My Worship Revolution

One of the books I read recently that had a big impact was Culture Making by Andy Crouch.  One of the big ideas of the book…the only way to change culture is to create new culture.

A few weeks ago I caught this story on Sunday Morning on CBS as I was on my way out the door.
Take 3 minutes to hear about how Brent Green of L.A. created culture in his neighborhood.
I found it pretty fascinating and inspiring.

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…Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
-Jeremiah 29:7

I love the part of the video where he talks about how much he loves his city and wanted to give back.
I found that it was somewhat difficult to fully wrap my brain around the best ways to create and cultivate culture.  This is a perfect example.
A lot of churches and Christ followers like to get out and do our one day service project and go to sleep feeling good about ourselves.  But imagine if we used the talents we had on a regular basis to really bless our city with no strings attached.  Who woulda thought that a passion for plants and landscaping coupled with a little bit of vision and a heart of generosity could bring a neighborhood together and reduce crime.

So what do you have to offer to the community you live in?
How can you use your passions to start meeting your neighbors and bettering your city?
Perhaps starting there could be a lot more effective in the long run than a lot of our “outreaches” and crusades.
Just a thought.

God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him…through trials.
-John Piper

That statement has had a huge impact on me over the past several years of my spiritual formation.  Fortunately I haven’t had any terribly dramatic trials to overcome in that time, but I figure they will come at some point.  That’s just kinda how life works.

For those of you who haven’t heard, there is a fairly well known pastor from Texas named Matt Chandler who is going through some serious trials as we speak.
I’ll let the video speak for itself from there.
Go check out the 5 minute video from this blog post from Matt.
It is well worth the time.

Inspiring.  And pretty amazing.
Makes you think, how will I/have I reacted when life blows up?

**Disclaimer: this post is rated PG-13 due to anatomical language.
Consider yourself disclaimed.

A few weeks ago, Elyssa was watching Caleb before church while Rachel and I had sound check/worship practice.
She later told me about a little conversation they had.
Caleb let her know he needed to go poo poo.  So she took him in the bathroom, and waited outside the stall while he did his thing.
Then he hollered out to her from the stall.  Here’s how the conversation went:

Caleb:  I can’t get my penis down!  How do I do it?
Elyssa:  Ummm, I don’t know Caleb.  I don’t have a penis. I’m a girl.
Caleb:  What?!
Elyssa:  I’m a girl Caleb.  I don’t have a penis.
Caleb:  Really?!  …Can I see?!
Elyssa:  Ummm…noooo.  You’ll need to talk to your mommy about that.

She decided that was a conversation maybe Rachel should have with him instead of her.
It scares me a little to imagine what other things are gonna come out of his mouth as he gets older.
I’m learning that life is pretty much never boring with a toddler.

So, I have now pretty much finished moving my blog over to a new platform.
Goodbye Typepad.
Hello WordPress.
And boy was it a royal pain. Mostly cause of Typepad.
They don’t make it easy to move your pictures over.
But I digress…

I plan to have a slightly busier/more involved theme here at some point in the near future.
But until that unveiling comes, I thought I’d I’d go simple.
Minimalistic.
Consider it the calm before the storm.
1 column.
Just the content.
Lots of white.
No links.
2 pages-about & archives.
Don’t worry. Y’all will get your link love back soon.

The only problem is, there’s something I’m sorta starting to like already about the simplicity.
Will almost be tempted to leave it that way.
But I won’t.

So just for fun, swing by and get a quick glimpse of the new design at myworshiprevolution.
OK…now it’s time to get back to some more regular blogging…I think.

It's been pretty slow going on my blog here for quite some time.
I could blame it on the microblogging format of Twitter and Facebook as some others have.
And that would actually be fairly accurate.

But that's not it.
I think we just go through different seasons in our life.
And rather than taking a lot of time to blog recently, it's just been more of a season for silence.
A time for listening.
Reflecting.
Seeking.
Hangin out more with Jesus and with family.
In a way, this blog is like an extension of me.  So when I'm in that season, my blog kind follows suit.

