Top Ten CCM Albums

I’ve been realizing that I don’t listen to as much Christian music these days. A lot of CCM these days doesn’t interest me as much. There’s just a lack of genuine authenticity. So I was thinking back on my favorite CCM albums of all time. Most of them are important for me lyrically. Others have carried me during difficult periods. Here are the ones that have most affected me:

10. Chris Rice: Run the Earth, Watch the Sky

9. Switchfoot “Beautiful Letdown”

They break a lot of new ground for CCM musically but much more so thematically. Switchfoot isn’t afraid to wrestle with the darker themes of brokenness and despair. I think this is still their finest work musically and lyrically.

8. Sara Groves, “The Other Side of Something”/ “Live from Messiah College”

7. Bebo Norman, “10,000 Days”

6. SCC “Speechless”

I think this was Chapman at his finest. He was a CCM pioneer who exemplified simplicity and sincerity in his lyrics. This album abounds with the wonder of gospel and the sweetness of grace.

5. Smoki Norful, “I Need You Now”

I gots to include a little gospel on this list. Smoki Norful never fails to move me. Psalm 64 is a beautifully moving lament that is introduced by his minister father. And of course there is his title track that is a classic.

4. Caedmon’s Call “40 Acres”

Caedmon’s without Webb is not as nearly great. This for me was the pinaccle of what was a great band. Thelogically and thematically Caedmon’s Call goes down as an all time great.

3. Derek Webb “I See Things Upside-Down”

Webb is the one Christian artist that I feel like I”ll continue to listen to for the years to come. His strength is his songwriting ability. He is at times mocking, ironic and pessimistic and at other times hopeful and grace-filled. His music challenges. And that’s one thing that you can’t say about most Christian artists performing today. This album exemplifies these qualities.

2. Rich Mullins “A Liturgy, A Legacy and a Ragamuffin Band”

Why can you say about Rich Mullins? We’ll probably never see another songwriter as great in our lifetime.

1. Chris Rice “Past the Edges”/ “Peace Like a River”

I think what I love about Chris Rice is that he’s the most heavenly-minded artist I know. His music is filled with longing for our eternal home. That’s what true music really brings us to: that moment of transcendence and beauty; the hint of our true destiny that awaits us.

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Hot, Flat and Crowded

I’ve just been reading a book by Thomas Friedman called, “Hot, Flat and Crowded.” He begins the book by talking about a new era that we are embarking on as a planet. We live in a world in which the scale of population growth, technological expasion and global warming has exploded. Friedman’s book is a call to arms to progressively deal with these new realities.

When you look at these dynamics from a spiritual perspective the stakes are even higher. Take for instance the idea of population growth. Today there are 6.7 billion people sharing the planet. By mid-century the poulation will swell to 9 billion. That is a 40 to 45 percent increase. There will be more people living in the middle of this century than the sum of human population for all history. Put it like this: In our lifetime the population of heaven and hell will double. The stakes for our actions have never been higher.

Most of the population growth will take place in urban areas. According to the UN this year marks the first time in human history that more people have been living in urban areas than in rural areas. By 2030 the numbers in urban areas will swell to 3.3 billion people. The future of missions is clearly urban missions both here in the United States and especially abroad.

Sometimes I wonder why God has put me on this planet as a minister at this particular pivotal time in this particular place. I feel so unworthy and incapable of such a calling. But I realize that God most works through the “foolish” and broken. And I realize that this makes me highly qualified for the call.

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Speak What We Feel…

I’m preaching on a series of sermons on the Proverbs. The Proverbs contain some of the most simple yet humbling truths to preach upon. I came across this memorable line that comes at the end of King Lear:

The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

So many times in my life I catch myself just saying what I “ought to say” instead of what I really feel. Hard truths are left unsaid. A deep sense of gratitude is abbreviated by a simple, “thank you.” The Bible summarizes these truths by saying we should, “speak the truth in love.”

