Give Me Your Eyes

This weekend our church hosted our annual midwinter youth retreat. The theme “Give Me Your Eyes” was borrowed from title of a Brandon Heath song. Our youth pastor decided not to hire a speaker and instead used the money to lease cows and goats to families in Cambodia and Africa. The theme of the weekend was all about reality vs. perception, blessing vs. entitlement, and compassion vs. pity. Our kids got their worldviews rocked to the core and the worship we took part in was awesome.

For starters, we transformed the sanctuary into a dump. we brought in several loads of garbage in box trucks and on flat-bed trailers. we filled the sanctuary with tires, pallets, scrap metal, old wood, plastic and paper and even brought the back of pickup truck front and center. On stage we created something similar to a dump dwelling one might see in some of the places we’ve worked on trips in the past few years. We definitely disturbed some people who cringed when they saw what had been done. A few missionary who’ve done ministry in dumps in ecuador for years visited this weekend and told us all we lacked was the smell of rancid milk and human waste. I guess we felt like we could only take it so far. While I contributed ideas to the set design, most of the credit goes to our youth pastor and the the team of college kids and parents that did most of the work. I’m attaching a few crappy pictures. maybe I’ll update with some better ones later on. Oh and my graphic too.

For worship, our youth pastor brought in an old college friend from West Texas. He did a great job and worked really well with the team we created to support him. I got to play drums Friday and Saturday. Worship Leader had to be on a plane Sunday, so I moved back to guitar.

Songs we used in the 5 worship sessions we had from Friday through Sunday morning included:

Give Me Your Eyes – Brandon Heath
Now is the Time – delirious?
Come Sit – an original by our guest worship leader Bryan Sims
Solution – Hillsong United
From the Inside Out – Hillsong United
Fire Fall Down – Hillsong United
The Stand – Hillsong United
Mighty to Save – Hillsong
Marvelous Light – Charlie Hall
Here I am to Worship – Tim Hughes
God of Justice – Tim Hughes
Everything Glorious – David Crowder Band
Sing to the King – Passion
Open the Eyes of My Heart – Paul Baloche
Trading My Sorrows (yikes!)- Darrell Evans
Jesus, Lover of My Soul – Paul Oakley

My favorite had to be Delirious’ Now is the Time on Sunday morning in both services after Jeff preached to our entire church.

Best Music of 2008 [according to Dane]

I know there’s some amazing music out there. There’s a lot of stuff that I would probably know and love more if i just went out looking for it (or just listened to the recommendations of my wife and siblings). But now the year is over and sadly I’m limited to what I have known. I thought long and hard to try to get to my favorite 10 albums. But after working on this post three separate times I figured I needed to go ahead and post it before we get too far into 2009. So here are my top eight albums of the year. I’m not certain the order of significance is perfect but it’s pretty close to what I think.

8. Hillsong – This is Our God
If there were a Hillsong United album out this year that was more than a bunch of live recordings of tunes I’ve heard before, it would probably knock this one off the list. Even so this one still makes it in. There’s enough Brooke Fraser to make the Album. And even though Mike Guglielmucciwas totally screwed up when he wrote Healer, we still use it. (if you don’t know – the downfall of this artist and church leader forced hillsong to pull the record from the shelves and re-release it without the song.)

7. Sara Groves – O Holy Night
Not quite as refreshing as the Sufjan Stevens EPs but still a terrific Christmas album. I hope Sara doesn’t quit showbiz to be a stay at home soccer mom any time soon.

6. Copeland – You Are My Sunshine
This is a recent recommendation from my friend Michael. I think it’s tiding me over until the new Mute Math comes out. Abbey hears an hint of Imogen Heap in the vocals. Sometimes I think these guys have some similarities to Leeland, but the songs are so much better than Leeland’s. Did I mention the lead singer spends a lot of time in his falsetto? I aspire to his kind of falsetto greatness.

5. Mates of State – Re-arrange Us
I fell in love with this one the very first time through. Thanks to Abbey for introducing me. This album makes me want to write inde-pop-rock songs and tour with a family band.

4. Dave Barnes – Me & You & the World
He’s got rhythm and soul and makes me wanna shake my booty.
OK Stop thinking about my butt now.

3. Coldplay – Viva La Vida
My feelings for this band were just kinda lukewarm for the longest time. This album changed everything. I know this album is probably near the top of most best of 2008 lists. But I’m not one to give up on a great band just because they become popular. Only if they start to stink or just get boring.

2. Jon Foreman – Fall, Winter, Spring & Summer
OK technically the first installment released in 2007 but this is my vote for best Male solo album. Truly a departure from Switchfoot.

1. Brooke Fraser – Albertine
I think this was released as early as 2006 in some places, but 2008 was the year of Brooke Fraser for me. So even though it’s old, it’s my favorite album of the year.

