The Human Dilemma

“There is nowhere to run, there is nowhere to hide, there is no escaping ourselves.  The human dilemma must be experienced.” - Jeff Obafemi Carr

It's a beautiful summary of the secular paradigm.  One that, even though I am a devout Christian, I deeply resonate with and appreciate.  The Christians I grew up with believed that the human dilemma was entirely escapable because God was all about plucking us out of hard times. These people ended up very disappointed when they were divorced or suffered from sickness or by obesity or some other malady that plagues the mortal.  God didn't perform the plucking he was supposed to.

Even though I like it, the above quote is not accurate to the reality that I find myself in. I do sense the existence of a parallel universe of sorts that has interacted with me and that I have interacted with. I like to call this unseen world The Kingdom of God and I have actually experienced it interrupting the effects of the human dilemma.


My brother in law put his hand on my neck and summoned the powers of the unseen world and brought healing.

Several situations that I have found myself in should have killed me, but somehow I am still alive.

I work in an environment where I am exposed to lethal things like MRSA and TB and so far, my immune system has been strengthened to fight these things off.

I exist in a world of stresses and pressures and somehow have found unexplainable peace. 

I have been blessed to be in the 0.11% richest people in the world and 7,549,560th richest person on the earth (by income) according to global rich list . com  I have been blessed with an constant supply of healthy food, and clean water, I have a safe place to live, educational opportunities, yet, I am always drawn to deeper humility and less pride and entitlement. 

Oh, and sex.


I can't explain these things and the only source of these mysterious wonders is a God that hovers all around bridging the gap between the world I can see and feel, and the world where I am not bound by the harsh realities of (and can hope for things greater than) the human condition.

So I know the kingdom of God exists.  Not only because I have read about it, or I have friends who believe in it as well, but because I live in the space between experiencing the brunt of the human dilemma and  being rescued from it.

It's a tension. It's a paradox. It's glorious.

Death

I think death is a bitter, but effective reminder providing insights on how to live better.

My uncle Bob passed away last week after dealing with intestinal cancer.

I'll always appreciate Bobs sense of humor.  He would curse in such a classy and disarming way that even my fragile old grandma would giggle.  He always knew how to take an awkward moment to the next level... Chris and I used to think it was fun to take pictures with cute girls wherever we met them (yup, it's what homeschoolers do for thrills) so at a family dinner at a local pizza place, Chris and I went over to the bar and posed with beers and this foxy server and Bob skipped the traditional photographers line "say cheese" and used his favorite line "everyone say pussycat!"  the server blushed, we all busted up laughing and the camera caught this moment in history. 

Bob taught me a few good things about off color class, but I think the greatest thing I learned from him, he taught me after he died.

It took me a full week to call his wife, my aunt Caryn, to speak a few words of condolence. I was terrified of saying the wrong thing or not saying the right thing. This exposes a dysfunction in how I relate to my family because if we had been close, like a family should be, and I had been more intimately involved in Caryn and Bobs life, I think I would have summoned the courage and called right when I learned that he passed.

So, in Bobs honor, I resolve to make the effort to interact with my family as often as possible and take advantage of every opportunity (no matter how awkward) to share life with them and connect with them.

More hugs too. Hugs don't come natural to us.

The Bible

I really appreciate the bible.
I get the impression that my appreciation of the bible will grow for the rest of my life. 
Questions that have plagued my mind in the early days of bible appreciation are these: How should I view the bible?  From what angle should approach it when I read it? What purpose should I look for the bible to fill when I read it?  

My grandma taught me to never stack any thing on top of the bible because that shows that I have higher priorities than the bible.

Various preachers have preached that a literal interpretation of the bible is the only way to read it correctly.

Most Christians agree that every word of the bible is spoken from the very tongue of God and that each little detail of it needs to be blindly heeded without question.

I have wasted far too much mental energy unraveling the problems that were created by these lies and have been recently asking God to break down the walls that they have erected between He and I, and I have a fun little nugget that has come from these bible related ponderings. Here it is:

The bible makes for a very bad moral guide.

Two specific (and many smaller) occurrences have led me to this belief. I'll tell you about the two:

The first has happened over years of growing up under the influence of a talented creative fundamentalist Adventist. This guy preached and read and studied and I spent a huge chunk of my formative years with his family all the while learning good life values and high quality character traits.  The guy always had a very literal interpretive lens through which he read the bible and spent most of his time in quite the fundamentalist mindset and at the time, I never noticed it and didn't have a problem with it. Recently, I learned that instead of the strong spiritual family that I had always believed existed, this guy had been undermining his family with religious dogma for years. His kids have all but disowned him and he is on the brink of divorce. The rock solid morals of the ten commandments and "train up your child" that he lived by weren't enough. He even spent copious amounts of time reading Ellen White writings and even though Ellen White was blessed with unsurpassed insight into the heart of God, (yes, that is sarcasm) it wasn't enough. 

Another interaction that's brought me to this idea is a conversation with a friend about an act that is widely accepted in the secular world but taboo in the Christian world. My friend told me that he believed it was okay to do this act because the bible didn't specifically speak against it. I intentionally won't mention the  act because it is irrelevant, but it brought me to realize that there is absolutely no way that the bible can speak to every issue our current culture deals with, which creates so many problems if you are expecting it to.

There are so many unchristlike issues that can be supported from literal interpretations of biblical morals. Off the top of my head: terrorism, polygamy, oppression of women, superiority, racism, ethnic cleansing, capital punishment, retaliation. . .  Did you know that Paul actually speaks of punishing non believers when they refuse to convert??

I realize that dethroning the bible as the irrefutable moral rudder is unpalatable to most Christians, but I think we can all agree on my conclusion:  the bible reveals and leads us to the Holy Spirit who is an excellent moral guide. 

