New Music

I have been listening to some new music this week. Here's what's playing on my iPod right now:

Orthodoxy by Eddie Kirkland. Eddie was our worship leader at Q (acoustic guitar and djembe - very sweet). He's based in the Atlanta area and is connected with Buckhead Church there. Some of his stuff has been recorded by other artists (like Fee). A bit heavy on the production for my tastes, but memorable melodies and powerful lyrics.

Adore and Tremble by Daniel Renstrom. I stumbled across Daniel's EP via a link from Aaron Niequist's site (Aaron is the worship pastor at Mars Hill and has a new release as well, "With Broken Fists"). Strong guitar work and most importantly rich, deep theological content in his lyrics. Proof that worship music can (and should move) beyond love songs about me and Jesus.

Shine through the Stars by Chasen. This trio from Greenville, SC has a rootsy, pop sound and their songs reflect a hunger for God and an awareness that God is at work everywhere, all the time.

Girls and Boys by Ingrid Michaelson. Because my wife likes her and yes you have heard her stuff on Grey's Anatomy. Need I say more?

What are you listening to these days?

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Dave Gibbons (A Third Culture)

Dave Gibbons describes himself as the social entrepreneur and lead pastor of New Song, a multi-site church with campuses in both Southern California and Thailand. I appreciated the unique perspective that Gibbons brought to his 18 minutes at Q and the way he worked his life experience as an Asian American into his thoughts on a third culture church. Gibbons began with a funny story about the birth of his daughter (and how he mistakenly took her umbilical cord for some other equipment) and used it to challenge some widely held assumptions about church:

- church is all about the weekend
- that 1 hour of children’s ministry on Sunday is to be the best
- hour of a child’s entire week
- it’s not about the building, it’s about what happens inside the building

We all have pre-conceptions about the church. Do you hold any assumptions about church that maybe are not true? How might those assumptions be holding us back from becoming the church that God wants and needs us to be?

The greatest commandment is to love God with everything we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The big question resonates through the ages: “who is my neighbor?” Jesus, in answering that question, reveals a non-western, middle eastern approach – he tells a story of a Samaritan who loved and served a Jew. Gibbons reminded us that Asians, like those in the middle east, make their home in a shame culture and hear nuances and avoiding giving direct, confrontational answers. Your neighbor is someone you would be hostile against, someone of a different culture, someone you may even hate. This is who Jesus is calling us to love, not just the people like us.

Gibbons stated that the first culture is the sphere of the dominant culture; the second culture is a reactive culture. He pushed us to consider becoming a third culture, an adaptive culture, a place of liminality. The third culture is the mindset and the will to love and serve and connect with others in any culture, at any time even in the midst of pain and suffering. And he left us with three questions to consider:

1) What is my pain? What is their pain? Pain connects a person to culture in powerful ways. In the dominant culture there is a theology of celebration, in many other places around the world we find a theology of suffering to be much more prevalent. How can we find connection and relationship around questions of pain and suffering?

2) What is in your hand? What has God given you? What can you do? Remember that the locals know more than you do.

3) Can anything good come from Nazareth? As you touch the margins, you’ll reach the masses. This is a contrarian approach to advancing the kingdom of God.

BTW: On top of a tremendously thought provoking presentation, Gibbons was the only guy to work into his 18 minutes a video quote from Bruce Lee. Be water my friend.

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Louie Giglio (The Trees of Hong Kong)

Louie Giglio, is the founder of Passion, a global movement among college aged women and men. Giglio is passionate about the glory of God and the movement is focused around seeing Isaiah 26:8 become a reality in our generation:

“Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws,
we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.”

In a world where everything is changing, what remains unchanging? That was the question with which Giglio began his 18 minutes. Jesus Christ is the One who stands both inside and outside of time and if we are united with Him, we as well are both inside and outside of time. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

Everyone has a gospel - their understanding of the good news of their lives. Our goal ought to be helping others connect their hope and future to Jesus’ hope and Jesus’ future. In Jesus there is not only a “way” forward but a “why” forward. The Good News for followers of Jesus is that in Him we transcend:

• time (we were saved, are saved, and will be saved)
• culture even as we create it
• pessimism of circumstances because we are tied to the eternal hope

Giglio described Q as “a conversation about potentiality and possibility.” Those words resonate with me and I believe that is why the entire Q experience spoke to me in such a deep way. Here’s an important question for you: do you have a space where you can envision the future, a space where you can dream venti kinds of dreams? So much of our lives, even within the community of faith, are focused on the now, this present moment and pragmatism seems to be one of the spirits of our age. Where and with whom do you dream, imagine and envision the future, the coming kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

