Living Room Gig with LDL

Ever heard of a Living Room Gig?  It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  Jasheen and I were invited to attend a living room gig at some friends' flat on Saturday night, and I have to say, it was brilliant.

Having shortened their name to LDL, Lies Damned Lies is a Glasgow-based-three piece consisting of two of our friends.  They've released five albums on their own Sticky Music label and have chosen to tour the UK playing the intimate settings of living rooms.

Their dreamy, jazzy, bluesy melancholy offers far more than one might expect.  I found myself quite moved by their thoughtful meanderings about the essence of life, the relationship between man and man, and God and man. It's hard to imagine that one can walk away from one of their gigs without taking on the knowledge that your life somehow has more depth.

During the 20-minute intermission, I chatted with a former Episcopalian minister and mentioned how spiritual I found their lyrics to be. "Well Steve (the lead vocalist) is an Anglican priest," he said.  Steve is the one member of the band that we didn't know, and having discovered this, it all made more sense.

Throughout the evening, in both song and speech, words like, "lamentations, mercy, peace, beloved, walk-on-water, and God," popped up.  Despite the spiritual nature of their songs, their music is less a proclamation, and more an invitation of exploration.

As I surveyed the room, I saw deep contemplation as well as tears... from some I knew not to be Christian.  It was refreshing to witness a different approach to reaching people at a soul-level.  I have seen "gigs" that filled the likes of Dodger Stadium, and gigs that failed to fill the Hollywood Palladium, but rarely have I been so moved as I was in this quaint living room in Glasgow's west end.

If you get the chance to attend a living room gig in your area I highly recommend it.  It may not be U2; it may not be Green Day; it may not even be [insert hometown band makes it big], but the intimacy experienced is unmatched.

For bands resisting the artistic compromise that often accompanies the popular music machine, self-produced living room gigs are the way to go!  

Book Review: The Jesus of Suburbia

Have We Tamed the Son of God to Fit Our Lifestyle?

I picked this book up off of my dad's bookshelf when I was there this past December/January. It first caught my eye because of the title.
In the Acknowledgments section, Mike Erre states that he is no longer under the assumption that he has ever had an original thought. He attributes all of his thinking and insights to mentors and writers that have shaped his approach to life and ministry. Fair enough. I appreciate that kind of candor and authenticity... mostly because I think that's the case more often than not these days... be it in film, music or academics. I mean really, when was the last time we saw some really original innovations in the world of mathematics??? (I digress).

True to his admission, there isn't a whole lot of new material in here if you've already read the authors' works that he credits in his acknowledgments: Erwin McManus, Rob Bell, Dallas Willard, JP Moreland, etc. Even the title (what grabbed my attention initially) is the name of a Green Day song from the American Idiot album.

I know Mike... by that I mean that I've met him, we've played some pick-up basketball together, and we probably have known each others' names from the pre-Mariners/South Coast Community Church days. I also really like Mike and think he's doing a great job at Rock Harbor.

While the message presented here isn't radically new, it is a radical call to really knowing Jesus, rather than "simply knowing about him." Mike attacks American Christianity as it tends to present Jesus as "the purveyor of the American Dream," a predictable and safe Jesus that has more or less been reduced to the study of risk management.

The Jesus of Suburbia joins a collection of emergent works that are calling the next generation to a radical re-commitment to their faith... and more importantly, to live that faith out in today's culture.

If Donald (Blue Like Jazz) Miller's works focus on Christian spirituality as an explanation for beauty, meaning, and the human struggle, and Erwin (The Barbarian Way) McManus' goal is to maximize the divine potential in every human being, then Mike Erre's message is a call to the American church to begin "demonstrating the message of Christ," not merely explaining it.

This is a simple, straightforward retrospective on what it means to live out our faith in today's society; a good read worth picking up.

Basic Evangelism

One of the things that I try to be aware of is patterns. If I begin to recognize patterns in ministry, relationships or culture, I tend to take notice, and often times, those are the things that I will share on this blog. However, in the interest of privacy and anonymity, I'll refrain from using the names of people that I encounter.

One of the patterns that I've recently recognized is the challenge that Christians have with evangelism - sharing their faith with people in their everyday lives. I've had no less than six conversations in the last two years with young Christians admitting that this is a struggle for them. The people I've had these conversations with range from new believers to full-time missionaries (if you can believe that).

As best I can tell, the struggle primarily lies in the ability to naturally incorporate their faith into their relationships with non-believers. They either don't know how to share their faith in relation to the Gospel narratives, or they don't know how to naturally engage people who don't share their same beliefs, background or upbringing.

At least two of the people I've talked with simply stated that they don't know how to share their faith without the appearance of having "an agenda," or making the other person feel like a project. The missionaries I've spoken with confessed that they "don't know how to cultivate missional relationships with non-believers." When I heard this, the beast in me writhed and seethed; teeth bared, muscles clinched, knuckles white - missionaries who don't know how to build relationships with non-believers?!?!?

(I'll refrain from addressing the obvious topic of the church's responsibility to train and develop her people for the Great Commission... at least for now).

...The still, quiet Spirit in me, however, wept; broken-hearted, exhausted, defeated - missionaries who don't know how to build relationships with non-believers. Isn't that why we're here? Nevermind the fact that we're ALL called to live out the Gospel and share Jesus... missionaries leave their homes and their families; obedient to a call to go preach the Gospel to a foreign land.

