Filed under: Ordinary Life
I keep having ideas to write about, but never get around to the writing part. This week, I had an encounter that I just couldn’t go by without documenting it for posterity. The church I work at is big. It’s big enough that we’re able to host large concerts. On Monday, we were the Southern California tour stop for Amy Grant. Yes, that Amy Grant. The one with Angels Watching Over Me and El Shaddai and Baby Baby and so many more. I wouldn’t call myself a huge fan of her music, but some of her recent stuff is interesting and even a bit thought provoking as she seems to be wrestling with her faith in an honest way through her music.
Of course, all of that is exposition to the real story. The stage was set. Sound check was wrapped. It was still 2 hours before show time. Most of the band and crew were already eating in the Green Room. So, I went in with with the other house tech Ryan to grab a bite. There was Amy Grant talking with her drummer Greg Morrow. They were standing about 8 feet from the buffet table. I went ahead and grabbed a plate and handed one to Ryan. About 5 seconds passed when I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard a female voice behind me say, “ahem.” I turned around to see Amy Grant smiling at me. Several responses rifled through my mind. Things like “Dang, this is embarrassing.” or “What, you’re too famous to wait in line?” or “Wow, you’re Amy Grant.” I’m really, really glad that I went with, “Of course, ladies first. I wasn’t aware you were in line” – as I handed her a plate. She smiled even bigger, letting me know she wasn’t actually offended but just having some fun.
That was my confrontation with Amy Grant. Have you ever had a strange encounter with a celebrity? I hope they were as down to earth as Amy Grant turned out to be.
Filed under: Ordinary Life
My friend and fellow pastor Matt Doan shared this video on his blog orangecountypastor.com and it really inspired me.
How do we view Christmas?
Do we know the whole story?
Orange County’s own Dustin Kensrue of the Band Thrice, talks about Christmas, Jesus and the Spiritual War that took place when a quiet manager in Bethlehem became the birthplace of a King and a Savior.
That lead me to this commentary by Mike Metzger who summarized the Christmas story we read in Revelation 12.
The story in Revelation begins with a dragon fomenting a ferocious struggle in the ancient heavens. Long before the creation of planet earth a conflict raged across the cosmos between troops loyal to the Great King and those following Lucifer. This makes The Lord of the Rings look like child’s play. The vanquished (a roiling force totaling one-third of the angelic realm and including the deceiver known as Lucifer) were thrown down to earth.
The story then fast forwards to “O little town of Bethlehem” – except that everything’s not lying still. Above the deceptively sweet “deep and dreamless sleep” the silent stars do not go by. We find a woman, Mary, about to give birth. The fallen Lucifer, whom we often call the devil or Satan, is crouching greedily before her. His blood stained hands are ready to crush the infant Jesus the moment he is born.
Somehow… someway… at the moment of birth the infant is snatched away to safety… but not a moment too soon. A headlong flight into Egypt ensues with demonic rasp-like pursuers on the tail of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus. Foiled, the devil declares total war on the universe. Our last glimpse of the devil – but not the last we’ll ever see of him – finds Satan scanning the horizon looking to devour followers of the Christ child. It’s a book worth reading… and yet to be finished.
Satan was once part a cast member in the Christmas story. Prior to the 19th century, the Christmas chronicle was similar to other ancient epics – lots of bad guys and often raucous or vulgar behavior. That’s because the gospel was understood as a four-chapter story characterized by four types of conversations: (1) how things ought to be, (2) what life is like in the real world, (3) what we can do to make things better, and (4) what life will be like some day. The second chapter – the way life is – reminds us that evil still slinks around and we should never completely cover our eyes. “The world is all the richer for having a devil in it,” wrote William James, “so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.” There are bad guys, and we need to remember they are not asleep at the wheel.
We, on the other hand, tend to be asleep at the wheel and celebrate a candy-land view of Christmas. We erased Satan from the story when 19th century Victorian England sanitized all fables that were within earshot of children. The Victorians, many of them people of faith, romanticized the idea of “childhood” as something quite separate and distinct from adult life, meaning they “cleaned up” the ancient stories for kids by removing or emasculating villains. During this same period, the Christmas story was scoured clean of bad guys. Bethlehem became an idyllic hamlet for hobbits. The winner-take-all blood-and-guts cosmic struggle was excised for a sweet, snow white tale about a baby, mother and husband, and a stable.
J.R.R. Tolkien warned this “sprucing up” would ruin the ancient stories. And, sure enough, that’s exactly what happened… There are no real antagonists, just abstractions about evil – like Buddhist stories. By erasing the devil, the Christmas story has . . . little to do with our Monday-Friday world.
The solution is adding one more piece to our nativity sets – the devil.
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I believe that Christmas is the ultimate story of rescue and redemption as God sent his only Son into a ferocious battle. If Easter is when we celebrate the victory, Christmas is when God’s war plan is unleashed.
Filed under: Ordinary Life | Tags: bands, concerts, entertainment, Leslie
This weekend was supposed to be amazing. It was going to be epic. I had been looking forward to it for months, ever since my beautiful wife splurged on an anniversary present by getting a VIP package to see U2 at the Rose Bowl.
