The Kids Downtown

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Youth 1

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. 

The Public Square & Open Air

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Square Sights

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.

John_Wesley-3 (1)

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. 

John-Wesley-preaching-at-his-fathers-grave

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.

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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."

Music Monday 9.6.10

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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." 

The Civil Wars - Forget me not from Green Block on Vimeo.

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). 

$5 Albums for September

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Amazon - 100 $5 albums for September. Some real gems as usual. Here's a list of my favorites. Check out all 100 at Amazon.

Music Monday 8.30.10

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Sarah Jaffe is my new, favorite discovery (found her via Filmspotting podcast). Here's the amazing song "Clementine." Jaffe's album, Suburban Nature, is only $5 through tomorrow. Don't miss it! It's really good.

Let this cover of Gillian Welch's "Everything Is Free" marinate. It's an artist concerned with being able to keep making art (lyrics | she explains). Beautiful rendition by Megafaun and The Tallest Man On Earth (has a $5 album through tomorrow). Original found on Gillian's album, Time (The Revelator).

GCM Conference - Austin in October

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Gcm-collective-conference-2010-adAustin has more to offer than good music. The GCM Collective Conference is coming October 28-30. You need to be there.

If you are unfamiliar, GCM stands for "Gospel Community Mission." From the website...

The GCM Collective exists to promote, create and equip Gospel Communities on Mission. A gospel community is a group of believers that lives out the mission of God together as family, in a specific area to a particular people group, by declaring and demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms.  Regular people, living ordinary lives, with great gospel intentionality.

GCM Collective's online community for discussion and sharing resources is quite helpful. Again, from the site...

Over a thousand missional leaders and thinkers are gathered together online to share insight, experiences, resources, prayer and more to help you in your effort to lead a local community on mission. Engage in meaningful conversations with others from around the world or who live near you.

But the conference is what I want to highlight. I'm going to be there. I want to encourage you to come. 

The list of speakers is solid. Ed Stetzer, Steve Timmis (author of Total Church), Jeff Vanderstelt & Caesar Kalinowski (Soma Communities), David Fairchild & Drew Goodmanson (Kaleo San Diego) and Jonathan Dodson (Austin City Life Church). 

I was in a breakout group with Vanderstelt and Kalinowski at Verge in February and it was some of the most thought provoking, encouraging stuff I've heard on practical, local church life. I was in a breakout with Timmis for an Acts 29 boot camp which was very helpful as well. And these aren't just thinkers, they are practitioners. We often go to conferences for big names giving big talks. GCM Conference is going to be very different, and I think transformational.

Jonathan Dodson recently posted "4 Reasons I'm Excited about GCM Conference." These are some of the same reasons I'm excited for this conference.

(1) Practioner-tested Missional Community Training
(2) Top Notch Theological Reflection on Mission
(3) The Collective Experience
(4) The Centrality of the Gospel in Mission

Go read Jonathan's post for more. And join us in Austin in October for the GCM Conference.

Music Monday 8.23.10

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  • BREAKING: Sufjan Stevens released a new EP and took everyone by surprise. All Delighted People is only $5 for 8 songs and it's epic. And all the people are truly delighted.

Damien Jurado sings "Arkansas" live. Love this song. His album, Saint Bartlett, is great as well.

Delta Spirit plays "Devil Knows You're Dead." Their album, History From Below, is easily one of my favorites of 2010.

Music Review - Matthew Smith: Watch The Rising Day

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Deluxe-edition-album-cover I first heard of Matthew Smith (Facebook and Twitter) as one voice in the Indelible Grace group of artists. His songs quickly became some of our favorites. There's something confident & encouraging in his voice. I got the pleasure of serving alongside him when Michael Spencer (iMonk) invited me to speak and Matthew to sing at his school in Kentucky a few years back. Matthew asked me to review his new album, Watch The Rising Day, and it was an easy "yes." 

Most of the album is Matthew reworking hymns long forgotten. And they are wonderful. He also includes his acoustic version of "In Christ Alone," a familiar hymn featuring Sandra McCracken and another mixed by Derek Webb. The song with Webb, "You Are The Light (Glitchy Sonar Mix)" is the opening song featuring Smith's voice and a, well, glitchy sound mix. :) It's fun. It's different. I dig it.

I'll be honest, I have a hard time making it through the album because I keep going back to re-listen to a song as it hits me and I'm meditating on the lyrics. Culprits: "I Have Seen The Lord" (listen here) and "Redeemed, Restored, Forgiven" (listen below). 

Smith has done well to create songs that can be used for public worship as well as private. There are songs that plumb the depths of our sinfulness & look to the cross and others that soar in view of our Savior. A good mix.

"Lord Jesus, Comfort Me (Communion Hymn) - slow & meditative

All the pain You have endured
All Your wounds, Your crown of thorn
Hands and feet with nails through bored
The reproach which You have borne
Your back, ploughed with deep furrows
Cross and grave and all Your sorrows
Your blood-sweat and agony
Oh Lord Jesus, comfort me

"I Need Thee Today" - upbeat, rocking

I need Thee, precious Jesus 
For I am full of sin 
My soul is dark and guilty 
My heart is dead within 
I need the cleansing fountain 
Where I can always flee 
The blood of Christ most precious 
The sinner’s perfect plea 

The album is wonderfully rich with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can listen to Watch The Rising Day streaming in full. I highly recommend you buy it and Matthew's other albums. His music is a staple in my devotional life, in our home and in our church. His music is so solid, with a wonderful mix of ancient and current, that I can't see why anyone wouldn't love it.

