ramblings of a wannabe rockstar

My dear wife is going to hate this.

So, those of you who have been reading this blog for a while now will recall my flight school ambitions (those of you that haven’t can check this out). In case you’ve been wondering what’s up with that, there’s not really any news.

Let’s recap:

I found the school that I wanted to fly with, went on two introductory flights, submitted my application for a loan . . . which got denied, got really frustrated with that, and basically “gave up” on the possibility of that happening this year.

Now, I haven’t given up on the whole flight school thing. I’ve just been set back. I’m still completely fogged in as to how this whole ambition of mine will be funded, but I am open to ideas. This is a dream of mine, after all, and I will make it happen, so help me Lord.

One idea I had was to drop in a little thing over on the sidebar, there to the left. Now, I don’t want to call attention to it (actually I do, but my lovely wife doesn’t want me to), so I’m not going to. But if you happen to find it and notice what it is, I won’t disuade you should you choose to click on it.

Should this come to fruition . . . that would be a welcome change.

Would someone like to enlighten me to what exactly “emergent church” is? I’ve heard/seen the term thrown around quite a bit over the past year or so as I’ve started to reengage with Church, but I’ve not yet been able to grasp what people mean when they use that term. Somone wanna help me out?

I think Tony Compolo originally said it, but the first time I heard the phrase, it’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming was actually in a song by robell and the dutches (featuring none other than Rob Bell on lead vocals). That was such a good tape. Tim Worman played the drums and Jon Woolner on the guitar. Chock full of incredible musicianship. I love that I had the opportunity to play with those two guys once in life. Anyhow, that’s beside the point.

It’s Friday. Sunday’s coming. The context of that song if I remember correctly had to do with being excited about going to church on Sunday. There was time where I would feel immensely excited about going to church on Sunday morning. Even more excited than I was about Friday nights. I’ve always had a passion for church, but moreso a passion for Church. My passion for church feigned for a while…especially after I relocated to Texas. I’ve written about my frustration with churches in Texas before so I won’t go through that again. But I got to the point where I was so discouraged about the prospect of having to go to church that I would give up on it. Once we found Genesis Metro, though, my intense longing for Sunday morning was resparked and has grown into this thing where I can’t get enough of it…and of It.

I find myself wanting to read about it, hear about it, get ideas about it, and most of all…take part in being It. It’s such an exciting thing to do the Work of the Kingdom…I can’t get enough of it. One of the places that I like to go get some quality reading about this whole church stuff is over at a fine little site called Church Marketing Sucks.

The other day, I was reading through some of the new posts over at CMS that centered around something that a former ministry partner wrote at his blog. Some of my readers might remember the name Mark Oestreicher. He is now the President of a company in San Diego called Youth Specialties, which is basically a resource center for youth ministers and their kids. I knew Mark (or Marko as most folks call him) several years ago back in Pasadena at Lake Avenue when he and I, along with a host of others, served together for the Warehouse Service. I, of course, was just a humble worship team member (playing his pink Stratocaster) and Marko was one of three teaching pastors at the time. Dude was good…and pretty inspiring. So, when I saw his name at CMS a couple days ago, I eagerly followed the link to find one of the very best blogs I’ve read anywhere.

The post I was drawn to by CMS has to do with what’s going on in the American Church these days and basically, in his words, things that suck.

Focus on programming over people

Obsession with numbers

Re-introduction of the idea that the building is the church

Franchised youth ministries

Church marketing

Acceptance and affirmation of consumerism

These are some strikingly profound thoughts to me, especially in light of a lot of what I’ve been learning this year in my own fellowship. In its effort to be attractive to the common man, today’s American Church has lost sight, I think, of its mission and calling. What is that calling you ask? People. Pure and simple. If you would like to challenge me on that, I implore you to go read Matthew 28. Instead, the focus has gone too much into the show, the look, the feel, and making sure that people remember how good the was and come back to that church the next week. I realize that the catch 22 here is that, in most cases this is what churches use to get the aforementioned people in the doors in the first place, but at what point does it stop being about the show, and become about the folks that are there…the folks that need lives impacted?

Of course, who am I, but just another guy that’s here to complain about the problem and not offer much of a solution? I just know that I’ve been impacted by people who cared about people enough to care about me. The only thing I can do is care about someone else in the same way. The people who walk in the door every Sunday at GM must be more important to me than the licks I’m laying down on the guitar during the music set. The worshipper must be more important than the “worship”.

Thanks for the blog fodder, Marko. Appreciate you.

So, I don’t do enough reading. I watch a lot of TV and I listen to a lot of music. I don’t read nearly enough, out side of my daily run of the blogs. It’s been a while since I sat down and read a book cover to cover. The last one I actually did that with was about a year ago. It was a fantastic, easy read called Simplicity by Mark Salomon.

Currently I have a few things that I’d like to try to get through when I’m done reading Dan’s thesis paper. At the top of the list is a book called Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. When I finish that, I’d like to look into checking out Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.

I’ve heard very good things about both books. Has anyone ever read these? What are your thoughts?

By the way…if you could do me the favor of identifying yourself in the comment that you leave, I’d appreciate it. For some reason, comments aren’t adding names/URI’s from where you enter them and dropping your comment on me as an anonymous. Whatever.

EDIT: Fixed the comments problem. As you were.