I met this guy at lunch this week in California, turns out he's a pretty "big deal." Gave him a Google and I'd recommend taking in THIS sweet piece from his band The Sweet Comfort Band. His story is worth a documentary...
Friday, February 26, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
iPhone Liturgy: Refrigerator
Taking a fridge to our brother Fuller...Liturgy...The work of the people.
iPhone Liturgy: Refrigerator from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
SABOTAGE, SURRENDER & HEALING
SABOTAGE, SURRENDER & HEALING
The Message translates this beatitude like this; “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and His rule.”
Spiritual poverty recognizes that all we have and all we are is a total gift from God. We are totally dependent on God, a good and loving God, who is in charge of the universe and in charge of our lives. Are we humble enough to acknowledge our total dependence on God? Are we ready to admit that we don’t have all the answers in our own right? Not until we get to the end of our rope, which usually means sabotaging ourselves, which leads to surrender, which leads to healing.
For those of us who have chosen to follow Christ, we are always in one of these three stages. All three stages feel very different than the other but there is hope in each one.
Sabotage—This usually starts to happen when we start believing that we have it all figured out. We start to get a taste of worldly success, we start to count our gains as gains, and we start to distance ourselves from that sweet place of surrender that we once believed would last forever. Fear begins to set in. Fear that He doesn't exist, or that His cost will be too high for us can make the journey seem so heavy and exhausting, so weighed down with anxiety and pressure (both of which are not even real things - they are simply the pain of resisting what is). That’s when we fall off our chosen path and begin to live lives of quiet desperation, wondering what happened that left us in such a malaise, which is essentially a living death. This is the process of sabotaging ourselves until we have no choice but to get back to the place of…
Surrender—Now we are at the end of our rope again. It once again becomes crystal clear that we cannot experience the peace and joy that our souls long for unless we realize that we are not the ones in charge of our lives. We have to let go of everything we thought would satisfy us in this world. We tried to manage our lives and discipline ourselves but it didn’t do for us what we thought it would do. So now we have to become Poor in Spirit. We have to emotionally and spiritually die, to be crucified with Christ. This can make us feel like we are going to lose everything, we have to jump off the cliff, so to speak, in hopes that God will catch us. And He does, and everything makes sense again, God welcomes this spirit of surrender and lets us know that He has always had us in the palm of His hand. We can now experience His nurturing Spirit and so begins the…
Healing—This is the place where we get to see the point and purpose of sabotage and surrender. It all makes sense. We see that God has never left us, that He uses all three stages to point us back to Him. He works all things together for good for those who love Him and who are called according to His purposes. We stop walking around in a living death (mere existence for the purpose of continued eating and breathing and sleeping) and we start to live a dying life (a letting go of attachment and fear to boldly walk the path of greatest worldly resistance - and yet his yoke is so light - to live for the purpose you were born for, to leave the mark you were literally made to leave). But because of our fleshly natures and our sheer forgetfulness, the beauty of His purpose for our lives begins to fade and it eventually stops being an experience and it starts to turn into a memory. We can only live off of our last “surrender’ for so long until we once again start to…sabotage.
- Aaron Edwards
The Message translates this beatitude like this; “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and His rule.”
Spiritual poverty recognizes that all we have and all we are is a total gift from God. We are totally dependent on God, a good and loving God, who is in charge of the universe and in charge of our lives. Are we humble enough to acknowledge our total dependence on God? Are we ready to admit that we don’t have all the answers in our own right? Not until we get to the end of our rope, which usually means sabotaging ourselves, which leads to surrender, which leads to healing.
For those of us who have chosen to follow Christ, we are always in one of these three stages. All three stages feel very different than the other but there is hope in each one.