For a long time I didn't understand this struggle. Not that I'm an evangelistic dynamo, but I've never really experienced difficulty in making friends with non-Christians. As Jasheen says, "They're not monsters. They're not mutants. They're just people, like you and me." Here's where much of the rub likely lies: the us-and-them approach. I've even heard missionaries refer to non-believers as "neo-barbarians." I don't know a person here who wouldn't take offense at that. As far as I can tell, there is no us-and-them until judgment day, where the Lord separates the sheep from the goat. There's just US, inasmuch as we are all inhabitants of a fallen world... and we all need Jesus (whether we know Him or not).

Lately though, I think I've discovered what the problem may be. I think that Christians, often times, over-think their approach to evangelism. They consider strategies, systems and methods for connecting with non-Christians. I'm not suggesting that we just float through our days and engage people at random. I think there is purpose and merit to recognizing where God is moving and getting involved. I also agree with being intentional about seeking out relationships with people who don't yet know Jesus.
But instead of operating from a recipe of one part fear, one part ignorance, and one part passivity, I suggest that we look to the people that we observe in scripture. Of course, there are accounts of evangelism in scripture, but lately I've been looking at the people that encountered Jesus personally for the first time.

There is one pattern that I see in almost every account of someone encountering Jesus: they went and told others what they saw, who they met, what they experienced. They just said, "Come and see." Whether it was Andrew (John 1:41-42) who stopped what he was doing and at once, found his brother Simon and told him that he'd found the Messiah, and brought him to see Jesus; or the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4) who left her water jug, rushed from her encounter with Christ and said to the men, "Come and see a man..."; or Mary Magdalene (Mark 16) who after seeing Jesus risen from the dead, went and reported what she'd seen; all of these accounts and more reveal the most basic form of evangelism: I've seen Jesus. Come and see Him for yourself.

People were compelled to share Jesus with others. Aren't we? There were no long discussions about how to tell people about the Messiah. They just rushed out and said, "Come and see." Three little words that leave the rest up to the Spirit and the free will of those sought out.

It's not rocket science. It's not brain surgery. It's not a military surgical strike. Sometimes people may think you're nuts. They may think you're a fool. They may say, "NO! I don't want to," but our job is to simply bring people to see Jesus. It's certainly not the only form of evangelism. There are countless ways to share your faith... through words and action; through apologetics and discourse; through mercy and generosity.
But if you struggle getting to know non-believers; if you have a hard time cultivating missional relationships with people at work or in your neighborhood, perhaps you could apply the most basic approach we know:

OPERATION: ANDREW - Come and see the Messiah! He changed my life... perhaps He'll change yours.

Sunday Worship

The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in God which made David dance. - C.S. Lewis

Early last week my friend/colleague, Stuart, rang me to ask if Jasheen and I would be willing to lead Mosaic in worship that upcoming Sunday (yesterday). Jasheen and I have been on Mosaic's worship team before, but as she, Gabrielle and Isabelle were all recovering from some sort of virus that's been circulating, I told Stuart that we could not commit to that since we had no idea what the week would look like as far as practice and preparation went.

I suggested an alternative style of worship (since there were no available musicians for the gathering). After sharing my thoughts, Stuart promptly asked if I would facilitate it. So I did.

With Easter approaching, and coinciding with the passage this week (Mark 16), I put together a playlist of worship songs with a resurrection theme. Instead of standing and singing together as we usually do, I provided an art station, a writing wall, and the freedom & encouragement to assume whatever physical position people might prefer when worshiping God.

To be honest, I wasn't quite sure how it would go over. As the first song began to play, people slowly began moving about to different stations. One of the highlights of the set was the way it engaged the children in our community. One of our core values in our Sunday expression of worship is including the children in as much of the gathering as possible. Worship is fundamental aspect of our faith and practice, and I love including the children in a way that invites them into the experience.

Some of the artistic expressions and written words were deeply moving and profound (from children and adults alike). As people talked at their tables, I wasn't sure that they weren't just socially catching up with one another, but in today's team meeting and debrief, I was so blessed to hear the impact that it had on several of the people there.

For some, it was a refreshing detour from the conventional style of worship we're accustomed to. For others, it was a completely new and eye-opening experience. One young woman who has been attending Mosaic, but is still very much in a seeking/exploring posture, was at first frozen, unsure of what she was "supposed to be doing." As the worship time unfolded though, she was moved to tears by the words of some of the songs and gained an appreciation for worshiping God in a fresh, new way.
The experience led others to openly discuss worship at their tables and their paradigm(s) of worship were expanded.
Gabrielle blessed and entertained the community by both dancing and praying out-loud during an instrumental piece played during a time of verbal prayer and thanksgiving.

I really wasn't sure how the whole thing came off, but I was so encouraged to hear that it's an experience the community would like to incorporate periodically at Mosaic.

The whole purpose of the alternative worship set was not simply an alternative to not having available musicians, but it was to provide an opportunity for people to connect with God in a new way. I believe that God has designed each of us to connect with Him in unique ways. Some connect with Him outdoors, through natural revelation; others may experience Him best in silent solitude; still others may require a visceral experience, holding a cross or a Bible... or perhaps the smell of incense helps bring them into a posture of worship. Some may even express worship best through giving - a service offering, a word, or a monetary gift.

The important thing is that we take opportunities to experience God in different ways. Corporate singing is good, it may be the best way for some to connect with God, but as each of us are uniquely and wonderfully made, it stands to reason that there are multiple ways for us to encounter Him in worship.

I hope this entry will stimulate your hearts and minds, and encourage you to explore the different ways to worship our King!