There are Christians out there who would argue that holding the Holy Spirit as our only moral guide, is way too dangerous. What if the Holy Spirit says two different things to different people? What if someone hears satan and they think it is the Holy Spirit? You can't tell an unbeliever that the voice in your head is your moral guide. It is way too dangerous.  If Christians teach that the Holy Spirit is the only moral guide, it removes the power from their hands and places it only Gods hands and most Christians could not handle that kind of powerlessness.

To this I would say: yes, it is very dangerous.

I am following a rebel who lived to turn the world upside down. I never would expect this life to be clean or easy or simple.

If you want a clean and simple moral guide, I think the bible will serve that purpose, but it will screw you up in the end. The thing the bible does much better than being a moral guide is to reveal glimpses of the only one who is worthy of trusting to fill that purpose.  It takes quite a bit of commitment and time to learn to listen and know the Holy Spirit, but I really do believe the Holy Spirit is the only one who can speak to the complex issues we face in our culture: violence, inequality, slavery.

I still can not bring my self to stack even a pen on top of my bible.

Familiar

I have been hearing this phrase repeated over and over again regarding song selection.

"Choose songs that are familiar to the congregation"

The person telling me this is usually asking me to bring an old overused song or a klove hit and I usually discount what they are saying because: what do they know?  really.

I just heard a worship band that is known for unique songs sing a super mainstream song and I was so bummed and I immediately realized why the "familiar" phrase bothers me. Two reasons:

You will not find a biblical example of singers choosing or singing songs based on what people knew. David used common tunes and melodies but he is always introducing new words (or at least rearranging old words) to go with those melodies.   Our understanding of God and relationship with God is new every day so we need songs with words that reflect this.

Church music is the only form of artistry where the artist is encouraged to copy another artist. Can you imagine a photographer doing really well by simply taking pictures of other peoples pictures? Or a painter becoming famous because he paints replicas of other peoples paintings?   I guess these people do exist in the world of the arts, but they are not respected the same as the ones who did the piece in the first place.  They are usually labeled as sell outs or copy cats who make cheap copies. I guess that's why people like Weird Al or the Apologetics are good for a laugh, but they don't carry the same weight in the musical world as those who create their own original works. This is why I can't handle klove. There is no originality to what they play. 

So for those reasons, every time I step on stage I want to sing a new song... or at least a new-ish song with a new interpretation.

Shifts

I am making a few changes to the blog to follow some mindset changes that are taking place in my...mind.

I am thinking less of my self as an Adventist worship leader and more of myself as a worshipper looking to find the best way to relate to this mysterious God.

So the blog might take less of a worship leader track and more of a spiritual journey track.

It's gonna be good!

Grass

A phrase I have never liked is "the grass is always greener on the other side."

I feel like it's overused and rarely used in a tasteful context.

But I believe it's still true.

So today I figured out why I don't like it.  It's just misunderstood.  Forgive me while I pick apart this cliche and overthink it way too much.

If you are looking at a nearby field you see the side of each blade of grass making it look lush and green.  If you look down at the grass in your own field you see the spaces between the grass blades and there is usually dirt and crap all over the ground and you see your grass blades on end and can't see their beautiful green-ness.

So at this point, the proverb pretty much could be used to advise one to never look for better oportunity or a different environment. But this understanding is too shallow.

While it's true that each field has crap on the surface, the dirt under the crap that the grass grows in is different in each field.

It is a worthy effort to find a field with better dirt... or deeper dirt. 

Church Music

The Following is a transcript of some words I brought to PC on worship and church music.

Enjoy!

This is the first time they’ve let me up here alone…  Devanne and I spoke a couple times in The Journey, but it was always a teamwork thing. Don and Randy wanted Devanne to keep me in line but Devanne is down there now. So this is a big deal.  I want to say that I stand here and speak from a place of humility.  I know most of you have been following Jesus many more years than I have and I’m 27. So I am young in my faith. Even though a person grows up in the church, they don’t grow up with a spiritual awakening until later. So my spiritual age is more like ten. So that is the posture that I speak from.  But Devanne and Don and Randy are here and they are my anti rambling task force. They have a shock collar tied around my ankle for when I get off track. So if you see some weird antics…that explains them.  So this is an honor, except they didn’t give me the wireless headset mic.  They made me talking into this one.  So I guess if I do good today, maybe they will one day give me the wireless one… it’s okay I think that one looks like it has a booger on the end so I didn’t want it anyways. 

We are in the middle of a series on worship and the hope that this series will expand our view of what worship is way beyond the walls of the church, and in this conversation about what worship is beyond music, I think it is worthwhile to acknowledge that our worship is still quite often expressed within the context of music. So that is what this morning is about, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be part of this series because, even though I have stepped back a bit from leading in church, church music is one of my biggest passions. I love music and singing and the fact that we can sing to our God and that He finds joy in our songs is just incredibly inspiring to me. If I’m not singing at church, I am singing at home; which is actually better for me because I don’t have to worry about sounding good. I believe that God looks past my creaky voice and my messy music and just enjoys the heart that I offer. Which is very refreshing because us people evaluate each other based on what we can see and hear of a person; which is often all we have to go on.  But God knows our heart.  It is so liberating. 

Worship and church music are these realms that are a little mysterious. We don’t talk about this topic much and I think that might be a good thing, because if you talk about mysterious things too much, they lose their specialness. 

