Tales of a Secret Rockstar

1. The fog rolls in around Cannon Beach. I don't know where it stops. Conspiracy? Perhaps.
2. Coastal Oregonians have never heard of perogies. No grocery store has them. Conspiracy? I think yes.
3. You are not allowed to pump your own gas in Oregon. It is against the law. Conspiracy? The answer should be clear to you.
4. Tillamook cheese is delicious, yet strangely inaccessible outside of Oregon. Conspiracy? No question.
5. The state parks are beautiful, clean, and family friendly. Conspiracy? Ask your heart.

Sometimes, when I listen to "August and Everything After," I think that people should have just stopped making rock music after that album. It's so good.

I was on the Island with Resonate this weekend. It was a fun trip, and some crazy stuff happened (like getting lost in Comox). Here's the craziest one though. On Saturday night we all went to see the new Bond movie in Courtenay. We got there at 6:50 for the 6:50 show, and it was sold out. So we bought our tickets for the 9:10 show. We then went to pass some time at the local mall, which was mostly closed except for the London Drugs store. We were in there for a while, and then we found a bench in the mall area to sit on. We were sitting there, when suddenly I heard a voice from my pocket. "Sir," she said, "are you there? Are you alright?" I pulled out my phone, curious as to why I was hearing a voice, and looked at the screen. It was indeed a call, and the number on the screen said 9113. I had accidentally dialed 911! I have no idea how, but my phone dialed 911 in my pocket! I panicked and hung up without saying anything. But then the group convinced me that I should call them back, just in case they were sending someone out to the mall to check up on a dropped 911 call. So I called them back, and the guy I was talking to asked me, "How could you have accidentally dialed 911?" And I said, "I don't know, I just suddenly heard voices in my pocket!"
What an adventure.

They just tend to build up on you.

I'm in the process of finishing a lot of little details before I go off to the Island this weekend for a Resonate trip. I'm looking forward to it. November has this crazy way of overwhelming you with little things, and then sneaking up on you with the big things. At least my Novembers are like that. I always wonder what my ministry would look like if I had lots of time to devote myself to contemplation and prayer. In my current situation, I tend to devote myself to emails, tours, and hanging out with people. Which is also great. But I sometimes wonder if I need to create more space for God to speak in my life.

Of course, if I had all the time I wanted to contemplate and pray, would I do it?

I heard this worship song at church on Sunday, and the chorus began like this:

"Here I am, worshipping you. With all I am, worshiping you."

And I thought to myself, "This is one of the most bizarre experiences I've ever had. I was literally singing to God about how I was worshiping him! It just seemed so bizarre to me that we would remind God about the fact that we were there worshipping Him. Maybe? Anyone? I know I tend to be more cerebral about these things than some people, but I just thought that this particular song went over the line from worshipping God to worshipping our experience of God. The entire focus of the chorus was on what I was doing to worship God, rather than the God who I was worshipping. It just really made me think about our worship. And that's kind of funny, because anyone who has been through Bible College has struggled with the issue of worship music. It's one of the things the teachers like to throw at you right away, just to mess with your head a little. I've been through it time and again. And I think I tend to swing from one side to the other on the issue of "what worship music is acceptable in church?"

I just wonder if we're forgetting to worship God in our music. We spend so much time singing about us that we miss who God is. I wonder what would happen if our songs were more about who God is. What if we sang some Psalms? Some of the lyrics in Revelation are amazing. Would we sense God's presence more if we stopped worrying about "feeling it" so much? I guess the question I'm asking myself is this:

Is our Pentecostal worship so self-absorbed that we're actually missing the experience of God that we sing about so much?

What is it about two question marks that make a question seem more incredulous? It's a weird, grammatically poor quirk of the english language. I blame MSN. Anyways, the title refers to the fact that there's an "edit html" way of blogging, and a "compose" way. I never knew that until now, and I've had this blog for almost 5 years! Unbelievable! Now, I can much more easily do this.

I was away all weekend with Resonate. It was a great weekend. I preached 3 times, and they played 4 times. I've still been (occasionally) pondering the question I posed in the last post. I was thinking about heaven a lot last week. Mostly about the concept of treasure in heaven. I was just wondering to myself, "what do I really need on earth. If I know that when I die I'll go to heaven, how much do I really need to accumulate here?" I've been praying for a more "eternal perspective" lately, and I think this is part of it. If we know where our treasure is, we're not slaves to the accumulation of false treasure. At least, that's the goal. It's easy to forget where my treasure is, even though I ultimately "know."

That song has just been getting me the last couple of days.
Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Last night I was driving home from watching an atrocious football game (from my Denver supporting perspective), and I asked myself this question: What does North American Christianity look like? I've been reading this textbook I had in College, "The Story of Christianity," by Justo Gonzalez, and I've been fascinated to track (in a broad overview) the development of Christian thought over the centuries. How Christian theology came to be more sharply defined as it contested with heresies that threatened to derail it. How Church government became hierarchal through both outside political forces and internal pressures. How great Christian thinkers and leaders came to the forefront in every generation, to confront the situations that threatened the church. I suppose all that reading led me to that question. Essentially, what are the defining characteristics of the North American church? Are we leaving the impact that we should be leaving on our world? I think the influence and power of the Western World is waning somewhat, and I wonder if that's being reflected in the waning influence of the Western Church in its own culture.

It's a tough question. And (partly in order to keep myself from getting all "emerging") it led me to this question:

What does my Christianity look like?