Worship Set December 28, 2008

I had a handful of comments and questions about today’s worship set, so I figured I’d make a quick post with a few details. After the craziness of Christmas we finally got back into familiar worship territory. Is it just me or is it hard to worship to Christmas songs? I’m struggling with the future of congregational Christmas music.

Anywho, this week we did:
1. Hosanna – Brooke Fraser
2. Cannons – Phil Wickham
3. You’ll Come – Brooke Fraser
4. Nothing But the Blood – Brooke Fraser (seeing any trends)
5. Give Me Your Eyes – Brandon Heath (Offertory)
6. The Glory of it All – David Crowder Band

This was definitely one of my favorite weeks in some time. There was less visible feedback in worship but more comments than usual. Not sure why.

Looking forward to the addition of a new band member who joined us today (well, now yesterday). I’m thankful that he plays five or six instruments. Still identifying his greatest strengths. Welcome Tyler!

I’m about to start working to catch up on much needed planning for a series beginning late January about our identity statement and ideas for Easter.

Videos coming up to support evangelism. Working on concept.

Midwinter youth retreat is coming up too in 2 or 3 weeks. I’ll get to play drums again which is always fun. It’s nice to get a chance twice a year to brush up.

Stuff Christians Like

So it’s been too long since I last posted. If I don’t step it up and get into a good rhythm about this I’m certain I will pass the point of no return where I’ll be forced to chalk this one up as a huge failure. It may be that the final hour has already come and gone and growing number of days between posts has left you who browse blogs the old fashioned way forgetting that I ever existed. The only hope I have is in Mr. Google Reader. I pray he will faithfully deliver my ramblings to all of you who have nothing better to do. And if someone besides my mom or my wife leaves a comment.. well, then I’ll know there is a reason God put me on this hunk of rock, and that Al Gore didn’t invent the internet just for the fun of it.

By the way Al, You da man!

Anywho….  you came here to read more than that crapola. On to the actual content!

You guys have to subscribe to the Stuff Christians Like blog written by John Acuff. This guy post on all things churchy. They remind me of my childhood and shed light on some really quirkiy things christians get wrapped up in. Some of my favorites include the Holiest Logo Ever, Jesus the Sports Hero, and Magical Things. There’s a great one on how to discover if you’re christian friends drink, but I couldn’t find it.

I’ve got lots of media work looming overhead for the upcoming season. We’re gonna try some Nooma inspired Advent Videos, Mission Trip Videos, Christmas Program Videos, and a video announcing an upcoming giving opportunity. It’s an intense ammount of writing, shooting and editing that all has to be done by December 14 and most of it completed by November 30. Pray for me.

Last I feel the need to make some music updates. A folky female, JJ Heller just released Painted Red. I got it as a free download which ended November 1 but I still reccomend it for fans of Feist, Sarah Groves, or Brooke Fraser.

Christmastime is here and I’m brushing up on tunes to use at worship. It’s a struggle every year to balance the need for fresh Christmas songs while still allowing folks to sing some favorites. This year I’m hoping to utilize stuff from Sarah Groves new album, O Holy Night, and Sufjan Stevens’ Songs for Christmas EPs.

I’m excited about an upcoming album from Mute Math. I’ll also be asking for recent releases by Relient K and Copeland for Christmas as well as the most recent John Mayer DVD.

And by the way, drop me a post and tell me you read this. If you don’t vote by making a comment then only you can be blamed when I take over the world and kill all the kittens. And if you also hate kittens, perhaps you will join me.

What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.

Like many churches these days, my church is in a worship war. I might be the hero for some, and the enemy for others. I usually just feel caught up in the middle of something difficult to sort out. Almost one year ago we changed our worship schedule. There were all kinds of reasons we did it. Trying to create space in the late service and trying to be more relevant to non-Christians while were some of the big ones in my mind.

So with any church change there are growing pains. And man are we feeling them here. I expected struggles like families being pulled to worship in separate hours, being without ideal Sunday school offerings at both hours, and just being short on volunteers in general. I expected for each of the new worship services to have a sort of identity crisis as they struggled to find their niches, but I never expected the nastiness we’ve experienced among our members as a result of some changes.

Why will the body of Christ not communicate with one another? I KNOW that deep down the desires of the hearts of the young people and the older generations in our church are the same. But lately I feel our perspectives are completely clouded with personal preferences and misunderstandings. I’m guilty too. I don’t know how to reach everyone best with my ministry. I often lean too far in the direction of message driven music and do not master the art providing the backdrop for multi-generatinal worship. But dialogue simply IS NOT HAPPENING between the generations in our community. Young people perceive the music of the past as irrelevant and uninspiring. Older generations think everything we do is a performance and that we’ve thrown out the richness of our faith in favor of trying to be cool. I sense this is true across the country and the world.

How can we begin to see each other’s point of view? We’ve got to communicate.

Edit: This post was in part sparked by the discussion of Cool Hand Luke on the Steelehouse Podcast. Check out the movie starring the late Paul Newman if you’ve never seen it. It’s definitely a favorite of mine that I’d forgotten about.

