Learning a new Language of Worship

I grew up in a conservative church where hymns and choruses were the normal Sunday morning fare. I can remember in Jr High and High school that often I would feel God in a special way throughout the service in the singing and later in the sermon.

As an adult I have a much harder time.

I have to admit, singing, is seldom my language of worship.

I mean think about it... I love my wife... But I do not usually express my love to her by singing... even more to the point... singing songs that were written by someone else and the arranged and chosen by yet another person...

I Think that would not be the greatest way to tell her I love her...

Admittedly it is different in corporate worship... we are all telling God together that we love him...

And yet... I wonder is if it time to reopen the issue of corporate worship... is there maybe a better way to engage our passion for God that always relying on singing....

I love singing... I love music... I love God...

yet for some reason these are not connecting very much in my life right now....

Thoughts?



Pic is from a conference where they let us draw with crayons during worship... I am a big fan

Per Your Request.

Many people have been kind enough to inquire as to how difficult it is for me to lack hair.

I am often greeted by laughter when I tell them that it doesnt feel any different because people used to make fun of the incredible amount of hair that I had...


I was made fun of in grade school and middle school and high school because I had so much hair...


SO in college I had the perfect balance...


Then by the time I was 22 it was obvious that I was going to look like my dad...

Yes... I have heard repeatedly that my hair has to come from my mother because of genetic rules...

However... my mothers side has lots of hair... my grandpa on my mom's side died at 93 with a very lovely head of hair....

Yet... not so much for me and my brothers...


HOWEVER... fear not...

I do not need special shampoo... or drugs... or plugs... or surgery... or implants... or weaves... or chia hair...

to be honest I feel fine... even without hair...

A Christmas Carol

Today Emily's family took us to see A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at the Pabst theatre. It was really awesome. We sat in the highest section, but that only made it even better. It plays through December 24th, so you should go see it.

For me what really stood out was the journey of redemption that Scrooge goes on.

When the play starts Scrooge has gained the whole world but has lost his soul. His is wealthy but empty and lonely.

Through his encounters with the ghosts and shadows of Christmas past, present, and future, Scrouge is forced to really look at himself and the consequences of his choices in life. It is so painful for him, but the pain is his salvation.

All to often, we want to skip pain, and so we try to forget our mistakes and regrets. When we do, we suffer a greater loss than we know. Only through painful reflection on what our mistakes have truly cost, can we really understand how precious that life is.

Our pain helps us to grow in ways it alone can.

Images taken from www.milwaukeerep.com

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More

All man's efforts are for his mouth, yet his appetite is never satisfied.
~ Ecclesiastes 6:7

*I always want a little more that I have...
to spend more than I make....
to eat more than I need...
to consume more than is healthy...
to do a little more than I can...
to make a little more than I do...
When I give in to the desire for more it leaves me empty....
... Leveraging all of my resources to gain more depletes my reserves and my resources...
...By not holding back, I end up worse than empty... chained by a variety of financial, relational and heath debts that must eventually be paid.

On the other hand, the Bible challenges us to live on a little less than we have.
...To save for a rainy day...
...to have margin so that we can help others...
...to have space in our life to love...

The Bible says that our fullness comes from something other than what we have...

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ,
~Colossians 2:9-10





Clay Guy images are captures from a movie called MORE. It is my favorite short film ever.

Watch MORE now?!?

A little piece of Heaven...

A little piece of Heaven is touching down in Wauwautosa.

SteakNShake!!!!

I can't wait. I am going to start going every morning at 3:50am... just because i can.



Only problem is that Tosa is not going to let them be open 24/7... Bummer.

Politicians Win the Midterm!

I hate politics. This is wierd, because in High school I was an unoffical Jr Republican. I thought the Republicans totally rocked... especially Ronald Reagan, who was my hero. He was an awesome guy.
However, as I have grown older and more mature in my faith, I am no longer a Republican (I am not a Democrat either). I am a Christ follower, and I have learned that the Kingdom of heaven cannot be forced on people by politcal power, or any power for that matter. The Kingdom is invisible, and comes through people who choose to "elect" Christ as master, and embrace his values as their own. It advances when we life like and love like Jesus... it spreads like a contagious disease... people catch it by contact with other "infected" Christians whose supernatural love and grace is subversive.
The Onion is not a Christian, or wholesome newspaper, but this headline really connected with me.

Ordinary Heroes

The world isn't changed by "super" people. It is changed by millions of ordinary people choosing to live their lives in better ways. That is why each one of us is so important. Our choices are the fabric of our society.
Especially for Christians, although it seems like we are often struck with "hero" worship, the idea of a "Super Hero" celebrity do gooder is not the ideal. They never live up to their billings, as the news has testified to this week. Rather, good doing is best handled by a million ordinary Christians who are living filled with the extraodinary power and love of their EXTRAODINARY God.
Everywhere they go, they carry with the God Spirit, and thus all of His power and love. Ordinary heroes recognize that the "Day is Saved" not by muscles or smarts, but by a willingness to engage difficult situations through the power and love of Christ living in them.
The world needs more Ordinary Heroes.



