Seemingly Random Thoughts - some theological, some - well, not so much...
What I Did Last Week...
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Here's a link to the worst of the services we played last week: opening worship... sigh... They didn't post the best stuff we played (prelude songs). We play the "offering" at about 20 min in and then we play during communion at about an hour in and we closed out the service at an hour and 19 minutes... Wow - it's a bit harsh hearing the mix direct (that is without the room's natural reverb). In the Postlude you can hear me mess up "God You Reign"...sigh... Oh well..
The second third night, we played a bit better - we had several "short" sets through the day(s) as well to call the sessions back to order (and another worship service), etc, so we were able to get our monitor mixes more to our liking. Still, lots of mistakes - but that's who we are... It's hard listening to this without the "room" but it's a pretty decent mix. Stuff we need to work on is obvious though. At a little past 36 minutes Rev. Bill Starr asked us to sing most of "Voice of Truth" to end his message, so we start playing it there - there was a video playing while we sang - the video just shows us, though... At an hour and 30 minutes (and some seconds) we play "Come and Save Us" - second time or third time for the week - and tighter and better, I think... Big difference was that some of the congregation actually responded - clapped and moved :) The bishop even commented, "I love that song." At just past an hour and 57 minutes we do "How He Loves" in a way we've NEVER done it before (we ALWAYS start with piano - never acoustic guitar) still, it sounds pretty good... That closes out the service - with a few errors...but not too bad... ugh...I've got bumble-bee tone... :(
Well, I see I skipped Friday night. And Sunday's Ordination service. Maybe I'll post those later this week... It was a great week... exhausting, exhilarating and thoroughly worshipful...
So ten years ago Johnny Hart (who died like 4 years ago) ran this strip (click to enlarge): And there's been controversy since. Okay, I get it. Hart was a Christian and he expressed his faith in his comic strip - lots of people calling him a fundamentalist...dunno what his particular Christian religious persuasion was - except that his funeral was in a Presbyterian church. So, anyway, it's just clear that lots of people missed the point****. In fact, Hart himself claimed to be shocked that people thought he was an advocate for replacement theology based on the strip... He could be clever - a 2006 strip that I think has a well played double entendre: (And, for the record, I'm no more or less offended by that than I am by people who use Fred Phelps as the posterboy for Christianity - every religion has it's crazy fundamentalists...well, the big ones I know about, anyway...) Nice double joke on "moon shaped" and bug - Luna-Tic...
Everybody has buzzwords - business has theirs, the entertainment industry has a lingo, in sports, and in church work we have ours, too. Dilbert the other day had the pointy haired boss try to lead via catchprhases: copyright Scott Adams I have threatened to make up "Buzzword Bingo" cards for Annual Conference. You know, put words like "Holy Conferencing" and "Inclusiveness" and "Core Value" and, oh yeah, "Jesus" on the card and when you get five in a row you can jump up and yell "BINGO", or maybe "Holy Spirit" I don't know... We're not allowed to play bingo, so we definitely shouldn't yell out that word. Maybe if I had people yell out "Hallelujah!" when they got 5 in a row, the powers that be at conference would just assume that the person was powerfully moved by the point being made.* But we would know - and would secretly give them a prize.** The point being that we like to use the t...
I know that when spring comes our minds all turn to the things that are going on around us - robins singing, flowers blooming - if you're a United Methodist, then you start thinking about pastors moving. So...I can officially announce (well, I HAVE officially announced - but this is for all of you far away) On July 1, 2008 I will be one of the Associate Pastors at Christ United Methodist Church in Bethel Park, PA. www.christumc.net I will be leading the 11:01 and the 6:00 contemporary/modern/non-traditional/emergent... well, whatever adjective we use... worship services. It is difficult to leave Warren. This has been home for 6 years. Elie was born here. Rachel went to kindergarten and first grade here. This church has been an amazing blessing to us and we are so loved. We are stepping into...well, we don't know what. So stay tuned. I know one thing for certain: God is leading us to Bethel Park so I know that God has amazing things in store for us, for Christ UMC and fo...
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