Enjoy some new pictures in the photo album. Here's a peek:

Labels: life

(This is Part 3 of a series on my experience with worship wars. To see a little bit of my background, see Part 1, and to read about my experience at Faith Community, see Part 2.)

I've spent my time riding the fence, defending both sides, but over the past couple of years I've decided something.

In a church, musical style is more like a language than anything else.

If you're a missionary, and you move into a foreign mission field, discovering how to share truth in that foreign language is vitally important to your success in that field. If you're already fluent in the language, you have a huge head start. If you're not fluent, then you'll spend most of your time, initially, learning the basics of the language.

When people suggest that the music we use in the church should be the same as what they grew up with forty, fifty, or sixty years ago, what they don't understand is that they're suggesting we share truth in a language nobody speaks anymore.

If someone suggested to the pastor that he preach his sermon in 50's slang, would anybody think twice about rejecting such a request? Of if someone suggested to the worship leader that we should use more 70's disco, would anybody think twice about rejecting such a request? Why, then, do we entertain thoughts about using a musical style that is every bit as irrelevant to our modern culture? It impedes our ability to communicate truth. Why use it?

Simply put, the only reasons churches choose to use traditional music is because that's the way the people in the church want it and that's the way it has always been done. Neither of those reasons have anything to do with reaching out to the community, to bringing Christ into the lives of people who have never known Him, and communicating truth in a language (music style) they can understand.

Paul specifically talked about this, in the context of speaking in tongues, when he said:

If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if all prophesy, an unbeliever or outsider who enters is reproved by all and called to account by all. After the secrets of the unbeliever's heart are disclosed, that person will bow down before God and worship him, declaring, "God is really among you." (1 Corinthians 14:23-25, NRSV)

If I'm speaking in a foreign language, and you're an outsider and you can't understand a word I'm saying, you won't get it. We must be mindful of outsiders when we choose how we communicate truth in our gatherings. What most people don't understand is that when we choose to use hymns in a style that's 50 years old, we're only trying to appease and appeal to those in the church, or those who have grown up in other churches. We are completely ignoring Paul's direction to be mindful of the outsiders when designing our gatherings.

Some people would certainly choose a more modern style of music out of preference. But I believe that the vision God gave me six years ago, before it was popular to "modernize" hymns, was never about my own personal preference. It was always about relating truth in a way that people today can understand.

Any church that chooses to remain "traditional" is clearly misunderstanding their purpose in their community.

The answer doesn't have to be a rock band. We need different styles of music in different churches, without a doubt. If we lived about another half-hour further out from Atlanta, I'd suggest country music would be ideal in those areas. Every church does not have to be everything to everyone. But each church should focus on where God has called them, and how God has called them to communicate.

If there's going to be a war about music styles, it should be between country, rock, folk, jazz, reggae, or rap. Picking a music style that is irrelevant to outsiders should not be a part of the discussion.

I know that my musical talents and vision have a place in this day and age, in this type of a place. If, after six years, I'm still struggling to implement the vision God has given me, then it is time for me to admit that I'm the one who isn't in the right place.

Labels: church, life

(This is Part 2 of a series on my experience with worship wars. To see a little bit of my background, see Part 1.)

When we began attending Faith over six years ago, the music style had one foot heavily placed in the traditional camp, and one foot lightly placed in the 80's "praise and worship" camp. We started attending while Faith was still meeting in various places, but for our first year Faith was meeting in the elementary school. For that first year, I started playing bass. I really do enjoy playing bass when I get the chance.

As we got closer to moving into the new building, and as we hired our new lead pastor, I bought my first Martin acoustic guitar and started doing some leading in worship. We slowly began introducing some Passion songs and some other modern standards, as well as updating many of the hymns. We added drums within a couple of months of moving in, and worked towards a more modern approach. But we were never quite able to give up those feet in the traditional or praise and worship camps - too many people were too attached to it, both on and particularly off the stage.

It never seemed like much of a war, really, for us. Part of that was probably because I was just doing it, and enough people were willing to tolerate me doing it. That doesn't mean we didn't have our battles, though, and we got our share of complaints.

