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.

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.

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.

“Let the people be free”, it’s all around us.

I wish the Holy Spirit wasn’t such a gentleman.

I think Jesus should kick down doors instead of just standing at them and knocking.

I want the God of the Old Testament to send pillars of fire to guide my apathetic, unconcerned friends into a serious, passionate relationship with him.

 

I shamelessly think that Christian organizations, including my own, should re-evaluate the way the incorporate God’s own power into their ministries.  I believe that our campuses could be adorned thickly in the presence of God.  That means he would tangibly, undoubtedly be among and with us, making our lives as good as new.

 

I want Cru, my college church, to keep growing like it has been.  We have to move now to a larger auditorium, and that’s really exciting.  We have over 300 now!  Many are new Freshmen, many are new believers.  But even if we had 1000, that would only cover 4% of the kids at our school.  I want every one of them to go to Cru, but I’m idealistic and always have been.  I want to touch so many lives with our love and our music and OUR lives.  God wants them worse than I do, and that’s not idealistic for him at all.  If he wants it bad enough he’ll just do it.  Maybe he’ll use us?  Maybe he’ll use me?

 

People have so many reasons for why they can’t pursue God or have a real relationship with him.  I believe none of them are valid.  The death of God himself through Jesus for us is so unheard of and so powerful that it seriously removes any possible reason for our separation from his love.  Own up to his promises of good for us.  Take hold of his Love for you.  Things will make sense, and life can be unspeakably brilliant.