The weekend began when I woke up this past Saturday with a bit of an upset stomach, but thought it was just something I ate. Didn’t feel well enough to go to a friend’s housewarming party that afternoon, so sent my wife without me. I then spent the next few hours in unexpected agony and threw up about 6 times on Saturday. No bueno. I could barely stand and laying down hurt too much, so I spent most of the day and night trying to find a comfortable sitting position.
Sunday was better, but not great. Decided to pull it together and go to the concert since my wife had saved up a lot of money towards this and there was no way we were going to miss the experience. I was managing the discomfort okay, thankful we had easy VIP parking right next to the gate and a short walk to our seats in the 5th row. Spent about half the show sitting down as the Black Eyed Peas opened the night and I thought the intense amount of low end would be the end of me, but I did okay. Glad I did, because we got to see Slash come out and join the Peas doing Sweet Child of Mine. It was an awesome moment.
When u2 came on, it was surreal. The stage was so amazing and the crowd was electric. I was starting to feel pretty good. Unfortunately, I think Leslie caught something similar to me. She wasn’t feeling great during the VIP party, but she decided to ignore it and enjoy the show. About 10:30, 90 minutes into U2′s set, I looked over and she had tears welling up from her stomach pain. I think her tears were also partly because she didn’t want to be the reason we missed out on anything that night. However, I love my wife… way more than I love U2, so we left and missed the last hour of their set. I’ll see the end of the show someday on DVD. I’ll be with my wife for the rest of my life. It was an easy decision. I guess in some ways, it was still an amazing weekend afterall.
John Wooden is one of the greatest coaches of all time. He led the UCLA Bruins to 664 wins in 27 seasons and hung 10 championship banners. He retired from coaching in 1975, but his work has continued to this day as a world renowned and well respected author, speaker and mentor to many. Today is his 99th Birthday. In honor of his ongoing legacy, here are 9 of the best quotes from the Wizard of Westwood:
“If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.”
“You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.”
“It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”
“Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”
“Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
“Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters.”
“There are many things that are essential to arriving at true peace of mind, and one of the most important is faith, which cannot be acquired without prayer.”
“I always tried to make clear that basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior. Until that is done, we are on an aimless course that runs in circles and goes nowhere.”
I really need to memorize these… and then live them.
Filed under: Finding God in the Ordinary | Tags: art, church, creativity, faith
Came across this great article today from Collide Magazine from an interview with Donald Miller. I agree with it, do you?
Donald Miller on Artists, Metaphor, and the Church
Scott McClellan – Originally posted Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Photo Credit: Jeremy Cowart Photography
I wrote a feature for our September/October 2009 issue called, “Donald Miller: Storyteller,” in which I discuss an interview I did with Miller and his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. In preparing for that interview (conducted at the end of March) I came across a talk Miller gave at Willow Creek’s arts conference, “Creativity and Art, Why You Matter as an Artist.” I was immediately intrigued by what Miller might have to say on the subject, so I asked him about the role of artists in the Church. That section of our conversation didn’t make it into the print article, but I felt compelled to share it with you. Though short, I hope you find it validating and thought-provoking.
COLLIDE: What is your view on the importance of the artist’s role in the Church?
Donald Miller: It’s complicated. I think I’m not convinced the gospel can be arrived at through rational thought. I don’t think much of anything can be arrived at through rational thought that’s of great import. And all of life is performance art. It’s God’s performance art to sort of make poetic grunts back at him and say, “I’m like light, I’m like love, I’m like sheep to shepherd, I’m like king to subject.” Those are dynamics that are created by Him in order to educate us about who He is.
And so God uses art to do that, and so I feel like the Christian artist, like the secular artist, has this opportunity to point to greater truths. And the gospel exists in a realm of greater truth than what we can arrive at with a calculator. Does that make sense?
COLLIDE: Yeah, absolutely. You rattled off a few metaphors there – sheep to shepherd – and it occurs to me that we reduced that to sermon illustrations like, We’re like a precocious kid in Sunday School who said this, and that’s metaphor in large pockets of the Church. But the artist really explores metaphor and narrative far beyond the spoken word.
Miller: Yeah, and if you look at the writings of Moses you have narrative, narrative, and then he breaks into parallelism. He breaks into ancient Hebrew poetry. Job is almost fully a poem. Song of Songs is an opera heavily influenced by Solomon who’s interested in the Orient. You have artwork through the whole thing. I think Revelation is pretty trippy. I don’t know that there are any bullet points in the whole book, are there? There may be a few in building the temple.
COLLIDE: Maybe “Six things the Lord detests,” something like that.
Miller: The Ten Commandments.
COLLIDE: The fruit of the Spirit, maybe. More the exception than the norm, certainly.
Miller: Yeah, exactly, and even the fruit of the Spirit is an artistic metaphor.
So there you have it. To dig deeper into the idea of metaphor in the Bible, I believe Eugene Peterson had some things to say along those lines in his book Eat This Book: The Art of Spiritual Reading. Also, be sure to check out Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. He doesn’t necessarily teach on metaphor, but the book is a brilliant example of its proper use. Finally, check out “Donald Miller: Storyteller” in the September/October 2009 issue of COLLIDE.