So I’ll start with a bit of my story and the perspective that I come from.  I live in quite a bit of tension. On one hand, my greatest love is singing. I grew up singing in church, I have studied worship leaders since I was 17, I have been involved with church music almost every weekend for the past ten years, I have read books on worship leading, I’ve taken music classes and guitar lessons. I’ve been touched deeply during worship and heard things from God that moved me to tears. Music and especially church music have been one of my greatest loves.  To keep a balanced perspective, I’ve heard Ivor Meyers, and Brian Neumann and read Samuel Bacciochi and learned what they all have to say. On the other hand, I have been, and I am still critical of this whole idea of singing together. For one thing, it’s weird. It is downright strange to stand with people together and sing. It’s awkward and too vulnerable to be within my zone of comfort. When I read the bible, I can’t find anywhere Jesus telling us to sing. He commands us to make disciples and heal the sick and cast out demons, but He never got around to telling us to go to church every weekend and sing together. Especially when I see the thousands of dollars some churches spend on sound systems and light shows and fog machines, it seems so far away from the command to clothe the naked and feed the hungry. So there are these questions that linger in the back of my brain. 

So this tension has started me on a journey to really find out what church music is all about and why it is so significant.  I admit that back in 05 when I first showed up here and started leading worship in The Journey I really had no idea what I was doing. (many people think I still don’t…and that’s okay) At that point, I was fascinated by church music and I was learning, but I had no clue. It wasn’t until about a year or two later that I started digging a little deeper and asking more questions that I started to understand that church music is about so much more that standing on a stage and singing about Jesus. There were a few private times of worship and a few like this in a church where God invaded my heart in ways that he never had before and I realized that in a musical moment, God is actually moving and speaking in a very unique and special way.  That’s also about the same time that I realized that church music is very poorly understood in many churches and especially Adventist churches. You want to know the best way to know if a church has a shallow understanding of music?  If they fight about it. It’s as easy as that. Music is like a cute little puppy … if you are fighting over it, you are completely missing the point.  Completely.

 

Have you noticed that when a person has a comment about your personality traits, they rarely talk directly to you about it. They always find someone else to tell or to complain or gossip to, and this has been true of the music culture within the Adventist Church. I have lead worship in Grass Valley, PUC, Redwood Campmeeting, Leoni Meadows, Mt. Shasta, Montery Bay Academy, Paradise, as far north as Canada and as far south as Arizona and I can count on one hand the number of people that have commented directly to me about concerns that they have about my music. When someone has a complaint they always find someone else. It ends up be very inefficient. . . anyways, there are several specific things that I (along with other people my age) like to incorporate into our worship leading that quite a few people have asked other people why we do, and at first these sound like complaints, but when I really look at them I think they are really misunderstandings or even more accurately questions. I want to spend just a small amount of time looking at these questions and I want to be quick because I really believe that the only complaint worth answering is one made in person, face to face. And few people have the courage to do that. But on the other hand, I really believe that tolerance starts with good understanding. If I understand you and your past and how you’ve formed your opinions, I am much more likely to honor and respect your opinions, and it works the other way around too.  My generation has slightly different opinions and ways of doing things and really, ways of relating to God, and so often a more mature Christian will look at a young Christian and surmise that since we relate to God differently we are doing it wrong or that we really don’t know God. . . so the next few moments will be moments of understanding… When I speak to these topics  I will speak in first person to protect the autonomy of my friends because the statements I make are all generalizations. As soon as I make a statement someone somewhere will be able to go find one of my peers who disagrees with me and I understand that.

 So here we go.

I like loud music. 

Many people have asked if the music really needs to be that loud and my favorite answer is this: no. God can show up just as powerfully in a moment of silence and silence is a spiritual discipline that we all should be practicing every day. I think a church music culture could be very healthy and beautiful even if it was always very quiet. But here is what I’ll say about loud music. If God has spoken a revelation to me, or if He has changed me in a deep way, I won’t be in the quiet state of mind. Sometimes, the only appropriate response to the God who made thunder is a loud one. And if the church is singing quietly (as the deer) and I come in and start singing all loud (as the deer) it’s going to end up being a little awkward.  If the worship team creates music with a higher volume level, I will feel free to sing at the top of my lungs reflecting the joy that is in my heart. We want to be a church of people deeply affected by God so we will create an environment where we can celebrate that. You all know that modern amplification can make music that literally moves you. So if I am preaching a message about a God that can literally move you and affect great change, I will want to do my best to bring music that matches the power of that God.

I like dark rooms.   

Any married person knows that if you are planning a romantic date night, you don’t have dinner at the sports bar or In n Out. Guys, If you are looking to have one of those date nights where she will be bragging to all her friends about it tomorrow, you will look for the most intimate setting possible. The table will have some privacy, and the lights will be dim. I think they dim the lights for several reasons. Dim lights let you focus in a way where you don’t notice the imperfections in the room.  If the light is just over your table, and dim everywhere else, it allows you to focus on the one you are with.  Soft lighting can allow for better intimacy and vulnerability. Intimacy and vulnerability are two things I really want to protect when I am leading worship as well.  There are times for a big spiritual celebration with a big bright light show, but I want to protect these quiet intimate moments where we will be able to hear the voice of God differently than any other time.  So I like dark rooms.

I like repetition. 

I didn’t used to. I would get bored and wonder “ok when is this going to be over?” but I was at church one morning and they were singing this one line over and over again and it’s been a while so I forget what the line was, but I started thinking about the statement that was being sung and I realized that it was a phrase that was worth singing over and over again. Each time the line was sung I let my mind go deeper into the meaning of the phrase and deeper into what it meant for me, and after five or six times I realized that God was actually speaking something in that line, something specific directly to me. And in that moment, I found great significance in repetition. Revelation 4:8 describes a throne in heaven, and it tells about these creatures with eyes who are close to the throne and they sing “holy holy holy is the Lord God almighty who was and is and is to come.” They sing this one line day and night…forever! I wonder if their eyes might symbolize an awareness of their surroundings. What’s interesting is their proximity to the one who sits on the throne. They are not only in the presence of God, but right close to Him gathered around the throne, and they are very aware of God’s presence. I wonder if I was sitting in the very presence of God, just like these creatures, I might be so taken by His beauty that I will have only one thing to say to God, and I might be so taken by Him that I might do just like those creatures and say it over and over. . . .I doubt if God ever gets tired of hearing us sing to Him. That’s why I will never get uncomfortable when a worship song gets repetitious…First I listen for what God may be speaking, and if I don’t hear anything, I just think of those creatures with the eyes who are very aware of God’s presence. . .and I just keep singing.

