They let HIM run a church?

So, I'm officially 6 weeks into my first pastorate, and it's got me thinking. Who would have seen this coming? OK, in reality, more than a few saw this coming, especially in High School. But what a strange kid to grow up and hand the keys of a church, I think to myself. Particularly since I've never totally shed the odd things that held my interest as a kid. I'm still a Sci-Fi nut, I still love video games, I am still pretty conversant in comic books, I find myself day-dreaming about starships, I am compelled to crank-up good music, no matter the genre (or whether it's Christian or not), and I'm eagerly awaiting the return of Heroes on NBC. Somewhere in my head, I wonder if these things fit with what it means to be a pastor. I dunno. They just don't seem to fit the stereotypes. I should be into golf, classical music, and theater, or something more pedestrian like that, right?

Then Sunday, I was contemplating life next to a waterfall (OK, I was really in the shower), and a thought (probably not my own) pops into my head: “You don't cease being who you are when you become a pastor. You just bring all that with you to the table.” Kind of a comforting thought, actually. God doesn't want me to quit reading Star Wars novels (and frankly large portions of Wookiepedia) just because He's also asked me to take care of His people. He's never asked of me to lay aside day-dreaming about aliens and far-off worlds, just because I get up on Sunday morning and help people understand His Word. He's never asked me to stop being me, just to submit all of me to Him, and let Him use me in helping others. So I can have long conversations with owners of comic book shops. I can reference both Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail and The Phantom Menace in sermons only a couple of weeks apart (and you should have seen some of the guys my age light-up when I pulled out that plastic lightsaber). So I can take a pie-in-the-face at VBS (an act some thought was gracious of me, and I never thought twice about). And I've got at least four guys in our youth group wanting to challenge me in Halo. : )

Sometimes, we feel like we have to be different people when God gets a hold of our lives, and to a small extent that's true, but only in the things that run counter to holiness and love. I remember many years back my pastor Roger challenging us to tell him what a Christian looked-like, and confronting us with the truth that a Christian doesn't fit a mold or stereotype, but is just an individual submitted to God. So I don't have to be ashamed of the urge to hunt-down free war game rules on the Internet, or the fact that I still would love to publish a comic-book some day. I just bring that with me, one more part of a very complex Body of Christ. And see how God wants me to use that today.

Christian Worldview Art

I was just reading in CCM magazine in the library about Matt Kearney, and the broader topic of Christian music. One of the things he notes was that he turned down like 8 exclusively Contemporary Christian labels before he signed with anybody. This brought up an editorial discussion regarding the CCM term. One editor suggested the term "Christian Worldview Music," and it really just resonated with me somehow.

It's like this: CCM has been it's own (poorly shelved) ghetto in most music stores, or it has resided in its own store, apart from the rest. I worked in Christian retail for 6 years during college and seminary, and frequently would reorganize the badly arranged "Inspirational" sectional of other music stores when nobody was looking (yes, I'm that...um...uptight...do the same with books too). I remember than in one store, I think we actually carried Evanesence for like a week (that might have been after I left), and then never saw it again. And we definitely pulled Demon Hunter because the symbol on the front (a demonic looking skull with a bullet hole...think about the name...) creeped people out. Not making value judgements on either of those, BTW. But it's definitely it's own little world. And the Christian sections of most normal music stores, you can't hardly find anything anyway, and there's no respect for stylistic differences (or alphabetic order...grrrr...).

But enough of that rant. To the point!! How much is the Church like that CD section? Off in it's own little world, isolated from the rest, and definitely appearing scraggly at times. Not that we have to me appropriately categorized, (OK, at least alphabetize the directory...) but we're very much separated, hoping the world will eventually see how cool we are, especially if we can find a style they like. If we build it right, to paraphrase the great theology of "Field of Dreams," then they will come. We hope.

But in the concept of Christian Worldview music, artists like Kearney are out in the world, writing and performing from the perspective of their relationship with Christ. And it's not just "I love Jesus" repeated 13 times (with a bridge about His love for us), but about living daily life in Christ. (Interestingly enough, I think mainstream music is starting to take a turn like this with love songs. John Mayer's stuff in particular is much broader than 13 love songs on one CD.) It's about life, struggles, challenges, and how to face that all in the world. Perhaps I idealize some, but think out this model...it sounds a little familiar. These artists are in the mainstream media, interacting with a world audience, but their perspective, what they write from, where their inspiration comes from, and the answers they seek, are all of another world. Maybe Jesus talked about something like that, eh? Like how his followers would be living in this world they were not apart of (John 17).

