Sloppy. Wet. Kiss.

I have an ongoing, continuing, internal upheaval at the sound of the song “How He Loves” by John Mark McMillian.  It’s a spectacular, honest song about God’s love for us.  My favorite worship song ever, and maybe even favorite song ever.  I should just make it a category of posts in my blog, I’ve written so much about it.  If you haven’t listened to it, You Tube Kim Walker and Jesus Culture doing “How He Loves”.  It’s just one of many renditions of the song.

There’s a problem I have though with the hundreds of versions I’ve heard of this song.  So many people feel the need to edit out or change the lyric “Heaven meets Earth like a sloppy wet kiss”.  As if those lyrics were meant to be sexual or perverse in some way?

• David Crowder Band just released a verison of the song and made a big deal out of it, releasing a single. I expected Crowder to do something different and creative but instead it was basically the Jesus Cultue version in a studio without Kim Walker.  Plus they cleverly swapped “sloppy wet kiss” for “unforeseen kiss”.  Unforeseen kiss, besides not being the written lyrics to the song, is something that makes no sense.  There was nothing unforeseen about Jesus’ sacrifice for us, his redeeming us, or his coming return to save us.  It was prophesied 2000 years in advance and when he came there was no mystery as to who he was.  Not unforeseen.  The lyrics, while being “church safed” have lost thier power.  Jesus didn’t “church safe” anything he said.
• My church back home does the song now and then, and they change “sloppy wet kiss” into “the holiest kiss”.  Which is a little better, at least making sense.  Still I think it’s weak and denies the song it’s brilliant imagery that has caused so many to turn.  God’s love for us is clearly that graphic.  You aren’t Weird Al Yankovich, don’t change lyrics to a song you didn’t write.
• I’ve even heard of a couple churches banning the song from their worship services for the sake of not offending anyone.  This is better, in a way, than butchering the lyrics, but is still a sad way to miss out on the power of this song.  It’s the raw honesty in the message of “How He Loves” that has caused the song, through God, to touch so many.  Lord knows I needed to hear every lyric of the song two years ago when it changed the way I thought.  I STILL get goosebumps every time I hear it anywhere.  There are churches who, for fear, will deny their congregations that in a cooperate setting for the sake of not being visual and graphic in a song.  Evey member of that church, bar the young ones, has experienced a sloppy wet kiss from someone they love, like spouses and fiances.  They can tell you it’s a beautiful, heart-melting thing.  How much more is the love of God a sloppy wet kiss to our lonely souls than the kiss of another person to our lips!

So that was my rant.  Sorry to the people and churches I directly called out if you come across this blog somehow.  I don’t think you’re a holier church for “playing it safe”.  Steer clear of Song of Soloman in your services and check out Hillsongs 4 Kidz if you need some new worship material for your tender-eared congregations.

The lines for me have fallen in pleasant places.

I’m at a retreat in Estes Park leading worship for 60 screaming fifth and sixth graders.  We sing “What a mighty God we Serve” and “There is no one like you” at the top of our lungs.  It’s fantastic.  Drop your pride and come to Scene56.  See what you must become like to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

 

I broke a string about an hour ago as I sat on the stage and sang “There has never been anyone like you, there is no one like you there has never been anyone like you, There Is NO ONE LIKE OUR GOD…..yea.”   In the happy silence after the song, some little girl kindly says to me out loud, “Your guitar is broken…” .  So I smile and rend the string from its peg, making her laugh.  I then sat outside under the falling snow while the children’s pastor talked about other world religions of no value, and changed my broken G-string (oh ha funny).  

 

Its a funny thing, kids.  I was so sure that this weekend I agreed to leading would test my limits and make a better servant out of me.  I have no patience for chaos you see (some drummer I am), and game after disorderly all-inclusive designed-for-eleven-year-olds relay game should put me at my whit’s end.

 

But as I replaced a Phosphor-Bronze .026 guitar string with the closet diameter backup (a tragic .017), I was overcome with a feeling very opposite of being at your whit’s end.  It felt a lot like hearing and smelling rain in the morning from your warm bed with hours to sleep before you have to go anywhere, if that means anything.  See I am allowed the privilege of leading worship in His house, and it’s good to me.  I don’t have anything profound to say on the matter.  Just I’m very happy doing it.

