Six Books I'd Like To Read

For the first 25 years of my life, I didn't spend a lot of time reading books. All that changed when I began working on my Masters. There was a lot of reading required, but what I found is that I really enjoied it - specifically books on Christian thought and leadership.

At this point, I can say I've read a number of books that have changed my life or, at the least, changed my thinking. Not everything I've read is agreeable and I've found that helpful as well. Those books help me realize what I believe as much as the one I do agree with. Every once in a while when I read a book that annoys me quite a bit, I later find that it was more "on track" than I realized - it grew on me.

With this said, you can see three selections I'm reading through right now in the sidebar. (Actually, I've also started a fourth, Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller.) Here's a list of at least six other books that are on my list to check out in the future...

• Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches, edited by the recently departed Robert Webber. It contains writings from such authors as Karen Ward, Doug Pagitt, Dan Kimball, John Burke, and Mark Driscoll
• The Big Idea, by Dave Ferguson
• They Like Jesus But Not The Church, by Dan Kimball
• Design Matters: Creating Powerful Imagery for Worship, by Len Wilson and Jason Moore
• Stripped: Uncensored Grace on the Streets of Vegas, by Jud Wilhite & Bill Taaffe
• In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, by Mark Batterson

With all this said about books, I can't help but acknowledge that the book that has had the greatest influence on me is the Bible, written by God himself through flawed human individuals. I would say, however, that I love this book for a reason somewhat different that you may think. I will discuss that in a later post...

What Makes Us Who We Are

Here is a great story from Greg Adkins' blog EmergingMinister.com. It's so good, I'm reposting the whole thing. Let me know your thoughts...

Isn't it amazing the small moments in life that make us who we are? For almost all of us, if we think back through our history, we could identify one small moment... one chance encounter... one accident... one sermon... one coincidence... one something that changed our whole direction. I was thinking back on all the things that have led me to where I am now and realized that it would probably all be totally different if not for that one day when my friend Mark Nelson's son got sick.

I was a freshman in college and Mark had asked me to come help him lead worship at a week of camp in North Carolina. Back in the day, Mark was asked to lead worship all over the place and I almost always went with him and played the keyboards. Sometimes it was just me and him and sometimes we had a band. At this week if I remember correctly, we had Scott Bradford on drums, and a couple of other people I can't remember on guitar and bass... this was in 1994 so forgive me if my memory is a little hazy on some of this.

Anyway, at this point in my life, I didn't sing really... I mean, I had been in choir but I didn't ever sing alone. No solos, no worship leading, no nothing. I was terrified of the thought really. I was surrounded in high school with people who had amazing solo voices (Justin, Mendi, Casey, etc...) and I knew my voice wasn't in the same league as theirs, so I was more than happy to just hang out behind my keyboard. Paul Schaeffer was my hero.

On Thursday night that week of camp, we started our worship set about the way we usually did and all was well. Mark was rocking us all out on a little number called "Praise Him Raise Him" and probably got crazy with a little "King Jesus is All" too... I can't remember what songs we really sang, but in my memory, Mark is perpetually leading those two songs. As we moved through our faster more upbeat songs and got ready to sing some quieter things I remember seeing Mark's wife Monica walking down the isle towards the stage. She looked concerned. Very concerned. We had just started the intro to the song "Beautiful Scandalous Night" (I do remember that song for sure...) and Monica stepped onto the stage and whispered something into Mark's ear. I remember looking at him as she whispered and his eyes got wide and a look of concern grew on his face. I was not ready for what happened next.

Mark picked up his microphone stand, calmly walked over to me and set it in front of my face. He leaned in to me and whispered only one word: "Lead!". He then jumped off the stage and ran out the back of the room. Everyone's eyes followed him running out the back of that old wooden gym. And then slowly... their eyes... turned back to the front... and looked at me. I'm not sure what I thought at that moment, but my guess is "Oh crap!".

I honestly don't really remember what happened next... I know I sang "Beautiful Scandalous Night". I'm sure we sang 2 or 3 more and I'm sure I was terrified. It must not have been too bad though because afterwards I can remember a few people telling me I had done a good job under such strange circumstances. Turns out Mark's son Michael (who was probably 4 or 5 at the time) had gotten really sick... sick enough to need to go to a doctor. I don't remember what was wrong, but I know he was okay and back at camp later that night.

After I got home, I heard that my home church was needing someone to lead worship on Sunday nights for the youth group. I called the youth minister and told him that I would be willing to do it. I'm certain that I never would have done that without the confidence I had gained from leading in North Carolina. For the next couple of years, I led every Sunday night there in the senior high room at Farragut Christian Church. I made friendships with musicians then that last to this day... guys like Danny Rosenbalm, Scott Bradford, Jason Blankenship, Corbitt Reeves, Jeph Hurst... they were good times.

