Religion, Music, Art, Politics
I’m thinking about using Advent Conspiracy as our Advent/Christmas programming this year. It looks like a pretty cool idea.
If you’ve never heard of Advent Conspiracy, have a look here:
The Advent Conspiracy Promo Video from theadvance on Vimeo.
If you have used it before:
What did you use for sermons?
Did you use the Sunday School curriculum?
What was the effect on the congregation?
Which of these resources did you use and find effective?
Are you doing it again?
What else can you tell me?
I had a bit of fun with Anne Rice’s recent apparent turn towards Emergent a couple of weeks ago. Truth be told, I am a great respecter of her life of Christ novel series and I can recommend that you read them – not necessarily for their doctrinal perfection, but for their excellent imagining of who Jesus was at various stages of life.
Christianity Today recently interviewed Anne Rice on following Christ without Christianity. A great quote from the interview:
Are there any other religious authors you read?
I read theology and biblical scholarship all the time. I love the biblical scholarship of D.A. Carson… I still read N.T. Wright. I love the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner. I love his writing on Jesus Christ. It’s very beautiful to me, and I study a little bit of it every day. Of course, I love Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
You mentioned D.A. Carson, Craig Keener, and N.T. Wright. They are fairly conservative Protestants.
Sometimes the most conservative people are the most biblically and scholastically sound. They have studied Scripture and have studied skeptical scholarship. They make brilliant arguments for the way something in the Bible reads and how it’s been interpreted.
I don’t go to them necessarily to know more about their personal beliefs. It’s the brilliance they bring to bear on the text that appeals to me. Of all the people I’ve read over the years, it’s their work that I keep on my desk. They’re all non-Catholics, but they’re believers, they document their books well, they write well, they’re scrupulously honest as scholars, and they don’t have a bias.
Many of the skeptical non-believer biblical scholars have a terrible bias. To them, Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, so there’s no point in discussing it. I want someone to approach the text and tell me what it says, how the language worked.
Read the rest of the interview here. (HT: Aaron Armstrong)
Below is the full text of my third column published in print and online at Christian Week. Enjoy. Comments welcome.
The virtues of interdependence are largely forgotten in our times. Even where there is very little grass to cut, most of us need to own a mower. 
Thousands of people hit the highways each day, generally one per car, all going to roughly the same places. Inside each vehicle, the experience is highly customized—temperature, lighting and music are all adjusted to the liking of the solo passenger.
Manufacturers and marketers love this, but we’re losing touch with something along the way. We’ve come to think of ourselves as a collection of self-contained units, all able to get what we want without inconveniencing anyone else.Live this way all week and you’re bound to bring the same expectations into your weekly worship gathering.
If everything else we consume is bite-sized, individually packaged and tailored to our needs, why not our worship experience as well?
We demand personal, individualized expression. And wherever there’s demand, supply is sure to follow. On offer from the worship music industry is a preponderance of songs whose adverbial bias is tilted strongly toward the individual and personal.
As I study the repertoire of my own congregation, the trend is obvious. The text of the most prominent songs we sang in the previous nine months reveal a 6:1 ratio of individual personal adverbs used over words that indicate corporate expression like “we,” “we’ll,” “we’re” and “our.”
Even when we do stand corporately, we sing as individuals, and the way we sing is a metaphor for the way we go about our lives as the body of Christ. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with individual expressions of gratitude and worship; that has its place. But is that place standing with several hundred others engaging in the same individualized activity?
It’s easy to underestimate the importance of the words we put into people’s mouths when we lead in song. People are more likely to leave a worship service with the words of a song, rather than a sermon, stuck in their heads. The sermon does matter, but in the short-term our minds cling to what’s easiest to remember.
I do hope we’d rather lodge in people’s minds a clearly worded song like “In Christ Alone” than the ambiguously worded “Draw Me Close.” Lyrics like “You’re all I want / You’re all I’ve ever needed / You’re all I want / Help me know you are near” could easily be mistaken for a romantic ballad by someone who hears them in the wrong context.
This of course is not inherently sinful; after all, the Bible does use male/female “romantic” language at times. But as Keith Drury puts it in his chapter of the excellent book The Message in the Music: Studying Contemporary Praise and Worship: “None of us alone can be the bride of Christ; only together collectively are we His bride.”
Thus, the Church could use more lyrics expressing the love relationship between Jesus and the collective Church, replacing “I, my and mine” with “we, our and ours.”
In this group context, the romantic aspect—even the marriage metaphor—can be wholesome, biblical and proper.
Begin to use this “romantic” language in the context of individualized expression and things start to get a little weird. The lack of clarity may not be intentional, but it does have consequences.
