Holy Anguish

I’ve been listening to Francis Chan’s sermon “Holy Anguish”. It is literally crushing personally and as a minister. Wow the things that we have place undue importance on. I’m praying that God will slowly peel back the layer of my disillusion and distracted heart. There is nothing wrong with enjoying life, but if your enjoyment of life isn’t pointing people to Jesus then you’re missing the aim of life. Say what you will but if you aren’t in anguish about the lost then you are missing it. Frankly I spend a lot of time “missing it”

What’s too much?

So as of late it’s been a sincere discussion and thought process to me to really examine all that goes into music in worship, and this being general in some manner and particular to me as well. I don’t think that there is a hard and fast exact way that all of the different styles and expressions of worship in music can be reconciled or objectively decided upon because style, Biblically, has little to do with it. Biblically it comes down to “worship in spirit and in truth”. I want to set that aside as the definite and, not taken for granted, but as the foundation of any other thing that would follow.
I have been struggling with some stylistic elements of Awaken as far as making things not too entertaining that people would focus on the created rather than the Creator in worship. I read a quote today that I want to just throw out there as another step in my thinking, and don’t judge me because it comes from a member of my favorite band U2. It is relevant because when you look at what they are doing with their current tour, which is the largest tour in history, it does make me wonder why? Adam Clayton said this in the October 15th issue of Rolling Stone, “Somebody asked us last night, ‘Do you need this stuff?’ And the truth is, you don’t really need this stuff. But part of the show business is you have to change people’s perceptions, you have to find ways to make the songs touch people more, to disorientate people so they’re more open to being touched.”
Now I know that you scholars out there are already thinking, “Church is not show business” I’m not saying that it is in any way. I’m agreeing with that statement in maybe restating it like this, “do we need all of the lights, smoke, screens, speakers, instruments, logos, etc…NO. we don’t need it. Christ is completely sufficient, but part of the spread of the gospel is that you have to change people’s perceptions of the Jesus and the local church, we have to find ways to make the gospel touch more people, to disorientate people, to un-program the bad programming, the prejudice, the ignorance, the bias so they’re more open to being touched.
The “stuff” of modern worship is part of the front door for the unchurched and the dechurched. The “stuff” is a catalyst not only for the those two types of people but also for the devoted follower of Jesus as long as the “stuff” has a clear and definite purpose of expressing the truth of gospel in a way that makes it more clear than it would have been in spoken word alone. I think about why Jesus taught in more than one place. He didn’t get all of his apostles together and say, “ok lets get our place together and get folks in here.” He taught on mountainsides, and houses and in synagogues, by the roadside, the waterside, he brought the setting of creation into the environment of teaching. We have a chance once a week where “the masses” will gather. We have our chance to express the truth of the gospel in word, song, and image. The Holy Spirit will move sometimes in spite of our efforts but I’d rather be making a place of worship that is completely about Him where He is working through our efforts.
The church is a place of worship for the believers, yes, but also an open door for the hurting and nonbeliever. The preaching of the gospel must be happening outside the walls of the church building as well.
So let me be clear about what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that this subject is the most important thing pressing the modern church today. I’m not saying that doing one way over another is correct. I am saying that with the foundation of exalting Christ above all else I’m leaning toward wanting to use all assets afforded me to purposefully point all worshipper’s hearts to Christ.

Mortality

I know that everyone experiences loss within their family, their friends, through the loss of someone they’ve admired, maybe just witnessing a tragedy, and it just seems like in those places all around there has been so much death lately.  I don’t mean this to be a morbid note (even though it seems to have started that way)
Realistically, all of this has brought me to doing some systematic thinking about my own life, and why I am who and how I am.  
I have been thinking a lot more about heaven beyond here, and also the reality of what it would really be like to be in hell.  Hell is real and every day people are going there.  The little sinful cravings of this life seem so stupid in light of eternity.  The selfishness, and want for more stuff, the size of your speakers in your car, the number of black tshirts that you own, the quality of your laptop, the 20 bucks that you know for sure you left in a pair of pants, the agonizing over what to eat and what not to eat, the speed of the route you take to work, your to do list, all of this stuff just pauses when you consider eternity.  
I’m not one of those guys who says, “Chunk it all away and let’s just wait for eternity” but I’m repenting of the fact that I get so focused on the here and now that I am numb to the eternal.  So I guess I want the eyes to see the bigger and still manage to shower occasionally

