This was a favorite playground ride as a kid. It's existed a lot longer than me, and now my kids get to play on it. That's Elijah in the first photo. While you can photoshop blur into a picture, this is just as it was taken. I was riding the other side and my camera was moving at the same speed & direction as E's head while the rest of him wasn't. Pretty cool. The second pic from left to right is Sarah (13 1/2), Daniel (7 1/2), Jack (12) and Elijah (10). See all my photography.
I don't think I've linked to the Redeemer Report newsletter from Tim Keller's church. Here are all of Keller's recent articles.
Jonathan Dodson, who wrote Fight Clubs, has a series of posts on leading Gospel conversations. I encourage you to read them and use them as you bring the Gospel to your neighbors. Jonathan bases the series on David Powlison’s counseling mantra: 1) Listen to Their Story 2) Empathize with Their Story 3) Redemptively Retell Their Story.
I posted last week about a new band discovery, Her Name Is Calla. Their new album, The Quiet Lamb, is out in the U.S. in November. If you can't wait, you can shell out some euros here and get it flown over an ocean. Until then, download The Heritage & Long Grass EP (found here) for free. Outstanding post-rock. I think you'll love it. Here's the shadow puppetry video for "New England." I LOVE this song, and the creepy video is just right (9 1/2 minute story, don't miss it).
This Tiny Desk Concert with Lower Dens great. Check out their album, Twin-Hand Movement.
I received an email more than 3 weeks ago from the violinist of a band called Her Name Is Calla. Sophie found Reformissionary when searching for Shearwater and thought I would like their sound. My first thought was to get to it someday, just out of courtesy. After all, what are the odds that a band I've never heard of will randomly email me and I'll like their band because they think they sound like an awesome band? Not likely.
Today I was working through my inbox, trying to get to stuff I've forgotten was there. I followed a link and clicked play. WOW! I'm floored. A magical experience. I want you to be floored too. Here's the first song I heard, "Pour Some Oil" (song only, no video). If you are thinking you'll check it out someday...don't wait like I did. This is that day. Trust me.
I have the feeling this won't be the last word from me on Her Name Is Calla.
UPDATE: Download their first "mini" album, The Heritage, and their Long Grass EP free. Over an hour of music. You'll have to click the link and scroll and you'll find links to downloads. Follow them @HerNameIsCalla.
Good news from TheGoodBook.com.
Sufjan Stevens on his new fantastic album, The Age of Adz, in comparison to his previous masterpiece, Illinoise: "I was getting tired of that self-conscious, rambling psychobabble. I got really sick of myself and my own flawed, epic approach to everything." (via)
Glen Hansard plays "Paper Cup." Everything this guy does is good.
I have my Man Card handy just in case someone calls that into question. But here we go. I've never watched an episode of Glee. I've only ever caught it on TV once, and that was this song. I think it's a remarkable reworking of The Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand." It's a fun, famous pop song made into an emotional dedication. Some of this is sorta hard to watch as, you know, it's a bit cheesy. But I really like what they did to the song.
There was a ton of comment here at Reformissionary and around the internet on the Mark Dever, Mark Driscoll & James MacDonald video discussing multi-site & video venues in church planting. You really need to watch that video and check the comments on my earlier post.
A video was posted by Driscoll talking about humility and notoriety, specifically mentioning the previous video and the response of people to it. Here you go...
If you read my music posts even occasionally you probably know of my love of all things Delta Spirit. Both of their first two albums are outstanding: Ode To Sunshine (2008) | History From Below (2010). They recently appeared on Jools Holland playing one of my favorite songs, "Bushwick Blues."
And here's "9/11" from the same show...
Here are my long list of favorites from among the 100 $5 albums at Amazon. So many this month. Enjoy!
*10/1/2010 ONLY - Arcade Fire: Funeral for $3.99, Neon Bible is $5.99
*The Social Network soundtrack is $5, don't know for how long - really good
A really great look at Detroit. Anyone interested in cities, suburban sprawl, culture, art and creativity needs to watch all three parts. One of the coolest things I've ever seen on these topics.
