Welcome! Thanks for checking out my blog about music, worship, and trying to join God in his work to restore the world. I'm excited to share some ideas – in both directions. Let the conversation begin. . .
My new friend Sean Gladding recently sat down with Seedbed and told a story from last Easter that made me cry. It’s such a simple but intense image of God’s redemption of us all…
By the way, we’re basing much of this year’s Easter service at Willow on Sean’s book “The Story of God the Story of Us“. It’s definitely worth the read.
Last week, a number of peace-pursuing Christians gathered in Bethlehem for the Christ at the Checkpoint conference. My mother-in-law spoke, along with a handful of our friends, and I must admit to a slight bit of jealousy as I sat home and followed via twitter. (And by “slight” I mean “humongous”!!!)
One of the participants was Shane Claiborne. There are very few Christ-followers that I respect more than Shane, so I couldn’t wait to hear his response. Here are a few of his reflections…
Shane Claiborne on his week in the Holy Land from Christ at the Checkpoint on Vimeo.
If you want to hear more, check out Shane’s thoughts about the conference HERE. He also shares the Christ at the Checkpoint manifesto, which is profoundly inspiring. This is really worth reading.
May we all become peacemakers in deeper, wider, and more concrete ways today.
Hey everyone!
For the last couple months, we’ve been hard at work on A New Liturgy No 3: Lord Have Mercy. I won’t tell you too much and ruin the surprise, but this may be the most raw, sparse, dark, and hopefully spacious New Liturgy yet. It’s a 25 minute journey that honestly wades into the depth of our sin, helping us admit our need and cry out “Lord, have mercy!” Even the process of recording it has been moving to me, and I can’t wait to see how God uses it to create that sacred, uncomfortable, beautiful space where Redemption is near and Holy Possibility is thick in the air.
Next week is a big recording week, and then I hope to finish by the end of the month…and make it (and a few other surprises) available in mid April.
MANY THANKS to everyone who has been interested and supportive of this project. It’s been deeply moving to hear how you’ve connected to God through the first two Liturgies, and I can’t wait to see how this continues to morph and unfold. Thanks for being a part of the journey. Blessings to you all!
tracking piano
the chapel
My friend Ian once mentioned “Do you know how to discover your real pain? Quit your addictions.” Which, in my experience, is a great way to talk about Lent. During this holy season, we are invited to give up some of our usual tricks that distract and medicate us from the deepest parts of ourselves, and invite God into this terrifyingly honest space. I don’t know about you, but I am highly skilled at avoiding my actual self, and so this season of Lent has been particularly intense and difficult for me.
Thankfully, spiritual teachers like Father Rohr have walked these paths ahead of us and are willing to share some of their humble experience. I can’t tell you how much I needed to read these words this weekend…
“Face the shadow side of yourself, but do not identify with it. It represents only part of who you are. Totally identifying with the shadow leads to much evil in the world. If you live there, you will be driven and motivated by fear, guilt, shame, and even malice. So there is a difference between relating to the denied parts of yourself (bringing light to them), and totally “acting them out” (which is to leave them in their unconscious and dark state). This is why it is so foundational to know yourself, and to learn to be honest about your real motivations.
When we meet our shadow self, our response should not be anger or surprise as much as sadness. I am sure this is what so many of our saints meant by “weeping over their sins,” which to most of us seemed a bit dramatic—or impossible. We can experience days of deep sorrow after encountering what we’ve denied in ourselves for a long time. We get a glimpse of how broken and needy we are. It is a huge humiliation to the ego, and so most people just refuse to do much shadowboxing.
The hero in us wants to attack, fix, or deny the existence of our dark side. We can
also be tempted to share dramatically everything about it as a way to control it (sometimes called ventilating or dumping). The saint merely weeps over the
shadow and forgives it—and by God’s grace forgives herself for being a mere human. She opens her arms to that which has been in exile and welcomes it home for the friend that it often is.”Fr Richard Rohr
This is a fascinating perspective from David Byrne about how we all create music for the venue it will be played in. Does this make it less authentic? Has this pattern diminished the art or merely redirected it? Well worth the 16 minutes…
one of the response stations
Last summer I had the opportunity to join up with an inspiring and forward-looking student conference called “Merge“. It was brilliant and I’ve never seen anything like it. Most youth conferences ultimately have their faith in the programs: a gifted speaker, a killer band, and fun team-building activities. These are all great things that can do a ton of good. But the leadership of Merge places their faith in the students: giving them space, permission, and hands-on tools to engage The Story as God engages them. Instead of lectures, they facilitate open dialogue. Instead of booking performing artists, they provide art stations.
Most conferences invite students to observe and react, but Merge empowers every single student to co-create.