Prescription Drug Commercials

Ok so I know you’ve seen these ads for these new innovative prescription drugs.  They really crack me up.  
I can see them sitting around in their marketing meeting getting ready for the commercial,

“Ok guys we’ve got this new drug here called Exometriphedricane, obviously no one can say it so let’s just call it Metty.”
(the guys all murmur in agreement)  
“As you guys all know we’ve only got 30 seconds for this spot and 25 seconds of it is going to be listing the possible side effects so we need to distract the viewer by placing our actors who would obviously never suffer from anything remotely close to what this drug fixes in the most amazing setting known to man. For example when we say ‘flaky skin and swelling redness’ let’s show a shot of two people in love resting their heads on each other overlooking a rainbow that is ending in a golden waterfall on a remote island in the Pacific”
(the other guys all cheer)

I’m terrified to ever take anything again for the rest of my life after watching one of those commercials!

Is it just me?

(Warning reading this post may cause shortness of breath, swollen glands, headache, nausea, vomiting, low mobility, dizziness, loss of short-term memory, irregular bleeding from the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and hair follicles, dense odors, hair loss, hair growth, tooth decay, liver failure, kidney failure, aneurism, loose stools, loss of appetite, shallow skin breaking, heart attack, seizures, irregular sleep patterns, narcolepsy, constipation,  dry skin, dry eyes, dry mouth, brittle nails, poor eye sight resulting in blindness, ringing in the ears, various spice cravings, irregular attractions, sudden gas, addiction to caffeine, peeps, shingles, hives, ADD, ADHD, HIV, ringworm, acne, facial deformities, arranged marriages, erratic time travel, multiple canine adoption, genocidal urges, measles, the skids)

grammar makes me a jerk

So a couple of days ago I was at the Valero where I frequently pickup a Diet Coke on my way to work.  I came in as usual but upon a conversation by someone that I didn’t know with Kyle, the red-haired clerk, who is often got something benign to say.  The lady that was talking to him engages me when I come up to the counter and she says, “Aren’t we living in an historic day.  America has it’s first black president, the economy is changing the face of the American family, and the way that people are so connected through online communities is making the world such a smaller place.  I can only imagine what our children’s children will see in their lifetime.  I just know that all that we are doing right now is going to not only change our nation but the world as we know it.”  She then paused to take and breath and give me a chance to respond.  

So I looked her straight in the eyes and said, “the ‘h’ in historic isn’t silent” and then I walked back out to my car.
She just happened to land her little speech right on top of  a pet peeve and we all know which on of those wins everytime.  Soooooo, I guess Father forgive me for I have sinned.  And lady, if by some chance you get to read this, sorry about that.  It certainly is  A  Historic Day.

Harper Frank Harding

It’s the snowy night tonite and I just got back from practice about 10 minutes ago.
I walked into my house and the only light I could see was the light of my Christmas trees.  We have the “fancy tree” in the living room and the “kid’s tree” in the playroom.  It’s funny to see how both really represent their maker.  Any of you guys that have kids know exactly what I mean.  I took off my shoes and headed up stairs trying to be as quiet as I could.  I stopped off at Rylor’s room to kiss him on the forehead like I always do.  i then quietly sneaked into Everett’s room to put her blanket back on her, like I always do and then I headed to my room and there was Glenna sleeping quietly on her side of the bed, but now there’s a change in my Wednesday night routine.  Right next to our bed is “our boy” as Rylor and I have decided to call him.  Harper is enjoying his second night’s sleep in his new house. The house is peaceful so I headed downstairs to just write a couple of things about Harper.

