Voices: Gary Collier on pulsating churches

The following is transcribed from an online video:

When we talk about building a church that is close-knit, vibrant, and pulsating, we normally think about a praise team with music that echoes into the four corners of the city and a preacher that makes us laugh and cry in the same sentence, and a new state-of-the-art worship center that all by itself will go out and bring people to God.

None of us believes this, but we actually act this way – that if we have all these things in place . . . we can kind of dance down the hallways, you know, because it’s so pulsating and so marvelous . . . then we’re getting there . . . and if we’re a quiet group, then that means we’re kind of a dead church.

Now, look … these things are fine; I’m not really criticizing any of the things that I just mentioned, necessarily, but they do not define a close-knit, vibrant, and pulsating church, and that’s the point that I’m getting at.  We can have all those things and still be a dead church.

We can have all those things and have God still say to us, “I hate . . . your times of worship. . . .”

. . .

A church that is close-knit, alive, vibrant, and pulsating

• Might run up and down the aisles, or it might stand stone-cold still.
• Might have an awesome praise team, or some person who starts the singing from the third row.
• Might have a preacher as well known as Billy Graham, or as dry and stiff as Gary Collier, :-) or no preacher at all.
• Might have a brand-new, multimillion-dollar worship complex, or it might meet in a basement.

- Gary D. Collier, Coffee With Paul Ministries, Inc., transcribed from a live, Internet-delivered lesson on church community

I recommend to my readers Gary’s online bible study program.  Find more info at http://coffeewithpaul.com/.  A new session begins this Saturday, June 15 — studying Galatians.

Prefixes and Suffixes (997)

Sometimes, the things we add to the beginnings and ends of things appear superfluous.

Words

Certain English words tend to take on unnecessary prefixes.  Consider the plight of “regardless” and “flammable,” which in some circles seem to have lost their identity, becoming bloated and now irretrievably linked with superfluous prefixes (“irregardless” and “inflammable”).

Church Practices

In countless churches, a man designated to preach and/or shepherd (plus, he usually also tends to a multitude of administrative affairs) frequently has his first name prefixed by some honorific title.  ”Pastor Jim” and “Brother Henry” are two examples of this superfluous prefixing.

Also, suffixes are heard in church prayers.  For example:

• “in Your name” (without much real biblical example)
• “in Jesus’ name” (as a thoughtless incantation instead of a spiritually intercessory request)
• “amen” (which doesn’t seem to me to be patternistically enjoined for all time)

The animal kingdom — always something interesting there

A quick glance at the character below might make you go, “Huh?  A brown donkey.  Right.  Why did he put that in there?’  But look more carefully.  It’s a “zedonk” (or zonkey, a type of zebroid) I saw in recent travels, humbly exhibiting an almost bizarre, unnecessary “suffix” (or prefix, I suppose, if one got kicked by it — but it was pretty docile)!

Voices: yeah … no (993)

The problems with the clergy-laity system are a) centuries old and b) pandemic.  Most of my disputes with this system run pretty deep and are long-lived,¹ but this particular rant is rather shallow.

Having recently visited a church I’d been a member of years ago, in which one preacher had filled the pulpit for about 50 years, I suppose it was inevitable that, soon after, I saw two articles about other, way-too-long-term preachers.  (These things seem to come in multiples.)  First, the man I once knew.  Then, another octogenarian, celebrating 50 years with the same church.  And then a feature article about a guy who was with one church more than a quarter-century and with another church in the same city for 10 years.

This man is surely a wonderful man, with a good heart and a love for God.

But he is quoted as having said … and, you know, everything has the potential for being quoted out of context … but, get this:

Church growth must begin with the preacher.

Yeah . . . NO.

Oh, my goodness. . . .

First off, the term “church growth” is loaded, and I don’t accept its chock-full package as entirely worthy of discussion.  Sure, the growing of churches is likely a good thing — at least potentially so, for some churches grow merely in an opposite reaction to the decline of other churches, which fact makes the growth rather moot.  Numerical growth in terms of overall congregational “membership,” then, may be good but also may be neutral.  Spiritual growth is not quantifiable.  In my experience, “church growth ‘experts’ ” focus almost exclusively on quantifiable data.

Even if one accepts (or ignores as loaded) the term “church growth,” the notion that “growth much begin with the preacher” is ludicrous on at least two levels.

1. First, the presence of a preacher is required by no biblical text that I know of, and this fact negates the “must.”
2. Moreover, I would assert that if either spiritual or numerical growth is preacher-driven, it is growth that is not going to last. 

Preachers, of course you should keep growing and not become stagnant.  (This self-evident truth may get at the speaker’s intent more than the ripped-from-context quote.)  My rant here is in no way intended to ignore the human tendency to become stale.  I have had good models in staying current in one’s discipline, including my grad advisor Ken Singleton, who, for instance, annually updates his repertoire list with new, good music, refusing to do anything but grow.  Preachers should do similar things, studying new books and documents and Greek and methods, etc.  But really, preachers, don’t be deceived into thinking that you should function as the center of things.

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P.S. to the Christian Chronicle:  I chose not to read this article in depth.  It’s a matter of time and priorities for me.  But let’s think about the big, bold quotation at the top of the page for a moment.  Couldn’t you have chosen a better seven-word quote to pull out for highlighting?  Surely there were better, more on-target things that he said!  :-)

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¹ Grandmother Kathryn Ritchie (1909-1988) taught me that “long-lived” was originally pronounced with a long “i,” as in “dive.”  I have trouble saying it that way now, because everyone thinks it’s wrong.  Often, taking the less popular way ends up being right, right?

