Worship Conference

So I'm at a conference at Saddleback Church for music/worship leaders. My friend Ben Bajarin is a seminar speaker and he asked me to be on his "tech team". Basically, I just run the powerpoint for his presentation. He wanted me to come so I could experience the conference and meet a bunch of people.

While we were here, we got to hang out with a rock star. This guys named David Pack, who is a famous singer/songwriter from the 60's and 70's (his band was called "Ambrosia"), let us play his vintage one-of-a-kind guitars. I played a Taylor guitar that was made for President Bill Clinton. There are only two in existence. He is such a nice guy and I enjoyed getting to know him. You should look up his music on iTunes. Search for "Ambrosia".

Coming Events

So I'm getting married in 2 weeks and I'm a starting to feel a little stressed. I think its just work that is stressing me out. I only have a few things left to do for the wedding on July 7, but I was just bombarded with (I just paused while writing this to answer the phone concerning more work to do) a lot of work and I'd rather spend my time getting things finalized for the big day. Oh well, everything will work out.

Coming together

Things are coming together. I had a meeting with a church planter named Dave Gschwend today and its amazing to see how things connect.

I've been pondering some ideas about community, church structure, and unrealized potential in the Christian community. Dave used to be a pastor here in San Jose and in Santa Cruz, but now he is planting house churches in San Jose, Santa Cruz, and Monterey. The ideas he shared about authentic community, organic relationships, and real life transformation are the same ideas I have been struggling with for weeks now. It was amazing to see the ways God is moving in Dave's church planting endeavors.

Last week, I attended a luncheon for CityTeam International's church planting ministries. There were church planters from every continent (except Antartica) and their stories were amazing. For example, a group of 200 people who were given simple training planted 40,000 churches in a matter of years. It comes down to obedience and multiplicaton. These people plant house churches.

I was talking to Dave about this CityTeam thing when he asked me, "Was there a guy named Ned Yost there?" I told him there was, and he told me that this guy was staying at his house! Ned Yost (I think this is the right name) is a church planter from Indonesia.

All that said, I've noticed a movement going on. God is moving powerfully in small communities and house churches. Its so exciting.

Heart Ache

My heart aches right now.

I feel like there is a huge tension created by untapped potential. I could do more, my church could do more, the world could do more. I am convinced that our generation is capable of solving global issues and creating so much positive change. We are in a position that previous generations could only dream of in terms of transportation, communication, and resources to solves global problems.

The reason why my heart aches is that I want this potential to be realized. All these thoughts motivate me to be ambitious and influence people to being acting on these ideas. I believe the Holy Spirit is poised and ready to empower us to do great things in the name of Jesus Christ! Let's get to it.

Work...

I don't know if I said it before, but I work for a landscaping company. I do estimates for properties that we are trying to bid for their business. I'm just about to leave for work, but there was something interesting about the property I'm about to measure.

I have some information about this property called The Barrington Bridge Community. Here is their slogan: Exceptional Privacy and Distinction.

I think that is great, a community where people don't have to think about interacting with the less fortunate members of society. Fantastic, a community that has set up a gate to keep the beggars out (Luke 16:19-31).

mewithoutYou

I realized why I like mewithoutYou so much. Aaron Weiss is not fake.

I was listening to a different band in my car today and I felt like this person was putting on a show. I didn't feel that they really meant it. I love the way mewithoutYou displays struggle, pain, heartache, and despair. These are real feelings and their music perfectly paints a picture of the struggle.

This makes me wonder about the music we sing at our churches every week. Is it real? Is it authentic? Do I actually feel the words that are being sung? I've stood there so many times and just sung because that's what I'm supposed to do. I think I mean the words I sing.

I know there are other musicians who are being real. MewithoutYou just slaps me around and allows me to be real.

(By the way, I posted this picture again because I like it a lot. It makes me feel like I'm at a concert.)

Way to go Brian!

Yesterday I went to Barnes and Noble to purchase a couple books. One of these books was The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren. As I went to check out, this girl at the cash register looked at the book and asked me what it was about.

It turns out she has a friend who was a Christian and became an atheist. This cashier has thus decided to read some books about Christianity to understand what her friend went through. She told me that she has read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and a couple other books.

So, when she looked at the title of Brian McLaren's book and saw the cool cover design, she was interested in knowing what the secret was. She asked me what the book was about and I said very cleverly, "I dunno, I haven't read it yet." But I continued to explain that it was a book about the gospel of Jesus that sheds light on the way American pop-Christianity has missed the point. She wrote down the title and told me she was going to read it.

Way to go Brian McLaren! That clever title and the cool cover design worked! I can't wait to learn to secret too.

mewithoutYou at Slim's

I went to see mewithoutYou at Slim's in San Francisco last night. It was an amazing show. There were other bands there including The Snake The Cross The Crown and Manchester Orchestra. But the highlight was mewithoutYou.

This is the first time I had seen mewithoutYou live, and I guess I was struck by the raw emotion they put into their music. I could sense the tension, passion, and anguish as Aaron Weiss grabbed my soul and shook it around. I love the depth of the lyrics and the way they portray their struggles through music. It is so inspiring.

But today, I feel weird. I have this sense of "back to the daily routine" in me. I don't want the daily routine. I want specialness all the time. Also, there were a few guys at the show that I haven't really talked to in a while, but I was very unsocial. I've just had so many ideas, inspirations, and struggles and I want to talk to people who are experiencing the same thing. My questions/issues/hopes for the church, issues with my own lifestyle, and longing for something deeper have driven me to seek people who want to truely follow Jesus. People who notice the problems with this world and want to do something about it.

I love mewithoutYou.

Beauty

I recently had a conversation with a friend about beauty. We had a disagreement about the basis by which we define beauty. Let me explain.

I sense two camps here: those who think beauty is on the inside and those who think beauty is on the outside. I'm going to use these two broad definitions to explain my theory on beauty.

In my recent discussions, I was asked the question, "Could you admit that a woman was beautiful when she walks past?" I replied, "no." Thus began our debate. I said that I could not submit that a woman was beautiful just by looking at her. I told my friend that I felt it was not right to label a woman beautiful unless I understood her personality, etc. My friend took a different stance. He claimed that he could look at a woman and innocently call her beautiful by looking at her exterior features. This point of view believes that there is something inheirantly engrained in us that can recognize beauty.

If you think about this topic in sociological terms, the beauty we know today is socially constructed. Media and advertisements have created a definition of beauty. As women, and men for that matter, begin to strive for these ideals a spiral begins to refine the definition. If you look at models in the last 100 years, the women have gotten thinner, taller, and more unnatural. It is the system which has defined beauty.

If you think of beauty as going beyond the surface, you begin to see a much deeper and more meaningful definition. I believe God intended human beings to be beautiful creations that reflect the image of God. This involves much more than our physical bodies. God desires that our whole being be transformed to be like Christ. I have a friend that I can honestly call beautiful. She does not neccessarily meet the socially constructed criteria for beauty, but she possesses something unique and special that simply radiates "beauty".

I just do not feel right calling a woman beautiful according to a superficial definition when there is so much more to people than their outward appearance. Some of the most beautiful people I know do not fit the definition of pop-beauty.