I'm somewhere in the middle on the multi-site debate. I'm much more sympathetic to a local/regional multi-site like Tim Keller. I find video venues problematic. James MacDonald & Mark Driscoll both have multi-sites with some video venues. Mark Dever is the guy who says even multiple services is a problem resulting in multiple congregations. So though he could have many more people and services and locations, he still only has one service. I'm not exactly in any of their camps, though I like each of these guys and most of what they do.
But when these three come together for a conversation I expected it to be very interesting and full of thought-provoking argument. It's not. It's a lot of misunderstanding and misdirection and sometimes almost insulting comments, though no one acts offended and I'm sure they assume the best of each other.
So many good questions and points need to be discussed and answered, and I'm not sure a single one was in this video. A few thoughts...
There is an assumption that multi-sites become their own congregations after the leader dies and that multi-sites with video are better because they aren't tied to the leader being there and everyone interacting with him. But why can't they be tied to the leader still?
If that leader's face and name wasn't a part of the venue and movement, people wouldn't come in the same numbers. Their "celebrity" brings in the people, which is a part of why it's used. That's why it works. To assume people will stay after that name and face are gone doesn't work to me. I don't know of any church that has been that far in their history to know if that will work or not. But shouldn't we be concerned for these venues since the name and face is so important?
Let me add, celebrities don't stop becoming celebrities when they aren't in the personal presence of someone. Driscoll seems to imply that. In video venues we make our preaching celebrities more like cultural ones...by putting them on TV. I know there's more to it than that, but I'm really surprised that the conversation doesn't go in that direction. I wish Dever would have pushed more there.
One last thing. Where was the theological basis of the discussion. There was a little on church meaning "assembly" at the beginning, but it turned to plans and numbers and stats and a bunch of stuff other than theology and Bible. In that I wonder if Dever is more open to these things than he has been in the past or if a 2 on 1 conversation is just a bad idea unless the 2 are going to be fair in how they argue with the 1. I'd rather not see your ribbing and "fist bumping" approach and see you really engage deeply on issues that are important. I need to hear these men generously argue with each other. I think we all do. I think that's why the conversation and video exist. But I think it failed to produce something worthwhile.
What say you?
Animal Collective's amazing 2009 album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, is like The Giving Tree...it just keeps on giving. Here's the new video for "Bluish"...
Lost In The Trees is one of my favorite new bands. Their album, All Alone In An Empty House, is outstanding. Let me convince you. Watch this solid Tiny Desk Concert.
Matt Stevens plays experimental, acoustic, post-rock music with his guitar. It's one of those need-to-hear-it sort of things. If you like other post-rock bands like Explosions in the Sky, you should check it out. Listen to his albums online, like Ghost. Or buy Ghost or Echo.
Some Presidential fun via Delta Spirit. Clinton, Bush & Obama bring you "9/11" from one my favorite albums of 2010, History From Below.
Delta Spirit - 911 from Rounder Records on Vimeo.
New Soundgarden? Yup. Here's their "new" song, "Black Rain" with a pretty cool animated video. Download the song.
When I moved to Woodstock I made an effort to get to know the city that I've come to love and serve. I still do. My basic approach is to keep up on local news through our papers and such, to spend time enjoying my city (eat the food, sit in the café, go to a concert or a high school football game), talk to businessmen and women, shop locally, read on city and county and region demographics, ask people questions about what good in the city and where the needs are, and so on.
I've come to see this isn't enough.
A couple of weeks ago a new video game store opened in town. My boys wanted to check it out. As we were there my daughter and I popped in to the Dollar General store. As I opened the door to enter I felt uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable because I realized most of my friends probably wouldn't be caught dead in there. And neither would I. That's where "poor people" shop.
I have a real fear that missional pastors and churches aren't doing much better than the institutional, traditional church. That approaches to knowing our city like mine are missing a key element, remembering the poor.
One of the most convicting to me...
If we're being honest I think we have to admit that when we go to take the gospel to a city we too often take it among the rich (or richer).