Sabotage—This usually starts to happen when we start believing that we have it all figured out. We start to get a taste of worldly success, we start to count our gains as gains, and we start to distance ourselves from that sweet place of surrender that we once believed would last forever. Fear begins to set in. Fear that He doesn't exist, or that His cost will be too high for us can make the journey seem so heavy and exhausting, so weighed down with anxiety and pressure (both of which are not even real things - they are simply the pain of resisting what is). That’s when we fall off our chosen path and begin to live lives of quiet desperation, wondering what happened that left us in such a malaise, which is essentially a living death. This is the process of sabotaging ourselves until we have no choice but to get back to the place of…
Surrender—Now we are at the end of our rope again. It once again becomes crystal clear that we cannot experience the peace and joy that our souls long for unless we realize that we are not the ones in charge of our lives. We have to let go of everything we thought would satisfy us in this world. We tried to manage our lives and discipline ourselves but it didn’t do for us what we thought it would do. So now we have to become Poor in Spirit. We have to emotionally and spiritually die, to be crucified with Christ. This can make us feel like we are going to lose everything, we have to jump off the cliff, so to speak, in hopes that God will catch us. And He does, and everything makes sense again, God welcomes this spirit of surrender and lets us know that He has always had us in the palm of His hand. We can now experience His nurturing Spirit and so begins the…
Healing—This is the place where we get to see the point and purpose of sabotage and surrender. It all makes sense. We see that God has never left us, that He uses all three stages to point us back to Him. He works all things together for good for those who love Him and who are called according to His purposes. We stop walking around in a living death (mere existence for the purpose of continued eating and breathing and sleeping) and we start to live a dying life (a letting go of attachment and fear to boldly walk the path of greatest worldly resistance - and yet his yoke is so light - to live for the purpose you were born for, to leave the mark you were literally made to leave). But because of our fleshly natures and our sheer forgetfulness, the beauty of His purpose for our lives begins to fade and it eventually stops being an experience and it starts to turn into a memory. We can only live off of our last “surrender’ for so long until we once again start to…sabotage.
- Aaron Edwards
Candid "Walt" Outtake
Candid outtake from "Walt" during our recent visit. WB films on TWOTP coming soon...
Friday, February 12, 2010
Declaring The Alternative Narrative
Spending time with Walter Brueggemann always spurs us on to good things and our last visit was no exception.We were fortunate enough to sit in on a few of Walter's lectures at Truett Seminary's "Winter Pastor's School" in Waco TX this past week. We also managed to have a little chat with Walter which we happened to film, so look for that in the not too distant future.
Talking with Walter we are reminded again, there are two narratives in the world: a dominant narrative which promises to keep us safe and make us happy through technology, self-actualization, and the attainment of consumer goods and which must be secured by means of force and violence; and an alternative narrative rooted in the Bible which turns the dominant narrative upside down and says we find ourselves fully human when we lay down the dominant narrative of self-managing, self-striving, self-constructing, when we refuse the way of domination and force and when we relinquish our denial as to the brokenness and loss created by the dominant narrative.
This contestation of narratives is one of the main threads running through Walter's writing and it is good to be reminded, yet again, that this picture of reality is deeply true in our current context.
As artists it reminds us again of the tension between decoration and declaration. The program to decoration tends to require a sub-narrative derived from the dominant narrative. Decoration might use God-words, but the structure required to uphold it's function is derived from dominant narrative DNA. The sub-narrative derived from the dominant narrative is focused first and incommensurately on technology which includes our techniques and cleverness; it's language is of us achieving, managing and controlling; it ignores large and unmanageable systemic greed and violence focusing instead on domestic and privatized moral turpitude. In all these ways the sub-narrative reflects the dominant narrative rather than articulating a new alternative.
If, as artists, we declare the alternative narrative we must do so from within that alternative narrative. At the center of God's alternative narrative is a dying to self as seen on the cross; a vulnerable brokenness as seen in the bread of the Eucharist, a willful pouring out as seen in the wine. At the center of God's alternative narrative gathered around Jesus at the table are those most dear to him; the outcasts, the visibly broken, the people at the end of their rope. In God's alternative narrative, the margins are in the centre. It is from this vulnerable centre—among the broken and as one broken—that we declare a radical upside down world. A world of possibilities counter to illusions leading to safe despair, a world of relationships counter to imperatives leading to happy violence.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Monday, February 01, 2010
Conversation with Gary Molander
Had a good conversation worth sharing. It's a lot to get through, so pace yourself.