But the biggest problem we had was this - our direction was never clarified, or communicated. As I said, I was just doing what I wanted to do, whether or not anyone wanted me to do it. I was never THE leader, I just kind of worked my way in as one of two worship leaders, and there was always tension - we played both sides of the fence, between traditional and modern. As a result, few people were ever really happy.

I would try to do more hymns in a more modern style, but that simply wasn't what some people wanted - they wanted their hymns in an OLD style. Many would simply prefer that the drums would just go away, they were too loud. Others would just complain that it felt like a rock concert - a comment which, if it came from someone in my generation, would be a compliment. But you can tell when people say something like that and it isn't a compliment. Then there were the Sundays that we'd just do a little acoustic thing, and you'd have to tolerate the back-handed compliments when people that you knew hated what you normally did came and told you how much they LOVED the acoustic setting.

But meanwhile, visitors to the church were simply confused. If they loved traditional stuff, we had some of that, but then the modern stuff just turned them off. If they loved modern stuff, we had some of that, but the traditional stuff just turned them off.

As a result, if you attended a church like this, how much confidence would you have in inviting a friend? It'd have to be someone who liked a modern rock band, but could tolerate traditional styles as well. Or, it'd have to be someone who liked traditional church music, but could tolerate modern rock as well. Those people are few and far between.

Is it any wonder why the church hasn't really grown since moving into a building?

When it comes to getting musicians involved, the problem increases exponentially. The problems I've had recruiting and retaining musicians have been incredible. If we were solidly traditional, it wouldn't have been too much of a problem. If we were solidly modern, it would have been pretty easy. But trying to please everybody means that we please nobody, and musicians in particular aren't interested in that. If a musician is going to get involved, they want to play for people who will enjoy what they're doing. This is especially true if they're volunteers.

Basically, we never had a worship war - but we SHOULD have had one. Instead, we silently compromised. As a result, nobody knew what to expect. And few people were ever really excited about what we were doing.

In reality, I'm as much to blame for the problem as anyone else is. Part of my personality is that if something seems obvious to me, I just move forward without really asking permission. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but things would have worked much more smoothly if I had really explained why we needed to change, and gotten people on board with those changes.

But I was not the person to do that six years ago. My experience with worship leading was just beginning. I'm extremely grateful that I've had the opportunity to grow in that capacity over the last six years. But there was simply no way I could have done what needed to be done to really start the discussion that would have been required.

In many ways, the problems I experienced at Faith Community came from inexperienced leaders (including myself) trying to bring changes into a church that had been pretty much set in its ways for at least thirty years. The young leaders didn't know how to bring about changes in the right way, and the older congregation simply didn't know how to accept changes. In this case, I'm pretty sure everyone is to blame.

Labels: church, life

During my six years at Faith Community, I played an difficult role. Before I talk too much about that, though, I want to give a little background of where I was before Faith Community.

When we started attending Faith Community six years ago, I was 24, and for fifteen years had attended a sister church in Doraville. That church was failing, and we were down to around a dozen members. We worked towards selling the building to the Korean church that had been renting on Sunday afternoons (which had a thriving ministry, whereas ours was going nowhere).

For fifteen years, I had seen our pastor and worship leader supress their natural talents, and lead worship on Sunday mornings using a very traditional style - piano and organ. But on Sunday nights, they would just be themselves, and it was country gospel. And they were really good at it. Too good for the Atlanta suburbs, really, but when the Doraville church was planted in the 60's it was still on the edge of rural. But during the late 80's and 90's, it was smack dab in the middle of the suburbs.

It always bothered me that they never played guitar on Sunday mornings. This was not a rock band, mind you, this was just good old country pickin' and grinnin' kind of stuff. But it was awesome - heart-felt, incredibly talented, and very worshipful. As youth, Britt and I always tried to push for them to play more guitar on Sunday mornings, and to get a drum set to fill out the country sound - and we were even ready to learn how to play - but the response was always the same. It would be too much for the older folks, and they basically deserved to have a church home they could come to, where they could be comfortable.