I mentioned the local farmers market and Paul in the marketplace in a recent post. They aren't the same. I love our local farmers market, but it's not where those with less money can shop. It's for those with more. The marketplace of Paul's day was for everyone. In our day we are, more or less, financially segregated. Let's remedy the fact that we usually live along the lines of our financial status and really get to know our city.
So it's important to know your city in terms of the flow of commerce and places to eat and politics and news, etc. But I think we need to do better to know our city by also hanging with and living among those with less. A few ideas...
<>You probably shop at stores that are nice and clean and big and has a big selection and has fashion you like. Find out where people with less money shop for groceries, clothes, etc. Where do single moms shop? Where do most people with food stamps shop? Now, shop there for the next couple of months.
<>You hang at the café in order to meet your neighbors. Good. Now realize how many people in your city can't afford it. Or realize how many won't get their coffee there because they don't "fit in." Where do they hang? What do they do instead? Can you hang there? If not, why not? Is it pride? Fear?
<>A lot of people don't have or can't afford a washer/dryer. Spend the next month doing laundry for your family at a laundromat. Don't just go to the cleanest & newest one. Go to the one nearest to public housing. Go when traffic is high and get to know those neighbors.
What do you think?
Radiohead drummer Phil Selway gives us this beautiful, hushed song and tense video. Love it. It's off his new solo album, Familial.
Drew Grow & The Pastor's Wives has one of the most interesting & wonderful albums I've heard this year (HT: BT). I can't stop listening to it. You can stream it today. It releases tomorrow. You need to hear them deliver these two great live songs.
The Doe Bay Sessions - Drew Grow and the Pastors' Wives from Sound on the Sound on Vimeo.
Sorry it's a blurry camera phone shot. It was hanging from the ceiling and moving. Elijah's (9) class all had poems where they filled in certain blanks (I suppose) and it makes up a sort-of poem. It's something only a kid would say, and I love it.
Let’s go downtown and watch the modern kids
Let’s go downtown and talk to the modern kids
They will eat right out of your hand
Using great big words that they don’t understand
-Arcade Fire, "Rococo"-
I had a meeting today with a nice young man who is doing youth work in my city. He filled me in on his work to train volunteer youth ministers and organize some youth outreach events through citywide effort.
One topic that came up, that always comes up when discussing Woodstock youth outreach, is the downtown Square (See my previous post, "The Public Square & Open-Air"). Every day of the week youth are hanging on the Square. They are with their friends, mostly just hanging out, passing time. On Friday and Saturday nights it grows as many youth hang on park benches, in the band gazebo, walking around, etc.
By all appearances, there's a specific sort of youth in my city that hangs out in our Square. Generally speaking they aren't the kids in letterman's jackets or who attend math club meetings or who run for student council. Just by checking out their clothes and actions and hearing them talk (available to anyone who passes through the Square when they are around), folks see them as rebels, as troublemakers. They are probably the ones without a solid family life. They certainly are the ones who wear different clothes, have emo-ish hair, and, well, you have a picture in your head. Saw one dude who wears thick black all around his eyes. When they pop into Starbucks some adults seem intimidated. They are (again, generally speaking) loud and rude. But that's just by appearances.
But here's the truth, and it hit me like Mack truck today: I don't really know them.
Sure, I can tell you what they look like and sound like and how a few of them have irritated me or someone else I know. But I haven't met more than one or two of them. I don't know what they've been through, what their parents are like, or anything else about them.
So how can we reach them?
The idea most often discussed by pastors/church leaders I've talked to is to start some sort of youth center where they could hang, get a Coke, get tutoring, and so on. It will give them a place to go and things to do. It will keep them out of trouble. I think there's some merit to the idea (though it has problems), but no one has been able to make it happen. This youth guy just told me today of another concerted effort that was made by a local church that fell short on funds to pull it off.
Then I had this radical thought: We should just walk across the street and talk to them.
It's simple. Anyone can do it. It takes no planning, no property, no rent, no decorating, no keys, no insurance, no staff. They are right there in front of us. It just takes someone who loves Jesus and loves their neighbor and a little time.