Rant on a gun-rant

License plate in a Bible Belt parking lot

The message above represents what’s wrong with the NRA or militia mindset.  Maybe there’s an appreciable difference between those two, but from where I stand, it’s about the same.  (I’m like a monkey looking at two books — say, a biblical commentary and a Beatles fake book — the books look basically the same to a monkey, although if you’re a Bible scholar or a Beatlemaniac, the comparison is a trifle offensive. Anyhew….)

Two things not found in the Bible:

1. the (mis)conception that a Christian has the right to kill in certain circumstances
2. the (mis)conception that, in order to be a Christian in the U.S., one has to be a Republican

On the first point: I’m well aware that there are a couple lines of thinking that would lead to the justification of killing.  I don’t subscribe to those lines and believe they are misguided, but they do exist.

On the second point: I’m not encouraging aligning with the Democratic party, either.  Both major U.S. parties seem pretty messed up, inasmuch as I know what they’re all about.

I would point out to all my Republican-card-carrying Christian readers that it doesn’t help their conservative causes when such slogans as the above are touted by_____ . . . .  (I must admit that I almost typed the word “idiots” there, but the fact is, the people who a) manufactured and b) bought that license plate thing are people for whom Jesus died.  Even though I don’t know their identities, it’s better if I stop and consider them worthwhile souls instead of calling them names.  ”Rednecks” might be accurate, but I’ll just leave the blank as is.)  It’s rather ridiculous to assert the “right” to own a gun illegally; scofflaws cannot be helpful in resolving conflict or in living peacefully, insofar as it depends on them.

A quasi-slogan asserts this axiom:  ”my country, right or wrong.”  On the surface — and I mean very shallowly — someone espousing that one could be seen as “loyal” (albeit imbecilic) on some level.  But Christians must hold to higher standards.  If a denomination, or a country, or a club, or whatever entity moves down a wrong path, we must be individually courageous enough to buck the misguided trend.  Whether it manifests itself as a stubborn refusal of Christian fellowship to someone of a politically different mindset, or a mouthing off about the right to own a gun even if it is illegal, wrong is wrong.

There are quite a few subsections of the “conservatives” in the U.S. at present.  These sub-sects, which may overlap, include NRA folk, the rich and super-rich, and most evangelical Christians.  I hope that the person who had that license plate on his/her car does not currently claim Christianity.  Surely not. . . .

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This post also (sadly) deals with the topic of guns and Christians.

This one deals with Newtown and violence in general.

Experienced in large churches

Some aspects of church gatherings are related to the group’s size.

Pacing.  As a musician, I notice musical elements pretty much wherever I am.  The tempos of worship and prayer songs stood out to me recently:  when songs are sung 30-50% too slowly, the music’s character seems lifeless; the mood may be compromised, if not the intended effect.  In large a cappella churches, at least, tempos almost always end up too slow, because it’s really difficult to move a mammoth.  Other  activities may also be on the slow side, too, but mostly, I think it’s the corporately active ones — namely, singing.

Where are you now?  When someone visits a large church with which there have been past associations, there are some notable, if common, experiences.  Recently, for instance, several people have asked me, “So, where are you now?”  This simple question comes out of historical relationship and also grows out of the one side’s dizziness at all the folks who return to their big-church sanctuaries/auditoriums at one time or another.

The relational reconnectings have their charm, and they do point up some good aspects of Christianity, horizontally speaking. However, speaking as one who returns to roots, not as one who generally stays close to the tree, I tend to be distracted by the prospect of recognizing, and being recognized by, old friends — to the point of hardly being able to concentrate on the person I’ve already found — because my glances are always darting around for the next person!  For me, this is one of the hazards of visiting in a large church where people return, seasonally, for this or that reason.

Ushering.  Another occurrence in a large church is ushering.  Now, there are many good people in churches serving as ushers. Periodically, some handicapped folks do need help getting in and out of the building, and in overflow situations, the usher is the guy who coaxes the latecomers to the front, where seats are still available.  For me, though, the ushering enterprise represents officialness and big business.  Instead of facilitating seating and such, for edification and worship, the usher makes me think I’m in a corporate meeting, subject to official protocols.

Attendance counts.  Ushering and the “So, where are you now?” question both have their redeeming qualities.  In my estimation, worse than either of the above is counting.  Hovering and scanning the pews while the assembly is in progress, counting people in the pews, for the sake of the corporate records, has long been a bother for me.  I don’t complete attendance cards of any sort, whether I’m a visitor or a regular.  I figure, my need not to be a cog in a corporate-church wheel eclipses any real need the church has to know that one more person was present and accounted for.

Call me a curmudgeon for feeling this way, but I can’t conscientiously support the concern of church officials over numbers, amounts, and surface-level trends.  These are not what church is to be about.

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Addendum:  after this blog was posted, I recalled something else I’ve noticed.  In a large church, there seems sometimes to be an undue emphasis on the “lineup”  of public leaders.

1. Pete Peterson will have our song service.  (All but the name is verbatim here.  What is it to “have” a song service?  And what is a “song service”?  What odd lingo….)
2. Our first prayer will be by John Johnson.
3. Our scripture will be read by Thor Thorson.
4. Our prayer before the sermon will be by Jack Jackson.
5. And our sermon will be by Evangelist Joseph Josephson.
6. Our announcements were by yours truly (is this the player/coach?), Rich Richardson.