It wasn't until we were at about 20 people, our pastor had moved to Alabama, and the piano player moved away, that the worship leader finally gave in and used his guitar to lead worship on Sunday mornings - simply because there was nothing else available. By that time, it was too little, way too late. I began my first movements into worship leading during those days, on the Sundays that our worship leader was out of town - which was a lot towards the end, as he eventually moved back to Tennessee for family reasons.

As we finished there, God gave me a vision of how I should proceed if we had started something new, or if we merged with Faith Community, which was something we were considering.

Why continue playing hymns in an old style? Why not play the same songs, and just play them in the style you're most natural with?

At the time, the "modern" worship movement was still building, and hadn't really appeared on my radar. I never cared much for the "praise and worship" movement of the 80's and early 90's. The songs were just, well, too cheesy for me. So it was obvious to me - continue playing hymns, just play them with a modern twist.

That was where I was, just as we were making the decision to join forces with Faith.

Labels: church, life

From Evotional.com:

Pastors need to think of themselves as spiritual coaches. I think we need to teach spiritual disciplines in the same way as physical disciples. Didn't Paul liken spiritual growth to a boxing match and a marathon? What if we practiced the spiritual disciplines with the same intensity and intentionality? And what about developing a game plan? Too many churches are playing a prevent defense instead of a two-minute offense. What if the church started praying like die-hard fans before the big game? What if we worshipped with the same level of fanaticism? And I can't resist this one. What if churches with really long services instituted a half-time?

Labels: church

Part of the reason why I left my church, and why I suspect that it will be very difficult to find another church, is because I now realize that most churches are placing the emphasis on the wrong things.

Don't misunderstand me: most of the people at most churches mean very well, and many of them earnestly desire to serve and follow God, and some of them are true saints.

But when we really look at what our churches are all about, many of them are primarily about serving their own members. We talk a lot about God, and try to teach people about serving Him, but we don't really do a whole lot, or really show people what that means. We're quite content to show up at our meetings, as long as it fits our idea of what the meeting should be like, and let other people do the tough work. Thinking about this reminded me of a sermon illustration I've heard Pat use, of a story of the life-saving station.

As I think about church ministry, there are three aspects that I think are involved:

Mission: an important part of church ministry is its mission. Who is the church trying to reach? Where is it going out into the world, making a difference? Christ showed us mission in his healing ministry. He had compassion on everyone he met. He showed us mission when he shared truth in a language that people could understand, their common tongue (Aramaic), and not the language of the religious elite (Hebrew).

Attraction: another important part of church ministry is that people are drawn to what we have. Christ modeled this as well - thousands of people would crowd around him to hear him speak, to try to get healed, or even just to catch a small glimpse of him. Acts describes a church that was growing dramatically, by the thousands.

Family: the third important part of church ministry is the sense of family and belonging within the group. Christ modeled this in his selection of the twelve to be his closest friends and ministry partners, and the way in which he mentored them, "parented" them, prepared them to be leaders themselves.

While some churches might be good at one or more of these aspects of ministry, most churches distort and change the reality of these aspects to please themselves. I don't believe, as some do, that missional/attractional is an either/or situation. I believe it is both. The question is, how do you view your mission? What is it you are attracting people to? And also importantly, do you develop a sense of family?

Most churches view their mere existence as part of fulfilling their mission - they are on a mission to make a change in the community. Therefore, they believe that volunteering as a teacher, nursery worker, usher, musician, etc. is part of being on a mission. I'm starting to feel otherwise. Weekend gatherings often serve two purposes - a gathering for those in the church, and an entry point for those checking out the church. You can certainly minister in such a context, but missions involves a lot more than that. It involves taking care of the "widows and orphans." Those who have the least. The homeless. The abused. The dying. Those that are generally forgotten when we're planning our flashy weekend church service. We need to take a more basic view of mission, and view it primarily as direct service to the "least of these."