And it's not that there's nothing to say, either.
There have been some blog posts bouncing around my dome, but just haven't taken the time to pull em out.
All that to say, that's why it's been slow.
So I'll probably start posting some more here and there.
But it's been nice being quieter for a little bit.
And it's nice to not feel too pressured to blog for the sake of blogging.

Thanks for stickin with me.

My family was gone for a little over a week.
Last night they got back home.
They pulled into the driveway at 11pm.
I walked out to help with the kids.
As soon as I walk out I hear Caleb yell, "Daddy, daddy, daddy!!"

I walked around to this side of the van, and I kid you not, he literally leaped out of the car and into my arms.
Then he just laid there with his head on my shoulder as I brought him inside.
And he says as he's hugging my neck tight, "I missed you daddy. Did you miss me when I was at Patience's house?" (They visited Rachel's best friend while they were gone.)

There is nothing that warms a dad's heart more.
I am so stoked to have my wife and boys back in town.
So after a week of taking care of them, Rachel got to stay in bed while I got up with them this morning.
Caleb came over and started singing "We're Going On A Bear Hunt" at one point.  A song from a book he and mom got at the library, and I think used at Creative Play.
Seriously, the only thing significant about this is that he's just really cute.
So for those who care, check out the video:

I love the way he says, "Thick, oozy, mud" at 1:43.
The hands on his mouth for the tiptoe at 3:15.
Oh, and the face he always makes when he's trying to think of something, like at 3:30 and 4:22, it cracks me up every time.

The bachelor week had some fun, but I'm just glad to be daddy again.

Last week I was reading the most recent issue of Relevant magazine.  In the front is an article by the publisher/founder, Cameron Strang, called Embracing the Real.  In it, he talks about Twitter and Facebook and their cultural effects. 

As I was reading, I came across the following lines:

But little by little, Twitter is starting to resemble a high school
popularity contest, where people campaign for votes and can tangibly
see how liked they are by how many people follow them or respond to
what they say.

As more celebrities and important people have come to the party
(fashionably late, of course), they see their peers already have tons
of followers, so they feel they should too. There is open campaigning
to “RT this” or straight-up asking for people to help them get more
followers. Left and right, even normal users are signing up for Twitter
sites that guarantee to get you “400 new followers a day.” (Just so you
know, you can’t do this without people knowing—it sends out a tweet in
your name to everyone saying you’ve signed up.) I’ve even seen pastors
sign up for those.

Which begs the obvious question—why? This Twitter shift is adding
fuel to the MySpace/Facebook culture that places value (and for some, a
means of self-worth) in the number of followers you can accumulate,
even if 90 percent of them are incognito spambots.
[read the whole article]

Some really great points there.  I'm just not sure that it's all that different from culture before all this technology was introduced.

He mentioned that pastors he knows have signed up for services to up the number of followers they have.
He talked about the culture of placing value and self-worth in the number of followers you can accumulate.
But is this really any different from how pastors and churches have operated for the past 50 (at least…probably more like hundreds of) years?  

So many pastors I know find their self-worth in the numbers.
How many people I can get to show up on Sunday.
How many people attend an event.
How much money was in the offering plate this month.
Even if the people sitting in those seats are proverbial "incognito spambots."
And I've been just as guilty as the rest.

Perhaps this is just a greater reminder that there are much better ways to measure effectiveness than the "number of followers."
Perhaps we should look at the deeper issue of where we find our self-worth.
Perhaps social networking and technology isn't creating new problems, but simply surfacing the issues that already there.

Let's try and care less about how many people are following us.
Let's care more about the quality of what we're doing and saying.
Let's care more about the amount of transformation in ourselves and the people we journey with.
Let's find our self worth not in everyone else's measure of success, but by the trueness to our own calling.
Or better yet, in being, rather than doing.

I'm still figuring out how to do all that.
You're invited to join me.
We can't do it alone.

Read this poem Samuel Moor Shoemaker this morning.
Well worth the read.
Bolded the part that stood out to me the most.

I Stand By The Door

I stand by the door.
I neither go to far in, nor stay to far out.
The door is the most important door in the world –
It is the door through which men walk when they find God.
There is no use my going way inside and staying there,
When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where the door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind men,
With outstretched, groping hands,
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it.
So I stand by the door.