Ok, why was this talk entitled “The Trees of Hong Kong?” Giglio described a recent trip to Hong Kong where he discovered that trees are so scarce that they actually go to great lengths to build skyscrapers around the few trees that do already exist. They didn’t scrap building plans because of the trees that were already established, they didn’t raze the trees but instead they designed and integrated the trees into their building plans. He called this process, “excavation and renovation” and illustrated it with the great story of his own partnership with songwriter Chris Tomlin and the creation of “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone).” They maintained the integrity of this historic hymn of the Church, but created a simple but powerful new chorus that a new generation of worshippers can claim as their own. Masterful.

How will you move forward into God’s future?

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Where's Terry?

Thought you might enjoy this image of the Q venue - Gotham Hall at 36th and Broadway. It was breathtaking space with amazing acoustics. The musical set that Issac and Joe from The Fray did for us on Thursday was truly exquisite in this space.

If you look closely you might even find me in the image. Special prize to the first one who locates me - my own version of "where's Waldo?"

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The Medium of Beauty

Makato Fujimura shared a masterful presnetation on art and beauty. Fujimura is a New York based artist who serves as a catalyst for the International Arts Movement. My daughter Hannah and I had an opportunity a few years ago to hear an extended presentation by Makato on a visit here in Pittsburgh and it was good to hear his voice at Q.

Two general thoughts:

• Art mediates truth. The church must move beyond a utilitarian approach to art – art is more than designing cool logos or making the church more seeker friendly.
• Art is there not only to be useful, but to be a medium of truth. The purpose of art is love – in and for and through love and artists are called to transgress in love.

The Problem of Beauty – our culture typically defines beauty in a superficial and cosmetic manner. Some artists have refused to even talk about beauty because our culture has so corrupted the word. Beauty has the capacity to bridge the gap between the city of man (Augustine’s term) and the city of God. “Beauty, sooner or later, brings us into contact with our own capacity for making errors” (Elaine Scary).

The Paradox of Beauty – When we come face to face with the weightiness of beauty, our own hearts are incapable of containing “the glory of it all” (see DCB lyric). Makato shared some of his own spiritual journey here and focused his comments of his use of a certain Japanese technique of using crushed elements within his painting. Here are his own words from his book, RiverGrace:

“The problem that I could not overcome with Art as religion is that the more I focused upon myself, the les I could find myself. A schism grew inside between who I wanted to be and what I did. I wanted to love my wife, but I saw more and more, the distance between us. Arts as self- expression became a wedge in our relationship. Meanwhile, everyday I sought higher transcendence through the extravagant materials. I found success in expression through Nihonga materials. And yet the very weight of beauty I saw in the materials began to crush my own heart. I could not justify the use of extravagance if I found my heart unable to contain their glory. The more I used them, the moodier and more restless I became. Finding beauty in art and nature, I did not have a ‘shelf’ to place that beauty inside my heart.”

The paradox of beauty can be found in the old rugged cross – “what a wondrous beauty I see.”

The Presence of Beauty – “For those that grieve in Zion, God has come to bestow a crown of beauty for ashes.” (Isaiah 61) Anytime we isolate beauty from Christ, we are at risk of creating an idol.

Makato beautifully illustrated this concept by describing the Japanese character for beauty. This character is a fusion of two different characters, one placed over another. The upper character represents a sheep and the second connotes large, or great. I will let you reflect upon how this might denote true beauty and in fact love.

Makato’s presentation reminded me of a question that NT Wright raised in his book, “For All God’s Worth:”

“what is the most beautiful thing you have experienced this week and what did it evoke within you?”

I would love to hear your response to Wright’s question.

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We Can't Change the World

I thought some reflections on Andy Crouch’s session at Q would be a good way to begin the week. Many of us look for ways to start the week in a strong way and take on the world in a big way. Andy’s core message was different from the other Q presenters and he was convinced that his message contained the best possible news – we are not the ones to change the world because God has already changed the world. The Gospel message is so much better and more powerful than the mindset that if we work hard enough, smart enough or creatively enough, we can change the world. Culture is being already transformed by the power of God and the world truly is different because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

How does God change the world? Crouch quickly drew our thoughts to the two most important events in history: the Exodus and the resurrection of Jesus. He reminded us that these two events are the hinge pins of the Old and New Testament. As such they engage our sense of time – they are indeed timeless in their importance. God is a God who liberates and sets people free. It is interesting to note that these two events challenge our understanding of place – both took place on the edges of society: among an enslaved people in Egypt and a criminal who was executed outside the city gates. Without the Exodus there would be no People of God, no law; without the resurrection, no good news, no Church. God is in the business of rescuing the powerless.