Most churches understand the need to have something attractive, and they try to fulfill that need by having great music, a beautiful building, people dressed up nicely, and a professional worship service that flows smoothly. Churches on all ranges of traditional to modern to emergent do this - whether it's massive pipe organs, MTV-style video breaks, or interactive art stations, we're always trying to attract people to our church with some gimmick. But Jesus used none of that. He didn't need it, and we don't either. I'm not necessarily against pipe organs, MTV-style video breaks, or interactive art stations. They're not unbiblical. But the reality is that what we save people with is usually what we save them to. What we need to save people with is Jesus. We need to take a more basic view of attraction, and realize that the more we become like Christ, the more people will not be attracted us - they will be attracted to Him.

Most churches understand the family aspect as social gatherings. We know each other, we enjoy hanging out together, and we do favors for each other. That's a great start. But we're really called to live life together. Jesus didn't just see the twelve a couple of times a week. They lived together. They slept together, ate together, traveled together, worshipped together, and ministered together. Real family cannot be experienced in a group of a thousand, five hundred, or even fifty. We have to get smaller, but we have to seek something more than just "small groups." We need to take a more basic view of church family, and seek our primary connection with the church through a family-sized unit instead of a congregational one.

The overall solution to all of this mess is to earnestly seek to become more like Christ. Only then will we place the appropriate emphasis on mission, attraction, and family, and not distort them to fit our personal view of what a church should be like.

Labels: church

I'm not going to say that Comcast rules, since I've only been a customer of theirs for about seven hours, and of their internet service for only about thirty minutes. But I'll say this, at least they don't require you to have a home phone in order to provide you high-speed internet service, like your local phone company does. And the television service is a LOT better than what I was getting from BellSouth. BellSouth's digital channel guide looked like it was embedded EGA graphics or something. Only my fellow DOS geeks would have any clue of what that meant...

It's been a rough week without internet at the house, but we're all up and running now.

That makes our switch complete: no more Bellsouth for anything. Good riddance! We're now on Comcast for television and internet, and SunRocket for home phone. In case you've not heard of them, SunRocket is like Vonage, a voice-over-IP phone service, but it's a lot cheaper for all the same stuff. It rocks!

Labels: life, tech

On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a little life-saving station. The building was primitive, and there was just one boat, but the members of the life-saving station were committed and kept a constant watch over the sea. When a ship went down, they unselfishly went out day or night to save the lost. Because so many lives were saved by that station, it became famous. Consequently, many people wanted to be associated with the station to give their time, talent, and money to support its important work. New boats were bought, new crews were recruited, a formal training session was offered. As the membership in the life-saving station grew, some of the members became unhappy that the building was so primitive and that the equipment was so outdated. They wanted a better place to welcome the survivors pulled from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged and newly decorated building.

Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members. They met regularly and when they did, it was apparent how they loved one another. They greeted each other, hugged each other, and shared with one another the events that had been going on in their lives. But fewer members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions; so they hired lifeboat crews to do this for them. About this time, a large ship was wrecked off of the coast, and the hired crews brought into the life-saving station boatloads of cold, wet, dirty, sick, and half-drowned people. Some of them had black skin, and some had yellow skin. Some could speak English well, and some could hardly speak it at all. Some were first-class cabin passengers of the ship, and some were the deck hands. The beautiful meeting place became a place of chaos. The plush carpets got dirty. Some of the exquisite furniture got scratched. So the property committee immediately had a shower built outside the house where the victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting there was rift in the membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities, for they were unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal fellowship of the members. Other members insisted that life-saving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all those various kinds of people who would be shipwrecked, they could begin their own life-saving station down the coast. And do you know what? That is what they did.

As the years passed, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a place to meet regularly for fellowship, for committee meetings, and for special training sessions about their mission, but few went out to the drowning people. The drowning people were no longer welcomed in that new life-saving station. So another life-saving station was founded further down the coast. History continued to repeat itself. And if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of adequate meeting places with ample parking and plush carpeting. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.

Thomas Wedel, Ecumenical Review, October, 1953, paraphrased in Heaven Bound Living, Knofel Stanton, Standard, 1989, p. 99-101.