Harper is perfect.  I know kids are pretty much that way once the nurse cleans them off after they are born, so I’m just enjoying it immensely.  He’s got the most hair of any of our kids at birth.  Rylor had a good head of dark hair, Everett was a little more bald than she is now, and Harper just flat out has got a ton of hair.  He’s got a little round face and big eyes.  When he opens them up he just cuts them from side to side and when he looks right at you they cross just a little.  It’s wonderful to just be with him.  He’s a good eater, so far a pretty good sleeper, and he loves to be cuddled, so I guess he reminds me of me.

I know that life has seasons and we’re entering another one.  I remember the first night we had him at the hospital and just looking at him and saying to him, “for the rest of your life I’m going to know you.  For the rest of your life you’ll be my boy and my world is changed because of this moment.”  You guys are gonna love this one.  Thank God for kids, he really did mine right.  I’ll never deserve them.

I’m contemplating “Being Heroic”

I can’t put my finger on exactly what prompted this whole thought in my head to begin with.  I think it was a combination of different little events.  I passed someone with a blowout on my way to a meeting.  I second-guessed a conversation.  It’s just little stuff.  
Either way, this is what’s on my heart.  I’ve been up tonite just thinking about my job, my family, my ministry, my friends, my music, my relationships, my conversations… you get the picture, and I started to feel regrets.  I’ve honestly never been a big regret person.  I just think that somewhere in the past couple of weeks, months or maybe years I stopped being a hero.  Don’t read too much into that exact word but catch the heart of what I’m trying to say.  I think I stopped making the most of every opportunity.  Life has become a checklist on most days and those days suck.  There’s a lot of things in life that don’t run on a checklist: love, the smile of my kids, a new song, picking up flowers for my wife on the way home, backrubs, prayer, fasting, honesty, being a good neighbor, taking great pictures.   This could literally go on and on, but I think you get the idea.  A hero is the guy who lives without a check list.  Heros seem to play to the need and follow their heart, they combat evil.  I have been stuck on this part of Amos 5 for over a month now.  I’ve been digging into it and mulling it over.  It says, “hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the gate.”  The more I’ve actually looked into this “gate” business it is talking about a place where the poor came to settle disputes.  What was happening is that justice was being bought instead of dealt and the poor were being wronged.
I still catch that the same way that I did when I first read it.  I feel like it is a great mantra of sorts from God.  ”Hate Evil, Love Good” (most of us pretty much try to live that already. That seems to be central to our faith)
“establish justice in the gate” that just has resonated with me.  It is Christianity apart from the list, apart from the perfect plan.  It’s the Christianity that is heroic, that shakes it up a little.  God make me a hero tomorrow even if it’s just a small one.  I think it’s what you want.