And I ask you these questions:

• For those present who didn’t know every person in the lineup already, did they really care?
• For those present who did know, did they need to hear the names?  Why?  So they could say, “Oh, good.  I love it with Brother Jackson leads prayer” — focusing on the leader and not the throne of God?  Or maybe so they could say, “Oh, shoot.  That Brother Thorson always stumbles.  Why do they get him to read?”  And that begs another question, but I’ll save that for another time.

Voices: a saxophonish timbre

The saxophone.  The butt of many jokes told by art-music musicians.  Also thought by many to be the wind instrument that can most closely approximate the human voice.  The saxophone can have the most grating timbre, though, and it’s not something to which I care to listen all that often.  I think this post, in its non-politically correct brashness, will have a saxophonish timbre in the ears of some.

A few Sundays¹ ago, I saw an article in the Rochester Democrat-Chronicle.  It was on the front page and decried the horrors of finding an able driver’s car in a handicap parking space.

Now, I do not doubt that there is a sizable number of bona fide handicapped persons who genuinely benefit from the reserved parking spaces.  I’m even willing to admit that the instance of  misuse of handicap spaces is 10x greater than I currently think it is.

I do think, though, that the greater problem is that there are far too many handicap spaces in the world.  We are held hostage to the politically correct, ACLU -type of mentality that overdoes everything for the sake of someone who cries foul for the sake of attention or money.

So, here’s my Rx:

• Step one:  paint over the blue lines, or take down the signs, that mark off 5 of every 10 handicap spaces
• Step two:  make 2 of those available to families with young children
• Step three:  leave the other 3 free for anyone
• Step four:  honoring the authentically handicapped people who don’t spend too much time complaining to agencies and the news media, stiffly fine those who use the handicap spaces but aren’t ambulatorily disabled — either permanently or temporarily

And stop the knee-jerk, mass reactions to single incidents like one disabled person slipping in a parking lot.  That kind of reaction isn’t good for traffic flow, for society, or for morale of the human race these days.

Speaking of morale (and resiliency), seems like this presumably handicapped person has a decent amount of mojo goin’ on.

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¹ Don’t think for a moment that there should have been an apostrophe there … it’s a simple plural, not a contraction or a possessive!  :-)

Eulogizings and ponderings

“Isn’t it amazing how those songs went right along with the sermon?  And the song leader and preacher didn’t even talk beforehand.”

I’m not normally one to get too excited about such apparent confluences of thought.  If I’ve heard the above line 100 times, probably 85 of the instances could be discounted, because, after all, nearly everything in a Christian assembly can be related to love or faith or Jesus.  The actual dovetailing doesn’t end up being all that miraculous most of the time.

Aside:  it’s no sin for worship/song leaders and preachers not to communicate beforehand.  A sermon, if used, can obviously stand on its own; any songs, readings, prayers, and comments need not jibe with the sermon or even with each other.  Worship and edification may stand on their own, without needing to be tied to a message or lesson.

Anyway, after all that preface! …

1. Recently, I came across a brief Christian Chronicle article that mentioned black¹ evangelist Marshall Keeble’s²  having eulogized a parrot, on request, before laying it to rest for his great-granddaughter.
2. Not one hour before, I had read a forwarded e-mail with sweet, gentle thoughts about dogs as friends and gifts of God.  
3. The above two occurrences reminded me that my granddaddy had been prayerfully thankful, following the death of the family’s long-loved collie Frisky, for “the comfort of our animal friends.”  

So, while not attributing the confluence of the dog e-mail, the article about Keeble and the parrot, and the recollection of my granddaddy to the Spirit of God, I thought all this was worth mentioning here.  The fact that I had all three thoughts (some might call them “promptings”) in a brief span might mean nothing to you, but it was quasi-noteworthy my thought-world.  Surely both Keeble and my grandfather were both men of influence, men of inspiration, and men who were willing to recognize many of God’s gifts, including animals.

I have eulogized my grandfather before, and probably will again.  I have never written a word, to my recollection, about Marshall Keeble, but have heard about him often.  He predated my grandfather by a generation but lived 90 years.  My parents once heard Keeble speak.  He was a man of note.  

Called an “Uncle Tom” by some of his black contemporaries because of his willingness to play into white conventions, he is said to have had an infectious, irresistible style of preaching.  Not unexpectedly, he was also conservative in terms of issues and emphases, and was given to relatively narrow, elementary hermeneutics in his scruples and sermons.  Keeble’s preaching resulted in the immersion of thousands — some estimates run as high as 40,000 of these initiating steps in the Christian walk.  To have been Marshall Keeble, especially in his prime in the first half of the 20th century — was to make observable, eternally significant history.

To have been Andy T. or Kathryn Ritchie was not as visible in terms of numbers, but they also made significant history in their Kingdom work, moving on to the “land of the eternally living” in the 1980s.  The likes of Ken Neller, Neva White, Kyle Degge, Judy Barker, and Jeannette Baggett have died within the last year and are also worthy of note in Kingdom service — sometimes in the simplest of gestures, and in other ways touching scores of souls at a time.

Recently I visited a cemetery and thought about what has gone before me.  So many have done so much for the Lord.  While I’m not supportive of every word or opinion voiced by some of those named above, my support clearly isn’t the crux:  God can use a lot of variety in His service.  And who really knows how much has been done in the spirit-realm that was never observed physically?