I like instrumental parts.  

Again, I didn’t used to.  If there was something entertaining like a wild guitar solo, they were fun, but if it’s a simple part, it can get monotonous and awkward after a while. The other side of the same problem shows up when I hear people saying things like, “I don’t know what to do during instrumental parts” or “I don’t know if I am supposed to sing on the new songs” or “I don’t know where to come in or what notes to sing” and I think comments like these are funny because the assumption is that we are supposed to be like a big professional choir performing for the heavens, which I guess is true, but it doesn’t have to be all that organized. This is really an extended moment of prayer that we are having here so if someone is singing a prayer that is altogether different than what everyone else is singing, that’s okay. If I am leading a song about celebration and you need to sing a prayer about repentance, who am I or who are the rest of the people in the room to stand in your way and say “those aren’t the right words!”   If the music is loud enough you don’t even have to sing the same tune! Some people get self conscious about their pitchy singing but I want to tell you that we aren’t here to have a pretty choir. We’re here to lift our hearts to God and as long as you are telling the truth I can’t imagine God rejecting your song even if it is different from everyone elses song. So we won’t either. There is the phrase used in Psalms and a couple times in Habakkuk: Selah and it means “stop and listen” or “pause and think of that” and we started incorporating these Selah moments into our music a few years ago in The Journey. I think I even put the word in the powerpoint sometimes… The idea is that if we are singing a song to God, we need a breath every now and then to pause and really understand what we are singing. Or more significant than that, we want to protect spaces of quiet where God can speak. What if God wants to say something to you that the songwriter didn’t include in the song? If we are singing all these other words all the time, God won’t be able to sneak His words in between. So that’s what these instrumental Selah moments are for. So depending on what’s going on in the room spiritually, don’t worry that there is a long awkward pause. Listen for the voice of God. Don’t worry if you can’t see the powerpoint or you can’t follow the melody. Search your heart for the words you need to say or the prayer you need to pray or the melody you need to sing.

I like to move. 

People have actually told other people that I move too much while leading worship. I think the fear here is that if I move too much more it could almost be borderline . . . dancing. I understand the moral issues with provocative dancing but we have to separate provocative dancing from dancing before God. Two very different things. When I hear that there are Christians who would prefer that dancing doesn’t happen in the church, I am dumbfounded. There are so many biblical examples of dancing before God and none of them end with God smiting all those evil dancers. I can just see God up on His throne saying “look at all those silly people down there dancing before me… they are so full of joy and think they love me but little do they know that I hate their dance moves! They are all a bunch of hippity hoppity fools!”  and then He presses the “smite” button. In 2 Samuel 6 there is this story of the ark being brought to the city of David. This story is so loaded so I will skim through it… This story gets me. David knew that the presence of God was thick around the ark. I want to be part of a church where we know that God’s presence is thick in our worship. I want to be part of a church where God leads us across the seas like the Israelites and we can’t help but dance. We have sung so hard that our voices are gone and all we have left to do is dance. I want to lead worship at a church where people complain about the worship leader not dancing enough.

 

I like drums. 

I think this musical worship we bring in this room is a picture of the tangible, practical worship we live out during the week. If we just had one guy sing with his guitar every week, the imagery would imply that worship is only for the one gifted guy. There is a problem with church culture when people think that worship acts are done by only the pastors or the other leaders. This makes for an ineffective church with burnt out leadership. But the fact that we bring cellos and keyboards and banjoes and electric guitars and the violin and the organ and all the voices symbolizes that an act of worship can be brought by anybody. It speaks of the diversity of worship. That is why we can’t exclude any instruments in our band. I have to admit that I hate the sound of the harpsichord. It grates on my soul! But we can’t exclude it because our church will be known as the church where worship is only for the elite non-harpsichord players. I know this is far out, but I think there is something to this… So in this regard, my favorite instrument is the drum. Drums are the most accessible instrument. I am not diminishing the talent of our drummers when I say this, but anybody can play a drum.  If they can’t keep time I will give them a clock with a second hand. Just watch the second hand. The accessibility of percussion instruments is a picture of the accessibility of acts of worship. 

I like jeans. 

One of the strangest questions I’ve heard is “why does the young generation dress so casually in church?” and I totally agree with someone who says that we should be modest and good looking, but I think this question speaks of a huge problem in church culture. My entire life I have heard people say “we need to dress up and wear our best for Jesus” and the bad theology shows up when we believe when we are at home, we are apart from God and when we come to church, we somehow enter a realm of His presence that was previously unavailable. There are three places where I intentionally stand before God and make a habit of acknowledging His presence. Those places are the secret place, the workplace, and the church place. I know God’s presence is everywhere, but these are the places where I make it a habit to consciously acknowledge it.  I am in the secret place in the morning so I usually wear either my PJs or a bath robe. In the work place I wear scrubs, and in the church place I wear my favorite clothes which today are jeans and a plaid shirt. When I entered each of these three places I have never heard God ask me to dress a certain way before I stand in His presence. To be honest, I wear my best looking clothes to church because I want to look good before all you people. Not before God.  God has seen me naked. I don’t need to dress up for Him. He is looking at my heart. So when someone says that they wish I would wear some slacks and a shirt and tie, they are essentially telling me that I have bad taste in clothes or that their sense of style is better than mine. Which is arrogant and rude, but I can handle it. But please, for the sake of my friends who may not be able handle it, and who may be on the fringes of The Way, don’t spiritualize clothing.  Another problem with this way of thinking is if your worship expression ends when you cinch up your tie and shine your shoes, you are missing out on the vast realm of worship expressions. I’ll spend five minutes prettying myself up, but I have much greater ways that I am planning on worshiping for the rest of the day so the way I’m dressed becomes a very small importance. One last problem that I see with the false idol of the shirt and tie is one that pervades church culture across so many Christian churches. If you show up to church and dress your body in nicer clothing than you normally wear, wont you also show up to church dressed in a nicer demeanor or a nicer character than you normally wear? I want to come before God with as much honesty and as much authenticity and as raw as I possibly can be. If I’m honest about my character, or I bring to church the same person I have been all week I want everything about me including my clothing to reflect that. A church that is filled with fake smiles and disingenuous compliments is useless to the Kingdom. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t smile at each other, but you see the problem when someone shows up smiling when they’re really broken inside. Nobody will know unless that person lets their guard down and shows some authenticity. Another person might show up and shower cheap compliments on someone she secretly holds a grudge against. If we are going to live in unity and be of one accord we are going to have to learn to be honest with each other. I am going to start this honesty thing with the clothes that I wear. I promise that I will not bring any identity to church other than the man I have been in secret during the week and the symbol of this promise is the jeans that I wear.  