The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for men to find that door – the door to God.
The most important thing that any man can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands
And put it on the latch – the latch that only clicks
And opens to the man’s own touch.

Men die outside the door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter.
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live on the other side of it – live because they have not found it.

Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him.
So I stand by the door.

Go in great saints; go all the way in –
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics.
It is a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.
Some must inhabit those inner rooms
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in.
Sometimes venture in a little farther,
But my place seems closer to the opening.
So I stand by the door.

There is another reason why I stand there.
Some people get part way in and become afraid
Lest God and the zeal of His house devour them;
For God is so very great and asks all of us.
And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia
And want to get out. ‘Let me out!’ they cry.
And the people way inside only terrify them more.
Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled.
For the old life, they have seen too much:
One taste of God and nothing but God will do any more.
Somebody must be watching for the frightened
Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,
To tell them how much better it is inside.
The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving – preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door
But would like to run away. So for them too,
I stand by the door.

I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not yet even found the door.
Or the people who want to run away again from God.
You can go in too deeply and stay in too long
And forget the people outside the door.
As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him and know He is there,
But not so far from men as not to hear them,
And remember they are there too.

Where? Outside the door –
Thousands of them. Millions of them.
But – more important for me –
One of them, two of them, ten of them.
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.
So I shall stand by the door and wait
For those who seek it.

‘I had rather be a door-keeper
So I stand by the door.

Wow.
I think we need more door-keepers.

A few nights ago, Rachel and I watched the season premier of House.
I love this show.
Great writing and the show is always such an amazing study on our human condition.

Check out this clip from the premier.
The last line of the clip was the most memorable of the episode for me.
Seriously, check it out.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
       you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
       a broken and contrite heart,
       O God, you will not despise.
Psalm 51:16-17

"I am broken"
When we recognize that we are broken, that's when we get out of the way and really allow God to do his job.

We're all jacked up.  I'm as broken, if not more, than the next guy.
But the truth is, I very often have trouble remembering that.
My pride gets in the way and I think that I can "fix" myself, if I even admit that I need fixing in the first place.

Too often, I think we 'do justice' out of an attitude that we are better than those we are serving.
People can see right through that.
We need to recognize…I need to recognize…that I am broken too.  Just as broken as those we typically think of as 'really jacked up.'  Mine just reveals itself sometimes in more culturally acceptable expressions.

The worst part about brokeness…
Often the only way to discover it is to hit a place of such desperation that all we have left is a clear and obvious picture of how jacked up we are.
That scares me.
I don't want to be there.
But I know I will be better for it.

So whether you're in that place, or in between those points, because they will come, be reminded that you are broken.
Approach others with that spirit.
Approach God with that spirit.
That is the heart that expresses the worship God desires.

I am broken.
How about you?

Awhile back I wrote this post about the song How He Loves Loves Us and David Crowder's change ot the Sloppy Wet Kiss line.

Well, I'm a little behind since this came out a couple weeks ago, but I just came across a post from the original song writer, John Mark McMillan about the lyric change and his own thoughts on it.

I highly recommend checking it out. 
I also appreciate that he shares his own heart in what was behind the lyric in the first place.
Here's a couple of excerpts from what he had to say:

"The
idea behind the lyric is that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of
earth converge in a way that is both beautiful and awkwardly messy.
Think about the birth of a child, or even the death of Jesus himself.
These miracles are both incredibly beautiful and incredibly sloppy
("gory" may be more realistic, but “Heaven meets earth like a gory
mess” didn’t seem to have the same ring). Why does the church have such
a problem with things being sloppy? Do we really think we’re fooling
anyone on Sunday morning, especially God?"

"I
applaud David for changing the line to serve his people, and at the
same time I boo the machinery that would cause him to have to do so."

Love the lyric.
Love his thoughts.
Love his heart.

For those who know the song and sing it at a church, just curious, does his explanation of the lyric help any of those who don't care for the lyric in corporate worship sing it?
Or is it still too much of a leap for ya?