A New Identity

This past Sunday, I experienced a sort of monumental shift in my life. It was essentially like any other Sunday I’ve had the past three and a half years, yet strangely different. Yes, this Sunday marked the last time I would stand in front of the Auburn Wesley Foundation’s Sunday Night Worship with my guitar, leading worship. Without a doubt, it was a bittersweet evening.

My journey with Wesley’s worship life began in late 2006 when I was approached by Joe Davis, the Worship Chair at that time. Joe and I hadn’t met, so pretty much all he knew about me was I was “that new guy from Belmont that majored in bass.” As fate (God?) would have it, the band he played drums in had a bass-shaped hole, so he extended an invitation for me to join in the upcoming semester. I readily accepted, as I was still searching out my place not only at Wesley, but at Auburn as well.

From the spring of 2007 on, every other Sunday afternoon consisted of me arriving at Wesley around 5:00 pm, setting up and preparing to lead that night at 8:00. Shortly after I began playing bass in Joe’s band, the worship leader for the other band at Wesley decided to leave, thereby leaving another need. I auditioned and was selected to lead that band as well, so every single Sunday went about the same.

I’d be lying if I said that every single group I’ve played with here has been a rosy experience. In all honesty, that first band I’d ever actually led was miserable. There were personal conflicts, musical conflicts, and even theological conflicts. Not a great recipe for the worship life of your ministry. Through it all, however, God was hammering me like a piece of metal to form me into what He needed me to be. From that point on, I led worship at Wesley.

A friend and mentor asked me about my last experience on Monday morning. “What was it like last night, knowing it was your last time?” she asked. Bittersweet, I told her. It was refreshing, knowing I would finally have Sunday afternoons to enjoy, not having to set up equipment for practice or make copies of sheet music because the members of my band keep losing theirs, and being able to pass the torch I’ve held for probably too long to someone else. It was tough, though. This had been my home. At that point, she agreed, and added this stark realization:

“I mean, it’s kind of been your identity.”

My identity. Who I was. Nothing could’ve been truer. I’ve done a lot of things at Wesley. Almost all of those things have been tied to worship. Worship for me has been the way that I serve.

To leave that all behind has in a way left me without something to cling to.

We are called to sometimes leave those identities behind I suppose. To offer ourselves to God to be hammered and formed into the next tool for the Kingdom. To pick up our Cross and move to the next station, whereby God says to us, “Helluva job. Now let’s get to work.”

God has blessed me tremendously through worship. I’ve never pretended to be a good musician, singer, or worship leader. It’s been pretty horrible at times. Those times that have formed this identity for me, though, are the times that it’s been just that. Times when my mind would wander in the middle of a song, only to be Divinely corrected and centered by butchering a chord or forgetting the words. Times when I would get either frustrated with my partners in worship, or worse, apathetic. Times when I hear my recorded voice and cringe at the pitch-iness of it all.

For me, that’s what worship is. Bringing before God your brokenness, your troubles, fears, anxieties, vices and hurts and laying them down saying, “Holy are You.” We try to bring our best, knowing that it’s not and will never be good enough. Yet we still come, singing of the mercy of God, all the while not being completely sure if we’ll get it again…

…but we do.

We praise in our songs the glory and majesty of God, even though sometimes we wonder if it will still be available to us, even after all the awful stuff we’ve done…

…but it is.

We sing of loving one another, even though when we leave we’ll go back to our computers and newspapers and read of the suffering, oppressed, hurting and alienated and do nothing…and I mean nothing…about it, or even do things in opposition to them, then realize it and think, “Surely God cannot do anything with me now…”

…but He does.

Worship is pouring out our love to God and receiving His love in return. I’m undeservedly blessed to have been able to pour out and receive for almost four years.

So now as I trade my worship identity for another…



…oops I mean…



...I go forward in whatever God has for me next, proclaiming the mystery that is in us:

Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. Thanks be to God.


Amen.

Revisiting Latvia: The Accents

One of the best parts of my trip to Latvia was listening to Beesh, Mitchell and Bob communicate almost exclusively in accents they deemed "Latvian." None were really close, but they made for some really, really funny moments. I've been meaning to do this since the trip, but am just now revisiting the idea. So, without further adieu...


sounded like


Beesh was known as the Latvian Borat, randomly yelling "Whatsup Girl" out the window of the Europcar and shouting insults about gypsies at the 100-foot statue in the Vilnius square.


sounded like


Jimmy Swaggart-wannabe Mitchell Nelson took Beesh's accent, warped it a little bit, then came out sounding like Waluigi off Mario Kart. Hello, Lady!


sounded like


Honing his French skills in high school and college, Bob-o dropped the language but kept the accent as we traveled the Baltics. Photo inspiration courtesy of Neal NeSmith. Check out his blog Tri-Like-An-Eagle.

So there you have it. Next time you're in Latvia and Lithuania, unless you have these three accents surrounding you at all times, you probably won't have as much fun as we did.

Fin.

Beck-oning for a Revolution

“You can surely tell you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” -anne lamott

My feelings toward Glenn Beck are not a secret. Any length of time spent scanning my facebook page would reveal any one of Jon Stewart, the dailykos or the Huffington Post reaming the Fox News personality for the latest black-hole-stupid thing he’s said.