Did I miss anything? The underlying question that remains through each of these topics is this: do I really need the music to be loud to worship? Does the room really need to be dark? Do I really need to be wearing jeans? Is all of this necessary to bring my song before God? And the easy answer is “No”. It is important to protect identity, because at some point if you dress me up in clothes I never wear, and make me sing songs that don’t speak to me or express my heart, it will no longer be me worshipping but a watered down version of me created by church ladies. I want church to be transforming, but the transformation comes from the God of the church, not by the people of the church. How many know that if you are transformed by a group of people it won’t last. The only transformation that lasts is the transformation inspired by God. . .But that aside, as long as I am still bringing an honest version of myself, the answer is no.  I don’t need the light show or the drums to worship. I realized this after church about six months ago. I had just led worship with En Route and it was glorious! It was just loud enough and the band was all playing their best and I thought it had gone quite well until I stepped down off the stage and Bob Bergem waved me over and he had me sit down here in the front. Now Bob and I have some history and I’ll tell you about it. 

When I first moved to Redding I was about 19 and I was volunteering here at PC and I was in great need of a little cash flow so Bob asked me to come down and help him with a few projects. At the time He and Dottie were living on this farm down off of Churn Creek and he and I would go out back and prune fruit trees in his orchard or cut back these black berry bushes or clean out the barn and at some point the work became less about the work and more about these moments of mentoring. He called them breaks and at first I wondered why we were taking so many breaks when I wasn’t tired, but then I started to listen to what Bob had to say and I realized that he had been around for quite some time and any perspective he shared or any advice he gave me was actually quite valuable. So over the time that I worked for him, Bob became one of the biggest influencers in my life and I developed this deep respect for Him.  You want to hear the best thing he shared with me? Bob taught me how to be mad at a woman while still honoring her. Essentially how to fight well. My parents didn’t fight well, and this is something that is learned. So there were a couple times when I showed up to work and he and Dottie might have been in an argument and they hid it, but you know, sometimes you can just tell.  So Bob and I would go work, and I could tell how frustrated he was about the disagreement, but he still held Dottie in high regard and still honored her and he never spoke badly of her. So Bob taught me how a real man handles himself when he is angry. . . When they write the book about Palo Cedro Adventist Church, There is going to be a chapter about Bob and Dottie. They’ll call it the legend of the Bergems. 

So Bob calls me over and we have this history so when he speaks I am really listening, right? So I sit down and he asks me “does the music really need to be that loud?” and his question hits me so hard and this is where I first realized “no, it doesn’t have to be loud.” At that moment my eyes were opened to who really is filling this room. I had been working so hard to create a church service for a young generation who I hoped one day would fill this room, that I had overlooked the generation who is currently filling the room. We used to do this thing down at the other end of the hall that spoke to the young generation but that is over and the truth is: having a voice to the masses of the young generation is no longer what we at this church do well. I’m realizing the pointlessness of trying to create a hip trendy service that will try to attract the masses of the young generations because that is no longer what we do well. It’s no longer our calling or identity and doing that will actually work against the true calling and identity of this church.

Some people feel like they are really putting themselves out by allowing young music in this place or tolerating the drum set and they feel betrayed when they see young people driving away before church is over, but Herb Mongomery called it out when he said “this drum set isn’t going to keep the young generation here.” If Devanne or myself or En Route is ever invited to lead worship, it should never come from a place of “if they lead worship maybe the young people will stay” it is an easy out and it will never work.  There are much deeper reasons many from the young generation are leaving the church and I have plenty of theories and opinions on that, but that isn’t want we’re talking about this morning.

Back to church music. 

Just a word on the role of the leader of worship. Does anyone find it strange that this overly happy guy gets up in front of church each week and starts these rousing songs? “oh hey everybody lets get on our feet and sing!!  Come on! Put your hands together for this one! Lift your voices” I think an outsider might find even these first few moments of church so strange…  Every now and then, I like to make a romantic dinner for Devanne. I make some really good pasta, so I make a couple other things to go along with it and I find something good to drink with it, and I find chocolate, and I light candles and turn some lights off and play soft music and make sure there is nothing that will interrupt our moment. It always turns out real nice, not because of any one thing that I did, but because everything has been carefully designed so that we can focus on each other. I turn my phone off and I sneak her phone away and turn it off too, (because Devanne never turns her phone off) and we have a really nice time. I realize that when I lead worship I am really just setting the table for a romantic dinner with God.   You all know that when you want to meet with God, you don’t want a bunch of distractions. Sometimes it’s necessary to put quite a bit of planning and preparation into this moment so we can really focus on God and realize that He is focused on us. To really hear Him and realize that He is actually speaking to us. How many of you know that when God speaks to you, you know it! It’s unlike anything you’ve ever heard. Even if you are old and God has been speaking to you for years, I bet there is still something very special when God speaks something specific directly to you.  So if I am leading worship I am setting the table and setting the mood for this encounter. I am not a song leader, I am the spiritual mood setter. I light the candles and start the music and step out of the way. Some worship leaders feel like they have to work and conjure this euphoric experience, but God is the one who really touches people.  Us worship leaders have to learn the art of setting the table and stepping out of the way. That is our place and our role in this church thing. I’ll tell that outsider who is coming for the first time: it’s not weird, it’s beautiful and it’s mysterious and it’s irresistible.