In remembering the gifts and devotion of those who have worked devotedly for the causes of the Kingdom of God in the past, we may be spurred in the now.

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¹ I use the adjective “black” for several reasons:  a) it is more common, and therefore less jarring than the more apt “brown,” b) it is less historically charged than “colored,” c) it is much less awkward than “person of color,” and d) I have no knowledge of whether this man, or even his parents or grandparents, were actually “African-American.”  In fact, I just listened to a sermon archive and heard Keeble proclaim that he wasn’t from Africa.  Neither do I find it necessary to proclaim that I am an Irish-Swiss-English-Welsh-Scottish-German-American.  I guess “mutt” would do just fine for me.

² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Keeble

Highways in context

Among many other things, my dad taught me to think about geographies and topographies.  Roads would often make him think of other roads, and areas of the country would be like, or not-so-like, other areas.  Features such as hills and winding roads and skylines would take on personalities of their own.

Where we currently make our temporary dwelling, Rt. 19 is the main road.  It’s one of 2-3 roads of consequence in our entire county, actually.  Rt. 19 reminds me a little of a few Delaware roads, such as Frazer Rd., near the MD line, or sections of old Limestone Rd. (near the old Lowe’s, that later became a church-house, or maybe that little section no one travels near the PA line).  Our Rt. 19 may be even more like Rt. 71, between Lum’s Pond and Red Lion “proper” (is there a Red Lion “proper”?).

Rt. 19 is a nice road, really.  It stretches the entire length of our sizable county, from the Pennsylvania border, south of Wellsville, then running alongside the Genesee River, all the way to Fillmore.  There, it forks:  19 heads northwest, then north again to Pike, and 19A meanders northeast to Portageville, which is the southern gateway to Letchworth State Park, containing a remarkable gorge, just into Wyoming County.

Rt. 19 is traveled by quite a few 18-wheelers and all the rest of us who go anywhere from time to time.  Being beside a river, it’s relatively flat, and has a goodly number of curves.

At face value, Rt. 19 is a standard, two-lane highway.  There’s nothing really remarkable about its size, shape, or construction.  But it defines and supplies a lot about Allegany County, and adjacent areas.  It is a reputable, dependable marker, and we depend on it.

I’m grateful that the highway maintenance crews take care of Rt. 19 as they do.  But they, like all of us, need to be a little more aware of context.  You see, when autumn was expiring, the crews came out to do their pre-winter work, fixing some of the little potholes, presuming to protect the road from the coming winter damage (snow, ice, salt, blades).  

In their zeal to do an extra-good job, they did something new this year:  instead of simply digging out loose macadam and patching holes one by one, they put new asphalt down over long stretches, parallel to the solid white line on the right.  Seems like a good idea, right?  Looks pretty nice, all considering, and provides for a bit smoother ride if you set your wheels to the right.

But they forgot something about our local context.  This might have been fine in the dryness of Colorado or Arizona, but here, we get lots of moisture, and we do depend on this road.  The seam is at just the wrong spot — it’s just where the right tire rolls, for moderate- or small-sized cars.

Hey, guys!  Remember, we have a lot of rain and snow here, and the water and slush will build up on the seam where the new asphalt meets the old.  I’ve already almost hydroplaned a time or two.  You’ve actually created a hazard with the way you fixed the road.

Durn.  Welp. . . .  This winter, people just gotta be extra careful.  I guess we can get out there in April & do something about this after the snow melts.

Wonder what happens when we forget our contexts at our jobs, in our churches, and in Bible study.  We try to fix things, but some damage lasts a while, no matter what we do.

Slogans in context

My undergraduate institution, Harding University, toward which I still feel some fondness and loyalty, once used this slogan on its advertising materials:

Educating for Eternity

I think this slogan was coined before the days of so-called “public relations.”  Perhaps those more skilled in advertising would have nixed this idea because of its double meaning.  Sure enough, some rogue-comedian student wrote something in the student newspaper about the 5th- and 6th-year seniors who were engaged in an apparently eternal education process.  The parents who were footing the bill probably weren’t amused at the double entendre.  :-)

In the context of the Church of Christ of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, though, that slogan was an apt one.  Most of Harding’s constituencies, I’m convinced, would have latched onto the idea of “educating for eternity” fairly easily.  The slogan wouldn’t have drawn many outsiders, but it wasn’t supposed to.  Subsequently, though, Harding “progressed” and began to revision itself, for better or worse, as the “Harvard of the South.”  The constituencies were broader and more numerous; the context for the slogan therefore changed, and eventually, so did the slogan.

Here’s another Harding slogan.  I’m pretty sure this one had its origin in the servant heart of one very likeable, charismatic (in the non-miraculous sense), little, white-haired, charming man.  It’s so simple that it’s almost timeless, context-less.  But the logo aspect appears passe, doesn’t it?

[Aside:  I don't recall if any of the graduate institutions I attended for one or more courses had slogans per se.  No matter what the marketers think, for all their well-intentioned work, those costly wordings and images don't stick with some of us.]

~ ~ ~

The institution at which I now teach, Houghton College, had this slogan emblazoned on its fleet vehicles and letterhead when I arrived five years ago.