Songs of individual expression have dominated in recent years. This is a result of both what the worship music industry supplies, and the choices of song leaders. We should avoid overcorrecting by banning the words “I” and “me” from our repertoire, but certainly there are songs written as individual expression that can be modified slightly to reflect a more corporate and congregational tone.
We should desire more body coordination and less isolated, individual movement. Changing our song lyrics to reflect that desire won’t cure the problem, but surely it’s a suitable token of our intentions.
Worship is about God, but that doesn’t mean it has no effect on us. We sing, “it’s all about you, Jesus,” but we say it in a way that makes it rather obvious that it’s about us, too. And it is about us too, because worship—if it is true worship—will cause us to be transformed more to the likeness of Christ, both as individuals and as His Body.
**************
Here’s a letter to the editor that came in:
RE: I, my and me
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Before I offer a mild critique of Michael Krahn’s last column, I want to encourage him in his work. I believe it is very important to think about how we worship God and I appreciate how he shares his thoughts on the subject with ChristianWeek readers.
Like Krahn, I am a musician and songwriter and I am sure he will agree that composing a song from a corporate standpoint can be difficult. I really only know how “I” feel. I don’t like to speak for anyone else when I am worshipping God. I really don’t like to speak for God either and refuse to sing songs that are written as though they are from God, unless I’ve amended the words into third person.
This phenomenon of individually expressive worship songs is nothing new. It can be traced back as far as Isaac Watts (“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”). I often wonder if he appreciates his songs being sung almost 300 years later. He apparently wrote his songs in response to a growing discontent with traditional hymns, but that is another subject.
Krahn also singles out the song “Draw Me Close” by calling it ambiguous and that it could pass for a romantic song. Now, I must admit that I got the exact same impression when I first heard the song a few years ago. It’s kind of like an 80s romantic rock ballad. But who cares? Does Krahn think that God doesn’t know who I am singing to? The One who can read all of my thoughts surely knows who I am singing to. I guess the only danger in composing that song is that people will be tempted to use it out of context. There is an art of worship, and a heart of worship. We can’t fool God.
In the end, though, Krahn is correct. Worship in a corporate setting should be as such. We are a body. The bride of Christ.
From a songwriter’s perspective, I would prefer to avoid “I, we, my, our, me and us. I find it better to use You, and direct it to Him (God). Because that is who it is all about. Either that, or load the songs with biblical truths about Him.
Les Funk
MacGregor, MB
The Vigilantes of Love experienced a prolonged artistic high spanning all of the 90s and into the 2000s before the pressures of constant touring and little corresponding commercial success caused the outfit to fold. Chief Vigilante Bill Mallonee soldiers on to this day as a solo artist.
This song is one of my favorites from VoL’s No Depession/alt.country era. From the album “To the Roof of the Sky”, here’s “Opposite’s True”. A finer blend of writing, harmonica playing and, well, everything is in place here :
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I could write about this band for hours. In fact, I have and someday I’ll publish it. In the meantime enjoy the song above. If you like what you hear consider dropping by www.volsounds.com and picking up some more.
Well, so are the rest of us… but as Hitchens puts it, “the process has suddenly accelerated on him.”
Some “Christians” are apparently “happy” about this (the ones that don’t use quotes around the words Christian and happy.)
I am certainly not happy about it since I quite admire Hitchens as a writer and hope that God gives him many more years to write and explore and think. Take a look at this interview:
Click here if you can’t see the video
Seriously, marketing department… this was the best you could do?!?! I’m sure you could have come up with a better “jeandea”.
Previous FAILs
Child Safety FAIL
Website Name FAIL
This year’s Global Leadership Summit was a bust. I really did arrive hopeful and ready to be surprised (like I was last year)… instead I was fed a few good sessions with a lot of emotionalism, Americanism, shallowness, and outright propaganda in between.
There were however at least a couple of highlights. One that stood out for me was the interview with W.L. Gore & Associates CEO Terri Kelly.
Here is her bio:
“Terri Kelly is president and CEO of W.L. Gore & Associates, a 50-year old, multi-billion dollar enterprise that is often profiled as an example of the future of management. A pioneer in lattice-based management structure, Gore’s “associates” become leaders based on their ability to gain the respect of their peers and to attract followers. Kelly became president and CEO in 2005, after she was elected by her peers to serve in that role. Employing more than 8,000 associates in 45 plants around the world, Gore produces many unique products, including Gore-Tex® fabric, and is perpetually named on lists of “the best places to work.” Kelly will explain how this unique culture works on a practical level.”
Gore’s leadership structure is unique and has developed under the guidance of a single core question: “How can people feel like they are making a difference?”
There is one foundational idea and one core idea that she keyed in on.