 

I couldn’t care less if  was fifty twelve year olds or fifty thousand twenty-somethings.  Where I am is where I am and we sing the same things at the same time.  If God hears from heaven and he smiles and he likes it, I’m who I want to be.  

I’ll say it again.  I’m already who I want to be in Christ Jesus.  

 

There is no one like our Godddddddd, yeah.

She’s gonna teach me how to swim.

I was inspired by Sean’s latest blog, utilizing a neat list format.  I haven’t written in a while, so hopefully this will help me formulate my thoughts?

 

Halfway through SB ‘09 in La Jolla, CA.

• Yogurtland/Yogi Topi/Golden Spoon = Fantastic  Frozen yogurt parlors are the next big thing.  Move over Cold Stone.
• Renting Bianchi hybrid bikes and riding all over town was a hoot today.
• I saw two Bugatti Veyron’s and #3 of 20 Lamborghini Reventons in the world.  Good car day with Marcus Lutz and Bucky Johns.
• Being sunburned isn’t fun.  Being overwhelmingly sandy isn’t fun.  Being sore and tired isn’t fun.  Being all of them at the same time after a whole day on the beach is fantastic.
• I really like As Tall As Lions.  That band is great.
• Also really enjoying Thievery Corporation. Good electronica.
• The most notable band lately, however is Faultline.  Holy cow this band is so good. “Where is my Boy?” featuring Chris Martin is the saddest most sensational song I’ve heard in some time.
• Nightclubs are a great place to have a church.  Great sound systems, Lots of good lighting and projectors, creative seating arrangements, etc…  Rock Harbor church at the Shark Club was a great experience.  Plus they have real sharks in giant tanks.  Cool.
• California is a great place to visit, but I couldn’t ever really live here.
• I miss Fort Collins.
• I miss Phil. (Awwww)
• I love my fantastic friends here in Cali.  Go spring break.

I don’t want to talk about You like You’re not in the room.

When a loudspeaker vibrates, it pushes the air around it in a specific way so as to give it frequency and amplitude.  When you “hear” music, it’s because the air in the room is moving and oscillating around you.  Your ears pick up the movement in the air and your brain tells you about it through some cryptic electronic pulses, right?  That’s not what it feels like, though.  Something in your spirit moves and churns as the music moves through you and inside you, giving you a feeling.  If this were not true there would be no “music”, only noise.

 

I wonder sometimes if our worship is like this to God.  If it’s noise and not music. We spend a lot of time on our tone and our technique to make a sound that pleases our ears.  We then put a catchy melody over it and sing it to our friends at church.  We call this our “worship”.  At the end of the service, after the message, you’ll hear the speaker commonly say  something like “I’d like to invite the band up to lead us in worship as I close in prayer.”  What does that even mean?  

 

Apparently I lead worship now for a college church of 250-300 kids.  This is a recent development in my life and I’m pumped about it, but I don’t know if what I bring to the table as far as a “worship leader” is what these people need.  To me music is still a sound.  I still give music an absolute value based on how much my spirit likes it when it comes into my brain through my ear canals.  I guess everyone does that.  

 

Singing is still new to me.  I have this fakey push-the-high-end style of singing that shows I’ve never had training.  My pitch is unstable and I think I’m probably hard to sing with.  I get nice compliment after nice compliment on my singing every week after service, and I just want to look at these gracious people and say “You’re really nice, thank you.  But seriously I have no idea what I’m doing.  I play drums.”  I cannot wait to get to a place where I sing from my heart to God like I’m looking right at him.  Like it’s something that will make my insides collapse if I don’t do it.  I want people to read that desperation on my face and in my voice and I want them to follow me and belt it out like they mean it, to a God who really meant it when he gave his life.  That’s what I think a “worship leader” does.

 

I don’t want the sound I push into the diaphragm of a microphone, though a maze of cables, and into the air through some muddy JBL’s to be a noise to people.  I don’t even want it to be a “good”sound.  I want it to pierce into hearts and move minds out of complacency.  I want it go right through my friends and into their spirits, causing them to cry out to the God who is mighty to save.  I want it to be a wonderful listening experience, yes, but I am more concerned about it reaching that soft place in them that is full of gratitude and compassion, causing them to worship right into God’s own ears.