A Higher Purpose in Mind

I kind of liked that one.  But when it went the way of the mammoth and mastodon, I realized that it, too, was a slogan that had outlived its contemporary context.  Actually, it was probably ill-advised at the outset, not unlike “Educating for Eternity.”  Yes, I get “higher purpose,” and the inclusion of the mind is clever for a higher-ed institution, and especially one that has way-above-average aggregate SAT scores.  But … imagine the constituent of another “Christian institution”¹ as the Houghton van passes by.  ”Hmm.  We are trying to be Christian, too.  Do they think they’re better than we are?”  Or, worse, imagine the basic, secular person who might have heard of Houghton but who knows nothing about it.  The phrasing “Higher Purpose” might have sounded differently cocky and/or out of touch.

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Postcript   These educational institutions’ slogans bring to mind that education occurs regardless of marketing.  Personally, I’m learning some tough lessons recently, and I’m not learning them very easily or willingly.  I’m also learning biblical Greek in a much more intentional way than ever before.  What are you learning these days?

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¹ Strong, well-founded feelings of lots of Christian college teachers and administrators to the contrary, I’ve been unconvinced for more than 20 years that the “Christian institution” notion is one grounded in reality.  The people are generally much more than nominally Christian:  most at Harding and Houghton, for instance, are more serious than the average bear about their Christianity.  It’s that the organizational workings of an institution are so often at odds with the needs of individual Christian disciples, and a world apart from the priorities of the Kingdom of God.

Top 10 reasons to like New York State

10. Apples

9. The Amish neighbors that are pretty much unaffected by tourism and rampant commerce

8. We are adjacent to Vermont

7. We get to make fun of our stupid pronunciations (the village of “Java” is actually pronounced “jay-vuh,” and “Chili” is “chai – lai”)

6. You get to say, “We live in the other New York” (as opposed to NYC)

5. We are adjacent to Pennsylvania

4. We are adjacent to Ohio

3. Niagara Falls is less than 2 hours away, and we are adjacent to Canada

2. Beautiful fall colors without the tourism

1. No matter what the federal election results, New York State’s political and economic situations will always be the butt of more fun jokes

Zero tolerance in sign manufacturing

Sometimes, the main hurdle is simply figuring out what you don’t know and then asking someone else about it!

1.  Someone who designs and manufactures permanent signs ought to know how to punctuate, or at least ought to know when to ask a co-worker a question.

2.  Someone who works in a public relations department — designing and producing publications, no less — ought to know how to copy & paste text into a new format.  (Receiving large amounts of copy from others, and then retyping said text, is silly.)

3.  [An additional item here would have been nice, completing this post with a sort of triunity.  But I'll leave it here, 'cause I got nuthin' else today.]

With Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves:  The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, “I am very much in favour of forming an army of well-informed punctuation vigilantes.”

Try here for another rant, served with rutabaga, including pokes and jabs at other signs.

A musical artist

What makes an “artist” an Artist?

In these days of the indiscriminate bandying about of the word “artist” to describe pretty much any teeny-bopper who can hold a microphone to her face, I wanted to bring to my readers a description of a personal hearing of a true musical artist. 

On Saturday night, October 6, a few student friends and I had the opportunity to hear Mark Jenkins, euphonium soloist with “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band.  Of course, the band’s performance of other works was impressive — I enjoyed the rendition of Mackey’s Asphalt Cocktail and John Williams’s March from 1941, but it is Jenkins’s euphonium that I would drive many miles to hear again.  (I sincerely hope Jenkins is a believer:  discovering that he possesses a sense of being gifted by God would stack joy upon joy, as I re-live the finest soloistic musical performance I’ve experienced in at least five years.  This is saying a lot, because I hear a lot of good music regularly.)

Mark Jenkins, euphoniumist extraordinaire

Jenkins’s performance was astounding.  It was emotionally charged and of high musical impact.  During one stretch, he pinned my ears to the wall, then proceeded to mesmerize me. Moments later, he undid me with rapturous phrasing and tones.  It was not only the brilliant effervescence of the dazzling concert piece that impressed.  The linear beauty of the encore, a tender aria from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, was even more deeply moving.  For me, the presence of words in this performance would have compromised the sheer beauty of the music; no singer could have approached this purity.

A further response on responses.  I think standing ovations are far, far too common these days.  In this case, however, I was among the first ten people to stand for Mark Jenkins.  I remain proud of my decision to “stand out in a crowd.”  Even after the soloist’s return to stage, not everyone in the audience was standing, and that’s fine, but I did find the seeming greater enthusiasm for a lesser-talented vocalist (whose mic was far too live) imbalanced and telling.  The public doesn’t always have a developed sense of artistic quality!  I don’t discount that the vocalist’s songs clearly impacted the majority of the audience that night; however, musically speaking, the singing was not in the same league as the offerings of the euphonium soloist.

Thank you, God, for endowing certain humans like Mark Jenkins with gifts of great aesthetic value.

Thank you, Mark Jenkins, for showing a couple thousand people at Shea’s in Buffalo what a truly artistic performance is.

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P.S.  For those interested, Mark Jenkins’s Marine rank is abbreviated as GySgt.  (Despite the fact that at least two military families were represented among my group, no one actually knew what “GySgt” stood for, before looking it up!)  I opted out of using the military rank above, because Jenkins is not my GySgt.  In relation to me, and in relation to 99% of the October 6 audience, Jenkins was no military man; he was simply an artistic performer.  Similarly, I don’t use the title “pastor” to refer to someone who is not my pastor.  If the person doesn’t stand in relation to me as pastor, or father, or lieutenant, or head honcho, I don’t see the point in using either an honorific or a functional title when addressing him/her.  Nor do I want people outside of an academic context to refer to me with my academic title.  This is just me, and I do realize I’m in a tiny minority here.