Scott McClellan is the editor of COLLIDE. Original Article is here
Filed under: Ordinary Life | Tags: architecture, Family, food, life, music, travel
Our quick get away to Arizona was a lot of fun despite the 105+ degree heat. It was fun catching up with family we haven’t seen in years. It was fun floating around in a giant pool. It was fun enjoying some great food. It was especially fun for me to see some of the amazing architecture and venues in the Valley of the Sun. You can check out some of my iPhone Arizona Trip Photos on Flickr
While I do love traveling, and especially a good road trip, it is good to be home now where it’s currently a beautifully cool 68 degrees. I was reminded of one of the reason why I love living here when I heard the music in the park next to our little place in Orange earlier. I always forget about the annual summer concert series on Wednesday nights in Hart Park until it’s about half way into the summer and I’ve already missed all the good shows, only hearing them occasionally from a distance. In case you live around here too, be sure and catch at least one of these.
2009 Concerts in Hart Park dates (thanks to oc.metblogs.com):
* July 8, The Wise Guys Big Band Machine – Big band/swing music
* July 15, The Fenians – Traditional and contemporary Irish music
* July 22, Stone Soul – Motown, soul and R & B classics
* July 29, Open Wide – Classic rock
* August 5, Crashdance – Top 40 dance favorites
* August 12, The Sam Morrison Band – southern classic rock
* August 19, The Hodads – 50’s and 60’s rock-n-roll
* August 26, Film at Eleven – Motown and R & B classics
Hart Park is located at 701 South Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
The music may be a little hit and miss for your taste, but it’s all free and free makes everything better, right? Are there any summer traditions you enjoy that make home just as sweet as a good trip?
Spending the weekend with family in Tempe, Arizona and decided to visit a place that Guy Fiere recommended. He’s the host of a show on the Food Network called Diners, Dives and Drive Ins. It’s a place in Glendale called La Piazza Al Forno.
The pizza was really good and the service was even better. We got the Itallion Stallion with a load of spicy meats, the Piazza Blanco with basil and white sauce and the Mediteranian with pesto and feta.
The place has a really comfortable and relaxed family feel. I’m sure that Guy’s feature on this simple brick oven pizza joint has helped business quite a bit. They’ve capitalized on it with a banner our front and literally putting Guy’s name on the place with his signature on the wall right by the front door. Have you ever gone to a place just because you saw it on TV?
This is a challenge I got from a designer friend of mine Tim McMahan posted on his blog a few months back. I’ve been feeling lately like I need a jolt of creativity, so I thought I’d try it out. It was a good, fun challenge. Let me know if you try it, too.
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To Do This
1 – Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 – Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
3 – Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 – Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.
5 – Post it to FB with this text in the “caption” or “comment” and TAG the friends you want to join in.
(If you spend more than 5 minutes, you’re doing it wrong.)
((why couldn’t all of our school project’s have been cool like this?))
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Here’s my randomly generated, creatively branded Band Name and Album Cover:
So after years of determined resistance and occasional mocking, I finally decided to joined the cult last night. The cult of Apple. I’ve had just a basic phone for so long, waiting for the technology to really catch up with what I want and make it worth the investment. My contract just happened to expire this month, right around the release of the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3Gs.
After a few weeks of hemming and hawing and researching and polling, I found the iPhone just made the most sense and there really is a reason for why it’s so popular. So, I took the plunge and bought one. Just picked it up last night.
It’s got so many features built in and countless others that you can add on. Can’t wait to trick mine out with apps and music and photos and videos. What do you think are the most essential, most fun, most productive apps to add? And, maybe now that I have a phone that I can use to blog, I’ll do it a little more often…
Filed under: Extraordinary Life | Tags: faith, friends, Israel, life, travel, worship
The trip to Israel was full of so many inspirational and life-changing moments. It’s been nearly two months since I returned from Israel and I feel like the the transformational experiences are still shaping who I am becoming. As promised, I’m recapping some highlights from the trip here on my blog (better late than never). As I try to recall everything, I’m realizing that many of the best memories I have were not so much of all the landmarks and monuments and ancient sites we saw, but of the moments we experienced together as a group.
There was beautifully simple worship sitting next to an ancient olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane as tears flowed from everyone in the group. There was the indescribable echo you could hear sitting on a bench in the Church of St Anne , where we had an unplanned worship service alongside a group from South Africa. There was the time spent along the edge of the Jordan River where my friend and unofficial rabbi Matt Davis baptized me. There was the other-worldly feeling of floating in the Dead Sea. There was the adventure of climbing down Mt Arbel overlooking the Sea of Galilee and avoiding the horns of a charging, wild mountain cow. There was the Israeli bunker assault lesson from our tour guide Ariel on a hillside just across a valley from the border of Syria. There was the journal of page after page filled with notes as the scripture we studied came to life in a fresh, new way.
I could seriously go on for hours about all of the experiences we had in the two weeks we spent there. Rather than bore you though, I’ve put up a gallery of a few of my favorite photos from the trip. I hope they give you a small glimpse into what Israel is like…
