Church

Campus House made the unusual mistake of asking me to talk about The Church last Sunday.  Half-way through I had the opportunity to share a little about “Life Before Campus House”, namely The Shack.

You can hear it here.

Stone

Took a day this weekend to put up a stone wall in our kitchen.  My father helped me put together the cedar beams that frame it in.  THANKS, PAT, FOR THE TABLE SAW!

Picked up the stone from a mason who had some leftover from a job.  This stuff is normally pretty expensive per square foot, but I got it for a song.  I dry-stacked it and adhered each stone to the wall with Power Grip adhesive from a caulk gun (no mortar needed).  Yet, I still need to fill a few of the wider joints with mortar to hide the wall behind.

I suppose I always wanted a wall in my home that looked like an old mine shaft.

iTunes

You can view a video of my last teaching by going here, then clicking on “subscribe to video podcast”, which will open up iTunes.  Then, just click on my name.  Feel free to fast-forward to the curious video toward the end of it.  Thanks to Joe for giving me the idea.

Worm’s Eye View

Last night I had the privilige of leading worship last night at TNT (Thursday Night Thing). I tend to always bring in a darker, more grim twist when I do music. Okay, that sounded strange. Let’s say “haunting”. I do my best to really allow songs to have more weight lyrically and musically when they’re performed. I come off a little more emo than others, I suppose.

Keep in mind that I am a very average musician, yet I’m very particular. I really have to rely on the talent of others when I do music. I introduced a song wrote and recorded seven years ago called “Look Away” (no, not the Chicago power ballad). It used to be performed here at Campus House years ago. Well, I brought it back. A couple guys who do worship remembered it from years ago and wondered where I picked it up. “I wrote it”, I replied. I was laughed at. When I finally convinced them that I wrote Look Away and Crazy Days (another song that used to be performed at Campus House), Ryan looked at me and whispered, “Now wait a minute. Who are you?”. It was comedic. Apparently, I was a rock star without knowing it. Now, I’m hiding my identity deep inside this campus ministry.

The CD was called Worm’s Eye View and recorded back in 2002, and was one of the first CD’s sold at www.relevantmagazine.com. It’s still there. BE WARNED: DO NOT GO TO WEBSITES WITH “WORMSEYEVIEW” IN THE NAME. That would be a porn site.

Parables (fin)

Finally taught on Parables this past Sunday. Podcast can be accessed here. The last five minutes may sound a bit strange because there’s a song playing in the background. It’s actually a video playing behind me. My closing monologue will make more sense when you see it. I’ll post a video link when it’s up.

Understand that Campus House has four services for approximately 1,000 students. It’s seems like a marathon race to do music or teach throughout an entire day. I used to over-prepare because of the number of people I would be teaching. Now, numbers has nothing to do with how much I prepare. Instead, I get intimidated by the caliber of students I teach. This is Purdue, full of engineers and rocket scientists. When I teach I feel like they’re coming out hear the village idiot for their own entertainment.

Preparation

Continuing my prep for this Sunday’s message on Jesus’ Parables. Here are the tools and resources at my fingertips:

• Brian McLaren’s “The Secret Message of Jesus” pages 35-49
• The Music Video “Glosoli” by Sigur Ros
• 8′ x 5′ canvases that portray The Tortoise and The Hare, The Giving Tree, The Fox and The Crow and The Gift of The Magi
• Video Interviews with Eugene Petersen, Anne Lamott and Philip Yancey about story-telling and faith
• Scriptural References: Psalm 78, Matthew 11, Matthew 13, Proverbs 1, John
• Thoughts, memories, opinions and a touch of cynicism and hope
• Conversations with several other perceptive and faith-full staff people

Weird and Lovely

As I was driving McKenna home in the van tonight, she was try to recite “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple”. My convictions about The Church were utterly cringing. When she got hung up, she asked me how it goes.

I responded, “McKenna, let me tell you something about the Church. The Church isn’t a building at all. It’s actually a family of people who love and follow Jesus. The building is nothing more than a building. Jesus didn’t build a building. He made a family”. And she responded, “(GASP!). Oh my gosh! That is so weird . . . and lovely”.