Just a few words on what role the congregation plays in worship.  Back to the story in 2 Samuel 6, the entire trip into the city was a celebration with music and dancing and in verse 16 they tell about the ark entering the city and how Michal who was married to David, but here referred to as the daughter of Saul, she was standing and watching the parade from a window. From a distance.  She saw the undignified way David was worshiping God and “she was filled with contempt for him” and the bible says that she remained childless through her entire life. I have to admit that I have seen a room full of people singing or seen a band worshiping and have not joined with them because I thought they weren’t doing it right. I thought I could play those songs better than they could and lead better than they could and I let distain have its way in my heart and only after reading this story do I understand how evil it is to stand at a distance and judge someone’s worship. I’m speaking for you and for me. It doesn’t matter if we don’t like the songs. It doesn’t matter if we don’t like the music. It doesn’t matter if we don’t like how they are dancing. It doesn’t matter if we could do it better. We have to join in and sing along. We have to enter in and dance along. I’ve seen people leave the room while I am leading songs because they don’t like our instruments or our volume and my heart breaks for them. They don’t understand what they are doing! I am admitting that I have done the same thing; for different reasons but we are watching from the window and we are missing out on a beautiful moment of the joy of the Lord and of Gods favor. We have to step down from the window, run into the street and join the celebration.   I used to tell the students in En Route that it was imperative that they understand that when we play on stage and we sing and worship that we are not performing. I kept telling them “we are not performing!” but I don’t tell them that anymore. Because it is not true. We are performing. When I am leading worship I am performing along with the entire band, along with the entire congregation for an audience of One right? Wrong. It’s true that we are all performers and we are performing for God, But the bible paints a picture of all the heavens worshiping God and we are just joining in that. Okay, what makes this even more powerful is that we are not just performing for God, but we are performing for the entire universe! So when I am singing about God and my love and devotion for God I am making a statement to the entire universe about who’s side I’m on. Every person in the room, every angel in the room, every demon (if there are any left) has no doubt who I am lifting my affections towards when I sing these songs to God. I don’t completely understand the implications of this, but I sense that there is great power here. And I like it!

If you disagree with everything I’ve said so far, I’m okay with that, because this next part is the only part that really matters. I want to end with a couple reasons why I believe we have to continue to bring our songs before God. They aren’t so much reasons as stories.

Acts 16;22 Paul and Silas were singing, the prisoners were listening, the doors flew open, the chains fell off.

Joshua 6:The horns were blasting, the people were shouting, and the walls collapsed.

In the end it doesn’t matter how we sing or what instruments we use or what words we sing, but we have to keep singing! If we want to be a church to be reckoned with, if we want to contend in spiritual places, if we want to see walls fall before us, if we want to see doors fly open and chains fall off. We have to step down from the window and join the party! We have to keep singing, we have to continue to lift our hearts and melodies before God.

I have a song that I want to end this service with and it’s a song but a prayer as well. There are two parts, the verse part is sung for us and the high part is a prayer on our behalf.  So let these words seep into you and ignite hope.

Let church bells ring

Let children sing

Even if they don’t know why let them sing

Why drown their joy

Stifle their voice

Just because you’ve lost yours

May our jaded hearts be healed

Amen

Let old men dance

Lift up their hands

Even if they are naïve, let them dance

You’ve seen it all

You watch them fall

Wash off your face and dance

May our weary hearts be filled with hope

Amen

Tithe

I tithe.

I started when I was about 13 or 14 and have given 10% of my income to the church off and on since then. 

When I was in high school, I didn't get around to tithing for a few years and I felt pretty guilty about it.

Sometimes I forgot to tithe and I would add up all I owed for the time when I forgot and it would hang over me like this huge cloud of guilt.  Sometimes I could pay it off and sometimes I didn't.

I have always been haunted by the story of Ananias and Sapphira.  I've always felt that if I don't give an exact 10%, that I will somehow be cursed by God or be struck dead or something...

At some point I was also told that if a person is really giving to God from the heart, they will sign their check, put it in the envelope, and cut off any interest in where it goes. If you know/care where the money goes, you really aren't giving it with a willing heart. Have you heard this?  Sounds more like the teachings of a manipulating cult that would like to use money for their own interests.  It's not biblical.

For the past eight or nine years I have given to small church ministries.  I don't believe the Adventist conference uses funds responsibly so I don't give to them.  I am not even convinced my local church budgets according to Gods will so I have given to off budget ministries.

I heard a local pastor say recently that tithing is not biblical.  This is contrary to everything I have believed yet, I have sensed this contradiction between traditional tithing taught in the Adventist church and the biblical tithe so it caught my interest.

Here are some bible parts that challenge my way of thinking:

Deuteronomy:  22 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. 23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. 24 But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the Lord your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the Lord will choose to put his Name is so far away), 25 then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose. 26 Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice

So when tithe was first introduced to the children of Isreal, it went to the Levites and to buy food and alcohol for these holy celebrations...  interesting.  So conflicted with how tithe is used now.

