The Politics of Jesus Part 2

My friend Kylan and I went to the bloggily aforementioned Tokens event "The Politics of Jesus" at Lipscomb University's new (I think it's new) Shamblin Auditorium. The room was great with an atmosphere that was warm, cozy, and comfortable. The stage was set up like a live radio show with expensive looking broadcast quality microphones, about a dozen chairs for musicians and actors. It started just like a radio show. We felt as if we were at a taping of Prairie Home Companion without Garrison Keillor.

They did some comedy bits, Derek Webb sang Nick Lowe's "Peace Love and Understanding" and then...

Disappointed we were. The interviews had been taped, and not on video but audio. So, no Shane Claiborne. No Jim Wallis. No Chris Haw. Etc, etc. The blog I listed was copied directly from the Tokens website, and it did not say a thing about the interviews not being live. So, we were really looking forward to hearing from them, especially Shane. When I got home I checked their site and it suddenly said something like "prerecorded interviews". Ugh.

It was pretty cool, I guess. Just disappointing. There were entertaining and funny moments, the music was great and the prerecorded interviews were insightful. Still, I don't feel like I walked away a more informed person or voter.

The recording of the show is supposed to be posted soon in podcast form. We were in the second row, so listen for the intentionally goofy sounds we made all night in retalliation for what we felt was a bit of a letdown. I know, very mature.

Cool Event - The Politics of Jesus

Shamblin Theatre
@ Lipscomb University

September 2, 2008
first show, 6:30-8:30 PM;
second show, 9:00-11:00 PM

Tickets on Sale Now Through Ticketmaster
$12.50 for General Admission
$10.00 for Students & Educators

Or you may purchase tickets in person at the Lipscomb University Box Office - Allen Arena. Call 615.966.7075 for box office hours.

Scheduled to Appear:

Musical guests include Derek Webb, Buddy Greene, and Odessa Settles, accompanied by Most Outstanding Sinai Mountain Boys (Jeff Taylor; Aubrey Haynie; Pete Huttlinger; Chris Brown; and Byron House).

Plus interviews with Jim Wallis, best-selling author of God's Politics and founder of Sojourners; Randall Balmer, professor of American religious history at Columbia University and author of God in the White House: A History; and Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw on their new book Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals. And the Tokens Radio Players will be back cooking up no telling what fun with the presidential election just around the corner.

More info at www.tokensshow.com.

Worship Connection Day 2

We started the day today with bagels and juice. It was Ken's turn to drive Mark's Cutlass Salon to the Mall of Ameri... I mean the Church of the Resurrection. Mark wanted to make sure the windshield was shiny and clean, so he sprayed it, and washed it, and sprayed it, and wiped it off. And then wiped it off again. As we drove away, some of the left-over water dripped down the window directly parallel to the middle of Ken's face. That was annoying. It was at that point we realized the car had no windshield wipers.

Anyway, we found the church (although we doubted ourselves a couple times) and got there just in time for an emergent worship service from Dan Kimball, Tim Keel (pastor of Jacob's Well), and the Jacob's Well band. The band led a typical song like "God of Wonders" and then did a song that contained the lyric "I'll scream it at the top of my freaking lungs". Lynette and I agree... Must. Do. Song. I'm just not sure where.

The service was good. There were seven prayer stations and each represented a different portion of a traditional Jewish wedding. They compared the traditional Jewish wedding to the church being the bride of Christ. Very cool.

Ken and Dave both elected not to go through the ridiculously enormous prayer station line. I wish they had. It was really great. I, being good ol' analytical prefectionsit me, got mad when I went to the stations and saw that prayers weren't in the font I had chosen. Oh yeah, these were the prayer stations I worked on earlier in the week. I forgot to make sure the font was embedded in Word when I saved it on the UM Publishing House computers. So, I think it was Arial and Courier I saw the most. They were all supposed to be the ever faithful Papyrus.ttf. Oh well.

The room we were in was not condusive to an emerging worship experience. Later in the day we used their second (of three) sanctuaries for lunch. That is where we should have had the emergent service. So many things about the giant room we used goes against so much of what the emergent movement is all about.

After the service (Dan would probably prefer I called it a gathering) I went to Dan's workshop on emerging worship. I've read the book and I don't think he really covered much that he didn't in the book. That's not to slight his workshop as much as to say how informative his book is on its own.

Marcia McFee really impressed me with her workshop, "Layering the Verbal, Visual and the Visceral for Experiential Worship".

Everything else today was excellent as well. We closed with a gospel service from St. John's UMC in Houston. The music was superb. More interesting lyrics in this set: something about cow dung. Anyway, working at Cokesbury I heard a lot of urban gospel music. Some of it was good. Most of it wasn't (or at least didn't break any new ground). The two guys from St. John's that soloed were amazing. They did a song I now want to do. I can't find the lyrics anywhere on the net. They were something like, "We're watchnig and waiting and anticipating the moment that you will arrive... something something something... and we recognize you're already here." Good song. In and out of major and minor keys... really excellent melody.

