without re-charge. the cars could be re-charged in less than 3 minutes, and the cars carried 50 gallons of gas in reserve in case the electricity ran out, and the owner needed to re-charge before they could return home (or wherever there was a specialized charger). so why aren't these cars on the road? where did they all go? who killed the electric car?

and no, it's not conspiracy-theory-monday. i've just been more and more curious about this movie "who killed the electric guitar?," since i received my latest quote for my car repair ($550+yikes!). every time i need a repair, i think about where i could cut back on other costs and gas would be an obvious one. every time i fill up, i wonder if i'm being duped by gas giants like exxon, mobile and car companies galore. couldn't someone have created a car that gets more than 35 miles per gallon without being a hybrid? or couldn't they have invented a car that runs on something cleaner and less costly than gasoline? and the answer is "yes someone did it"...in 1996 and the cars were good...until they were taken away and destroyed to be talked about no more.

this weekend greg spoke about the nasty habit of concealing the truth that exists in our culture, in our workplaces, and in our own hearts. simply put, we all lie. and just like the consequences we are seeing in our own environment from unclean air emissions--(anybody notice it's 75 degrees in st. louis in the second week of novemeber?)--we also see our own unclean hearts slowly kill us and those around us when we live for appearances rather than honestly admitting our brokenness. we're all hypocrites, no doubt i'm included, but that's not the problem. the problem is that the solution to hypocrisy, like the solution to unclean emissions, is also concealed. it's simple, the electric car for us is honesty. so why is it so hard for us to admit that we are unclean, broken, full of lies, full of jealous competitiveness, ripe with hatred towards someone like our boss or that person who stabbed us in the back or that neighbor who doesn't do things the way we do? our struggle chokes us because we can't fix ourselves, we can't stop doing the things we don't want to do, and even those who have tremendous will-power end up doing the thing they don't want to do by becoming arrogant and self-righteous.

if the solution is honesty, we can own the truth "i'm the mess, and i can't be fixed on my own." then maybe we can try out a new vehicle that runs on blood red, amazing grace, the clean energy that is poured out for us in Yeshua, Messiah, the Passover Lamb, the Christ, God-in-skin. why is it that we suppress His fuel for us, a relationship with God? why would we rather try to fix ourselves than accept that we are broken-beyond repair, but forgiven for a new life walking beside Him? who continues to kill this Jesus, concealing His pure love from our hearts?

personality testing

2009-11-02T16:21:00.000-08:00

found this really cool site through our leadership pastor, and wanted to pass it on. there's tons of great tests here to find out more about how you're wired. i just took one called the Cattell 16 Factor Test. and the weekend is here!

Cattell 16 Factor Test Results

Warmth	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	82%
Intellect	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Emotional Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	86%
Aggressiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	78%
Liveliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	82%
Dutifulness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Social Assertiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Sensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|	18%
Abstractness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	42%
Introversion	\|\|\|	10%
Anxiety	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	26%
Openmindedness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	58%
Independence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	38%
Perfectionism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	42%
Tension	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	34%

Hulk Hogan

2009-11-02T09:04:00.000-08:00

i used to watch WWF (now WWE) wrestling every sunday as a kid. mom took us to church and i usually couldn't wait to get out of there. of course mom would stay to go to "big church" but as soon as sunday-school was over, i bolted on my roller-blades and usually got home just in time to make myself a PB&J sandwhich with milk and sit in front of one of the great entertainers of all time. sure, the Undertaker, Brutas the Barber-Beefcake, Randy Macho Man Savage, and the Ultimate Warrior all had better finishing moves, but no one could get a crowd more revved up than Hulk Hogan.

and yesterday, my lucky sister got to meet the Hulkster at KMOX!

a glass and a half full

2009-11-01T21:25:00.000-08:00

may your week be a glass and a half full. :-)

Bruce!

2009-10-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

update on Bruce:

Bruce's surgery to remove the tumor on his vocal chord went very well. your prayers were heard loud and clear, and the tumor is benign!!! Bruce is at home resting his voice, and spending time with his family. as some of you know, Bruce is the larger than life singer that leads worship here at the crossing, and he means a ton to this community. if you're up for it, please continue to pray for Bruce over the coming month to 6-weeks. he needs to rest his voice (i.e. not speak at all) for that time period, so that his vocal chord can repair...and if all things go well his voice will be as good as new!

thank you to all of you who prayed for Bruce.

quote of the week

2009-10-26T21:29:00.001-07:00

"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

psalm 13

2009-10-26T20:59:00.001-07:00

i'm in a really good place lately. God has been pouring health into my whole body through simple habits like eating well, going to sleep and getting up in a timely fashion, getting exercise, and spending time with Him. that said, i will never forget how difficult it is to find--and keep--a grace rhythm for my life. it's a dog-fight to keep up with my own life, and still maintain joy, peace, patience, kindness, and love for others. sometimes it seems like i go days without having a heart conversation with someone, and really listening to their fears, needs, hopes and hurts. i don't like missing out on life because i'm so busy doing the next thing, but i'm realizing more and more the struggle to be present for your own life is a part of figuring out the rhythm of grace--a moment by moment awareness that all of life is a gift that is felt only when we acknowledge the giver with gratitude.

i'm working on a new song that tries to capture this struggle. it's really not an original as most of it comes right out of King David's psalm 13. but, it is what my heart wants to sing more and more of, the equal recognition of my own daily frustrations mixed with the assurance of God's salvation that comes through the suffering servant--Christ alone.