Many references to tithe in the old testament seem to refer to the Levitical law.  So a big question would be: are we still bound by the levitical law?  Seems like Adventists like to pick and choose which Levitical laws they keep...  It's not ok to buy or sell on Sabbath but if you have a sore on your chin with yellow hair, you no longer have to have it examined by the priest.   See my blog a few posts down about the law.  A quick synopsis: I would like to suggest that we are no longer bound by any of the Levitical law, including the 10 commandments and the one that says you can't buy or sell on Sabbath.  Jesus fulfilled the law and eclipsed all of those wonderful details with the simple life giving law of love.   So that creates tension with my original understanding of tithing.

I reread the story of Ananias and Sapphira and realized that it was written during a time when the believers were still into selling everything they had and giving to the poor and needy and sharing everything.  (Somewhere along the lines we lost that kind of generosity...) So the After-Jesus understanding of what belongs to God is not 10% but 100%. 

This changes everything. 

Matthew ¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. ¹⁶ They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷ Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”
¹⁸ But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? ¹⁹ Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, ²⁰ and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
²¹ “Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

"Give back to God what is God's."

If 100% of what I have is God's, and I am to give it back to God, what does that look like in this day in age? Does it still mean selling everything and giving it all to the poor and needy?  Does God not want me to prepare some sort of a stable future for my wife and kids?

If I think of 100% as just my financial income am I not limiting it?  How about 100% of my time and my energy?  Talent? Skills? Relationships?

So I am rethinking all of my previous ideas about tithe. 

It's liberating.

And I feel like the more questions I can ask, and the more of this institutional BS I can leave behind, the closer I can get to Gods heart for giving.

Cheers!

Bad Art

As I was watching this, a thought hit me and I am totally bummed out right now.

I played a guitar solo at PC this weekend and it was bad.  It didn't sound too bad or sloppy or anything, but I just realized that it wasn't done well.

It was a simple four note lick I threw together during practice on Thursday night.  It was rough each time we played the song Thursday and I didn't even have it down during practice Saturday morning.

So one might ask why it was so bad if  I didn't screw  it up and it sounded okay...  Here's why. The part came to me like diarhea: all at once and without any special effort or thought. It was formed by the muddle of notes that have been backed up in my brain and it wasn't arranged in any intriuging way, didn't pay homage to the greatness of the song that it was in and it didn't lead into the next part of the song with grace and fluidity. I hadn't put half a second of thought into it before practice and I never polished it between practices.

I guess there is something to be said for improvising, but when I saw the skill of this big fella, I realized that when playing in front of people, and God as well, there is even more to be said for careful preparation and skillful execution.

That is all. 

This guy is good, but kinda annoying.

 also annoying but almost as intriguing

Affection

It is not selfish to ask God for more of His love and affection.

Ever.

















I somehow have had this view of God like he is the cautious parent who gives us not what we want, but only what we need.  Like he is withholding some kind of pleasant thing from us because somehow it will not be best for us in the future.

I would like to suggest that God is the only one who we can trust to lavish us with good things that will always be best for us in the future.

This tears me up inside.

So I will never tiptoe through life asking for a good thing only if it is Gods will. (like His will is a mysterious unknown) I will dance through life fully embracing every good thing that comes my way, praising God for it, and shouting for more.

More of Gods love

More of Gods affection

Proclaim

We need to get better at proclamation.

Some believe that to proclaim properly, you must take your doctrine and theology and mass produce it and distribute it everywhere so that everyone can see it and believe it like you do.  I imagine this worked well for a while. Years ago it might have been a nice surprise to have a well dressed person show up on your doorstep or hand you a pamphlet proclaiming new ideas or selling some new and exciting product but somewhere along the lines this was abused. Maybe by the Mormons or vacuum salesmen, these pleasant little encounters became unwelcome violations of privacy. 

I first became aware of this shift while colporteuring in 2002 and 2003.  I am not sure how many doors I knocked on during those two summers, but even though what I was offering at each door was good and benign, and even though I was pleasant and well dressed, I sensed that my presence at each door was most often not welcome.  When I bought a house this summer I saw another side of these visits from the other side of the door. There have been security system salesmen, curb painters, kids with cookie dough, and people from Stockton with cleaning supplies coming to my door selling things.  With the exception of the kid with cookie dough, my first thought when each of these people have walked up is that they are thieves scoping out houses, and considering the rising crime rate in Redding, I don't think I am being all that paranoid. 

So I would like to suggest that literature evangelism is no longer effective.  Not just because it's intrusive, but because it also fails to recognize the diversity in our population.  With the various cultures, religious backgrounds, and traditions, I have never seen anything written that could be blindly thrown at any random passer by with the expectation of conversion. It would not be honoring or respectful of their individual past. 

So lets throw away the GLOW tracts and stop wasting our time knocking on doors.  Lets take all those ugly pamphlet racks out of our church lobbies and bury them deep in the dumpster.  Those things are never going to really change a life.

Let's realize that we actually have to do the work of living the gospel with our lives. The only people we have any authority to affect are those who actually know us and trust us. The only opportunity we will have is one that comes from a long history of mutual love and respect.  These are the relationships of the workplace, and the community.  Not the doorstep or the street corner. 

Saturday Night

So last Saturday night Devanne and I were having a conversation with some friends about old school vs. new views of spirituality, fundamentalism, and how our view of God has evolved and expanded over the last few years and we started talking about the value of old testament law (10 commandments) for our current culture.  I discovered that in the last ten years I have done a 180 on how I view/value the law.

I used to think that the law was Gods directive for us to align us with His will so we could somehow be pure enough to enter into the presence of God at the 2nd coming.  I have no idea where I came up with this.  My parents would never admit to teaching me this and I can't remember a specific time when I was taught this, but that's how I understood it nonetheless.