I have to catch myself from the tragedy of the predictable. I want to live out of my heart and not out of expectations and obligations. The preacher’s job is not to spout predictable cliches but to speak sincere truth from the depths of his being. Imagine living in a world in which people only spoke sincerely and graciously.

MLK once said
“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

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Retreating

I feel like I’m finally back in the swing of things. Nina and I got back from taking a short vacation to San Diego and Pismo Beach last month. Afterward we went on our second annual Big Bear Getaway with City Light. Finally I spoke at a youth retreat in Idyllwild.

The vacation was all together sweet and way too short. I felt like I slept half of this last vacation away! Once my body got a feel for rest, I felt like it shut down on me. But we did manage to eat at some wonderful restaurants and see some outstanding sights. There really isn’t a need to travel thousands of miles away on vacation when Southern California has so much to offer on its own.

Our Big Bear Retreat was also a wonderful respite. Our speaker, Jason Mather, was a perfect fit for where our church was. He spoke to us about the running the race of faith. We had some really powerful times in small group as people really opened up about where they were spiritually. It was a great chance to catch up with a lot of newer people. This was a real answer to prayer.

Finally the youth retreat I thought went well. I’m real rusty when it comes to speaking to youth. I felt I came full circle speaking to a youth group where close to ten years ago I first got my start in ministry.

As the summer comes to a close there are a lot of new things going on with me and the ministry. God willing my wife will be having our first child in November! She’s slowly growing in mom’s womb and we’re really anxious to meet her! We’re also starting new small group ministries and are starting a lot of new outreach projects with our new outreach coordinator. We’re hoping that this Fall brings many wonderful new things. It’s good that I got to catch my breath these last few months!

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The Holy Spirit

Some people say that the Holy Spirit is the bashful person of the Trinity. The Spirit seems so elusive for conservative people like me. I love this passage from Richard Lovelace’s Dynamics of the Christian Life. It reminds me of where I need to be in keeping in step with the Spirit:

“We should make a deliberate effort at the outset of every day to recognize the person of the Holy Spirit, to move into the light concerning his presence in our consciousness and to open up our minds and to share all our thoughts and plans as we gaze by faith into the face of God. We should continue to walk throughout the day in a relationship of communication and communion with the Spirit mediated through out knowledge of the Word, relying upon every office of the Holy Spirit’s role as a counselor mentioned in Scripture. We should acknowledge him as the illuminator of truth and of the glory of Christ. We should look to him as our teacher, guide, sanctifier, giver of assurance concerning our sonship and standing before  God, helper in prayer, and as the one who directs and empowers witness.”

The opposite of keeping in step with the spirit is living in the flesh. The spirit brings life and the flesh brings death. We need the Spirit because we have been broken by sin. We need continually to be refreshed and spiritually renewed. My hope is that the Spirit would continually bring renewal to my heart and my church.

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Apple, iPhone and Techno-lust

I’ll admit that I’m part of the growing Apple cult. Eve took a bite out of the Apple and the whole world fell. Steve Jobs is the new age guru that will bring salvation through portable electronics. The new 3G iPhone will not only have GPS it will also have ESP. All of this is of course sarcasm. But there seems to be a growing infatuation with glitzy digital devices. I’ll admit that I’m seduced.

I’m all for technology. I think that Christians need to be on the cutting edge of new technologies to reach new generations of people. But one of the questions we have to ask is, “Technology for what end?”
From one perspective technology makes our lives easier. So we can be more easily in touch with the people around us. The internet gives us a world of information at our fingertips.

But technology can also complicate our lives. So we get the iphone but are we actually communicating better with people? Is it really saving us any time on our Blackberry or are we needlessly checking our e-mail more often? Are these new technologies saving our time or consuming more of our time? A lot of technologies become ends in themselves instead of means to an end (productivity, connectivity, communication). It becomes one more thing that distracts us from more ultimate things.

Technology far from connecting us can also distance us from people. So we have iPod zombies walking around in their own worlds. Conversations are interrupted as people check their Blackberries. There is an awkward silence as people type seemingly random characters into a magic box. And they seek to find their way back into the conversation saying, “Now where were we?”