We read a great article by Gary Molander at Collide about the cry of the artist. Go ahead and have a read, we'll wait.
[pleasant flute music]
STEVE RESPONDS:
Gary, thanks for this article. It is much needed precisely because the broken quiet people won't push themselves to the fore. That isn't an indictment regarding some kind of lacking on the part of the broken quiet ones, but an affirmation of their unwillingness to toe the line in a system that's intrinsically broken. i.e. it's a system in which voices unwilling to put on the mantel of power are pushed to the side and left unheard. They would rather remain unheard than take up the mantel of power; which, to my mind, is laudable.
I too am disturbed by the tragedy that most executive leaders won't think they need to read this article. I guess I wonder what you think about "where to from here." The intimation seems to be, and correct me if I'm wrong, that status quo is A-OK and will be with us for a while, so here's some ways we can all get along within status quo.
I tend to think, as you may have surmised from the opening paragraph, that a structure in which the lead pastor might be construed as the voice of God is fundamentally skewed. He isn't Moses, I mean that literally, and Pentecost happened. Perhaps a system only able to hear "loud" voices which has no ears for broken quiet voices isn't worth protecting. Maybe artists wonder what impact they have because they wonder what impact the whole thing has.
Genuinely curious as to your thoughts. I know people need to be in status quo, pushing from the inside to effect any kind of valuable change, and it ain't easy. If that's what artists are called to, there's no room for whining. I guess I wonder if you'd call the current state of affairs a "status quo" that needs a-changin'.
==============
GARY RESPONDS:
Thanks for your response to the article. Very thoughtful and well-articulated. And you're asking a great question: Do artists simply need to learn to live in a flawed system, or is there something we can do to change the system? I think the answer to both questions is yes.
Not all church systems are flawed. I should make that very clear. But many church systems are very flawed. Most lead pastors and executive church leaders aren't creating flawed environments intentionally. I honestly believe that most are already SO busy and SO driven, that they unintentionally miss the softer cry of the artist - that's the tragedy that I spoke of at the end of the article. Church leaders like this are either evil or naive, and I'm choosing the latter.
And that's why I wrote the article - to give artist's a voice in the middle of the screaming that defines church life. These comments are their comments, but also affirm what I experienced when I was a pastor.
Artists need to learn the difference between being honest and whining. Pastors already know when anyone on their staff team is simply whining, or honestly pleading for some small change. Whining usually has pride at the core, while honest sharing usually has desperation there. Whining says, "I can do it better than you", while broken honesty says, "I can't keep going this hard, this far, for this long... and I need your help."
Lead pastors need to be willing to sit down regularly with artists and ask them, "How's your pace?" And they need to have the inner-security to hear the honest truth. I've found that many key leaders (in any organization) struggle to listen to a subordinate's honest cry, without becoming defensive themselves.
I'm not visionary enough to see a way out of this. I do know that we must learn to function in Christlike ways, while living in the middle of it. I wish I had more vision for a restart here.
And finally - for Lead Pastors and Church Executives who are running their staff environments like the CEO's of large organizations, I would pray that they'd think again how how upside-down the Kingdom of Christ calls us to be.
Blessings to you.
==============
STEVE RESPONDS:
Hi Gary
Thanks for responding right away. Very cool.
I guess I should clarify I'm not talking about specific churches being flawed, I'm talking about the whole ball of wax, the way we do church in North America is maybe flawed. For example, you wrote:
Which, again, is awesome. Fantastic! Yes! We need to give artists a voice, that's at the centre of my vocation so I couldn't agree more and applaud you for saying it.
But, if screaming defines church life... shouldn't we be addressing the screaming rather than give artists a voice within the screaming? Shouldn't the artist's voice be heard simply because there's less screaming?
I really believe being a disciple of Christ is as simple as love God, love your neighbour. I also believe from that simplicity comes implications of unresolvable complexity and the voice of the poet, not our systems and structures, is the way to navigate those complexities.
So, I guess my question is, do you think it's acceptable that "screaming" defines the life of the church? If so, why? And if you don't think it's acceptable how is there any hope to stop the screaming if the voice which can guide us away from the screaming can't be heard?