Inappropriate

Some things are just inappropriate.

• The use of John Lennon’s song “Imagine” in the closing ceremony of the supposedly unifying, unified Olympics

This song contains patently offensive lyrics — in the ears of attentive Christians, that is.   You may think, “Oh, it’s just a popular song” or “What’s wrong with it?  It’s got a message of hope.”  Among some nice or at least neutral thoughts, though, two lyric lines spur the hearer toward the blasphemous conception of an eternity in which there is no heaven — no eternal home.  I don’t think the use of this song was very unifying or even smart.  It was inappropriate at best.  But then again, most people — Christians included — aren’t that discerning, and probably neither noticed nor cared much.

• The phrase “rock the vote”

This catch-phrase has been applied, for 20 years, to the effort to get young people (presumably rock music fans) to vote.  It seems to me that the event organizers must find the political process more deeply significant than the trivializing phrase “rock the vote” implies.  Phrases such as “rock-n-roll,” “we’re rockin’,” “you rock,” “rock the vote,” etc., are so deeply mired in pop culture as to render themselves unworthy of any meaningful process, event, or concept.

Said another way:  if I were sitting on the fence between political activity and inactivity, the phrase “rock the vote” certainly would not move me to get involved.  The ineffectiveness of the phrase (to my ears) has something to do with my age bracket, I’ll admit.  Just as much, though, I perceive an inherent incongruity between the purportedly deep, broadly applicable political enterprise on one hand, and the immaturity of so many rock-related concepts, practices, and celebrities on the other.  (Please know, if you’re inclined to write off this whole item, that I like some classic and progressive rock music, stylistically speaking — namely, KANSAS, Styx, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Boston, ELO, and a few more.)

• The title “Reverend” (used to address, or to refer to, a human)

Taking a descriptive word applied only to Deity in scripture and then applying it to a supposed “vicar” — really?  One who actually thinks about the title “Reverend” will surely realize what an affront it is to God.  (And if one doesn’t think about it . . . well, why tie an epithet to someone if you’re not thinking about it?!)  Would that Christians would consider that, if they use the title “Reverend” to refer to a human, 1) they are not on solid ground, 2) they could be found to be blaspheming, and 3) they may simply be pandering to societal scenaria.  Calling a human “Reverend” pushes far beyond impropriety.

Why, oh, why?

I think some of my rants are quasi-important, but since I haven’t indulged in one for a while, I should clearly state that this one isn’t important at all.  :-)   I’ll label this clearly as a mini-rant whose title’s question doesn’t really demand an answer.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got through the last steps of an arduous process.  Completing Phase Three of a tenure review process?  No.  Finishing radiation treatments?  No.  Something far less important.

It took about six weeks to finish — in part, because of

• not living anywhere near a hardware store or a Walmart
• not remembering things at the times when I was nearer those stores
• de-prioritizing this whole escapade, since its importance pales in comparison to a lot of other goings-on

The problem?  Installing a license plate on the front bumper of our 2008 Honda Accord.

According to this site, as of 2009, 31 of these “united” states require a 2nd license plate on the front bumper.  Here are a few questions.

1. First:  why?  Why is the front plate required by these 31, and why do the other 19 not require it?  Could it be that some tax-mongering states — I don’t know, like NEW YORK? — required it so they could collect higher fees for registering cars?
2. What is the likelihood that a front license plate will help catch a crook or a drug dealer?
3. Why, given that 31 states do require it, does my Accord not have a built-in way to attach the plate?  Honda, couldn’t you have made that a little easier?
4. Do prison inmates make license plates anymore?  If not, why not?  Seems like a good occupation for them.

Here’s my jerry-rigged front plate.  

This little operation required three trips to different stores over a period of 5-6 weeks, about an hour of my time, 6-8 bolts (see extra bolts on one corner in the 1st pic), brackets (see 2nd pic), a couple of washers, and some electrical tape (also see 2nd pic.  And I still think the plate will end up falling off.

Inconsistencies

We humans can be really hypocritical inconsistent.

1.  Some Mormons once told me they were forbidden to drink any coffee or tea, because caffeine was addictive.  The restriction, which I believe was universal, i.e., not specific to a ward/district, excluded herbal tea, which is not tea, strictly speaking, and which contains no caffeine at all.  On the other hand, Mormons were allowed to drink hot chocolate, which does have caffeine.

Hmm.  And we won’t even get into the rather blatant, blasphemous inconsistency presented by the very existence of the Book of Mormon.

2.  As I understand it, Amish citizens are ruled by local bishops, at least in some respects; some of the rules do change by the district/area.  I know of one Amish man who agreed to advertise his repair business through a local community theater, which was at the time producing The Sound of Music.  Leaving alone the generally wholesome nature of this particular show — it ain’t Gypsy or Rent, after all — I found interesting the connections between racial/religious persecution (well known in Amish history) and the Alpine area from which this Amish man’s family originated.  He had no prior conception of the show, but there developed a conflict.  His decision to advertise in The Sound of Music program was overruled by his bishop; the man retracted his ad, but generously, strangely allowed the money to remain in the hands of the theater organization.