I'm not articulating well how the day went... I'm tired. Gotta go to sleep. I'm hoping the kitten that woke me up every thirty minutes last night won't wake me up tonight.

Warmth In Winter

Yesterday, the youth of Grace United Methodist Church in Mt Juliet returned from Warmth in Winter, the Tennessee conference's youth event. In many ways it was my first WIW experience. I've gone to WIW for the past four or five years but this was the first time I wasn't working for Cokesbury at the convention book table and it was the first year I was able to be with the youth of my church.


I was once again blessed by Jennie Murray's abilities and gifts as a youth director. To see the ways she ministers to and interacts with our youth truly thrills my soul. I am so grateful that the staff parish committee made the right decision and hired her. Jennie has become a best friend, family member, and ministry partner to Daphne and me and we love her dearly. I don't think the youth realize quite how blessed they are to have her for a youth minister, but they do realize, and they realize more each opportunity they have to share with her.

We had a wonderful weekend at the Nashville Convention Center. The youth connected with other youth groups across our district and conference. More importantly, the youth connected with each other in ways I had not previously seen. Most importantly, the youth connected with God in ways I had not previously seen.Throughout the weekend Ray Buckley continued to inspire me and floor me. I had read his beautiful books and met him once before but had never heard him address an audience. A gifted Christian Native-American storyteller, Ray was an unconventional choice for keynote speaker for a youth event. I am so happy he was chosen. We were all blessed indeed.

On Saturday I led the two workshops with the Grace Youth Worship Team on what it means to play in a youth worship team. The workshops went very well. The band was great (even when I wasn't) and somehow I successfully squeezed a two hour seminar into a thirty minute seminar.

As a band, we coveted the sound system we were able to use for our sessions. The system we use at the family life center is woefully ancient and somewhat unreliable. This one was newer and sounded very warm and nice. One member of the band (who shall remain nameless) joked that if we took it no one would notice. We decided that Encounter and the convention center would notice and it would probably be best to leave it. Plus the speakers were too large to fit on the bus.

Because the worship team led workshop sessions 1 and 3, I was able to go with Jennie, Daphne, and several youth to Jenny Youngman's workshop on Taize during session 2. Taize is a community of brothers in the village of Taize, France that has dedicated their lives to prayer. Every year thousands of young people flock to the community to experience the lifestyle these men lead. Each day when the bell tolls they hold services of prayer that contain beautiful sung prayers, spoken prayer, shared scripture and silence.

After learning some history and some songs from Taize, we participated in a Taize worship service from Jenny's excellent book, Worship Feast Taize Services, from the wonderful Worship Feast line. We sang the songs, experienced the silence and read along as one of our youth, David Norris, eloquently read a scripture.

When we left the service I was thrilled to hear that several of the Grace youth loved the service and wanted to bring a taste of Taize back to Grace!

Like Ray Buckley, Hannah, one of our middle school girls, also continues to inspire me and floor me with beyond-her-years wisdom, humor, and compassion. After the final workshop Hannah (a singer on the team) bought a book from the Cokesbury table. The space we used for the workshop was the room in which Encounter, the college age version of WIW, was meeting. Hannah didn't want something from the youth table downstairs, she wanted a book from the college table, Frederick Buechner's Beyond Words. Now that's certainly not typical reading for a seventh grader.

The Sunday before WIW Daphne told Hannah, half joking, that Hannah would end up being a preacher. Hannah smiled and excitedly said something like, "I told my sisters that just the other night!" Hannah is already ministering to the youth of our church.

Michael, our worship team's new drummer, has been coming to Grace for a a little more than a month and has become a very dear friend to me and to everyone else who crosses his path. The youth group prayed for Michael for several weeks before he even came to Grace. We were thrilled that cold Wednesday night, just a few weeks before Christmas, when he first attended a youth meeting.

After the final workshop on Saturday, as we finished packing the musical equipment into the corner of the room, Michael asked me what it means to give one's life to Christ. Before I knew it the two of us were sitting in an empty hallway praying together as Michael accepted Christ into his life. He had a lot of questions and God gave me good answers to share. For nearly two hours we shared words, tears, laughter, and prayer. We used all of "free time" to do this and we are both grateful.

Jennie and Daphne showed up in perfect time to rejoice and pray with us in thanks for the change in Michael's heart. Michael is an example of the miraculous work God is doing in our youth group and I am honored to be here to witness it.

As we left the closing worship service at the historic Ryman Auditorium--often called the Mother Church of Nashville--we walked out into warm weather and sunlight with warmth in our hearts. As we took the bus back to the church, loud voices, laughter, and occasional spontaneous singing of the weekend's theme "Sanctuary" filled the bus.

When we returned to the Family Life Center the group circled up and, with right arm over left. held hands as we do every Sunday and Wednesday night. During this time we share prayer concerns and the UMY benediction. For the past several months, Hannah has always said "I want to pray for this youth group."

This weekend we saw her prayer being answered in ways that none of us could have imagined.

So, until next time, "May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."