There's a thin line between living in this world, being salt and light, and being of this world, directed by its values. But if we've really got something worth sharing in our Lord, and I think it's plumb obvious that the rest of the world isn't just flocking to it (the nature of the fall), maybe the momentum of the Holy Spirit is outward, to where the lost sheep is wandering. Maybe we've been shelved in out own section for far too long. Maybe we need to take our music to the mainstream, and teach them to sing along.

Wrestle with that question then, and see where the journey leads you. Blessings!

"Technology is great..."

It's funny to watch people when their electronics fail. People always feel a compulsion to say to me "Technology's great when it works." Why they say this to me, I don't know. Maybe it's because until recently, I constantly had a computer in my back pocket, and I've got enough tech-geekery to save my church an occasional $80/hour in calls to Computer Doctor, so they think I need a reality check or something.

But what they're talking about isn't "technology." Technology is the -ology, the knowledge, of techne (craft), of ways to do things which are theoretically better, more efficient. When the sound system went down at a conference I was at last month (which negated our ability to hear the slight-voiced speaker we were enjoying), some wag quipped that if Jesus had preached the Sermon on the Mount with a sound system, we'd have been more concerned with the technology than with the message. But Jesus was using technology, at least the technology of His day. He was using the technology of the natural acoustics of the local geography as an amplifier. He was using the technology of public speaking, which is far more efficient than repeating the same message to 5000 people one at a time. And then some one used a really hi-tech thing called writing (which only certain Information Technology specialists, called scribes, were fluent in), to amplify that message so that millions upon millions could interact with it.

Technology is a helper to communication. Some of it is easier to maintain (especially that which has had centuries to be perfected, like paper), more reliable (like a mountainside), but it's all technology. Roman roads, papyrus and ink, the Greek language, were the technology of mass communication in their day, which carried the Gospel message across the known world. Email, internet, cell phones, even radio, are all still maturing. Give them time. They're already, in their imperfection, spreading the Word to corners Roman roads never reached. And they remind us that God chooses to use the imperfect things of this world (like us) to do His work.

And next time someone says to you that technology;'s great when it works, ask them when's the last time their pencil broke. We're still perfecting that one too! : )

Look, ma! Actual content!!

OK, I've decided that I've been making this whole blog thing too big of a deal, and I just need to write. Quit worrying about audience, quit fussing with "theme", and just write. Merlin Mann writes "Remember that your blog is only incidentally a publishing system or a public website. At its heart, your blog represents the evolving expression of your most passionately held ideas." (from 43 Folders) So I'm gonna do just that.

So bear with me, folks. The ride may get bumpy, but well, it'll be fun. At least for me, anyway! : )

Why "Asking Good Questions?"

I was watching "Contact" this morning. Fabulous movie, written by a man I loathed 9 years ago. But that's not the point. As Ellie and Palmer are talking after their first "romantic" encounter, and Palmer is telling her about His passion for God, Ellie recalls attending Sunday School as a child. She would ask tons of questions, hard questions, lesson-stopping questions that break up the carefully crafted moment the teacher had prepared. Questions like "Where did Mrs Cain come from?" The pastor eventually contacted her father, and asked him to stop bringing her, because she was "disrupting" the Sunday School. As she said this, I uttered a word which is not fit for print. That teacher had betrayed their calling.

Ironically, the reason I loathed Carl Sagan, the author of Contact and Demon Haunted World, was because the latter book made me question my faith. Put me in a three-month tail-spin, actually. Yet it is the very ability to question that allows us to learn and grow.

Most of us church people don't like questions. We fear that if we can't answer, then it means God doesn't have the answer, or can't answer, and so we cast aside those who ask good questions.

But my God is bigger than my questions. We fear that questioning God is heresy, the kind of thing that gets you struck by lightning or something, We point to stories in the Bible (somewhere) in which people who test God are killed.

But then there's the honest seeker. Gideon. He questions God not out of arrogance, but submission and humility. And God honors him with a sign. And that's the difference. Not approaching God in arrogance and pride, thinking our questions void His existence, or that we are owed an answer, but in humility and honest seeking, knowing that the Answer to all good questions will lead us into truth, if we will let Him.

So don't fear the questions. Ask them. Not to me, per se, though I'll be glad to ask them with you. Let's join together, and take them to God. Be willing to live in the tension of not-knowing-and-yet-still-believing. And trust that even if we don't get to know the answers, our questions will still lead us to the Answer.

May God bless our humble questioning, remove our pretense, and bring us into honest truth. Amen.