Friday Reflections

• I’m glad this week is over…real busy…a meeting every night!!!
• We’re putting hymns to blues music this weekend at Compass Point and I get to play guitar. I’m stoked!!!
• Apparently it was “Don’t Respond To Emails & Phone Calls” week for my friends and staff…and I didn’t get the memo. Shawn Lovejoy does have a legitimate excuse though.
• In studying Scripture I’m beginning to question whether confronting people through online means (blog, email, etc.) is even Biblical???
• Was looking forward to beating Travis Johnson in fantasy football…but apparently he doesn’t know how to use a computer any better than a cell phone.
• It’s official…I’m hated by online discerning ministries, Islamic extremists, Friends of Emergent and prosperity preaching pastors. It’s funny…they all claim to be “right” and “holy”…yet all of their hateful emails look the same…I really can’t tell the difference.
• Denise and I are dog-sitting for my parents this weekend and working in our storage shed. It’s truly going to be a “labor day”.
• I am sending Perry Noble a Bible and the “Four Spiritual Laws” tract. Anyone that hates cats needs to get saved.
• Facebook has become a complete bore for me…the exclusivity and coolness has worn off with everyone having an account. Just because I once met someone at a conference doesn’t mean I give a rip about their favorite movie or want to be a part of their “Fans Of Spurgeon” club!
• Note to “watchdogs”…I’m not Emergent…ask them…they’ll tell you!
• I’m stoked about shooting small birds with a gun in a few weeks (a.k.a., dove season).
• Blogging is starting to lose it’s luster.
• Growth is fun and exciting…but also painful.
• The only people that actually know what I mean when I say “loud, rude and obnoxious” are folks that have been around Compass Point for a while. The rest of you are just living up to what they say about assuming.
• Apparently the Internet is all ga-ga about two women in town that have started “Christian” pole dancing. However, the only thing people are talking about around Lakeland is which one will get the private corporate jet….Randy or Paula?
• In and around the meetings this week I’ve been able to do some shepherding (hospital visits, one-on-one discipleship, personal mentoring, accountability conversations, etc.)….which is my favorite part of this thing called pastoring!!!

Wat Wuz I Thinkin?

One of my church members told me about a blog that was slamming me pretty hard today by a guy named Keith. Normally I wouldn’t even bother checking it out…but she said I’d appreciate the humor. She was right…the dude is hilarious!!! I agree with almost nothing he writes (especially this)…and he lumped me in with the Emergent folks (which I am not)…but his smart-aleck sense of humor had me in the floor. I had tears in my eyes when I read “Purpose Driven Combination Mouse Pad/Daily Journal/food processor” and ” I’ve got set a “Prayer of Jabez” lawn furniture listed on eBay if anyone is interested.” His comment section is a riot (at the bottom his reply to Julie about the caveats)!!! Yeah, he dissed me pretty good…but because of his sense of humor I’m adding him to my Google Reader.

Hymns, Newspring & The Completely Clueless!!!

I really could care less about what others say or comment about me at other blogs. I never Google myself anymore, dropped Technorcrapi a few weeks back and rarely check my TypePad stats. However, one of my influencers at Compass Point made me aware that my post about hymns has been used in blog comments by several “Watchdog Freaks” to take shots at Newspring Church and Perry Noble. I dropped by the sites this morning…read the comments…and am amazed at how completely Scripturally clueless some “guardians of the Word” really are!!! The way that verses of the Bible have been taken out of context and twisted with zero doctrinal integrity to make a pitiful point was almost…cult like!!! On top of that…they just totally missed the gist of what I was saying in my post. So let me clarify some things…

I love the words of hymns…but musically they suck!!! This is not about me being culturally relevant with today’s society…it’s just the fact that most 15th and 16th Century music sucks in a 21st Century context. Matin Luther took some kicking lyrics…and then beefed them up with the AC/DC, Flaming Lips and Kayne West of his day. Because he wanted people to actually listen to the message the hymns are freakin’ beer drinking bar songs with Christian lyrics….which have become “sacred cows” today! Not to mention Marty banging revolutionary writing on the door of the “establishment” in the middle of the night…just spells rock n’ roll and rebellion!!! If he were around today he’d be whipping out a Les Paul with a Marshall stack…blasting out power chords…with fire shooting off the stage (hmmm seems like a church just did that for a buttload of teens…with incredible results). I’m all for the depth of the lyrics of hymns…but the music has got to be upgraded big time!!!

There is deep stuff being written today! My blog is like a diary…not some manual. There are days when I convey my thoughts just so I can go back and look over them down the road. My “hymns” post was one of those days…and people took it to mean that all praise and worship stuff today is fluff. Musically…most of it is. We are in desperate need of some Fanny Crosby words with Metallica face-melting music!!! However, there is some great…deep stuff being written today. Songs like Hillsong’s “Mighty To Save” and Billy Foote’s “You Are God Alone (Not A God)” are just plain deep and doctrinally sound…and rock in a power ballad kind of way. Think “Sister Christian” and “Amazing Grace” mashed (”when we’ve been motorin’ ten thousand years, what’s your price for flight”).
“Arm chair quarterbacks” need to shut up! If you ain’t in the game…keep your mouth shut. The same kind of bonehead that would stand on the sidelines and write “the ends don’t justify the means” about a youth event that saw 100+ teens come to Jesus…is the same kind of bonehead that would be taking Jesus to task for not turning the water into iced tea…instead of alcohol. I’m fairly sure that the same God that put a pillar of fire in the sky got a kick out of a pillar of fire on stage. I’m fairly sure that the one and only God that creates deafening thunder in rain clouds gets a kick out of a thunderous hard rock instrumental. I’m almost certain that a mighty God that created music…only to watch it be stolen by Satan for the glory of evil…got a kick out of a church stealing it back to reach young people for His glory!!! While the “watchdogs” are ripping the method…Heaven is rejoicing in the victory!!! Perry and company are in the game reaching people for Christ…bench warmers need not comment.