Finished Lanterns

Here’s how it all started.

And here’s what we ended up with. The paper I used was different than my original sample and we had to paint the texture (that you can’t see) by hand. It took 4 times as long as expected to hang them. So far I’ve gotten tons of complements and lots of folks asking what they were all about.

What do you make of it? I wish I had a close up that would show more detail. Oh well!

Special Thanks to Abbey who helped me paint and hang and to Mike Patzig who helped with logistics and who’s postponing the setup of his front lawn Christmas light show so that our lanterns can hang til mid November.

So that should take care of nine weeks. Then we have a few one-timers followed by the Advent Season which is supposed to be A Christmas to Remember. Any ideas for that one?

Creative Chaos

I’ve got lots of ideas and rarely much money. We’re finishing up a series called Reluctant Heroes. I created a skyline with black butcher paper, skinnier rolls of white butcher paper that I cut with a chop saw, and some leftover wood from some set pieces the children’s ministry discarded. The result was.. well… just O.K. See for yourself.

For our next series titled TORAH, I wanted to make the stage area a bit more classy and bring in an abstract element relating to traditional Jewish Torah scrolls. I was inspired by a picture on Lincoln Brewster’s myspace, but basically started from scratch on materials and construction.

A sea of orange-brown lanterns to hang above the stage became my vision.

I started looking for handmade paper samples with the help of my sister-in-law. Samples are in the mail so that I can choose the final material. I got a tip about lantern cables/sockets for $4 a piece at IKEA and picked up 29 of those. Then I got really stressed about how to get structure for cheap. I think we’ll most likely end up going with the bottom inch of Cool Whip or Country Crock Containers. When it’s all done we should have them tied into our dimmers above stage and voila! We’ve got our set for the Torah series. I expect to spend about $175 when it’s all said and done. And it’s all completely reusable.

Here’s a picture of the sample I created.

Watch the Saddleback Civil Forum

You owe it to yourself to know these things about the candidates.

I think GodTube is lame but in this case the content is good.

http://www.godtube.com/SaddlebackForum

Happy Birthday, Mr. Lego

copyright LEGO group 2007

This August you turned 30 years old Mr. Lego Minifigure, though you’ve never seemed to age in all the years I’ve known you. It’s like you’ve stood still in time, similar to the way you always stayed put so well when the holes in your feet were pressed down on the circular protrusions of the green, grey, or blue surface where we built your habitat. I just wanted to spend this time to say Happy Birthday and to let you know that I haven’t forgetten you. Though you’ve recently been outshined by celebrity minifigures like Harry Potter, Princess Leia and Shaq (who’s actually not any taller than the average Lego dude) I’ll always remember you for you service as the policeman, the ambulance driver. and the convenience store clerk. You were never looking for a place in the spotlight. You were there to drive cars and work in buildings that you always entered through the ceiling whether or not the door would have permitted you to enter. You inspired the children of the world to think creatively and wore you hairpieces and painted-on mustaches with such class. You loved Mrs. Minifigure despite her lack of feminine curves. And you never for a minute complained about your lack of knees that kept you from climbing all those thigh high steps that were built into your homes. Thank you Mr. Lego. May you you never actually grow old.

Ever wonder why?

These past couple of days have brought more than their fair share of bad news and sad stories.

I read a news story that told how the author of a new worship song I’d grown to love lied about having a terminal illness. This song was supposedly written the day he was diagnosed and was inspired by his continued faith despite his “diagnosis.” Another church brought the guy in to record on their live album and he performed in a very emotional state with a breathing tube in his nose. I got links to a YouTube video interview with the guy as the song blew up across the nation. Now almost two years later the truth comes to light. What motivates people who profess to be believers to do stuff like this?  Why?

My high school choir, Michael O’Hearn discovered he had a brain tumor that doctors will attempt to remove tomorrow. He’s got so many students and parents praying for him. I think it’s a huge testament to his witness. But it’s times like this that make me think ‘what’s the deal with pain and sickness?’ I just don’t get it. Mr. O We’re praying for you.

The last thing that’s been on my mind are the children of broken homes. A handful of us from church went to watch and hang out with some kids at a women’s shelter while their mom’s were at a christian women’s event. Some of the kids were so precious, other were suprising well adjusted for kids that had moved away from the towns they grew up in. A handful of the children were absolutely impossible. My heart breaks for these kids. I wish their mothers had families that could take them in and give them a more natural home environment. I wish their mother’s knew how to discipline in ways besides slapping their children every five seconds. I wish they had bicycles and safe neighborhoods to run wild in. I wish they had tree houses and slumber parties with best friends. I wish we’d thought to invite the kids at the shelter to VBS this summer.

So this weekend I have more questions than answers. Today the song Your Love is Strong by Jon Foreman is helpful to think of. I picked it to sing this Sunday for completely different reasons. Funny how God does that.