The message is disorientating because we have what Crouch calls a “survivor bias.” We reward the strong, the successful, the significant. The stories we tell and pay attention to are typically stories of wildly successful people, women and men who beat the odds and change their world, quite often by their sharp intellect, amazing creativity, or sheer power and might. However, there is a lot of carnage along the way of success. What about the people who have burned out, given up, and quit have walked away from the conversation? What about their voice? What about their effort? In other words, what is God doing to change the world universally?

I loved this line from Crouch: “the goodness of the poor is that they are not as poor as they or we think they are.” It reminds me of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4: 7, “ but we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not us.”

Here was a modern day example that Crouch used to illustrate how God’s power to change the world was demonstrated in time and place. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for almost 27 years on Robben Island. This place, a God forsaken location by all human standards, became known as Mandela’s University. The weakness of Mandela and that little island showed God’s strength. The little acts done over time in the relative obscurity of Robben Island, powered by God’s plan, God’s time, God’s place, and God’s power, changed the course of South Africa and indeed the world.

Who is transforming culture? Those unknowns on Robben Islands all around, those who understand the transcendence of God’s work through the Exodus and the Resurrection.

Quite often I use the phrase “agents of change.” That phrase “survivor bias” written all over it. Crouch suggested that God is not looking for agents of change but instead uses “patients of change” in God’s world today. Patients are men and women who although they suffer, they as well are people who have experienced the healing power of God.

We can’t change the world. But the good news is in Christ the world is already changed. God invites us to partner with God as a “patient of change” – to reveal the work of Christ, illustrate it, announce it, and declare it.

“Christ was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.” (Colossians 1:180-20, The Message)

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Q Day 3

It is hard to believe that Q has come to an end. Three intense days of new ideas, new connections, new voices and a renewed stirring of my mind, heart, soul and spirit. Here were the big ideas from this morning's session.

Jud Wilhite reminded us that the culture war is over – we lost. But we are now free to stop fighting and instead take a different posture toward people: a posture of grace over judgment, love over inaction, and truth over inauthenticity.

Os Guniess face the reality of a post-Christian world to have our eyes wide open to the challenge facing followers of Jesus and to make sure that when the Son of Man does return He will find faith among us.

Shane Hipps declared that the medium is the message and that we become what we behold.

Ruth Padilla de Borst as we come to the table to remember to ask, “who is missing”? and be willing to change our table manners for the sake of including all God’s People in the great banquet.

I look forward to processing Q and thinking out loud about my experience over the coupe of weeks and months. Would you please join me in the conversation?

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Q Day 2

It has been a long day. We begin our morning with worship by Eddie Kirkland and ended the evening with a beautiful acoustic set and some very honest words about faith and the church from Isaac Slade and Joe King from the Fray. Along the way:

Louie Giglio reminded me that in a world that is constantly changing there remains one who is unchanging, Jesus. And as Jesus is both inside and outside of time those who are in Him are inside and outside of time as well. Jamie Tworkowski told us Renee’s story and how important it is “to write love on her arms.” Jim Wallis shared that politicians are people who are good at knowing which way the wind is blowing; social movements change the wind. Dave Gibbons cast vision for a third culture: a mindset and will to love, live and serve in any culture even in the midst of pain and suffering. Eric Reynolds asked the question, “are we being good ancestors?” Owen Leimbach wondered out loud “are we becoming consumers of causes?” Makato Fujimura artfully expressed a new deeper understanding of beauty and warned us that anytime we isolate beauty from Christ we are at risk of creating an idol. And perhaps the most poignant moment of the day: James, a former inmate from the Bronx, sharing the power of love and acceptance.

What a rich, deep day.

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Grace in the City

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC presented a compelling biblical, theological and practical vision for the city. He was direct: people who want to be culture makers should be living in the city. This presentation helped me put some things together personally and clarified why I feel so strongly about the place in which I live. I am looking to flesh that our more fully with my leadership team in the days ahead.

What is a city? Typically we think of a high population center. While that may be true, the number of people is not the defining mark of a city. I loved how Keller defined the city as “a mixed use, walkable settlement that is both dense and diverse” (does anyone know where this came from – is this Tim’s definition or someone else’s work?) Tim message was all about grace (love the take-off from the HBO series with a similar title) and he spoke about grace OF the city, grace IN the city and grace FOR the city.