I am not on “your side”. Look…I had a pleasant exchange of emails with Ingrid and Ken. That doesn’t mean we are going to take long walks in the rain together or hold hands singing hymns by a campfire…there is still much I disagree with. Let me make this perfectly clear to “Slice Saints”, “Leaven Lovers” and “Apprising Peeps”…never assume that we are working toward the same goals. While I respect a few of your spokespeople…I am totally repulsed by your methods. I will speak for myself…stop speaking for me!!!

Rant over…have a nice day and drive carefully!!!

Great Posts From Around The Blogosphere

There have been a couple of really great blog posts this week that have been rocking my world. Check these out when you get a minute…

• Tony Morgan has a great post about vision that I shared with the entire Compas Point staff.
• Shawn Lovejoy hits another one out of the park with this post about pastors and their wives.
• Steve Furtick reminds Christian leaders about the danger of running on spiritual fumes in this post.
• This post about 5 “gut check” questions by Perry Noble really kept me up the other night!!!
• Micahel Lukaszewski really hit the nail on the head with this great post about labeling churches.
• My friend Tony Wheeler gets pretty open and honest with this post.

Barry Bond’s Rookie Card

This should settle the whole steroids argument once and for all.

Michael Vick’s Jury

Sunday Night Rewind

• We had two people pray to received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of their lives today!!!
• We still had a BUNCH of regular folks out on vacation…but we still packed out the place.
• We’re doing nothing but “word-of-mouth” right now…but guests are showing up like nobody’s business!!
• Our leadership really dropped the ball today in the area of communication.
• Most people couldn’t tell we dropped the ball because our young volunteers really stepped up to cover vacant areas.
• Football is back!!!
• I broke my own “Saturday night” rule and went with my family to Dolly Parton’s “Dixie Stampede” in Orlando last night. It was fun, relaxing, great food, wonderful show and I really need some family time.
• Dropping the ball because of poor planning, communication or leadership really ticks me off.
• I’m speaking to a group of young 20-somethings and college students in Brandon tomorrow night. I’m really looking forward to it.
• Tomorrow night I get to have dinner with one of my favorite people in the whole world…Bobby Triplett.
• The Devil kicked in overtime today…but God moved in a big ways at Compass Point this morning.
• When people attack…you learn who you’re true friends are.
• Email was not meant for confrontation.
• People that view themselves as “guardians of God’s Word”…seem to act nothing what Scripture calls us to act like as followers of Christ.
• I’m glad this week is over and I’m tired. I’m going to bed now that the game just ended.

My Heart’s Desire

Unfortunately, I’m more like Peter…going around lopping of ears in fake bravado and acting like an immature, power-hungry screw-up. But my heart’s desire is to be like Andrew. Almost everytime we see Andrew in Scripture he is bringing someone to meet Jesus (John 1:43-51, John 6:5-9 and John 12:20-22).

Why Can’t We Have Hymns?

As I prepare for my sermons each week I listen mainly to hymns. There is a subtle intensity to them that I hope transfers into my teaching at Compass Point on Sunday mornings. Their words challenge…push and pull….cause a deepening of my thought process. Hymns for me are like protein for an athlete…that extra edge for the endurance.

To say that I’m bored with modern praise and worship music is an understatement. It all sounds so…simple…so easy…so repetitive. The words are simple…the structures are simple…the instrumentation is…well…simple. The same words are sung over and over and over and over…to infinity.

I truly believe that this is one area where the Church’s obsession with chasing culture has caused us to throw the baby out with the bath water. As a pastor of young families and 20-something art freaks I understand that the world is a different place today…there seems to rapant ADD and warped speed living. The general mantra of life today is “give it to me now the way I want it”. But following Christ doesn’t work that way…disipleship takes time and stretching. I’m afraid in our effort to reach society we have dumbed down many things in church…including the music. Instead of raising the bar for people to live life above this world…we have brought it all down to a level that reaks of mediocrity.

Im not talking about choir robes and pipe organs (though a great Hammond B3 sound can add punch like nobody’s business…just ask The Black Crows). Quite a few of the greatest hymns of yesterday were put to the music of beer hall songs. I’m for “rocking the house”…but I just think we can give the world a little more to chew on lyrically. I understand people with no church memory freak when you sing songs about getting washed in blood. As a fairly creative pastor a hymn like “Are You Washed In The Blood?” is a great attention-getter and set up for me to discuss that the Lamb is Jesus Christ and what it means to be “washed in His blood”.

A couple of weeks ago our worship leader Jonathan Williams “introduced” a “new” song at Compass Point…it was the old hymn “Invisible Immortal”. He added a central chorus that we sang between the original verses and the music would melt your face off. Our people loved it…all of our people. Musically it was relevant to our younger attenders…but lyrically our older folks were digging the depth. There was meat without making the music sound like an Air Supply cover band. The song was over 4 minutes long because we sang all of the verses. Nobody left…nobody got bored…nobody complained. In fact they thought Jonathan wrote the whole song and were saying how cool the lyrics were. By the way…the folks dishing out compliments were young 20-somethings with little church experience in their past.

So if it is possible to rock…have lyrical depth…and sing every stanza in a church setting…then my question is…why can’t we have hymns?

Next-Wave Article

I’m probably the only doctrinally conservative, Reformed Theology, Southern Baptist pastor of a slightly attractional, but purely missional church that writes for Next-Wave Ezine.