Labels: church

The title says it all. We've decided to leave our church. I resigned from my leadership position last month, and this past Sunday was my last Sunday as a regular worship leader there.

For those of you who have been following this blog, this might not come as much of a surprise.

Over the past year I've become increasingly disillusioned with the way most churches approach ministry. It's not that churches are necessarily doing everything wrong, but I'm concerned that we're not putting the emphasis in the places where God wants us to.

In my specific situation, I've also become very concerned about the way my church has been repeating the same mistakes of the two churches that it was birthed from - churches that died because of those mistakes.

What I don't want to be is the kind of person who takes off from a church without really sharing the reasons for it. With my resignation, I also gave a letter to the leadership sharing some of my reasons. I'll also be talking a lot more about it in a few future posts.

But initially, I wanted to answer the question everyone has been asking: what are we going to do next?

The simple answer is: we don't know. What we do know is that God has given us a burden, and a vision, that will not be satisfied by just any other church. We don't know if that means we'll find something that will make sense with where God is calling us, or if we'll have to seek out other similarly disillusioned Christians and start something new. We do know, though, that there are a lot of others who are struggling with the same things that we are. Some of them read this blog regularly. But for us, we've decided to stop holding out for things to change, for things to improve. We've decided that it's time for us to be a part of something completely different.

We would appreciate your prayers. If you're interested in more detail behind my reasons for doing this, read some of my archives (you might have to back as far as August 2005), and also stay tuned. There's a lot more to come on this.

Labels: church, life

The first chapter of Coulter's latest book, Godless, is available online for free at Townhall.com. Here are some highlights:

If a Martian landed in America and set out to determine the nation's official state religion, he would have to conclude it is liberalism, while Christianity and Judaism are prohibited by law. And not just in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it's actually on the books, but throughout the land. This is a country in which taxpayers are forced to subsidize "artistic" exhibits of aborted fetuses, crucifixes in urine, and gay pornography. Meanwhile, it's unconstitutional to display a Nativity scene at Christmas or the Ten Commandments on government property if the purpose is to promote monotheistic religion.

The whole panoply of nutty things liberals believe flows from their belief that man is just another animal. (And not just Kanye West—they're talking about all men.) Only their core rejection of God can explain the bewildering array of liberal positions: We must save Tookie Williams, while slaughtering the unborn. We must eat natural foods, but the right to acquire disease in casual hookups is a holy ritual. We must halt human development so that the Furbish lousewort can be fruitful and multiply, but humans are multiplying too much and threatening the biosphere of the Furbish lousewort. Women are no different from men, but we need a library of laws and codes to protect women from sexual harassment.

In 2003, reporters hounded British prime minister Tony Blair about whether he had prayed with George Bush—as if they were asking whether the world leaders had shot heroin together or shared a hooker. There was so much negative publicity over Blair praying with Bush that Blair's handlers forbade him to attend church with Bush later that year. It's hard to imagine an activity Bush and Blair could have shared that would have been more scandalous, short of taking an SUV to an all-men's club that allowed cigar smoking.

The moment self-righteousness takes over, you are dealing with dangerous psychopaths. Liberals are constantly accusing Christians of monumental self-righteousness for daring to engage in free speech or for voting in accordance with their religious beliefs. Compare that with the behavior of practitioners of the liberal religion. Liberals felt entitled to excuse Stalin's murderous regime on the grounds that he was simply trying to build a Communist paradise. Because they passionately believed in Marxism, liberals thought they had a right to lie about being Soviet spies. Yeah, well, some people passionately believe in white supremacy. How about George Clooney making a sympathetic movie about true-believing white supremacists and the evil prosecutors who forced them to name names?

If liberals could cut Stalin slack, there is no behavior they cannot excuse as justified by their passion. A president who was credibly accused of rape and displayed a pervasive pattern of what used to be known as "sexual harassment" was above reproach in liberal eyes. He had saved partial birth abortion! (Thus the charming tributes.)

Labels: books, politics