As I write this five youth resembling the above description stomped into Starbucks, didn't buy anything (probably no cash), sat in the soft chairs intended to make paying customers comfortable and goofed around loud enough to get shooed away by a barista. But we shouldn't see them as a nuisance to our clean, comfortable lives. We should see them as some of the only people in suburbia who wear their problems on their sleeve. They have issues, often easy to see ones, and we have answers and help. We have the gospel They are a mission field, and they are right across the street. Let's stop planning grand schemes and just go talk to them.
Help me think about the "Public Square." I have a lot of this stuff in my head and I want to get it out there and see where I'm wrong, right and what to do about it.
A public square, or particularly a "town square", is a place, historically an intersection of important crossroads for trading of goods as well as the sharing of ideas.
I live in a town square city. If you visit my city, Woodstock, IL, that's the place to visit. It's quaint, beautiful, historic, and well organized. If you showed up on a random day you might find a farmers market nearly all the way around the square, or a wedding or band concert in the gazebo, or a group of youth hanging around on a bench, or a fair that brings in people from some distance to visit and shop, or a family having a picnic in the shade, or a Groundhog Day celebration at dawn, or a car show, and on and on it goes. And that's just the center park area. Around the outside are permanent stores, the Opera House, an art gallery, restaurants and more.
After 6+ years here there's one thing I haven't found in our public square: The Gospel.
A lot has changed both with goods & ideas. The public square of goods is now mostly at Wal-Mart (a drive away, but everything you need is there, not just specialty items at the farmers market). The public square of ideas is TV or the Internet where the talking heads (of whatever sort) give their side of the story, or deliver their breaking news, and so on.
Even local stuff is discussed more and more on Facebook than through actual interaction with friends and neighbors. We've learned about local concerns, missing/runaway kids, meetings, etc often on Facebook first. Our local newspaper tries to create this a bit by having comments under each article, but the anonymity of it creates a culture of sniping rather than thinking or caring or doing something in response.
There are some great stories of how Christians have used the public square in the past. Biblically, guys like Paul go into the marketplace where he can interact with all sorts of folks. That leads some of the local philosophers to bring him to the Areopagus (Mars Hill) for a more intellectual presentation as someone with a new idea. We tend to think of the Areopagus as the public square, but it isn't. It's more of a private, formal forum for certain intellectuals. The public square was the marketplace, the less formal place, the everyone-passes-through-here place.
Back in seminary I remember reading and hearing stories of missionaries to the American frontier and circuit rider preachers and evangelists. I was so taken I wrote a paper on open-air preaching. I'm sure you've heard grand stories of the public preaching and impact of men like George Whitefield and John Wesley. The public square and open-air was a crucial space for these men and their ministries. It wasn't always a place of acceptance, as tomato stains would testify. Those are some great stories too.
Now some, surely, will be concerned over a re-imagining of using the public square because of how a few have used it. Some of you are not eager to be associated with Kirk Cameron or the mimes who trap themselves in a box only to show that Jesus is the way out. I hear you. But I can't help but to think that someday we will look back at TODAY as a come-and-see, affluent, hidden time in American Christian history. That we will wonder why we didn't take the good news and release it through public heralding sooner. That we will study how this was the time when our public preaching was through advertising and marketing and little more.
I'm not sure the answers, but I think the questions are important. I think there's something we're leaving to the "crusades" and quacks that we aren't supposed to leave to them. I think that our disdain for what goes for "public preaching" nowadays isn't enough to keep us from figuring out how to do it better, how do it right.
What do you think?
UPDATE: Read my follow-up post: "The Kids Downtown."
The Woodlands self-titled album is my new discovery. Their name, their music and this video make me think of autumn. Beautiful.
The Civil Wars sing "Forget Me Not."
If you haven't picked up Matthew Smith's new album, Watch the Rising Day, I'm not sure what you are waiting for. It's great. Order here and use the code 'steve' for 15% off the CD ('steveLP' 10% off the vinyl).