Now I’m not saying let’s all get back to our rotary phones. I’m saying let’s think thoughtfully about the integration of technology into our lives. In the meantime I’m waiting for the new iPhone to come out…

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Spaces

Ifwedidn’thavespacesitwouldbedifficulttodistinguishthings.

If we didn’t have spaces it would be difficult to distinguish one thing from another. We wouldn’t know where a thing ended and another began. Spaces are critical to establishing identity.

Relationships for example require boundaries. We need to have space between our relationships so as not to be consumed by them. But if the space grows too               wide, we begin to lose our sense of the whole. On the basketball court spacing is critical to success. It spreads the defense out so as not to concentrate on one area. It allows players to cut to the basket to exploit seams. It keeps players from bumping into each other.

We have a tendency to have bad spacing in our lives. So our work lives spill into our private lives. We become overly and underly attached to people. Even in terms of our spiritual lives, spacing plays a critical role. In the New Testament the phrase, “In Christ” is used all throughout. The space between us and God becomes absorbed; there is no longer space! Christ becomes our primary identity. So life is not an endless journey to get closer to God but a realization that He is already with us in Christ. The Christian life is not an endless journey to true spirituality, but the awakening that He has made His residence with us and we are His living temples.

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The Modern Creed

Creeds these days are out of vogue. We don’t like old historic creeds, telling us old fashioned truths. I stumbled upon this “modern” creed by a British poet Steve Turner. It brilliantly captures the modern mindset:

This is the creed I have written on behalf of all us.

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don’t hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy is OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything is getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there’s something in
horoscopes, UFO’s and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man
just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher
although we think His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same–
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it’s compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What’s selected is average.
What’s average is normal.
What’s normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It’s only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
and the flowering of individual thought.

Turner brilliantly captures the essence and contradictory nature of modern ‘credal’ thought. It should awaken the compromising Christian mind and summon us into action. I love the Rich Mullins line (which he actually borrows from G.K. Chesterton) that he didn’t make the creed but “it is making me.” Creeds are not made by men, but truthful creeds make us.

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Moving to South Park

Nina and I will be moving to South Park next year. We’ll be in one of the three South Group towers in a reemerging area of Downtown called South Park. It’s right across from the Staples Center and LA Live Area. The building called, “Luma” is LEED certified (environmentally friendly). Here are some pictures:

The best thing about our place is the view:

The kitchen and the living space:

One of the best aspects of our place is the community areas:

We’re hoping our move to South Park will allow us to connect with the growing number of people moving into Downtown Los Angeles. Here’s to new beginnings!

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The Cross-Culture and Generational Idolatry

Generational Idolatry

During Bible Study we were discussing the first commandment and about generational idolatry. A few examples:

A woman gets engaged and one of the first questions we ask is, “how big is the ring?”

A pastor plants a church and one of the first questions we ask is, “how large is the group?”

You meet someone for the first time and you ask them, “So what do you do?”

Someone wants to set you up on a date and you ask them, “So what do they look like?”

Lord save me from middle-class comfort Christianity. How subverted our values have become. Our version of success has become a growing career, a home with a mortage, cute well-dressed children, a SUV, and weekend church invovement. Success according to the Sermon on the Mount means humility, mourning, meekness, hunger, mercy, purity, peace and persecution.

Sometimes I want to live so radically but I realize I am just the same. My idols are much more refined. Pastors idolize other pastors, buildings, and ministries. Generational idolatry is so impossible to break. It requires a counter-culture: A group of people who pray, who call each other out, who challenge each other to live in light of the radical imperative to be disciples of Christ.

Lord save me from:
Comfort Christianity, Culture Christianity, Complacent Christianity

Our version of Christianity is the American Dream plus going to church. Where are the upside-down values of those who live according to the Kingdom of God? Are we living in the time of Judges or Acts?

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