Picture: Awesome students from Elmbrook!!! It is the front of the winter retreat brochure.

Introducing "Omnilocational Personhood 1.0" (beta)

Due to the marvels of modern technology, we are no longer bound by our location.

I can physically be in class and be texting with a friend in another part of the world and be surfing the internet and IMing another friend across the country and watching streaming video from YouTube or Google and checking sports score or stock market progress and reading world healines and listening secretly to my iPod shuffle and drawing cartoons in my journal and blogging and playing solitaire and finishing my message for the weekend and finishup a publication in photoshop.

Heck, I could even do all this, and take notes the same time, while listening to my iPod secretly. I can be all over the world all of the time... and yet, I wonder if I still have the ability to ever be in just one place at one time? Can I ever truly be fully present?
Here is the struggle I see. If I am strung out all across the world by way of the miraculous technological superhighway, where am I really? Where is my emotional center? Where is my integrity? Where is my personhood? Can I really handle being "omnipresent?" How does this "omnilocational personhood" affect me long term and in which of those locations does my soul reside?

According to Christian belief, God is already in each place I arrive at, and yet, being so distracted, I wonder if I can really be enough present in any one place to experience him...

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
~Psalm 23:4

The pictures are ones that I took in Yellowstone National park. While it is incredibly cheesy, it was meaningful to me, that when I slowed down, I noticed that their was a heart shape in the rock. It occured to me that even if it is only my imagination creating it, that God knew I would see it, and he was aware that it would effect me in 2006. It is amazing to think how he worked in order for that moment to be perfect for me.

Evanescence Rocks!

A week ago I went to the Evanescence concert in the Eagle's Ballroom at the Rave. They were awesome! Amy Lee has an incredible voice, and was on pitch all night. I have heard people claim that their CD's are super overdubbed and that she can't sing, but she can. Her voice makes the band.
I first became interested in Evanescence shortly after the release of Fallen, their first cd. While there is lots of good Christian music, I often feel like it lack raw passion. Raw passion is not safe, and so the evangelical church has deleted it from everything that we do. What I find most sad about this, is that Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Job, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Jeremiah, Malachi, and many more books in the Bible are completely full of raw, unprocessed passion. What is felt in the soul is not always safe, and there must be a place for these raw feelings to escape. I am not calling Evanescence a worship band. They are not even a Christian band. Even so, the church has much to learn from them about passion.

Overload...

Life is crazy right now.

Greek and Hebrew classes are hard enough, but things are going full steam with the Middle school stuff as well.

Even though it is crazy, I love my job. It is so awesome to have an opportunity to influence the lives of Students. It is really cool to think of creative ways to communicate the love of God to them. This week we are doing our first "Lock-in" in a long time. I am really pumped ahout it.

I am a little nervous about how I am going to get my Hebrew paper due next week done on time. School is so demanding.

I am so ready to be done with doing school full time.

Forgiveness: Grace or Goodness?

Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector's booth. "Follow me and be my disciple," Jesus said to him. So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.
Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi's fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them. But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus' disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with such scum?"
 Jesus answered them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent."
~Luke 5:27-32

It is shameful that Christians (including me) try to present themselves as better than the "sinners" of the world. Every time that we do it, we are caught in our own hypocracy. We are no better than anyone else; we are no more "good". As Jesus himself said, no one is good except God alone. This is proven over and over. Christians are not better than any other sinner in the world.

What sets us apart is that we are sinners who have found grace. As dirty and shameful as we are at times, God loves us and looks on us with grace when we come to him in faith. It is a gift that we do not deserve... ever...

"Christianity is like one beggar telling another beggar where to find Bread" ~Vance Havner (famous southern pastor)

Love & 24

I love 24... not the TV show...
-My newfound affection is focused once again on an apple product... their new 24inch iMac.
This will come as no surprise to most of you, who already know about my obsession with the world of mac... but here is the issue... I have so many computers already that I can't figure out what I would do with it. I sorta wish it came with a battery... I could call it my 500gig iPod Jumbo... then at least it would fill some new function in my life.
Here is the other thing... I am sorta afraid to buy it (which I can't do anyway because I have no money) because every time I buy an Apple product, a week later they come out with something so cool that I hate whatever obsolete worthless piece of Apple that I bought...
Ok... that is an exaggeration... I still love my iMac and powerbook... they are just so 2005.

Brandons everywhere....

I had the opportunity to be led in worship by Brandon Grissom at two conferences this summer. In addition to having a cool name, he is also an awesome songwriter. Check out his tunes.

http://www.purevolume.com/brandongrissom

Wind and Hail

A few weeks ago, while driving to Hibbing Minnesota, I was caught in the worst storm I have ever seen. We drove under a cloud that was do dark it felt like night, and I mentioned to Emily that I thought it was a tornado waiting to happen. Just after I thought we had made it out from under the dangerous cloud, it started to hail... and I mean really hail. Luckily, there was an overpass right where we were so we quickly drove under it... for a few minutes we watched in awe as the hail fell like a blizzard.

In our safe spot under the overpass I remember telling Emily to keep her seatbelt on, because we might get hit by another car trying to find safety...

