Month: May 2007

Friday is for Rawk!

 
Randy Hansen at the Warfield Theater, San Francisco

Randy never quite got the fame that his talent deserved. He is best known for his Hendrix tribute in which he sings and plays so much like Jimi that it’s scary. He briefly broke out with original material for a few years, including the soundtrack to Apocalypse Now, but momentum was not on his side.

 

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Immigration and the Evangelical Mindset

Here is an article I wrote for Evangelicals for Social Action (link on my blogroll for further information) regarding the current division of the Evangelical community on the topic of illegal immigration.  

Balancing the Scales on a Theology of Immigration

The Bible is used as a bludgeon and a shield, but either extreme is improper when used in this debate. Read the piece and let me know what you think.

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Monday Not Funday

Mondays are never popular with people. The weekend is over and work begins again with the promised land of Friday five long days away. For the pastor, Monday is often a day off but for a host of reasons, there is very little joy in having reached our ‘weekend’. Monday is the day on which many pastors consider leaving their post. Monday is the day on which all of our fears, concerns, and doubts come crawling out of the woodwork and infest our depleted souls. Monday is definitely not a fun day.

The vocational pastor’s focus during the week is often looking forward to the big event of the week, the worship service or services. A message must be prepared and a worship service crafted around the big idea of the sermon. While there are other pastoral duties that are assumed during the week, the big event takes most of our energy. Anticipation builds as Sunday gets closer; is the sermon ready? Has the music been selected and rehearsed? Are the video feed, the worship software presentation, and the Sunday school ready to go? Finally, Sunday arrives and the big moment comes. God’s word is preached with all the power given by the Spirit. People are moved, lives are changed, men and women are transformed and through all of the changed people the world is shaken and all of its ills are ended.

And then Monday morning arrives. The pastor sits back, sipping their coffee and wondering if their work had any effect at all. We wonder why God has called us to this position. Week after week we pour our lives into loving our flocks and seeking to infuse their lives with God’s will. Did the message or music change anything at all? Are we as men and women of God inadequate to the task? Are we going to face the same problems in our folks that we did the week before? Thoughts like these and countless others swirl through our minds, discouraging us if things are going badly and stirring doubt where things are on an upward trend. Head in hands, the pastor looks forward to Tuesday.

Ahhh, Tuesday. A new week dawns and a new message invites us back into the Word. Hope springs anew that the message this week will be the one to help this person or initiate change in that person. I can’t wait until Sunday!

Dangerous Sabbath

In his book, Mark Labberton continues to urge the church toward a reformation in worship that takes the focus off of comfort, stability, and safety and turns its back to the wild and frightening objective of seeking God’s presence that urges us toward a heart for justice. In an interesting turn, the chapter Doing Justice Starts with Rest, Labberton he asserts that rest – in the practice of Sabbath keeping – is essential to empowering the action that he urges on the other pages. To quote, “Scripture’s call to seek justice surely involves action, considerable and costly. But a life that does justice rises out of worship, which starts with rest, is sustained by rest and returns to rest.”

Sabbath keeping is a difficult spiritual exercise in our modern go-go society. To be at rest is often seen through cynical eyes as laziness and a lack of motivation. If we’re not moving and doing, we can’t possibly be accomplishing anything. God wants us to take a different perspective; He wants us to understand that our accomplishments come from Him and that the Sabbath demonstrates our reliance upon His power. God gives us the Sabbath as a boundary, helping us to understand that we can trust in our rest when God Himself took a day off after the greatest creative moments in history. When we practice the Sabbath we finally understand that it is the Father and not us that keeps the world spinning. Worship in its purest form.

When we finally slow down and recognize the providence in which we exist, we find a release that allows our eyes to rise to the One who also rested. Unplugged, our head clears to recognize who we are in the Father’s eyes. We also see who our neighbor is, not in MySpace or WordPress or some other artificial connection, but the living, breathing humans who inhabit our world and the heart of the Father. Imagine if we were all at rest together.

Am I Ever Going to See Your Face Again? Rock & Roll Memories

Thanks to the miracle of YouTube and the folks who have assiduously collected video of forgotten bands, today we get to enjoy the dulcet tones of one of my favorite Aussie bands. Angel City had the chops but never really broke huge. I think it had to do with Doc Neeson’s voice; you either liked it or hated it. Give this song a listen and see what you think…

So, what did you think? That song came off of the album Face to Face. If I remember correctly, this is an American compilation of their Australian releases. On the record, you’ll be grabbed immediately by ‘Take a Long Line’ and ‘Marseilles’ along with the best cut, the one you just listened to. (You did, didn’t you?) The band goes by two names, The Angels and Angel City because of a conflict with another group of lesser lights bearing the same name. There is a current band of Europop/Electronic musicians using the moniker so be cautious when pawing through the bins of the Used CD World when searching them out. Covers with scantily clad women are your first clue.

Find out more about Angel City/The Angels here.