It’s a beautiful thing. And I have to wonder if this is what conferences will look like in the future.
If you, your kid, or your church has a high school ministry that is looking to help create a deep and profound experience together, I highly recommend Merge 2012: July 23-28 in Elgin, IL. Details and sign up at MERGEEXPERIENCE.COM.
Andy Kaufman has long been one of my favorite comedians. Half brilliant, half legitimately crazy…but always living in that strange place where comedy overlaps discomfort. Way way ahead of his time. These 8 minutes capture it all…
Ever since my season in Grand Rapids, I’ve been a big fan of Ed Dobson. Unfortunately, I never got to know him well, but his influence over so many of my friends at Mars Hill is huge, and I always LOVED when he came to teach.
About 11 years ago, Ed was diagnosed with ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) and given 3 to 5 years to live. This horrifying news launched him onto a spiritual journey that has been nothing short of miraculous. Heartbreaking in ways, but profoundly inspiring.
The artists at Flannel (creators of the Nooma videos) have been capturing Ed’s journey in a series of films called Ed’s Story. If you’re not familiar with them, please stop what you’re doing right now and watch HERE. Shauna and I saw the first three last week and can’t stop talking about them. So beautiful.
Also, today, CNN posted a great piece about Ed and the films. You can read it HERE. And if you find this as inspiring as I do, please do whatever you can to share the films and the journey. This is story worth telling!
Glenn Packiam’s blog is quickly becoming one of my favorites. He’s raising great questions about worship and the church in a wise and always gracious way…sharing his journey and inviting the rest of us into these conversations.
Over the weekend, he posted some fantastic thoughts called “What Does the Visual Layout of our Worship Service Say?” Definitely worth checking out.
But the blog Glenn wrote yesterday killed me. Using St Francis as an example, he suggests: We will never gain the right to change the Church if we are content to criticize it. This idea stops me in my tracks. I know plenty of people who are just fine with maintaining the church exactly as it is, and I know plenty of people who would like to bulldoze the whole thing and build something else. But I know very few people who are willing to take the path of St Francis. And I’m not sure if I am…honestly…
If you are a part of a church – especially if you work at one! – definitely take a moment to read this: The Saint That Almost Never Was. I’m still wrestling with it myself and would love to hear your thoughts!
Glenn Packiam
Capital Building
I spent the last three days in DC with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders from all over the world who are absolutely committed to a just peace in Israel and Palestine. We told stories, shared experiences, heard from experts, had a briefing at the White House conference room, met with 7 members of Congress on Capital Hill, watched films, and committed ourselves to do whatever we can to be agents of peace. It was overwhelming, often depressing, sometimes heart-breaking, but ultimately invigorating. By the end of the week, our rallying cry became very clear:
We are pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, pro-American, and pro-peace.
And this is more than just pie-in-the-sky idealism. In fact, here are three reasons that being pro-Israel, pro-Palestine seems right to me…
(1) Pragmatics. The evidence on the ground suggests and nearly every expert agrees that the two-state solution is the only solution. It will either work for both sides or neither. So the common approach of supporting one side while demonizing the other is specifically not helpful. In the words of Fr Elias Chacour, if we become “one-sided” we are simply “investing ourselves in the conflict.”
(2) Facts. The only way to be one-sided is to ignore half the story. Both sides have blood on their hands and both sides have taken steps toward peace. An honest person cannot reduce this conflict to “good guys vs. bad guys.”
(3) Faith. I believe that every single person on earth has been created in the image of God. We each have a fundamental dignity that must be protected and honored. And further, as a follower of Jesus, I am called to be a peace-maker. I am called to bless and pray for my enemies. I am called into the “ministry of reconciliation.”
Please join me. Please join us!
If you have always been pro-Israel, then great! Remain a strong friend of Israel. But please learn the Palestinian story. Open your heart to what life is like for them under Israeli occupation, and try to put yourself in their place. A great place to begin is by reading the wonderful memoir “Blood Brothers” by Elias Chacour. You will never be the same.
And if you have always been pro-Palestine, then great! Remain a strong friend of Palestine. But please learn the painful and beautiful history of the Jewish people, and compassionately put yourselves into their place. An important place to begin is by visiting a Holocaust museum. I’ve been to Yad Vashem, and each visit shook me to my core. We can’t understand the present without understanding and honoring the past. HERE is a list of all the museum/memorials in the U.S.
on the wall in Bethlehem
This Sunday I had the huge joy and honor of joining the Mars Hill worship team for the day. I love serving with these guys (Dustin, Ethan, Jordan, Bob, Marie, and Alan), and it’s always fun to be a part of a Sunday at Mars. But as much as I enjoyed the musical liturgy, the highlight was the message.