Parables

Next week I’ll be speaking on Jesus’ preferred teaching shtick: parables. When I approach a scriptural subject, I tend to reach for extra-biblical references before I’m jump into the scriptures themselves, as sacrilegious as that may sound. My mind has already been pouring over familiar fables, especially Aesop’s. I’m examining how these short tales illustrated with anthropomorphic characters and embedded with moral lessons have affected people throughout the past generations.

I’ve observed three categories of fables:

The Obvious, such as The Tortoise and The Hare. The lesson is plain as day, but should be duly noted.

The Horrific, such as Pierre, a boy who “doesn’t care” about anything until he is swallowed by a lion, then rescued. Through horrific consequences the main character is reformed; a scare tactic, if you will.

NOTE: I enjoy making up horrific parables on the spot when my children misbehave, such as The Sun, The Girl & The Magic Lotion; about a girl who refuses to wear sun-block and is reduced to smoldering embers in the sand. Or, the adventures of the Whining Little Girl, who is thrown into jail for embarrassing her father at the grocery store. Usually these fables end in death or prison.

The Hidden, such as The Giving Tree, where it is obvious that there is a profound lesson to be learned, yet it’s unclear what exactly it is. This sort of fable asks a lot of the hearer, requiring them to look deeply and ponder. It is only then that the lesson is extracted. Most of Jesus’ parables fall under this category.

I hope to discover a few common threads throughout all of Jesus’ parables, such as recurring characters and themes, what these stories tell us about Jesus; what they tell us about ourselves.

Anyone have a favorite fable?

Grey Hall

Just finished a project at Greyhouse called Grey Hall.  The short hallway to the bathrooms has been transformed in to a small gallery showcasing famous greys/grays from history and fiction.  They include:

• Lady Jane Grey (aka “The Nine Day Queen”
• The Grey Ghost (civil war hero of the confederacy)
• Galdalf The Grey (Tolkien)
• Lord Greystoke (aka Tarzan)
• Dick Grayson (aka Robin the Boy Wonder)
• Dorian Grey (from the novel by Oscar Wilde)

Are there any I’m missing of historical or fictional significance?

Success

McKenna learned to ride her bike today. It was truly one of the sweetest moments I’ve tasted in fatherhood. McKenna is very feminine, so forcing her to speed forward on a bicycle over pavement wasn’t going very well, even though the bike had Disney Princesses all over it.

Fortunately, Julia did some quick research and found a volunteer group in New York’s Central Park who developed an easy system to teach children to ride a bike in a matter a few hours. It’s very simple: remove the pedals from your child’s bike and lower their seat all the way down.

Doing this allows them to learn to kick-off as if their bike were a sitting skateboard. It immediately teaches them balance and the importance of forward motion. Eventually, I would give her a little bit of a push as she kicked off, and she would coast for about 80 ft all by herself. Oh, and a promise to take your daughter to Chuck E Cheese upon learning to ride her bike seemed to help, as well.

After doing about three sessions with her over a four-day period, it was obvious her confidence was built up, so I put the pedals back on. Julia pushed her off as she coasted, then she started to pedal, scared out of her mind. Yet, I could see it in her eye that she was quite determined. So there I was, running backwards yelling to her, “You’re riding you bike! Keep pedaling! You’re riding your bike!” She kept going until she turned into the side of the street to a slow stop.

I started to tear up with the cheesiest smile. Then, I picked her up off her bike, swung her into the air and cheered for her. I hugged her and told her how proud I was of her. Her response: “Can we go to Chuck E Cheese now?” Twenty minutes later she was destroying me at air-hockey, eating pizza, dancing in front of a blue screen, collecting tickets and playing video games. Julia was doing her best to keep Brennan from climbing the ski ball ramp or sneaking behind the counter.

On the way home in the car she was singing at the top of her lungs with a balloon in one hand and an ice cream sandwich in the other. The sun began to set and created one of the most vivid skies I’ve seen in recent history with a planet (perhaps Venus) shining above the horizon. And McKenna exclaimed, “I think it’s going to be a happy ending.” She got home, put on her pajamas and we concluded the night throwing glow sticks into the night sky. I think this was the best night of her life. Perhaps it was one of the best nights of my life, too.

I realized quickly that McKenna wasn’t learning to ride the bike. It’s never about riding the bike.