Hmm.  Didn’t want to be associated with something in print, but allowed his money to support the enterprise.  It’s commonly known that Amish folks are forbidden to have telephones as communication devices in their homes, and yet some are allowed, by special dispensation.  Telephones are either tools of the devil or not, right?  Amish folks do not have electricity, yet they run hot water heaters on diesel fuel.  So many inconsistencies.

Please know that these paragraphs are not intended as a special indictment of the Amish.  We live near quite a few of them and consider one family our friends.  All the Amish I’ve ever interacted with are pleasant, charming, industrious, decent people.  Although they attempt to live devotedly plainly and unspotted from the world, they are, in another way, quite like the rest of us:  they are inconsistent and have some really silly rules.

3.  Churches of Christ are notorious for disallowing women from participating in certain roles.  One particularly striking, stark example is that, traditionally, women do not serve the elements of communion while standing and passing the trays from row to row.  However, women almost always pass the trays from side to side on a given pew.  Perpendicular service is not okay, but parallel service is?

Hmm.  Contrast the above lack of opportunity to serve with the frequent identification of church women as very good cooks who serve wonderfully at congregational meals.  In one case, we forbid serving, and in another, we essentially require them to serve.

Inconsistent?  I think so.

I see another inconsistency in the common notions of “Sabbath”:  despite the biblical fact that there is no Christian Sabbath — it was a Jewish thing with no documented, post-Pentecost manifestation — we look down our noses at those who rake leaves or wash their cars (do laundry? wash dishes? pick up toys?) on Sunday, and yet we have church staff who are required to work on the same day.  Here, we could eradicate church staff altogether and solve the problem,  :-o   or we could at least stop holding tenaciously, with what I tend to take as false piety, to an a-biblical idea.

What are some other inconsistencies found within Christendom?

* * *

Recently my blog has attracted a dozen or so regular followers who don’t appear to have Christian underpinnings.  I’m glad for these new readers.  But I’m sometimes embarrassed about the inconsistencies seen within Christianity.  Those from without can see them; why can’t we see them from within, and make adjustments in our thinking and practice?

Loopy

Now from Worship Leader columnist Phil Sillas comes a mention of Loop Community.  (Boy, am I out of it, apparently.)

If you thought it was just a) bad song leaders and b) pianos and organs and c) preachers who say “thanks for those great songs” (as if the worship were all about warming the audience up for him), … just look here to see what else is distracting people from worshipping God these days.

“Everybody’s doing it.”  They’re even including loops on the bi-monthly Song DISCovery releases now.  Apparently we “all need to start somewhere” with using loops in worship.  I have some idea what “loop” means in the world of electronic sound, but it’s not even explained on the site — at least, not in plain sight.  I’m pretty sure it has little to do with roller coasters or Chicago.

I detect an inherent assumption that every church needs to use loops at some point.  Not only is this assumption provincial within the current contemporary-church scene, but it is downright arrogant when one considers Christian gatherings in Kenya, Albania, Appalachia, the 1950s, the 1830s, and the year 48 A.D. Of course there is no overt intent to be all-inclusive, but the language is still very narrow.

Some folks clearly drool over loops, exploring various developing technologies ostensibly for the sake of their Christian communities, but I prefer simplicity.  ”Learn more about enhancing your worship team through loops and song elements”?  No thanks, Worship Leader and other loop proponents.  I’m not really interested.  I crave content over mechanisms, and I’m persuaded that most of us don’t need any more distractions.

It ain’ all it’s cracked up to be

Digital technology.  It’s not that it leaves much to be desired itself—my goodness, it can manage some impressive feats these days.  But it does break down a lot.  I use enough digitech to know these things — some of its capabilities and quite a few of its limitations – although I remain pretty ignorant of substrata such as computer gaming.

I held out till 2011, believe it or not, before getting involved in texting, but I’m now pretty adept with my smartphone.  On it, I use a decibel meter, a notepad, a calendar app and widget, a flashlight and compass, a metronome, a tuner, a major-league baseball app, a calculator, the Google Drive app that allows me to work with documents descending from the cloud, and mapping/GPS/location applications including AAA TripTik™.  There are the weather and news apps that I use once in a while, a Bible app, the ability to search for WWW-based info on the fly . . . oh, and of course the WordPress blogging app.  I still resist thumb-texting, since it’s too slow for my taste — I dictate texts with the voice recognition software and edit with my thumbs when necessary.  All great stuff, if it serves us instead of the other way around.  (BTW, Twitter is a no-go for me — I have so far opted out of it because it’s just one more thing to do and seems to offer an even more truncated, ostensibly up-to-date-but-ever-more-shallow pool of information bits.)

But digitech ain’ all it’s cracked up to be.  For instance, it claims to get, and keep, us in touch with people.  Does it really do that?  No, we do that—whether our effort takes the form of handwriting a letter and affixing a stamp to an envelope, calling and leaving a voice mail, texting, Facebooking, or actually stopping by in person.  And you know what I’ve noticed about myself and a bunch of others?  While physical location doesn’t seem to matter as much as it used to (for example, I don’t even think about whether a call is “long distance” anymore), it sometimes takes some kind of physical proximity for me to think about someone and make the effort to keep in touch.

For instance, I’ll drive through a corner of Ohio and think of a friend who lives there and give her a call.  Or I’ll be in Kansas City and suddenly remember a friend there.  Or I’ll hear about an event in Texas and look up a guy I used to know there.  Maybe I’m weird.  (Maybe more than “maybe.”)  But do you notice the same kind of thing?  Regardless of the cyber-reality that pervasively affects our world today—a shrinking, digitally connected world that has the theoretical capacity to keep people in touch, regardless of geography—we are still pretty geographically oriented.

