Great Commencement Address

Found this commencement address today and felt that it must be shared.

Enjoy.

A Great Story

The idea of story has been coming back over and over again these past few weeks so I thought it would be a fitting topic to tackle here..

A good friend of mine just left the staff of Community Church (where I work) to pursue his dream calling of launching a non-profit organization that sees to end bullying by inspiring students with the power of a great story.  (You can find out more here.)

His sold-out belief is that getting people to realize and live out a great story can change the world.. He’s actually willing to stake his livelihood on it..

Last summer, I attended the Natl. Worship Leaders Conference and had the privilege to hear Dr. Len Sweet talk about the power of story..  His premise was that as Christians we have the market cornered on one of the greatest stories ever told but we often feel the need to turn away from the story of Jesus and use our time talking about other things that are much less engaging and much less helpful to those who don’t know Christ..   His driving question was “Do you trust the story?”

Last night in my small group, we sat around discussing Sunday’s message and trying to answer the following question:  “How can you present Jesus as the only way to salvation while remaining sensitive to others beliefs?”  There were some great technical answers given about relating other religions with the teachings of Jesus and being relational and living out your faith..

I felt like we were missing the point and then realized..   Its all about the story..

When we share the compelling story of Christ; His life, teachings, death and resurrection and tell about the impact of Jesus in our lives, there is nothing that can be refuted..  Another person can’t tell me..  no you didn’t experience that, or God didn’t do that for you.. Its not possible for them to de-value my personal experience..   They don’t have to be in full agreement, but its not an imperial fact that can be countered with slick logic..

A great story…  Our great story… has the power of life within it..  Can we live and share a great story of the restorative work of Jesus in US that might lead others to seek a great story of their own?

Recent Art

If you read this post, you know that I’ve been exploring what creativity looks like as I try and make sense of how God has wired me creatively.  (Thinking about it, this blog is part of that exploration as well) One of the things I’ve been trying to do is cross over my search personally in to my role as the worship guy at Community Church.  The church gets to benefit from my personal journey by experiencing new things right along-side me.

The first way this got to manifest itself was this past Christmas season, we did a series called “The Heart of Christmas” and it matched big theology ideas with some interesting pop-art inspired graphics…

This got me thinking about something that I had seen during my latest encounter with Rhythm in Twenty in San Diego.  A local artist and fellow Rhythm member Wes Bruce had don an amazing mixed media piece inspired by our gathering.

I took his concept and applied some Christmas wrapping (literally) and collaborated with some other artists in our church to create a piece of art live on Sunday mornings.   Photos from each stage of the 4 week process are here. 

This was a really fun process and it engage the church on a new level..  The finished product (immediately above) exceeded my wildest expectations and was quite an accomplishment considering we did a unique 4’x 5′ canvas for each of our 2 services.

Since then I’ve ventured out on my own to do some creating..   This one for my wife to put in our kitchen..    Acrylic paint on Birch plywood.   (Photo from iPhone)

And this one for me to hang in my office..  Acrylic on Birch (Photo from iPhone)

Sacred Space or Just Space?

As the worship guy at Community Church I spend a lot of time in our main worship space “the auditorium” and because of my role, a lot of that time is with an empty room.  Usually I arrive at church around 7am to get setup, finalize last minute details and prepare for the arrival of the rest of our team.  Most weekends I’m doing something until the 8am arrival of our band and volunteers on the tech team.  This past weekend I was blessed by our awesome team and had less to do than my usual hour of prep time needed, so I had a few minutes to spare.

As I sat in the middle of an empty room, a room that serves most often as a place of worship, I thought about space.  Specifically, in our space, without the people who make up the church, is it still “sacred space?”

In our particular venue, there isn’t much remarkable about the building we call our church..  Its mostly a big box with minimal decor, lots of technology and a good number of chairs..  What struck me as I sat in the quiet of the morning, just me and 500 chairs, was that our space is just that..  a space.

When I think about what makes the church come alive at Community Church, it isn’t the room we inhabit, it is the people that inhabit the room who make us a church.. While some may say, “no kidding” I think that there are places, maybe unique to a person that serve as sacred space in our lives..

I know personally, there are spots in parks, places in mountains, tables at coffee shops where significant moments in faith have happened and may continue to be vibrant places of encounter with God.  In my mind, those places have some contention in my list of sacred spaces.

It never ceases to amaze me that often where we find our profound moments with God aren’t places you would consider particularly religious or spiritual, but they exist as markers along the way of our journey to remind us that places are sacred only in the measure by which God encounters us there.

Searching out a Creative Calling

For the last 10 years or so, I’ve considered myself primarily a “music guy” with some other know-how thrown in..  (I’ve done lots of A/V/L stuff over the years and some random tech stuff.) This changed a bit two years ago when I took a position at Community Church (my current church) that was much bigger than just music.  It required me to think bigger picture in to areas like programming, video, drama, dance, liturgy and more.  I was excited about this shift because I had been exploring the roles of these elements in worship but it was still a bit unnerving..

How was I supposed to create moments of worship for a congregation of 900 adults?  I’m just a “music guy” who aspires towards some other things..

Thankfully just about the time I was hired at Community Church, I also got connected with a movement called Rhythm in Twenty (RiT).  This was a group of like aged, like-minded guys in both ministry and professional vocations who were seeking a better way to live out their lives in faith, family and vocation.  I’ve got lots of great stuff to say about Rhythm itself, but that’s another post..

