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hey guys i have uploaded photos from my road trip. hope you like them. i may be using some of them in an upcoming show with the other two guys on the trip.

hey guys, just thought i would let you know that our friends David and Lauren Ranzino are up for winning the myspace impact awards for this month.  today is the last day of voting, and they are neck and neck.  if you get this today before 2:30, log into your myspace, and vote for them at myspace.com/impactawards 

Hey.  The second annual meeting (i.e.: the second meeting this year) of the SNCC Men’s Group will be at 6:30AM at IHOP at 71st and Riverside this coming Friday, July 25.  I hear you can get breakfast and real black coffee there.

Hey guys don’t forget to come to the church basement roadshow tonight, there is no charge for admission.

It starts at 7pm at Braden Park Baptist Church (5th & Yale), but you probably want to be in your seat by 7pm.

Hey guys,

Here are my notes from the second Culture and the Church meeting we had last night. Feel free to ponder and discuss.

Previous time, set the stage for cultural shifts in church history. Tonight, looking specifically at our current shift.

Statistics from previous talk: 80% Christian population, 5% growth, 86% pray. However, maybe a different picture. Other stats that present something different, perhaps.
? People born since 1984 are less likely than previous generations to engage in expressions of faith and church activities (volunteering time at church, having a “quiet time,” attending church on Sunday, reading the Bible, praying to God, to be “born again,” to indicate that faith is an important part in their life, and to describe God as the “all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect creator that rules the world today)
?  Christianity posted a 5% increase; of the top 20 religions, this figure was 3rd from the bottom and the lowest positive figure. Jews and agnostics both dropping. Deism posted the largest percentage increase, over 700%.
? Wicca projected to be the 3rd largest US religion by 2012
It would seem that though Americans still consider themselves spiritual, they are looking to other experiences and views to express their spirituality.

This is due in part, among other things, to the rise of postmodernism. Disclaimer – this time is not to debate the merits of downfalls of it as a philosophical system,  We will discuss how the presence of this system affect the church, but postmodernism in and of itself should not dominate the discussion tonight.

Some see postmodernism as an extension of modernism; others see it as a reaction against it. The modern world had methods and sciences and rationales for deciding that what was true, right, beautiful, and good.  Church decides what is good. Corporations decide what is beautiful. Government decides what is right. Academics decide what is true. Postmodernism started in art – artists began to make pieces that defied convention. They defied the “system” of whoever decided what was beautiful, and decided to make things that they thought were beautiful, regardless of what the rest of the world thought. In this way, the power to decide what was beautiful moved to the hands of the individual artist instead of those viewing the piece. This philosophy spread to other areas; people can now decide for themselves what is right and good and beautiful and true without the opinion of the overarching “system.”

The reason this became possible: people began basing their understanding of reality on what they experience instead of what they are told.

Two simple points: Rejection of authority structures to decide what is true, right, beautiful, and good for individuals, and reality based on experience and not knowledge.

Presents problems for the church in three ways:

Attractional vs. missional. Church has occupied a central place in culture and thought that people should come to them. It has been the moral, driving force in this nation; it assumes that the church has an automatic place in society and that if people don’t come, it is because they are unhappy with the expression. “shaping,” here. Seen as an authority structure. Missional sees that the church must partner with their host community and work with it to gain a real place in the host community. Does not take the place of the church for granted.

Dualistic vs. Holistic. Separation of the sacred and the mundane. This expression does not work with the experience. We are spiritual people.

Hierarchical vs. Egalitarian – Many authority structures present in the church. The new philosophy favors community and equality.
The solution: The church must become missional. This means that the primary focus is no longer on internal structures, theology, filling the pews. Instead, it should be engaging the host community in meaningful ways, building long-term relationships. (Example of megachurch filling the great commission… 50%+ of budget going to missions, 22 services a week in houses and different parts of town, each one different to reflect audience. Pact with members for short term missions and every Christmas, the family matches themselves to give to the needy.)

1. The Swell Season is playing The Brady on Sept 25th. Tickets are 30-40 plus fees and go on sale at 10am on Saturday.
2. Conor Oberst with Jenny Lewis opening will be playing Cains also on Sept 25th. Tickets are 33 plus fees and are on sale now.
3. Bob Dylan is playing The Brady on Aug 27th. Tickets are 47-65 plus fees and tickets are already on sale.
4. Alanis Morissette is playing The Brady on Oct 27th. Tickets are 46-58 plus fees and tickets go on sale next Saturday at 10am.
5. Coldplay is playing the Ford Center on Nov 16th. Good luck with Tickets, the Ticketmaster site sucks and I can’t inform you, but I know they were already on sale.

hey friends, just thought i would plug some of my upcoming shows.

1. Church Basement Roadshow - come hear our friends Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, and Mark Scandrette, buy some prayer balm, and listen to me play some music. 7pm @ Braden Park Baptist Church (4739 E. 5th Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74112)

2. DFest - many amazing acts including Edison Glass, The Roots, Callupsie, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, The Apples in Stereo, Jesse Aycock, Ghosts, Black Swan, and yours truly. I will be playing full-band with Jordan McLeod (drums), Spencer Sharpe (Bass), and George Bonner (Electric Guitar, BGVs). Tsunami Stage @ 10 pm. get your tickets here.

Just found a passage from a little book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “Life Together.”  It speaks to the frustrations we sometimes feel when our own vision of “community” is not realized by the community that we are in.  How many times have we destroyed the imperfect community that we have simply because we are striving for some perfect community found only in our dreams?  My favorite line: “He who loves this dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.”

Ouch.

Discuss.

Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.

By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both.

A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves this dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians which his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together.

When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first the accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.

Student “Steals” Eucharist

Really?

so, i just downloaded the new Girl Talk album today.  unbelievable.  it is a DJ that created a conglomeration of pop music from the last 30 years or so.  it will get your body moving.

 to download the album “pay-what-you-want” style, click here.  
to read a list of songs that he sampled, click here.  
to read a killer review written by a friend of mine, Eric Van Valen, click here