It was frightening... but then it got worse... much much much worse.

No hail was hitting our car where we were parked, but then it started blowing under the overpass completely horizontal. I saw the trees bend over sideways before a wall of rain and water and wind began slamming into the front of our car.

I closed the visor that covers the sun roof... I was pretty sure that the window was going to break. As wind violently shook the car, I realized we were directly under more than a hail storm... and only an overpass was seperating us... What can you do... I just prayed that the Storm and Wind would not break completely through the window.


After about ten minutes, it slowed down. The entire freeway was covered in hail...tons of it...

A woman got out of her Suburban truck parked next to us and walked toward our car... she was shaking... I made her sit in our car... Her front window was shattered she kept saying... She said... "I just kept praying that it wouldnt suck me up..."

She sobbed in our car.

It made me think. We forget how awesome the world is. We forget how small we are. We are powerless against the fury of a tornado... or a thousand other "acts of God." and nature.

Powerless. Yet not without hope.

The power of the storm, is nothing compared to the power of the one who made all of this.
It made me glad that I would never have to face his fury because of the hope that he has provided for us.

Mood Swings

I hate school. I know I am not supposed to... that I am supposed to celebrate how blessed i am to learn and to study theology, but I don't love it... and I am really struggling to be thankful even though i know i should be. I love learning, and I love that I now know about Hebrew and Greek. But I hate the authoritarian structure of school where learning is controled by power structures and systems. Considering how much there is to know about the universe, much less God, aren't we all really learning together? Does a teacher or an institution own the truth they are purveying?
Especially in Christian circles, I think we would do well to cease being and creating experts, and to focus instead on creating communities of seekers who are seeking God together. As the book of Hebrews says,

"And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely SEEK him." Hebrews 11:6 (NLT)

Ok, so I struggle with anger over school... I guess I am still thankful that even this fallen expression which i really dislike, is better than nothing. It is better than not having a place to learn about God at a higher level. I am thankful for how the knowlege of God that I have found has helped me to be more effective in my search for him. Learning about him is worth the struggle...



PIC: http://pradamama.pansitan.net/hello/212/1555/640/School%20Bus%20Lance.jpg

The Gathering & Letting go of the past...

I was thinking lately about how much I miss the Gathering...
The Gathering was a community of young adults that I used to be part of, but which no longer exists...

I do not miss the program... or the building we held is in, but I really miss the community of people that came.

They were in many ways the closest circle of friends I ever had.

For a season, the amazing people who made up the Gathering were so interwoven in my life, and now I only run into one of them in passing, or once in a great while.

It is really sad... but I guess unavoidable...

the lives that twenty somethings live is so unstable... with college, jobs, relationships, marriage, babies, & more causing great upheavals and moves.


Regardless, I miss the community that I was a part of... it is almost like lost family members.



I miss:

Cookouts,

Camping,

House worships,

Nuemann's Cabin,

Xtreme Worships,

Winter retreats,

the $10 retreat series,

Tuesday nights,

Ministry Team Retreats,

Game nights,

Superbowl Parties,

New Years Experiments,

Star Wars openings,

Worship Practice,

Ministry Team meetings,

Trips to My Parents house,

Burning down chicken coops,

& all the other activities where I was part of the Gathering Community...


I believe that the Glory days of the past are not the only Glory to be had in my life... They cannot be regained... they are over...and I have had to let go of them in order to move forward... BUT. There are new Glory days that are yet to be revealed... And I am living in them now...

Babies are cool....

Ainzley continues to amaze.... she keeps getting cuter. Maybe Emily and I will have one some day...

Progress

... So my stairs are safe finally... no more richoty temporary treds... Now I just have to tile, and the last major project is done... well except for the laundry room and kitchen... but those don't count...

Francis and Her Bone

My Dog is ferocious. Francis gets really jealous of her Cousin Chewy. Chewy belongs to Cory and Vicky, and she is a bigger dog so she gets bigger treats and bones. Francis loves to steal Chewy's bones so much that Cory and Vicky always give Francis her own when we visit...

I suppose that there is some spiritual application here... but I can't really figure it out... I just wanted to share the pic.

Trip to the Rock... with 60+ Middle schoolers!

I am now done with my final summer trip... It is awesome to be done. This trip was awesome... we camped by Lake Superior for a night and got to jump off 20 foot cliffs into a river. I loved it. I really loved all of the trips and enjoyed getting to know students and leaders in the ministry better. I think that I actually learned a few students names! That is really important and really hard when there are hundreds of students.
I talked about Elijah with the students from 1st and 2nd Kings. I think that many people have believed the lie that the Old Testement is a boring book... but there are so many awesome stories in it. They point out how Man drifts away from following God and must be reminded of how real and great God is. I need that reminder too...

... Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed,

"O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
Prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant.
Prove that I have done all this at your command.
O LORD, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you,
O LORD, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself."

38 Immediately the fire of the LORD flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench! And when all the people saw it, they fell face down on the ground and cried out,

"The LORD—he is God! Yes, the LORD is God!"


1 Kings 18:36