Shane Hipps preached the story in Acts of Peter being freed from prison. It was simple, brilliant, and exactly what I needed to hear. Exactly! Here are the movements he guided us through…
(1) Every one of us are in prison. We are all addicts. Whether alcohol or work or money or exercise or approval or greed, we all have something that controls us.
(2) Our prisons are self-made. Every addiction begins with a choice. Our choice.
(3) Once in the prison, we spend much of our time looking out the window and blaming outside forces for keeping us locked in our homemade cell. “If only the economy hadn’t…” “If only she would stop…” “If only he would finally…”
Shane: “But if you are sitting in this jail, waiting for an Angel to rescue you, I have good news:
The angel has already come. Jesus is already here…inviting you to get up and leave the prison.”
We all began building our prison with one small choice, and we can begin following Jesus out of the prison with one small choice. Right now! Shane then finished with an illustration from nature that took my breath away.
Obviously, I’m not doing justice to this sermon, but I HAD to share what was so deeply moving (and challenging) to me. If you want to hear the whole thing, head over to Mars Hill and download the podcast. Also, I highly recommend checking out Shane Hipps books and website HERE.
What about you? Does this idea of building our own prisons and then blaming the outside for keeping us in connect with you? What has helped you join Jesus in walking out of the prison? Certain practices, books, relationships, ideas, etc?
Fr Rohr
The spiritual teacher who has shaped me most in the last few years is Father Richard Rohr. His books have been a lifeline to a living, mysterious, non-dual reality that has been largely missing from my faith. Evangelical Christianity has many wonderful strengths that have shaped me profoundly, but it also has some profound blind spots. And for some reason, this Franciscan Mystic has opened my eyes to a wider and deeper experience of my Christian faith. I’m deeply, profoundly thankful for Fr Richard and his work.
If you’re interested in learning more, might I recommend a couple ways…
(1) Sign up for his Daily Meditation Email. I can’t tell you how important and helpful it’s been to have a short thought from Fr Rohr show up in my email list every day. In the middle of all my work craziness, I just pause and read his words, re-center, pray for a moment, and then dive back into work with a new groundedness. Such a gift!
(2) Read his books. My three favorites are “Falling Upward”, “Everything Belongs”, and “The Naked Now”. His books aren’t very long, but read them slowly and let the teaching sink deeply in.
(3) His blog, etc. You can visit his new blog Here, follow on Twitter Here, and visit his Facebook page Here.
Finally, I’ll leave you with yesterday’s “Daily Meditation”…
LIVING A WHOLE LIFE
How does one transition from the survival dance to the sacred dance? Let me tell you how it starts. Did you know the first half of life has to fail you? In fact, if you do not recognize an eventual and necessary dissatisfaction (in the form of sadness, restlessness, emptiness, intellectual conflict, spiritual boredom, even loss of faith, etc.), you will not move on to maturity. You see, faith really is about moving outside your comfort zone, trusting God’s lead, instead of just forever shoring up home base. Too often early religious “conditioning” largely substitutes for any real faith.
Usually, without growth being forced on us, few of us go willingly on the spiritual journey. Why would we? The rug has to be pulled out from beneath our game, so we redefine what balance really is. More than anything else, this falling/rising cycle is what moves us into the second half of our own lives. There is a “necessary suffering” to human life, and if we avoid its cycles we remain immature forever. It can take the form of failed relationships, facing our own shadow self, conflicts and contradictions, disappointments, moral lapses, or depression in any number of forms.
All of these have the potential to either edge us forward in life or to dig in our heels even deeper, producing narcissistic and adolescent responses that everybody can see except ourselves. We either “fall upward,” or we just keep falling.
(Adapted from Loving the Two Halves of Life: The Further Journey)
This weekend at Willow, my friends Becky Johnson and Sharon Irving created something to help us prepare for communion. It was absolutely breathtaking, so I wanted to share it with you. (About half way through, the video goes live.) Enjoy!
You can read about the whole service at Willow’s worship blog: beyondsinging.willowcreek.org
Imago
[01.30.12] Mark Novelli. Mark is the owner of Imago media, which partners with churches, conferences, and organizations to “dream of new ways to integrate community, mission, story, image, experience, and interactivity into the way you gather.”
I’ve known and served with Mark for years, but this summer I got to partner with him and his team for a “youth conference” like I’ve never seen. These guys are pushing the edge of what’s possible in interactive, collaborative learning…and I left really inspired and stretched.
Imago is not simply trying to make the old thing a little more hip, but they are asking the core questions and exploring new ways of answering them. Many thanks to Mark for finishing up this blog tour!