 

Singing along mindlessly to a worship song is noise, don’t do that anymore

 

Crying out from your heart in desperation and thankfulness is worshiping God.  

 

I pray all the time that I, as some new worship leader, will cause the second to happen inside my friends.  I want anthems of praise to our God to ring in our heads for days and days, mechanically bringing up feelings of adoration and thankfulness even long after the set is over.  For my inheritance Lord, help me lead your people into a beautiful romance with you through a clever, creative soundtrack of praise.

Praise Him All Creatures Here Below.

Let me just take this moment to say how much I love my generation as it is right now.

 

There are times when I wonder if we’ll ever grow up, but sometimes, I find myself hoping we never do.  I love facebooking through picture albums where frame after frame we pose and smile and laugh.  Under the smiles are wounds and scars, but we’ve found joy enough inside to muster up affection for each other.

 

We don’t understand God, even those of us who claim to.  Our righteousness is like filthy rags, but our hope is unstoppable and gives us a fierce ambition.  At our age we don’t slow down.  Late nights melt into early mornings.  All the while we contemplate things we don’t understand, and come up with ideas and plans to navigate the years.

 

We are beautiful people.  I’ve noticed that about Fort Collins and about my group of friends.  If we don’t glow with joy and exude confidence, we’re alluring in sincerity and charming in our depth.  My people amaze me.  They are inside and out, masterpieces.  They are CONFUSING, but they are compelling.  

 

I don’t want to see us melt into the business world, with our activism and our incredulous dreaming put on an indefinite hold.  I hate to think of these passionate followers of Jesus becoming standard, run-of-the-mill churchgoers instead of the insatiable God-chasing missionaries they are today.  I hate to imagine us forgetting the way we swore we’d change the world someday.

 

I know God’s will is good and life has it’s seasons.  In all honesty, I can’t wait to be settled into a home and into a church, with tithing and playing in the band being my biggest visible acts of service to the Kingdom of God.  But for now, I cherish the young luster life has.  The music I indulge in these days is a literal soundtrack to the days I live out as I pursue God and live to become the bride of Christ.  Just driving across town with the right music can feel like a scene from a well-produced movie, as I lift my voice to God from the security of my quiet car.  I could ramble about life’s beauty for pages and pages, but I think I’ll let Thomas Kin’s words from 1674 take it from here.

 

Praise God from who all blessings flow,

Praise Him all creatures here below,

Praise Him all of ye heavenly hosts,

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Amen

Don’t you break my heart again.

Do you know what I know?

A child a child, shivers in the cold.  Let us bring him silver and gold.

 

It’s Christmas, but this is not a Christmas blog.  If you believe that Jesus came and died in your place, evidenced by your celebration of Christmas, will you start to live like you’re in love with the man?  I need to be clear.  My generation is bitterly lukewarm.  Like a sip of stale, flat Pepsi after the first six innings at a ball game.  

 

For some reason I’m so fired up at the moment.  Let the church shine as the bride that Jesus saw in his heart as he offered up his life.  Why are we so apathetic?  Why am I so apathetic?  Why is so hard for us to live holy lives?  We have all we need to do so, but our apathy drives it into the ground and we live “in an open relationship”  with King Jesus, instead of the promising engagement he gave his life for.

 

It’s worth the small sacrifices now for the sake of eternal glory later.  No joke.

Quantum of Solace and the Great Plains.

This weekend I drove to Olathe, Kansas with three of my friends to tryout for the DCC band.  Every year Campus Crusade for Christ has a gigantic Christmas conference where 1400 or so kids come to worship God and grow in their faith together.  Usually they book some big name band to do worship (usually a group my old band opened for at some point, i.e. Foolish Things or Tifah), but this year they want a student-led band.  That’s exciting.  So tryouts were on the Eastern edge of Kansas and we drove and drove to get there, finding the church finally after ten hours on the road and about nineteen bathroom breaks for Courtney.  The tryouts lasted all day Saturday, and I feel like all of us played really well.  On Wednesday we find out who made it, and I can’t wait.  I could be totally wrong, but I feel like all four of us (Dan, Jeremy, Courtney, and I) have a great chance of getting picked.  So that’s fun.