If you’ve ever watched or listened to a select piece of his TV or radio program, you’ll know that Mr. Beck sincerely loves his country. So much so that he is willing to willingly broadcast complete falsities with no repercussions or accountability from his network or fans to make sure that his country doesn’t fall into the hands of those he hates.

For months now, his program has featured an actor dressed up in Communist garb sitting on the set waiting to answer a fake phone from…somebody. I’m not really sure what this act of pure grandstanding seeks to accomplish to be honest. His radical claims that the Obama administration is slowly ushering in socialism, communism, Nazism, or any other –ism you can think of goes not only unchecked, but also unchallenged by the viewers of his program.

It was no surprise, then, that this week Beck urged Americans to leave any church that preached a message of social justice.

I am now convinced that Glenn Beck is merely a tool of the Dark One to focus my attention away from anything important and to get me so riled up that I can’t even think straight.

As I discussed this on the phone with Pops yesterday, he said as he laughed, “Well, I guess Jesus would have to leave His own church.” I guess He’s right, assuming we’re talking about white-skinned, red-blooded, apple pie eating, brown flowing haired American Jesus. That assumption wouldn’t deal with Jesus the Christ at all.

The Gospel without a message of social justice is simply no Gospel at all. Rob Bell says in Jesus Wants to Save Christians that God always fights for victims of injustice. For Glenn to assert that churches, synagogues and parishes that preach social justice are just veils of communism and Nazism is to surely say, as Anne says up top, that he, much like many Americans, has created God in his own image.

When we use our American Tea Party hermeneutic to interpret Scripture, we will most certainly come to the same conclusion that those who tune into the Glenn Beck Program experience. When we read the Bible objectively, being as faithful to the historicity of the text as we are able, then we see that Jesus was ALL about justice…even social and economic justice!

What it comes down to, though, is that no matter our philosophy on government, no matter what party and politician we align ourselves with, the call of Christ remains that we are to love our God and neighbor with all that is in us.

Even those that seek to divide the country with false information and vitriol, without so much as a college degree to back it up.

Even, much to my dismay, Glenn Beck.

For more views on this check out "An Open Letter to Glenn Beck" by Jack Hinnen at A United Method

Hurting with the Hurting

A few months ago, I drove to Duke to visit with a friend and poke around the Div School once more. While I was there, I was fortunate enough to catch a forum/discussion between a local news anchor and Stanley Hauerwas, Duke professor and one of the more renowned theologians in the country. The forum, titled, “Christianity in the World Today: A Conversation with Hauerwas,” centered on current and cultural events and how they related to Christianity in the world.

Inevitably, one of the first topics that Dr. Hauerwas was asked about was the then-hot topic of health-care reform. If we’re being honest, I expected a much different answer than “America’s Best Theologian,” dubbed by Time Magazine, gave. Being the academic bastion of modern Christian ethics that he was and is, I anticipated an answer that indicted the current health-care system in its for-profit nature; I expected a scathing attack on the insurance industry, the far-right supercapitalists who held no regard for each human life that deteriorated because of inability to afford costs, and lastly (and probably least) the lobbyists and politicians that fought for the current system to stay in place. I’m sure my expectations weren’t much different from everyone else in the room, either.

What I got was much, much different.

Hauerwas instead spoke of modern aversion to pain, suffering and mortality. In a short, slightly annoyed sounding response, he spoke of how people today are so sickened by the thought of death we try to avoid it at whatever cost. The human touch, he said, is a lost art. Instead of being there with a loved one as they die, we insist on looking for the newest cure that will, at best, lengthen the life by a few years. We are so insulated from feeling pain and being with those that are sick, he added, that we cannot imagine having to actually care for someone in their last days.

On the hoof, I felt it was an overly callous response. What could someone, high atop his or her ivory tower in the academy, know about real pain anyway? Isn’t this just another example of people like him talking at an issue rather than speaking words of wisdom?

That was all before Haiti.

When the earthquake struck, I simply could not bring myself to watch the videos and look at the pictures. It was a catastrophe for which I saw no light, no hope and no way out for a nation that had no hope to begin with.

Why could I not allow myself to feel some of the pain that an entire country was feeling? Sure, I jumped quickly to donate money through the Red Cross, UMCOR and other organizations that would aid the victims. I knew they needed prayer, so we collectively prayed at Wesley on Thursday. But, what held me from feeling the pain through the pictures and videos?

Could that brilliant, cranky old professor have been right?

It is easy to throw money at a situation. It is not so easy to get down on the level of the victim of a situation, to feel that pain with them, to hurt with them, to cry with them. What I discovered through my episode with the pictures and video was that I, indeed, had become insulated from feeling such immense pain and suffering.

Walter Brueggeman submits it is easier for us today to practice charity, when, what Christ actually calls us to is solidarity with the poor and those that hurt. How true I’ve found that to be. When we open ourselves to the hurts of others, we allow ourselves to feeling that hurt ourselves. Just as Christ poured Himself out for us, we pour ourselves for others, taking up their cross just as He, in a sense, took up ours. Our humanity is tied to their humanity. This ubuntu leads us to feel the same pain they feel.

The same pain we've somehow managed to insulate ourselves from.

Solidarity…not charity.

Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, kyrie eleison.