Nashville Trip and an Album Update

Scratch the Surface.
There it is. This is the album title for the album that has literally been coming for 5 years.  It has always been a passion and goal of mine to work on a new recording of some of these worship songs that I’ve been working on and leading with for several years.  Of course once the project actually got shored up with a decent list and I had “trimmed the fat” as you could say, I started having a writing frenzy.  I really want to be putting out an album of some type every 18 months.  Recently I’ve kept up that pace with offspring but not with albums.  My wife wouldn’t agree probably but putting an album together is usually a 9 month process that has a lot of sickness, nesting, anticipation, you have to name it, you send out announcements, and when it finally shows up it’s a big deal.  So while Glenna is finishing the baby cooking I’m wrapping up my other baby in the studio and I couldn’t be more excited.  I’m probably more focused on the release than I am the mix.  I know who to trust in that situation so I’m in good hands.  
Music is a definite language that can reach deeper than any other form.  I’m on a flight right now to Nashville and I’m thinking about when I used to live out here and all of the stuff I got to see.  
I was an intern with EMI Christian Music Group for a semester my sophomore year at Baylor.  I absolutely loved it.  The mid to late 90s were a special time in Christian music.  There were actual gargantuan legends like DC Talk, Third Day, Audio Adrenaline, Phil Keaggy, and I was actually in the office the day that Switchfoot came through to meet everyone at the label for the first time.  Jon, Tim, and Chad were just a few kids that, like many other acts, had people excited about what could be coming next.  We were getting ready to shoot the video for their first single “Chem 6A” when we had to move the shoot to San Diego because Tim had a prom that weekend.  It was a magical time when I literally got to rub shoulders with my heroes and hey, I got school credit too.  
I never really told anyone until the last week that I was there that I had a band.  I didn’t want everyone to hate me.  As a worker inside the label I wanted to learn stuff not be viewed as an outsider trying to grub up some contacts.  That was my first Nashville experience.
The next time I travelled back to Nashvegas with my band Likeminds to play a showcase for Provident.  We were really on our game musically probably as much as we were ever going to be.  Once we got there it was a crazy whirlwind and the actual place for the showcase didn’t offer much to work with.  We did our best and had no regrets.  Ultimately we didn’t sign with anyone.  I think we gave it our best and God just was shaping our collective destinies in other directions.  Either way Nashville has a special place in my heart.  Today I’m going to see my old band mates play their first show out here at Rocketown tonight.  
As for the album, just getting out of my normal day to day lets me dream a little when it comes to my plans for the album.  I really struggled with the album name.  It always seems to doom a song when you name the album after a song.  I scribbled down lyric pieces and themes to try and piece together the overall running themes of the album and pen some uhber creative and brilliant title that would just pull the album magnetically off the shelf and into hands, but it just wasn’t coming.  I kept thinking, “Man, it wasn’t this hard naming our kids!”.  Finally I was thinking about these photos that Glenna had from school where she had taken the negative and scratched out her own design on the negative before she developed it.  Then “scratch the surface” came into my mind.  I just totally stopped brainstorming right then.  Of course I land on that when I’m really not thinking about it at all.  I fell in love with the whole idea immediately.  This is album really is scratching the surface.  I feel like God is beginning to move in our congregation in a huge way, and He leads me in my writing to bring new thoughts and ways of expressing things for Awaken that I really feel is the tip of the iceberg.  I think some of the strongest songs on the album lyrically came from things God birthed in me in my preparation for our Sundays.  Songs like “Lord of Glory” and “Returning” are songs that were and Ebenezer for some special moments of God’s movement.  
Overall there are going to be 12 tunes on the album and I’m really proud of them all.  Worship music needs to be recorded.  I think as much as we are plugged in to our iPods these days we need an music that connects us to what’s important in our lives.  I’m not the guy that is constantly listening to only worship music or anything but it definitely fills my office, my house, and my car daily.  
The date that I’m projecting for the release is January 24th there in the Hall at Sagemont Church.  It’s going to be a night to remember for sure.  I love a good party!  

Peace
aric 

NEW music is close

There is new music on the way. In March Ashton, JJ, Jeremy, and I began working on a new worship album. Ya, I know we’ve been talking about it since like 2006, but it’s nearing completion. I’m going into the studio tonite to knock out a few more songs. I’m tracking vocals right now and then after a few little pinches we’re down to mix and it will be in your hands. I’m tracking vocals with Mike Thompson, who we recorded “Safe for Now” when I was with Victoria. If you don’t have that CD you should really get it off of iTunes or track me down. I’m hoping to have it out before Christmas so we’ll see….Cross your fingers and hairs! Thanks for all of your encouragement. Go ahead and set aside your $12! I need it.

Bud Selig is the Antistro!

I will short with my post since I feel that my title says it all. 
Let’s take a playoff race and make it more difficult on you by removing your “home field advantage” and sending you to your biggest current rival’s field to play.  Just hang out and there and get booed constantly when everyone knows that Astros fans are the 10 man on the field.   Then throw on top of that that they were all worried about their own families and houses etc that were in the path of Ike. Bud Selig then has the audacity to soil the pages of our local paper with his half-hearted liefest of garbage.  Let’s be men here, he was just too lazy to care about Houston or the Astros.  These guys fight tooth and nail day in and day out from April to September to make it to the playoffs, and to shoplift the hottest team in the majors with laziness just gets to the flesh in me (as you can tell by my post)

OK I feel like Chevy Chase in Christmas vacation when he freaks out at the end and then cousin Eddie brings his boss to him in his pajamas gagged with a big red bow on him.  So if anyone brings Bud Selig to my house in a big red bow I’ll just leave him there with the mosquitoes, since I still don’t have any power.