It's strange the things that make us who we are... I never would have asked for a little boy to get sick, but who knows where I would be if he hadn't? It's hard for me to imagine my life if that one event had never happened... would I have spent 9 years as a worship pastor? Would I be a songwriter? My wife first noticed me when I was leading worship (I know... checking out the worship leader...) and on and on it goes. I could have been a completely different person.

New Spring Update

Well, here's a small update with some photos added in the e|Photo Gallery.

1) Andrik and I went out to the Trap Shoot event sponsored by the Outdoorsmen group at our church. It was my first time shooting a shotgun and Andrik's first time shooting a real gun (of course). We only did 25 shots total before we had to go. About halfway through our flight, Andrik got real frustrated and handed over the gun to me to finish it off. (There's a lot to remember reloading, keeping the safety on, and keeping the barrel down.) Anyway, I hit maybe two out of fifteen.

2) We had the Mission:Possible event at church. I was able to have dinner with Dan Sager and his family who have been serving in Moscow, Russia. He was our speaker that Sunday. It was a joy to meet him and spend some time talking about his experience (and eating ice cream)!

3) I mentioned that the kids and I went bike riding. I got a bike for myself at a yard sale for $10. It's not bad. You'll see some photos we took on our rides as well a small movie of Kellin riding.

Enjoy!

Guitar Hero? Maybe Not

Perhaps you've heard of Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II. It's a PlayStation 2 and XBox video game that comes with a "guitar" controller. Basically, you press the fret buttons and strum a toggle switch. If you hit the right buttons and do it on beat to the songs, you'll rack up the points. Pretty cool.

What could be cooler? Accordian Hero, of course. I thought this was a joke at first, but it is not. Both the accordian "controller" and the game was apparently created by some German guy who really wanted to rock out with his accordian and his PS2 (check out the screen shot to the right). M.C. Hammer's Can't Touch This and the traditional In Heaven There Is No Beer are just a couple of tracks you can rock out to.

Accordian Hero - How did we ever live without it?

This Is Why I'm Hot

Well no, not me personally. Strangely, I thought this was funny in a subtle way. It is a (tongue-in-cheek) graphical dissertation on the number one song in America, Mim's "This Is Why I'm Hot." Mim's song actually hit number one on the Billboard charts last March. Here's the link. Sometimes I have a warped sense of humor, so let me know if you think this is funny, too.

The Physical & The Spiritual

As the Hannaford Praise Team and I are going through Buddy Owen's The Way of a Worshiper, these last two Sundays we discussed "Using Our Bodies in Daily Devotions." What it really boils down to is this. There is a connection between the physical (what we do with our bodies) and the spiritual.

When we use our bodies in worship (including personal devotions), it enhances the spiritual aspect. When we don’t use our bodies, it stifles the spiritual. I personally believe that physical demonstrations such as singing aloud, clapping hands, kneeling, raising hands, and more are vitally important to our spiritual life.

I offer this passage from Brian Wren’s book, Praying Twice: The Music and Words of Congregational Song. Let me know your comments.

...The Bible affirms that human flesh, and the human body, are part of the material universe that God creates and affirms as “very good” (Genesis 1:31: Paul’s use of “flesh” in opposition to “spirit” describes, not the body as such, but human life in opposition to God). Because “the Word became flesh and lived among us, revealing God’s glory, full of grace and truth (John 1:14), we may logically affirm that “good is the flesh that the Word has become.”

By contrast, the early church acquired the increasingly powerful belief that the human body is shameful and distasteful, that sexual desire (seen as located in the body) is a temptation rather than a blessing, and that everything bodily is inferior to, and hostile to, our “spiritual” and “rational” nature ... Many worship traditions still act as if the body were an embarrassment. We find it hard to talk or pray about bodily matters in worship. Our seating patterns minimize movement, and our movement vocabulary is limited. We stand, sit, crouch or kneel, pass the offering plate, and occasionally shake hands or hug each other as we [greet one another in the service] ...

Yet God did not make us as brains walking on stilts, but as embodied beings. The Word became flesh, not disembodied intelligence, and our body life enhances or diminishes our spiritual life. Posture, eye contact, and body language help to shape our attitudes and relationships. When we sing from the heart, with full voice, some of us use our bodies more thoroughly, perhaps, than at any other time in worship. Our diaphragm expands to draw in air, which is expelled through the delicate muscles of the larynx, producing sound that resonates through the head, given meaning as tongue, teeth, jaw, and lips follow complex signals from the brain to form the words we sing. Persuade a congregation to sing the first stanza of [their favorite hymn], giving it everything they’ve got so that the roof shakes, and you’ll hear what a bodily experience congregational singing can be and rediscover how bodily commitment invites a commitment of spirit. Body and spirit are inseparable: ... When body attitude combines with deepest beliefs, [worshipers] are taken out of themselves into a heightened awareness of God, beauty, faith, and one another.