I know tone is often missing in written communication, so let me state these are all honest questions and I'm interested in your answers.
SF
==============
GARY RESPONDS:
Steve:
You're asking a really big question - the flawed nature of the church in North America. So here's my honest (perhaps brutal) take on the North American church (doesn't include Mexico).
In my parent's generation (1950 - 1980 ish), a pastor was lured into the pastorate with the promise of doing two primary things: Preaching God's Word, and shepherding the people. To "shepherd" the flock meant to care for them. Pastors basically did two things - Sermon prep and visitation (home, hospital, and graveyard). My father came to faith as an adult with the Senior Pastor of a 1,000 member church visited him in our home, on a Monday night.
But in the 80-90's, there was a huge shift in that role. The role of preaching God's word continued, but the role of the "shepherd" was replaced with the role of "CEO". Now, instead of seeing himself as the shepherd of a flock, the pastor saw himself as the Chief Executive of an organization - an organization whose primary goal was to become larger through conversion growth.
I believe that you and I sit in the middle of that fallout - where most Senior Pastors are trying to grow bigger churches, not love people unconditionally with the love of Christ. Most of them would strongly disagree with that statement, but their staff turnover proves it. They busy themselves with staff meetings, growth charts, goals and objectives, and budgets - all in the (spoken or unspoken?) hope of growing their church numerically. Whether they admit it or not, that is the most important thing - church growth. Because somehow, a growing church means that evangelism is taking place (their belief, not mine).
Now - around to the conversation at hand.
Artists and Creatives are on the staff teams of thousands of these churches, serving in the middle of these environments. And this is where their cry comes from. They are being asked to create, and are judged by graphs, numbers, and reports.
I had hoped that the "emerging church" would help us revert back to a more organic view of "church", but anything "emerging" is seen by the mainline churches as "doctrinally incorrect", perhaps even "heretical".
To stop the "screaming", I think it's gonna take an entirely new generation of Senior Leaders who are fed up with the Church = Corporation mentality. I also hope that, if enough Senior Pastors get frustrated with what's going on, maybe God will strip them of their "ideal church", and give them something completely different in its place - a group of people growing together, where the artist is seen as a prophet, and not a nuisance.
The leadership role of a Senior Pastor is still desperately needed - but he needs to lead from a place of brokenness, not power and control. And he needs to lead from the middle, not from the front. But that's another discussion for another time...
Blessings to you.
GM
==============
STEVE RESPONDS:
Thank you and good night everybody.
==============
STEVE ACTUALLY RESPONDS:
Yeah, I'm kind of annoying that way :)
Preach it brother. Oh, man, we keep hearing that cry. The broken wing. I have an image in my mind that puts fire in my belly, it's of poetic voices sitting in pews; they are judged by graphs and numbers and reports and they think it's right that they are. They judge themselves for not measuring up. They're crippled by self doubt and the beautiful gifts the Father has given them lie unused and atrophied while they struggle in vain to measure up to the graphs, numbers and reports. I'm all about releasing those people to fly. Man, we need them to fly. I don't know how and I'm stumbling through, but that's what Travis and I are pressing into.
Yeah, or churches pick up this new emergent thing and try to be organic-ish CEO church, which is kind of awkward. But I do sense something organic, ecumenical and international is being raised up.
Yes.
Again, amen. Power and control are the things we hold so dearly in our highly technologized, highly rationalized age. I don't know that Senior Pastors can willingly let go. It's so hard. Not sure where that leaves things other than in God's hands. It's also the point at which I find myself wondering about the roll of the artist in this.
Thanks for your honest engagement Gary, really appreciate it.
We read a great article by Gary Molander at Collide about the cry of the artist. Go ahead and have a read, we'll wait.
[pleasant flute music]
STEVE RESPONDS:
Gary, thanks for this article. It is much needed precisely because the broken quiet people won't push themselves to the fore. That isn't an indictment regarding some kind of lacking on the part of the broken quiet ones, but an affirmation of their unwillingness to toe the line in a system that's intrinsically broken. i.e. it's a system in which voices unwilling to put on the mantel of power are pushed to the side and left unheard. They would rather remain unheard than take up the mantel of power; which, to my mind, is laudable.
