recommended reading

Here's a blog from a good friend about the Enter the Worship Circle event BSU held last Sunday. You really should read his blog. He's one of the most insightful people I know.

Read the BSU blog here.
Read his other blogs here.

church planting vs. conceiving a new church

Two things that are worth sharing.

First, a psalm from U2/Bono & The Edge…a song that, as Bono introduced it in Philadelphia back in May, is a “new song that feels like an old song.”

Yahweh

Take these shoes/Click clacking down some dead end street
Take these shoes/And make them fit
Take this shirt/Polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt/And make it clean (clean)
Take this soul/Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul/And make it sing

Yahweh, Yahweh/Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh/Still I'm waiting for the dawn

Take these hands/Teach them what to carry
Take these hands/Don't make a fist (no)
Take this mouth/So quick to criticise
Take this mouth/Give it a kiss

Yahweh, Yahweh/Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh/Still I'm waiting for the dawn

Still waiting for the dawn... sun is coming up
Sun is coming up on the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean

Yahweh, Yahweh/Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, tell me now/Why the dark before the dawn?

Take this city/A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city/If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart/Take this heart/Take this heart
And make it break

Second, a poem that I read in the recent edition Sojourners magazine. Read “Come As You Are” by Debra Elramey here. It really is worth the time.

Always pain before a child is born.

Just come as you are.

Here’s the connection…that which is born is a community of faith built on mouths that kiss instead of criticize, hands that bring help instead of violence, hearts that break instead of harden. Even further, it is a community where…

You have nothing to fear, nothing to dread
There is no religion here, but for the laying
on of hands and the resurrection of the dead.

Sweet Home…Kentucky, Where the skies are so blue…

Last night a commercial came on for KFC (I guess still standing for “Kentucky Fried Chicken”), but the background music without lyrics was unmistakably, “Sweet Home Alabama.” I guess there’s a little identity crisis in the marketing department. Or, maybe it’s now acceptable to send out a mixed message, confusing communication, or perplexing point of view. I’m not sure KFC remembers who they are.

What about Christians? The church?

I’ve said it before in different places and various contexts that I think that much of religion today, Christianity specifically, is schizophrenic. Put more plainly, I really don’t think we know who we are. More times than not, we choose our religious associations based on what we’re not, rather than what we are, what we embrace, or what we embody.

Too many times, the “commercial” that advertises who we are shows one thing yet has the background music that tells a different story.

Sporadically, I watch The Daily Show with John Stewart. On one particular episode, Stewart (the show's host) made a music recommendation that I must acknowledge gratefully. He recommended two new CD releases and after a few weeks now, I have purchased them and, I must say, I am enjoying them very much.

The first one was Coldplay's new release, X&Y. I like this CD all the way through to the hidden 13th track, "Til Kingdom Come." It is a mystery to me how fresh, but familiar this song is. I think you can watch/hear it here.

The other recommendation was the dual disk "In Your Honor" by Foo Fighters. Disk one rocks. Disk two sooths. Curious words..."Mine is yours and yours is mine/There is no divide/In Your Honor I would die tonight." I can see why they've put additional digital files on their CD to keep it from being ripped. Had this been released years ago, this is one I would have definitely stolen from my sister. (I would have also taken her Coldplay CD...along with her copy of the Sugar Hill Gang's album, "Rapper's Delight!")

I am hopeful, if not certain, that as I listen more closely I'll find a few more pearls from Foo Fighters and Coldplay. I am also certain that I'd sell the Sugar Hill Gang's album on ebay for less than $9.99.