 

The only regret I have about the weekend is that the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, came out on Thursday night.  Phil, Dan, and I dressed up in 007-esque suits and went to the midnight showing after Crusade and the Roe CD-release show (pretty awesome, way to go Dave ).   Consequently the next day’s drive was made on a compromised number of sleeping hours.  

Dan took it like a man and got us there. I thought about the movie a lot throughout the drive.  Not just because I’m a shameless Bond fan, and not just because the Bolivian Bond girl was incredible.  I thought about the movie all day because it made me think of my life in a different way.  Sorry to take this blog in a thoughtful direction again, but this is worth hearing I think!  James Bond has a hopelessly unrealistic life, but I still want a life like that so bad.  He goes form country to country defeating countless bad guys and driving Aston Martins for her Majesty.  Never stays in the same room for more than a night, and never sleeps alone.  Always knows what his plan is, and never makes a mistake he can’t fix with his handgun.  I know God’s plan for my life probably doesn’t involve jumping from airplanes and sleeping with women to gain information.  Those are not good ideas.  I do however, have hope that God’s plan involves something as exciting and fulfilling for me.  I want to die having lived a life worthy of a movie series, but tonight, like most nights, I find myself sitting on my green couch with Kyle and Phil blogging on my computer instead of fighting global terrorism.  But it’s fun and I love it.  Even though my car is a 1997 Camry, and my coolest gadget is an iPod, I love my life after all.

 

It would have been cool if we learned from our mistake, but we watched Quantum of Solace again the night before we drove home from Kansas, again making the drive home on less than adequate sleep.  So worth it though!  The experience of the weekend was great.  Even if we don’t get “picked” for the DCC band, I really got to know just about every person who tried out.  This means I’m going to be connected to every member of the band this year regardless.  I love that.  I met some great kids this weekend and grew much closer to Dan, Courtney, and Jeremy.  For those of you who aren’t involved in a worship ministry, allow me to apologize, it’s a really wonderful thing to be a part of.

Strange and Unprepared

Some nights call for thinking a lot.

 

I’ve found that most nights are like that these days.  I love that my future’s options are so numerous and so promising, but I wish they made any sense at all.  How can it be that I am effectively picking my future tonight?  I have to register for spring classes now and I am completely clueless.  I haven’t auditioned for music school yet, so I can’t register for those courses.  I’m not acutally enrolled in any of the Engineering schools, so those courses are all off limits as well.  I’m certainly welcome to continue registering for physics classes, but I hate physics now and would have to retake the hardest class of my life to pursue that.

 

Some people have knew exactly what they were going to do with their lives when they were in high school.  I have a number of friends studying exactly what they said they were going to when we walked out of Ponderosa High for the last time two years ago.  They’re doing great in their majors and loving what they’re learning.  I also know of people who knew their destinations from a young age not just because their interests lined up with their talents, but because God had really told them what he had planned for them.  Tyler Goerzen for example.  Beloved guitar player, best friend of mine in high school, bearded thrift store genius, my sister’s first love, etc…  Means a lot to me.  He knew long before it came time to register for Fall 07 classes that he was called to be a pastor.  Not just because his dad was a pastor, and not just because he’s in love with the word of God, but because in addition to those things he’s received prophetic conformation of the calling on his life on multiple occasions, not to mention a miraculous and incredibly convenient full-ride scholarship to the perfect Bible School for him, Azusa Pacific University.  Ask him to tell you the story some time.  It’s not like he even wanted to be a pastor that bad, he just knew he was called to that because it was built in to him and God ordered his steps accordingly.  Everything was set up and well executed for him to get a pastor’s education, which will certainly lead to God-ordained pastorship.  I hope I get to play drums at his huge church in the future.

 

As for me?  A different story. I understand that not everyone gets a situation like Tyler’s, and I understand that in the same way God ingrained a pastor’s heart into Twyler, he ingrained a musical worshipper’s heart into me.  This will probably lead to a lot of worshipping, and maybe worship leading in the future.  But I can’t lay claim to that calling’s ability to provide for my needs and the needs of my future family.  God has never clearly spoken to me about my calling,  thus I don’t know how much weight I can put on the passion I have to become a profession.  I have got to learn something else as well.  Unfortunately, The time to decide what I will learn passed 45 credits ago, and now I have a 2.7 GPA’s worth of 100-level Math and Science credits that I don’t know what to do with.  I don’t like math or science, I like music, but I cannot be selfish about this. 