 

I have a new lens for looking at the old testament and that of course has changed how I think of the law a bit, What could be considered the most heretical part of this new view is that we are no longer bound by the law as the children of Israel were.   I was trying to articulate this, and the first question my friend asked was "well are you going to go kill someone now?" Of course I said "no" but I think I have a better way of articulating it:

I value the law but I hear a much higher calling on my life. If the law was all I thought I was called to, I would never have listened for anything greater. I wont break the law because the call to worship God with all that I am has eclipsed it. 

That's it.  

Speed Friending

Dev and I recently took En Route to a youth rally where we played a version of speed dating called speed friending as an ice breaker. One of the sample questions provided was this: What is the character trait you value most in a person?  I was asked this question a few times during the game and the first and only answer I could think of was this: Integrity.

Donald Miller has been writing quite a lot on integrity lately (Read a bit of what he has to say here) and I'm realizing that it is one of the very first things I evaluate in a person when I am interacting with them. I always have my truth radar on asking myself if what a person says and what they are living is aligned. The results of this subconscious analysis immediately tells if I can respect the person and ultimately predicts the possibilities of what our relationship can be.

If I have this truth radar for those I interact with, I have to turn it back to myself and hold myself to the same standard...that's only fair right?

I have seen a few areas of inconsistency within myself and I believe the next season for me is removing these areas of inconsistency.  I have high aspirations for my life with God and my relationships and the mark I want to leave on this world and especially while passing milestones (marriage, beginning my career, buying a house...kids??) I am feeling this great need to see these aspirations become reality.

So the next season for my life is a journey to greater integrity. I want my values and dreams to be actualized in my life. I want it to be very apparent that I practice what I preach.

There are a few specific areas that I am aware of where I can make changes and would love to share those with you in a conversation, but I know there are areas of my character that can be spoken to only by those who are looking at me from the outside.  So this is an invitation for you to speak. I welcome your observations and thoughts on my integrity. Feel free to call or we can meet up or whatever...

I expect this season to bring changes that will affect various areas of my life and relationships so I ask for your generosity and understanding that this is the first in many conversations and the resolution and creation of many tensions. 

It's gonna be fun!

Account

I have a jaded view of family.  Not because mine was bad, but because I wish it was better. I guess I have really high expectations and like to blame my shortcomings on my childhood/family.  (I know, it's bad.)

Today I learned something that I really wish was a bigger part of both my biological and spiritual family.

Kris Vallotton spoke about an ideal for a spiritual family and he said that a spiritual family should provide accountability which he defined as "accounting for ability."

I love this definition!  Think of all the ability that could be championed if it was defended by those closest to us. This is a spiritual family that I want to be a part of.

I'll admit that quite often I like to find only the faults in a person and complain about their inabilities.  What could happen to those in my sphere of influence if I flipped this and started accounting for their abilities?

I've had a couple opportunities for this when worship band leaders have called about past En Route members.  Two different people have called from PUC asking about Claire and Noel and it was awesome to tell about their strengths and abilities and heart for worship.

So I am resolving to actively look for opportunities to account for the ability of my spiritual family.  It may be a game changer for me and those around me...or maybe just make me look like the kook who is always bragging on other people... we'll see

Affected

I have been asked, and therefore, always asked myself, what it is I am getting at when I am leading worship.  What it is that I am trying to accomplish.  This is complicated because the song service has a different significance for everybody.  Early on, all I could get at was to strum the guitar correctly and sing on key (singing on key is even still a challenge  ;)  But then, I have sensed that many Christians find no more significance in the moment than just going through motions.  "We sing because that's just what we do."  Just filling slots on a flow sheet.  You can easily tell when a church sings "just because."  I won't write specific examples, but you can just tell, you know?

I have always known that there is a much deeper significance than I will ever be able to wrap my mind around and I have always been trying to strive for that, sometimes trying so hard that it was counter productive, and because of that, people have given me pushback, asking if I am just trying to stir up an emotional feeling? Or just some empty sensational song service? Or wanting people to be disingenuous in their theatrical acts of praise.   I have finally found an answer that I believe is true.  Or at least truer than what I've known before.

I recently went to a church called The Stirring where I really resonate with the musical worship that is expressed. I walked in and started singing, but my heart was cold and hard and I looked at myself from a distance and realised that I looked like all those bored/tired people that I have tried to "stir up."  So I did some heart searching and realized that while I was going through all the right motions, I have not assumed a posture/mindset to be affected by God in a very long time. It's been months since I have been able to establish a consistent "secret place" and because of that, some days I forget to pray and bring myself before God.  So when I was at The Stirring, I repented of that and told God that my heart was ready to be affected by Him again.  Only after that did I sense that my heart was being romanced and that God was able to speak to me again.

This was such a refreshing reminder of, and return to God's presence.

I instantly started processing this and I figured out that this thing that just happened to me is what I've been getting at when I lead worship.

All I want is for everybody in the room to be affected by God.

And here's the thing that some might be uncomfortable with, but I believe it so hard right now: every moment that you are truly affected by God, it will show somehow on the outside. God is such a beautiful force of good that if you are truly encountering Him, you cannot keep from showing it. Some people raise their arms, some people sing, some people dance, some people hug dirty homeless people, other people just have a change in their face to where you can't explain why, but you know that God is touching them. 

Along this same line of thought is a conversation I had a few years back with Dave Bollen who is a worship leader I have studied learned from since I was about 17.  He said a church will sing in direct corrilation with how much they love God. At first, this seems like a bad idea...what if you get a room full up people who can't/don't like to sing? Ok, but really. When you are standing face to face with Love Himself is there anything else left to do but sing?

A bald, bearded pastor once said: "As a worship leader, I am just lighting candles, setting the mood for a divine love encounter."

So that is my vision for musical worship. For every person in the room to be deeply affected by the God who is Love.