I too am disturbed by the tragedy that most executive leaders won't think they need to read this article. I guess I wonder what you think about "where to from here." The intimation seems to be, and correct me if I'm wrong, that status quo is A-OK and will be with us for a while, so here's some ways we can all get along within status quo.
I tend to think, as you may have surmised from the opening paragraph, that a structure in which the lead pastor might be construed as the voice of God is fundamentally skewed. He isn't Moses, I mean that literally, and Pentecost happened. Perhaps a system only able to hear "loud" voices which has no ears for broken quiet voices isn't worth protecting. Maybe artists wonder what impact they have because they wonder what impact the whole thing has.
Genuinely curious as to your thoughts. I know people need to be in status quo, pushing from the inside to effect any kind of valuable change, and it ain't easy. If that's what artists are called to, there's no room for whining. I guess I wonder if you'd call the current state of affairs a "status quo" that needs a-changin'.
==============
GARY RESPONDS:
Thanks for your response to the article. Very thoughtful and well-articulated. And you're asking a great question: Do artists simply need to learn to live in a flawed system, or is there something we can do to change the system? I think the answer to both questions is yes.
Not all church systems are flawed. I should make that very clear. But many church systems are very flawed. Most lead pastors and executive church leaders aren't creating flawed environments intentionally. I honestly believe that most are already SO busy and SO driven, that they unintentionally miss the softer cry of the artist - that's the tragedy that I spoke of at the end of the article. Church leaders like this are either evil or naive, and I'm choosing the latter.
And that's why I wrote the article - to give artist's a voice in the middle of the screaming that defines church life. These comments are their comments, but also affirm what I experienced when I was a pastor.
Artists need to learn the difference between being honest and whining. Pastors already know when anyone on their staff team is simply whining, or honestly pleading for some small change. Whining usually has pride at the core, while honest sharing usually has desperation there. Whining says, "I can do it better than you", while broken honesty says, "I can't keep going this hard, this far, for this long... and I need your help."
Lead pastors need to be willing to sit down regularly with artists and ask them, "How's your pace?" And they need to have the inner-security to hear the honest truth. I've found that many key leaders (in any organization) struggle to listen to a subordinate's honest cry, without becoming defensive themselves.
I'm not visionary enough to see a way out of this. I do know that we must learn to function in Christlike ways, while living in the middle of it. I wish I had more vision for a restart here.
And finally - for Lead Pastors and Church Executives who are running their staff environments like the CEO's of large organizations, I would pray that they'd think again how how upside-down the Kingdom of Christ calls us to be.
Blessings to you.
==============
STEVE RESPONDS:
Hi Gary
Thanks for responding right away. Very cool.
I guess I should clarify I'm not talking about specific churches being flawed, I'm talking about the whole ball of wax, the way we do church in North America is maybe flawed. For example, you wrote:
"And that's why I wrote the article - to give artist's a voice in the middle of the screaming that defines church life."
Which, again, is awesome. Fantastic! Yes! We need to give artists a voice, that's at the centre of my vocation so I couldn't agree more and applaud you for saying it.
But, if screaming defines church life... shouldn't we be addressing the screaming rather than give artists a voice within the screaming? Shouldn't the artist's voice be heard simply because there's less screaming?
I really believe being a disciple of Christ is as simple as love God, love your neighbour. I also believe from that simplicity comes implications of unresolvable complexity and the voice of the poet, not our systems and structures, is the way to navigate those complexities.
So, I guess my question is, do you think it's acceptable that "screaming" defines the life of the church? If so, why? And if you don't think it's acceptable how is there any hope to stop the screaming if the voice which can guide us away from the screaming can't be heard?
I know tone is often missing in written communication, so let me state these are all honest questions and I'm interested in your answers.
SF
==============
GARY RESPONDS:
Steve:
You're asking a really big question - the flawed nature of the church in North America. So here's my honest (perhaps brutal) take on the North American church (doesn't include Mexico).