 

I need clarity of mind.  I need direction.  I need to hear the voice of God, and I need for him to speak to do that.  I also need to know within the next few days so I can get accepted into whatever school, music or otherwise, and register for the classes that will be required.  I’m not actually that stressed.  Instead I just feel, as the recent Copeland song sings, “Not good or bad, only strange and unprepared”.  

 

I feel like I should have done music from the start.

I feel like I should have gone to Bible school from the start.

I feel like I should have declared a major right away regardless (lift and seperate) so I wouldn’t be so behind now.

I feel like I might need to take a semester off to figure things out, although that terrifies me because 

I feel like I might never return to school.

 

But almost more than anything, I feel like I need to hear the voice of God.  Any word right now would mean everything to me.  Any little whisper of his will.  Any hints he could give me.  I mean really, just give me the first letter of the major you want me to pursue.  Talk to me in a way that I won’t question.  Forgive the lack of faith I display by asking that.  I’ve chosen you over any other, and I would lay down my life for any cause you see fit to apply it in.  Music is in my heart, but providing is on my mind.  Here is your servant, his only joy is to see you glorified.

Aim for the floor.

If you know anything about me, you know that I play drums.  I play a lot of drums.  I might not be the most flashy or the most technical, but I am a drummer void of shame.  The satisfaction achieved from a heavy kick and snare pattern in the context of worship music or creative secular music is not just a feeling, it’s a spiritual thing that comes from my chest and the heart inside of it.  I love to hammer through a song hung deep in the pocket.  I love to punch my kick drum and feel it resonate through the room, especially when well mic’d.  I love the whip-crack cymbal technique.  Keep ‘em low and flat with plenty of space to swing.  I only need like two of them, but they should be big and well-matched.  Say “ZBT” or “B8″ and I will punch your jaw.  The most satisfying part is a good snare.  My snare is 7.5″ deep and made of solid Birch.  I installed a 42-strand snare bed just recently, and now the instrument sounds entirely different than before.  It’s all low and growly, a very warm, controlled sounding snare.  It sounds like love to me.

 

I write all this to say that I am very excited for ONE this year.  Every year at CSU, all the ministries that want to get together for an extravagant night of loud, joyful worship.  Last year we had about 600 kids, three bands, and two speakers.  I was blessed to be in the the band that closed out the night.  This year we have consolidated to only one band, although many ministries have joined us that did not participate last year.  It will be even bigger, and we will have much less practice time than last year with a less firmiliar band than before.  But I am thrilled.  We spent our whole first practice seeking God and praying together last night.  The feeling was wonderful.  We have already began to unite our ministries in heart!  I am incredibly excited to drum again this year.  The set is two hours long, with lots of time for Reason expressions.  I am so excited.  Our God is here and he is a glorious King.

How To Disappear Completely.

Today my roomate and I returned to a head shop we had visited last week.  This head shop has a pretty decent vinyl collection, and today was the day they said they would have a bunch of Radiohead vinyls in.  I purchased Kid A, my favorite Radiohead album, and Phil bought In Rainbows, his favorite. All day we’ve been enjoying the clever, warm sound of Radiohead on vinyl. 

On a different note, tonight Campus Crusade moved into our new venue (Johnson Hall Rm. 222 if you care to know) after outgrowing the last one.  It was one of the best meetings in Cru history.  We have a great new sound guy named Steve, who has made things so much easier for us, so the music sounded pretty good I thought.  There were probably 350 kids tonight, which is a lot for any school club, not to mention an evangelical Christian club.  Tonight I tried a new snare drum tuning ala Jared Henderson from Newlife.  I installed a gigantic 42-strand snarebed and bought super thin 1-ply heads.  I was so excited, but it turns out I don’t know how to make that kind of a setup sound good.  It was real chainy and loud, but too muffled   I switched snare drums for the second set and things sounded better.