Anyways, at our second gathering of RiT one of the guys offered a bit of a challenge to my presumption that I’m just a “music guy.”  He told me he saw a much bigger picture of an artist within me and that it was the artists who would lead the next generation of the church.  Leading up to that encounter I had felt a bit of a call to expand my understanding of my creative bent, but I still needed that external voice to say “Go explore this thing, find out what you’re meant to be”

Since then I’ve been experimenting with what that looks like.  Me doing the things that God has called me to do..  Since I’ve been on staff at Community Church, I’ve been using video to tell great stories that share life change through Christ.  I’ve pushed for the wider use of fine arts as expressions of worship, and advocated for our community to embrace artists on a wider scale.

This is great within my job as Director of Worship Arts, but on a personal level what is my creative calling?  How do I use my gifting to serve Christ?  That has resulted in me experimenting with photography, writing, and now even dabbling a bit in to painting… Not sure that any of these are essentially my artistic gifting or my great personal contribution, but one thing I have learned for sure; to me,  the process is even more important than the result.

Blog Resurrection

So this blog has been many things, but lately its been nothing but neglected.   Really, not a single post since July 2009?  I’m pretty sure that I’ve got more to offer to the cluttered space of the internet than not posting for almost 3 years..   and if I don’t, at least I’ll keep my writing sharp.  Some people (really just my mom) think I’m ok at this whole writing thing.

Stay tuned…

Essentials Green wk2

For “The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Green Online Course, with Dan Wilt“.

This week’s work in Essentials looked at the ideas of Accessibility and Cultural Relevance.  The accessibility piece was one that I thought I had a pretty good grasp on, the idea that we want to make all aspects of our worship experiences easy to become connected to regardless of who might turn up.  This means that our music is simple enough to engage with, we are conscious of our language in that we dont use jargon that may be unfamiliar, and we understand who our potential audience may be.

The culturally relevant piece is one that I often struggle with, particularly since one of my roles is doing worship with Middle and High School students.  What much of our congregation deems “contemporary worship” is generally a sound that is 5-10 years old in many cases.  Also, because much of my work is with technology I also see areas where the church is woefully behind the times in the ways that it interacts and leverages technology to spread the gospel.  In this sense I see that the church is less than culturally relevant.

Something I was struck by this week was from Erwin McManus:

“Aren’t you tired of being relevant? I’m sick and tired of being relevant; relevant means someone else got there first and now I’m trying to connect. We need to stop being relevant and start leading the way”(1)

It seems that in much of what we try and accomplish as the church we’re only play catch up to someone who got there before us.  As McManus says I’d appreciate the day where the church reclaims the historical role as the best creators of art, music, culture, and thinking.

(1) Dan Wilt, Essentials Green Book wk 2

Michigan Vacation pt. 1

Rather than reposting I’m going to redirect you to the Eric Barz Photography Blog to see pictures and a brief recap of our vacation to Michigan.

Intimacy/Integrity (essentials green)

For “The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Green Online Course, with Dan Wilt“.

Ok..  So I wasn’t the greatest with processing my Essentials Red materials particularly since much of the work fell while I was traveling to visit family..   Note to self…  schedule classes better next time.

This past week for Essentials Green we looked in to the Worship Values of Intimacy and Integrity..   I thought this was all well and good and I’m a huge proponent of both of these values when preparing to lead worship, but I wasnt struck by any of those woah! moments that have been a part of some of the other weeks in the Essentials Course.  What changed my mind was the fact that this was my week to lead our devotion time for the Sunday morning worship band at CCOJ.  We meet 30-40 minutes before we have to set up to receive some teaching and/or have prayer and time to minister to one another.

Great.  What am I going to talk to these people about?  Almost all are older than me and have many more years as worship musicians and Christians for that matter.  What can I possibly teach them/encourage them with?  Finally, I decide…  hey, this Essentials stuff has been great for me..   lets see if they might enjoy a taste.

So, we dive in to the idea of Intimacy as leaders of worship…  How do we as the leaders model, encourage and lead people in to intimacy with their God.  What blew me away is that the team intuitively understands the idea, but has never had the right word to express it.  They also immediately make the connection between intimacy and integrity, that we can not expect to call the congregation to a place where we haven’t been as a leader.

The time comes for us to depart our devotion and go to the stage and I can palpably sense that the team was striving for intimacy that morning and hopefully it will continue on in to the week.

essentials red creative project

A Call to Worship from Psalm 40 vs. 1-3

Leader: I waited patiently for the Lord, and he turned to me and heard my cry.

All: We wait on You, Lord, the one who hears the cry of the oppressed and the broken.

Leader: He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and the mire, He set my feet upon a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

All: Rescue us God, from the mire of our own lives and our own failings.  Set us upon You, the one true rock, that we may stand on a solid foundation.

Leader: He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.

All: Let the joy of our salvation be a new song on our lips, that we may worship you with our lives and that many will come to know You.

All: We worship you now with all that we have to offer, our very best to you Lord Jesus. Amen

For my project with e*r I wanted to take something that I felt would resonate with our congregation and make it a format that would be different and maybe even challenging for them.  Since we use a very contemporary worship style, responsive readings and the idea of a “formal” call to worship are not common practices.  What is fairly common is the use of scripture to prepare and encourage the people in to the spirit of worship.

For this particular call I wanted to use a selection from the Psalms that reflected a sense of longing for the good things of God and the responsiveness of our Heavenly father to the cry of His children.  The use of Psalm 40 in particular is one that we often use in worship gatherings so the language of the scripture would be something that the congregation would be familiar with while the response would be new.

As a call to worship I think that this responsive reading engages the mind to move past simply hearing the word but not having to engage it which in the simple act of response sets the heart and mind in a place where participation is happening rather than simply anticipating that worship is a consumer product.  With our worshipping community I think that moving away from the consumer mindset is of real significance as that has been a historical mindset that we are trying to move away from.