In my parent's generation (1950 - 1980 ish), a pastor was lured into the pastorate with the promise of doing two primary things: Preaching God's Word, and shepherding the people. To "shepherd" the flock meant to care for them. Pastors basically did two things - Sermon prep and visitation (home, hospital, and graveyard). My father came to faith as an adult with the Senior Pastor of a 1,000 member church visited him in our home, on a Monday night.
But in the 80-90's, there was a huge shift in that role. The role of preaching God's word continued, but the role of the "shepherd" was replaced with the role of "CEO". Now, instead of seeing himself as the shepherd of a flock, the pastor saw himself as the Chief Executive of an organization - an organization whose primary goal was to become larger through conversion growth.
I believe that you and I sit in the middle of that fallout - where most Senior Pastors are trying to grow bigger churches, not love people unconditionally with the love of Christ. Most of them would strongly disagree with that statement, but their staff turnover proves it. They busy themselves with staff meetings, growth charts, goals and objectives, and budgets - all in the (spoken or unspoken?) hope of growing their church numerically. Whether they admit it or not, that is the most important thing - church growth. Because somehow, a growing church means that evangelism is taking place (their belief, not mine).
Now - around to the conversation at hand.
Artists and Creatives are on the staff teams of thousands of these churches, serving in the middle of these environments. And this is where their cry comes from. They are being asked to create, and are judged by graphs, numbers, and reports.
I had hoped that the "emerging church" would help us revert back to a more organic view of "church", but anything "emerging" is seen by the mainline churches as "doctrinally incorrect", perhaps even "heretical".
To stop the "screaming", I think it's gonna take an entirely new generation of Senior Leaders who are fed up with the Church = Corporation mentality. I also hope that, if enough Senior Pastors get frustrated with what's going on, maybe God will strip them of their "ideal church", and give them something completely different in its place - a group of people growing together, where the artist is seen as a prophet, and not a nuisance.
The leadership role of a Senior Pastor is still desperately needed - but he needs to lead from a place of brokenness, not power and control. And he needs to lead from the middle, not from the front. But that's another discussion for another time...
Blessings to you.
GM
==============
STEVE RESPONDS:
Thank you and good night everybody.
==============
STEVE ACTUALLY RESPONDS:
"You're asking a really big question - the flawed nature of the church in North America."
Yeah, I'm kind of annoying that way :)
"Artists and Creatives are on the staff teams of thousands of these churches, serving in the middle of these environments. And this is where their cry comes from. They are being asked to create, and are judged by graphs, numbers, and reports."
Preach it brother. Oh, man, we keep hearing that cry. The broken wing. I have an image in my mind that puts fire in my belly, it's of poetic voices sitting in pews; they are judged by graphs and numbers and reports and they think it's right that they are. They judge themselves for not measuring up. They're crippled by self doubt and the beautiful gifts the Father has given them lie unused and atrophied while they struggle in vain to measure up to the graphs, numbers and reports. I'm all about releasing those people to fly. Man, we need them to fly. I don't know how and I'm stumbling through, but that's what Travis and I are pressing into.
"I had hoped that the "emerging church" would help us revert back to a more organic view of "church", but anything "emerging" is seen by the mainline churches as "doctrinally incorrect", perhaps even "heretical"."
Yeah, or churches pick up this new emergent thing and try to be organic-ish CEO church, which is kind of awkward. But I do sense something organic, ecumenical and international is being raised up.
"...a group of people growing together, where the artist is seen as a prophet, and not a nuisance."
Yes.
"The leadership role of a Senior Pastor is still desperately needed - but he needs to lead from a place of brokenness, not power and control. And he needs to lead from the middle, not from the front. But that's another discussion for another time..."
Again, amen. Power and control are the things we hold so dearly in our highly technologized, highly rationalized age. I don't know that Senior Pastors can willingly let go. It's so hard. Not sure where that leaves things other than in God's hands. It's also the point at which I find myself wondering about the roll of the artist in this.
Thanks for your honest engagement Gary, really appreciate it.
iPhone Liturgy: Knowing What God's Doing
iPhone conversation with Sondays pastor Aaron Edwards after breakfast about 1 Corinthian...Can you name the background music?
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