The Grace OF the City
The city of a gift from God for humanity.

Both the Greeks and the Romans thought highly of the city. It was the place where the cultured, polished, polite and civilized people dwelt. God has a high regard for the city as well. Psalm 107, Jeremiah 29, Paul’s missional strategy in the book of Acts and the closing vision of the Scriptures in Revelation makes it clear – God is all about building the city to bring blessing to humankind.

The Grace IN the City
Keller talked about human settlements having four orders - economic, cultural, residential, political/legal. A city is all about structure and organization of these orders. And because the city is a walkable settlement that is both dense and diverse, these orders are organically connected. He used a great pizza illustration: in the city you have a pizza in its wholeness: the crust, sauce, cheese and all the extras working together. Not so much in the suburbs – while you might have all the essential ingredients the suburban ethos separates them from each other. Because of the density and diversity factors being at play, the city has typically been the incubator for culture and culture connects people.

Keller described the work of culture making as gardening. I was all over this. I love to look at leadership and community in environmental terms and this resonated with me bigtime. When someone gardens they take the raw materials and use them to create something that helps humans flourish like fruit for food or flowers for beauty. In the same way people take sounds and work the raw materials into music or take colors and create beautiful art or leverage words in prose or poetry to tell powerful stories. Love this.

Grace FOR the City
Often people use the city to make a name for themselves; consider the story of Babel. People come to the city to build their reputation or resume and then they leave. Keller said if you want to live in the city as God’s person you will need the grace of God to stay. It’s challenging, it’s expensive, it’s competitive, it’s hostile.

Jesus was killed outside the city – this is a significant cultural and theological statement. Jesus, in His death, lost the city that was in order that we might become citizens of the city that is to come.

Keller’s final words: "I want to confront people on these things. Consider it done."

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Q

Day One of the "Q". Modern technology continues to amaze me. I slept in my own bed last night and was in Manhattan for an 8:30 AM cup of coffee (it was an early flight).

This day was filled with some inspiring, challenging, brain stretching and heart touching presentations. Here was the line-up so far today (worship and Tim Keller this evening):

Jon Tyson
Gabe Lyons
Bill McKibben
Francis Collins
Chuck Colson
Leroy Barber
Eboo Patel
Andy Crouch

Here are a couple of quick thoughts. Jon Tyson challenged us to "go beyond seeking to rescue people from the systems of evil and instead unleash new systems of good in the world." Gabe Lyons said, the church is the only entity that can bring together people from the seven channels of cultural influence. Bill McKibben stated that instead of acting like stewards over the creation we have behaved like arsonists. Francis Collins presented signs of God from both the good book (Scripture) and the beautiful book (creation) and argued that as followers of Jesus we might need to develop a theology of evolution. Chuck Colson reminded me that Christianity is the best explanation for reality. Leroy Barber called us to be the beloved community. Eboo Patel asked us if he as a Muslim was welcome in the beloved community. And Andy Crouch reminded us that we can't change the world - but God already has.

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Spring

It is a glorious spring day in Pittsburgh. I am loving it and trying my best to take it all in. One of the things I am doing to celebrate the day is listening to some great "spring" music. Jon Foreman, lead singer of Switchfoot, has released a series of EP's based upon the four seasons and today I downloaded, "Spring." These EP's are unlike anything you have heard from Switchfoot. They are acoustically based and formated songs with simple instrumentation and vocals.

Spring includes these six tracks:

• March
• Love Isn't Made
• In My Arms
• Baptize My Mind
• Your Love Is Strong
• Revenge

My favorite is "Your Love is Strong" which is Jon's take on the Lord's Prayer and Psalm 62:11-12 ("One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong and that you, O Lord, are loving..."):

Heavenly Father
You always amaze me
Let your kingdom come
In my world and in my life
You give me the food I need
To live through the day
And forgive me as I forgive
The people that wronged me
Lead me far from temptation
Deliver me from the evil one

I look out the window
The birds are composing
Not a note is out of tune
Or out of place
I look at the meadow
And stare at the flowers
Better dressed than any girl
On her wedding day

So why do I worry?
Why do I freak out?
God knows what I need
You know what I need

Your love is
Your love is
Your love is strong.

So, what are you dong on this spring day?

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MLK

For Dr King...

Sleep
Sleep tonight
And may your dreams
Be realized
If the thundercloud
Passes rain
So let it rain
Let it rain
Rain on him

Watch MLK.

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