Do you have a bunch of Facebook friends that merited one or two catch-up messages when first friended, but with whom you have no ongoing contact?  How much better is that than the ol’ telephone?  Of my 330 FB friends, I think

• about 200 connections have resulted in no real, relational contact at all
• about 100 involved one or two quick, substantive interchanges, but no ongoing contact
• a couple dozen have involved  to my learning of news bits that touched my heart, or informed me, or led me to prayer, or some combination of the above
• only about a half-dozen relationships have truly been enhanced through the FB technology

Technology (dare I point the finger specifically at the ever-encroaching Facebook?) that purports to eliminate distance between people really doesn’t.  Plus, all the new activities possible during our days and evenings because of microchips mean that “down time” (originally a technologically based term) is harder to come by than ever, and relationships can doubly suffer because of encroaching technology.  Does anyone else worry about the creeping inability to focus on the person across the room from you, because of IM dings and tweets and ringtones and that nagging feeling that if you don’t put something into your digital calendar right then, the sky is gonna fall?

Whether it’s Facebook or your smartphone or computer keyboard or your copier or your doorbell, it’s all bound to be cracked or broken at some point.  And it seems to me that it’s all more easily associated with our brokenness as a race than with our redemption or potential.

Is your life a channel?

Although my own life might be fairly characterized, alternately, as a TV drama with very little suspense, as a boring reality show, or as a sitcom,  none of these characterizations matter here.  This post is not about TV.

The impetus for this post is the proliferating horde — in my unusual, Bubble-protected circle — that seem to be attracted to using this e-mail sign-off:

Blessings, 

John

This “blessings” thing has bothered me ever since I saw it for the first time about 5 years ago (here in what they call “the Bubble”).

I’ve tried to put the bother out of my mind, thinking I’m being too literal (again) in wondering whether those who use this phrasing are trying subconsciously to appear more “Christian” than others.  Might folks be presumptuous or at least glib or thoughtless in using this sign-off?

I don’t know anything about the origins of the sign-off.  I don’t recall seeing it before coming to my present situation, but that could simply amount to lack of recall.

What does it mean to write “Blessings” to someone?  And why haven’t I heard anyone say it out loud?  Sometimes I do hear (and have even said, once in a great while) “God bless you” or “the Lord bless you.”  Compared to those phrases, “Blessings” seems truncated at best, and possibly trivialized.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard it uttered orally.

There is a valid sense in which I imagine the more thoughtful ones who use “Blessings” to be using it.  Could they be consciously praying a specific blessing from God on the recipient of the e-mail as they sign off?  Perhaps they are even more intentional than that, even:  they could be thinking this:  ”I pray that my message to this person has been a blessing incarnate — that I have been in some way a channel for the blessing of God toward this person, and even more, that this little blessing I hope to have been may abound more and more.”  Could the mere “Blessings” have an implied ellipsis ( . . . ) that indicates a consciousness of the Lord’s capability for ongoing blessing as the future moments transpire?

Over-analysis?  Yeah, maybe.  (I can apologize for being overzealous and potentially annoying, but not for analyzing and critiquing.)

On the positive side … an old “gospel song” (which is not in any way, shape or form a “hymn”) asks,

Is your life a channel of blessing?
Is the love of God flowing through you?
Are you telling the lost of the Savior?
Are you ready His service to do?

Is your life a channel of blessing?
Are you burdened for those that are lost?
Have you urged upon those who are straying,
The Savior Who died on the cross?

Is your life a channel of blessing?
Is it a daily telling for Him?
Have you spoken the Word of salvation
To those who are dying in sin?

We cannot be channels of blessing
If our lives are not free from known sin;
We will barriers be and a hindrance
To those we are trying to win.

Finally, the refrain invites prayer:

Make me a channel of blessing today,
Make me a channel of blessing, I pray;
My life possessing, my service blessing,
Make me a channel of blessing today.

Inasmuch as You work through these human vessels, God, yes, make me a vehicle for blessing others. 

Christianmingle.com

If my wife died, I think I would probably eventually check out Christianmingle.com.  But I would also probably ask them to reconsider a TV ad that warmly encourages,

“Join Christianmingle.com and find God’s match for you.”

Somehow, e-salesmanship (replete with facile search functions and marketing) and an ostensible respect of God’s providence seem incompatible, don’t they?

I mean, are they really saying that if I use their service, I am tapping into God’s providence? How arrogant is that?

There’s a reason they call them “essentials”

While back in Colorado, where I spent two years in grad school plus quite a few shorter stints, I was vividly reminded of fundamental reasons I had missed the great, western state.

Some things are luxuries:  nice furnishings, relationships with great people, exceptional memories of music-making in a vibrant music community, a relatively healthy church, and even views of the grand Rockies.  (I’m seeing the Front Range off a west-side deck as I type these words.)  These are luxuries and as such are non-essential.

In Colorado, though, these two things seem life-giving:  a drink of mere tap water, and a filling breath of clean, dry air.  Air and water are essentials for living.  If these are not readily available, life can seem, well . . . shriveled up and short of breath.  There’s a reason they call them “essentials.”

P.S.  There’s not a lot my area can do about the air, but they could do something about the water.