Monthly Archives: October 2010

There’s no box at my church.

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I’ve never typed a blog post as fast as I’m typing this one. I’ve got way too much going on this week. On Sunday, we’re starting a 3rd service at The Chapel. This means I’m working my butt off. But, hey, I love my job, so that’s that!

About the box. Well. We’ve been struggling since early summer to find a way to create more space, more seats, more stewardship of souls who enter our campus. We considered a Sunday night service, a Saturday night service, an earlier Sunday morning service, a family service, a separate service with totally different tone and teaching, etc…

We considered meeting times, life schedules of our congregation, life schedules of our leadership, resources, avoiding congregational “favorites” of teachers and musicians, etc.

BUT, our major factor of consideration is what would be best for those who may enter our church for the first time. How do we free up seats for them?

And, what we settled on is quite unconventional, very “out-of-the-box.”

We have two fantastic teachers here: the head pastor (Jay) and my husband (Drew). We have a number of skilled worship leaders. And we have a second large space for meetings. And the bulk of church-goers prefer the late morning service.

So, along with our regular 9am service, we’ll now have two simultaneous services at 10:45 in different worship spaces, one of which in the middle of a two-week renovation overhaul. We’ll all be going through a series together, with Drew teaching his half in one space, and Jay teaching his half in the other space. Then they’ll switch to teach their halves in the other spaces. The whole church gets the same teaching. They just get it at different times. And the musicians will rotate with the teachers. And we’re still one big happy family with 50% more seats at our prime worship time.

Man. I love this church.

Yep, I’m an egotistical, approval-seeking artist. So what.

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One of my new favorite bloggers, Sam Mahlstadt of CreativeTheology.com, wrote this about the Christian creative (full post here):

Following “The Fall” the man and woman moved from a place of joining God in creation to a place where they created for themselves. …and they sewed together leaves to cover themselves… When we transition from joining God in the creation process to creating for ourselves, a sense of desperation enters the process. Joy is wiped away, and replaced by utility (those who engage their creativity completely apart from God rarely know creating apart from utility). Utility is not beautiful. We can try to dress it up and lie to ourselves, but utility is utility. I bet the man and woman from the garden would agree. So perhaps it’s about perspective, or relationship, but one thing is clear. If you create out of and for your own glory, fulfillment will be constantly out of reach.

And I replied by saying this:

I say we do it in spite of the ego. Ever since the fall, man has walked with a spiritual limp… But this isn’t an excuse to stop walking. In the same way, I don’t think the ego can be fully escaped this side of heaven. We are spirits trapped in flesh. Until we are freed of our flesh, we will not be free of our ego. But we still have a purpose. We still have a call. And we still have a creative nature. And so we should continue to live out the image of our Creator by creating.

What do you think? Have I lost my egotistical, approval-seeking, God-given mind?

Confession: Facebook messages make me nervous

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A while ago I posted the above “status update” on facebook. Then I had to sit back and figure out why. (Remember my post about how I need to understand things?)

Anyway – I think I came up with a pretty convincing theory as to why. At least, I’ve convinced myself:

One of my many relational flaws is that I’m not so great at keeping up with old friends from other life stages. I really don’t like this about myself. Especially since I so deeply value my friendships. So y’all wonder why I don’t keep contact with my friends if I value them so much? Yeah – I’m wondering the same thing. Add that to the list of things I need to figure out.

Back to the old friends. They’re reconnecting with me on Facebook. And new friends, too. (hey everybody!) And every once in a while I’ll get a new message in my Facebook inbox. And a lot of those messages are from old friends. The old friends I really loved but somehow lost track of.

And when I see a message from one of them, I’m reminded of the fact that I don’t do well in keeping up with friends.

Now I know you’re thinking “But everybody does that. We can’t expect everyone to stay in contact with us all the time.”

Right.

But I think the message might say: “Where have you been all these years? And why haven’t you kept in touch?” or a nicer version of that. Hence the “I did something wrong” reaction.

And here’s the heart of the matter: I hope I’ve never caused someone to feel forgotten. There’s nothing worse than that feeling. I know because I’ve felt it. If you’re reading this, and I’ve caused that feeling, I’m so incredibly sorry. And, I haven’t forgotten you. Not at all. The memories are still there – still treasured.

So, what do y’all do? How do you keep up with old friends from different times and places? And what can/should I do differently?

Artist vs Technology

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“The Noreaster,” a writer in New England, posted this in the comments of the Elizabeth Gilbert post on creative genius – one of the most profound things I’ve ever read on this blog:

I remember last winter I was in the middle of a late night conversation with the Muse and then suddenly, He just left. At first I thought I just lost my train of thought, but I can usually find it again if I review my notes and my physical steps — literally being in the exact same place doing the exact same thing will let me get it back. Even if the only thing I have to write is a piece of toilet paper while I’m — okay, I’ll leave that part out. But, I was onto something big — or so I thought (in a different place and situation) — when suddenly every thought I had about the subject vanished in an instant. Just like that. And you something? I was furious. Oh man, was I mad. I mean it. And I let God know how I felt about it, too: “I almost had it! Why did You leave?!?!” Actually, God will never leave. And, assuming I’m not completely off my rocker: angels are messengers so maybe, just maybe, they play a role here, too. Honestly, I reaally think they do. Because I’ve felt that something from someone outside of me…

…And I just got a text message, which means I lost my train of thought.

But, don’t worry; I’ll be back. :wink:

A few minutes go by, then:

Back.

And I love how the concept Gilbert presents here totally takes the burden off my shoulders. I think Orson Wells would have had a much longer, better, and more fulfilling film career if he hadn’t taken so much of the burden upon himself. And then, of course, there are musicians who simply can’t live with the burden of, say — I am so ignoroing that text message — can’t live with the burden of having created something so big. It’s why Elvis died and why M&M had to write Recovery. But if you look at Bono — I sure wish that red light would stop telling me I have a text msg — if you look at Bono, he always always always took God with Him out for a night on the town, even if he was just doing the snake dance. And that’s how and why, in large part, he is so good at what he does onstage and everything else he does offstage. He ultimately gives credit where credit is due and when we don’t do that, when we assume sole responsibility for what our creativity creates, it destroys us. You see it all the time in an age of “celebrity culture” — and that red light is seriously getting [on] my nerves…too doistracting. Our brains are not built for multi-tasking; I don’t [care] what anybody says.

I’ll be back.

He didn’t come back.

And this is exactly why I have to turn off the internet, silence my phone, and sit in solitude to really crank out songs.

How do you battle the war with technology in your own life?