The foundational idea is limiting the number of people in a work environment. When the number of associates gets beyond approximately 250 it starts to have a negative effect on the work environment and and on the work itself. When you get above 250 or so the possibility of knowing everyone at your location decreases dramatically. All other Gore management strategies are built on this foundation.
They believe in dividing so that they can multiply. This results in a different level of ownership, engagement and relationship. These smaller plants are also allowed to adapt to their local environment. (I’d like to hear more about this)
The core idea is that their associates organize around opportunities, rather than having set teams, and the work they do is collective and peer-based. Projects are driven by how many people are passionate about them. You have to convince others that it’s a good idea – if you don’t, the project or idea dies.
If you make a convincing argument for the project, it is submitted to a peer review process and then teams decide which projects get funded. By allowing associates to organize around passion and opportunity, they are motivated to succeed and since they are working collectively with others who are passionate about the opportunity, there is a natural interest in making everyone else successful as well.
Decision making within these teams shifts based on who has the best vantage point on the project, or an issue or component of the project. Thank God for that! I’ve been part of work teams where the obvious expertise of one member was consistently squashed by the team member with the highest seniority and most organizational clout.
When you think about it, all-in-one leadership is very limiting.
This is not neat, nor do I imagine it seems very efficient while in progress, but as long as everyone is working out of the same core values and beliefs it works. Those core values and beliefs are:
How does this apply to our churches? Especially our megachurches? (You should know that I am a Pastor at a church of over 500 people (which is a good size in these parts), so I’m not a small-church guy throwing stones at big-church folks.)
Last year, we made a strategic decision to do exactly what Terri Kelly advocates. We scrapped our building plan and decided to expand on our current multi-service structure. Now, it’s not just multi-service, but multi-congregation.
We’re still in the early stages of implementing this strategy but I know we’re all more excited about it than we were about the planned multi-million-dollar 850-seat sanctuary we had plans drawn up for last year.
Summary
I have no idea whether Terri Kelly is a follower of Jesus, and there was no humor and very little charisma about her presentation, but she made more sense than most of the mega-church CEO’s that presented their ideas at Summit.
The interviewer wrapped up the session with some thoughts about how what we’d just heard from Terri Kelly is relevant to the church. In the process, he missed a core concept: no more big factory churches. Whether this was a convenient intentional omission or an honest oversight, it was a big miss.
Applied to church structure, the message we heard was “break into smaller groupings.” No more 15,000 seat auditoriums; no more intentional “gathering” to the point of spectacle or for the sake of boasting. It’s not healthy for the life of the congregation and rarely healthy for the Pastor’s ego.
Smaller work groups and flexible small teams within those work groups are foundational to everything else she talked about.
Looking for relevance? Ignore the funny sound byte guys. Listen to Terri Kelly.
There’s a reason why I haven’t been writing here as much lately. Ok, there are a couple of reasons. One is general busyness. The other is a healthier one: I’m running.
In the last 5 months I’ve run 400 kms and lost almost 20 lbs. As you can imagine that all takes quite a bit of time. I’m running an half-marathon this year, a marathon next year, and hopefully qualifying for the Boston Marathon the year after that.
The topic of running has begun to change my conversations and my lifestyle and I’m going to start writing about it, so you’ll see the Michael Krahn RUNblog coming at you shortly.
Happy trails!
Blake Mycoskie – another one I’ve never heard of. Here’s the bio:
“Acknowledged as one of today’s most dynamic serial entrepreneurs, Blake Mycoskie launched five successful companies before the age of 30. He is best known as the founder and “chief shoe giver” of TOMS shoes, a for-profit company with a unique social enterprise model that has drawn tremendous media attention. Providing a new pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair sold, they have distributed more than 400,000 pairs of shoes to children around the world to date. Darren Whitehead, teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, will interview Mycoskie on leading organizations with a cause and navigating the start-up phase of an organization.”
And the session notes:
Making Conscious Capitalism Work: The Toms Shoes Story
The idea – a for profit shoe company that gives away one pair of shoes for every pair it sells.
A single unique and generous idea creates impassioned customers. Those customers do a lot of marketing work. Mycoskie’s company spent no money on advertising to launch the idea, but large companies (i.e. Microsoft) supplied millions of dollars in free online adverts.
He’s taken the idea of viral marketing and free product into the realm of the concrete.
Why not go non-profit?
The for-profit model funds the giving side of the equation. If he had taken the initial capital and bought shoes 40,000 pairs but because he invested in the company, they’ve been able to give away 680,000 pairs and counting.
Giving the opportunity to make a difference. People who wear TOMS love to tell other people about the company.
“You can’t be bashful if you want to make change.”
http://www.onedaywithoutshoes.com/
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