Verse 1:
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?
and everyday, have sorrow in my heart

Pre-Chorus:
but I will trust in Your unfailing love
I resolve to sing my praise to God

Chorus 1:
You are good, Your mercy endures in darkness
While I wait, I’ll sing of Your salvation, oh God

Verse 2:
How long will You forget me, O LORD?
and everyday, hide Your face behind the sun

Pre-Chorus:
but I will trust in Your unfailing love
I resolve to sing my praise to God

Chorus 2:
You are good, Your mercy endures in darkness
while I wait, I’ll sing of Your salvation
You answer me, before I have finished calling
While I pray, You come with Your salvation

random thoughts for those who ponder God - #2

2009-10-21T15:28:00.000-07:00

like the person you tried to serve, love, woo, help, comfort, compliment, and otherwise pursue to no avail. this is the sadness God feels towards those who reject Him. when we love the non-responsive crush or try and serve the ungrateful spouse, or simply attempt to encourage the unruly child or coworker, we often discover that they are more interested in themselves then they are in receiving, noticing and internalizing our pursuit as a gift of love. and in this, the pursuer experiences a piece of the heart of God.

the difference is that when we reach out to love and find ourselves rejected, we are sad because we have lost something: the simple gratitude of the one receiving the gift. but, when God reaches out and we reject Him, He is sad--not because He has lost something--but because we have lost something: the fullness of an eternal relationship with Him.

to experience rejection in whatever relationship then, is an opportunity to humbly break before God and feel His hurt. and if we are willing, in these sad times we can become even more vulnerable and experience the gentle healing of knowing that only God will never reject us...and it has always been He who has comforted us, pursued us, served us, wooed us and loved us.

i am not capable of giving love over and over again without return. only God can love like that, and in that, He is matchless.

creativity spirituality funny

brett allen, tidewater, "not just any love"

KICKSTARTING KREATIVITY

here with us (live)

my personal mix

Friends

air piano

Pomplamoose: Creativity: Love: Relationships: Commitment

Investors Beware

Soulargy

F.E.A.R. and Love

You may need to grow up if ...

the Art of Improv

back from vacation...ready for reality

vacation movies

same old song

marriage reflections

Wisdom for Parents, Teachers, Owners...& for those like me who sometimes get grumpy

Billboard Music Awards - Beyonce' Performance

quotes to consider

4-chords and a slightly different melody

note to God

Osama, Obama & the Gospel

How Great Thou Art

easter is coming...

the Webby Awards

who are you and where are you going?

it's Friday (almost)

heaven and hell, rob bell and love wins

non-musican's music

wisdom & wind

elizabeth gilbert - eat, love, pray

21,000,000 youtube hits

10,000 Talents - Jordan McCabe

How to Feel Alive - Jane Herman

Joyful or Judgmental: Which Describes You Best?

12 ways to become more creative

the drop 2010 - new music for YOU

iChristmas

the writing on the wall

Virtual Choir - Christmas Eve

the LORD's Prayer

Life, Loss, Love...Longing

owl city blog entry

i don't love you

dunlap disease

funk busters

doom clouds

beautiful day

love is on the move

have you seen - jacki evancho?

phil wickham

things fall apart part 2

things fall apart

Thank You

will stern - you are holy

a few brief minutes

what's most important to you?

Ghosting- my new favorite sport :-)

Robot Priest Marries Japanese Couple

Wide Open - Summer 2010!!

producer steve lillywhite

Lay 'Em Down - Live @ the Crossing (loft)

Self-Motivation & Self-Destruction

Mr. Crowder's Fantastical Advertising

sunday's coming cynicism?

Insecurity

BiC Pen Art

Slugs and Bugs

If you're looking for a great family + kids event, Slugs and Bugs Live w/ a friend of mine, Randall Goodgame, is coming up next Friday Night April 16th@ Grace Community Chapel. www.slugsandbugs.com. Tickets just $10 per family.call 636.577.4523 for sales.

refreshing redemption

He'll Take Care of the Rest - Keith Green

good morning

fun theory 3

the fun theory part 2

El Salvador

Tonight 7pm!!

Tonight!!Haiti Prayer & Worship Night - Grace Church 7pmhttp://www.gracestl.org/directions- all donations go to compassion int'lhttp://www.gracestl.org/Haitiprayer

Haiti Prayer & Worship Concert - Friday night 7pm

jimmy kimmel on jay leno

If you're looking for a great family + kids event, Slugs and Bugs Live w/ a friend of mine, Randall Goodgame, is coming up next Friday Night April 16th@ Grace Community Chapel. www.slugsandbugs.com. Tickets just $10 per family.
call 636.577.4523 for sales.

Tonight!!
Haiti Prayer & Worship Night - Grace Church 7pm
http://www.gracestl.org/directions

- all donations go to compassion int'l

http://www.gracestl.org/Haitiprayer