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BUY IT

Matthew created discount codes for Reformissionary readers...

steve = 25% off the Deluxe Edition CD + Download
steveLP = 10% off the Limited Edition Vinyl + Download

(Codes expire Monday, August 23rd)

Download Matthew's two previous full-length albums (All I Owe and The Road Sessions Collection) for $6.99 at http://matthewsmith.bandcamp.com.

Also check out Bob Kauflin's review at WorshipMatters.com.

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Listen to a new favorite of mine off the album, "Redeemed, Restored, Forgiven." I can't stop myself from singing (shouting!) the chorus. Turn it up!

Redeemed, restored, forgiven 
Through Jesus' precious blood 
Heirs of His home in heaven 
Oh, praise our pardoning God

Front Porch Hack

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HouseMissional thinkers/pastors often bemoan the loss of the front porch in neighborhood architecture. It used to be the place to relax after the work is done, sip tea, interact with our neighbors, etc. The back porch has become prominent, and it's where we hang in seclusion from our neighbors and do our own thing. 

Here's a "front porch" hack: Turn your garage into your "front porch." 

Drive down your suburban street sometime and notice how the garages are the most prominent feature on the homes. It's right out front. It's an ugly design. And when lumped in together with missing or minuscule front porches makes our homes seem missionally helpless. We can redeem that by hacking the garage to make it a place of neighborhood friendliness, fun and conversation. 

Three easy steps.

1. Clean It Out. Toss stuff in the trash. You don't need some of that stuff. Give stuff away. Find another place for it. Tidy up whatever you need to leave in there. Make as much space as possible. If you think you can't, you're wrong.

2. Fill It Up.  If you don't have one in there already, put in a fridge (even if only a college-sized one). Put yummy stuff in that fridge. Drinks, snacks, more drinks. Can't afford that, at least put cold stuff in a cooler. Then get a dart board, a bags set, iPod speakers/radio, chairs, basketball hoop, frisbee, or whatever you and others find fun. Keep the door wide open. Let the sound & fun bleed out into the neighborhood. Take the grill from the back porch and put it in the driveway.

3. Invite & Be Inviting. Start right after work. Wave at folks in as they drive home from work. Ask them over. Wave them over. Yell as they get out of their car, "Come on over!" Give them an special invite, if that's helpful. Offer them something to drink and ask about their day. Play a game. Stuff will happen naturally as neighbors feel welcome and stop by regularly.

Hard to get rained out (it's covered). You can do this regularly in most seasons as it's inside-ish (get a heater, fan, etc to stretch that time out). 

Don't just do this every so often. Make it a rhythm of family & neighborhood life. I think it will make for a nice front porch for your home, and a great way to share life with your neighbors.

Music Monday 8.9.10

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Music brain away

A new Arcade Fire record came out last week, and at this point it's a well-noted fact that it contains only a few scraps of the anthemic urgency for which the band, on its two previous albums, had become so well-loved. At the risk of coming off like One Of Those People Who Just Wishes They'd Make A Hundred Albums Like Funeral, I will admit: I missed the bombast, too. But only a little bit, and only until I realized what, exactly, was getting the band so worked up in those moments that they do, in fact, get so worked up. And then I just wished they'd never even bothered.

The Dead Weather played Letterman... 

I couldn't not post "Wake Up" from the Arcade Fire YouTube/Vevo/Madison Square Garden concert. So good. A song for our time...

Matthew Smith: "I Have Seen The Lord"

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Love the new Matthew Smith song, "I Have Seen The Lord," from his new album Watch the Rising Day. You can get the album for a Reformissionary discount, and download it immediately (not released for a couple of weeks yet). Go get Watch The Rising Day and listen to "I Have Seen The Lord" below...

Let worldly minds the world pursue, what are its charms to me?
Once I admired its trifles too, but grace has set me free
Its pleasures now no longer please, no more content afford
Far from my heart be joys like these now I have seen the Lord

As by the light of opening day the stars are all concealed
So earthly pleasures fade away when Jesus is revealed
Creatures no more divide my choice, I bid you all depart
His name and love and gracious Word have fixed my roving heart

Music Monday 8.2.10

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    Matt Stevens - acoustic/experimental/minimalist (MySpace)

    Matthew Smith - Pre-orders at http://matthewsmith.bandcamp.com. All pre-orders receive an immediate     full download of the record. The entire record is streaming for free there as well.

        Discount codes for Reformissionary readers (expires August 23rd)...

       steve = 25% off the Deluxe Edition CD + Download
steveLP = 10% off the Limited Edition Vinyl + Download

        Download versions of Matthew's two previous, excellent full-length albums (All I Owe & The Road         Sessions Collection) are on sale for $6.99, also at http://matthewsmith.bandcamp.com.

Caribou's great album, Swim (only $5.99), includes "Sun." Here's the video. It's weird.

1,000 $5 Albums for August

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Amazon's 1,000 albums for $5 through August. Many outstanding albums. Unless otherwise noted, X/100 scores are from MetaCritic. If 80/100 or better, considered "universal acclaim." 70/100 and above usually good chance at being solid, in my experience. If you want some specific direction as to your tastes or to stretch your tastes, comment below or email.

Jazz

Classical 

Things You Might Like, But Won't Admit

Music Monday 7.26.10

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Before you go stream Lost In The Trees (above), you might want to check out this video. Nice introduction to a band I'm suddenly VERY interested in. "Walk Around The Lake"...

If you haven't seen the new Avett Brothers official video for "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise" (from I and Love and You) you are missing out. Thoughtful, artistic...

Music Monday 7.19.10

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Music please

The National play "Bloodbuzz Ohio" live. You should pick up their album, High Violet, is really great and only $6.99.

I've watched this (G20 flavored) video for Broken Social Scene's "Meet Me In The Basement" several times. Love it. Images, images, video, images. Check out BSS's new album, Forgiveness Rock Record.