prayerbookproject

the death of a son

O LORD, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! Many are saying of me, "God will not deliver him" But you are a shield around me, O LORD; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. To the LORD I cry aloud, and he answers from his holy hill. I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side. Arise, O LORD! Deliver me, O my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked. From the LORD comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people.   Psalm 3 (A psalm of David. When he fled from his son Absalom.)

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The story of David is one that refuses sentimentality or romanticism. David, a man after God's own heart, lived a life full of extreme gladness and sorrow. The greatest songwriter to ever live, he wrote many (or most) of the Psalms we find in Scripture today. David wrote lyrics that brought all of life before God in worship. In Psalm 3, David cries out to God when he is being pursued by his own son. David would escape the mutinous grasp of Absalom only to see him put to death by those he trusted the most. (read 2 Samuel 18)

This past fall has been full of gladness and sorrow. While I have enjoyed being a student and worship coordinator at Regent College in Vancouver, BC I have also experienced much sadness and loss. Students at Regent are afforded two very helpful reading breaks. However, during both of these reading breaks I found myself reflecting on tragedy and death. My nephew, Riston Quill, passed away last month. On this past Wednesday I played for the memorial service of a family friend, Mark Ebinger, who was murdered two weeks ago. I found myself, in both cases, praying particularly for their grieving fathers and thinking about what it would mean to lose a child of my own. I cannot even begin to comprehend the grief.

After the memorial Wednesday, our family attended a Thanksgiving Eve service at John Knox Presbyterian Church in Seattle. These have been difficult days for many and we were challenged to be thankful on all occasions, in all circumstances. After the service, I was gifted the painting Absalom by Matt Whitney. The painting, included here, is a dyptic that shows David mourning the death of his son, and Absalom hanging in a tree and pierced three times. Was this the moment when the man after God's own heart most experienced the heart of God?

I am so thankful to Matt for the gift of this work, made during the first Vancouver Project last summer. (see more at byfor.org) The timing of the gift, while of course not planned to coincide with these tragedies, only brought deeper meaning to what I have been experiencing in real time. Art and worship and life come crashing together.

I would be remiss if I did not also mention how thankful I am for the lives of my own children and my wife, Stephanie. They are healthy and well and bring constant joy to my heart. I find peace beyond understanding in the knowledge that whenever we pass from this world to the next we will find new life because of the Son whose death was not the end of the story. As I enter into Advent this weekend I find myself waiting, yet again, for the One who will bring an end to death for all time. For the One who will bring a beginning to new life forever. For the One named Jesus Christ.

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Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

John 11:25-26

"in the making" at regent college

The exhibit born out of The Vancouver Project II will be opening at Regent College this Wednesday. Artwork from Roger Feldman, Ginger Geyer, Kathy Hastings, Shannon Newby, Nancy Rebal & Matt Whitney will be a part of this exhibit. The title of this exhibit is "In The Making" and it contains all kinds of work done within 3d and beyond. There will be a reception at Regent College this Wednesday from 4:30-7:30pm. Great art. Great food. Great friends. We hope to see you there!

video podcast for worship team training

This past summer I led worship for a retreat at Laity Lodge, just outside of Kerrville, TX. Branon Dempsey was attending the retreat and interviewed me for his Worship Team Training video podcast. We spent the majority of our time talking about multi-generational worship and you can view the videos at the following links. Thanks to Branon for putting this together! There are some other interviews there, including one with Scotty Smith, that are definitely worth checking out.

WTT Video Podcast, part 1

WTT Video Podcast, part 2

art in service of the sacred

I wrote a book recommendation last month for StoneWorks' MOSAIC newsletter. The book is Art In Service of the Sacred by Catherine Kapikian, and I've included the first paragraph of the review here. To read the whole article go to the last page of the September 2009 newsletter.

"Art in service of anything is a tough sell these days. If it is the sacred being served, then it is a particularly hard sell. If the art being endorsed for sacred service is visual then, well, why bother? And yet there has been a quiet push towards a renaissance of the visual arts in liturgical settings. Evidence of this new renaissance can be found in the work of Catherine Kapikian and her book, Art in Service of the Sacred..."

keith and kristyn getty

Keith and Kristyn Getty will be in town with their band tomorrow night and will be playing at Regent College. The concert will feature hymns they've written (In Christ Alone, How Deep The Father's Love, etc) along with some other Irish tunes. Hope to see you there!

KEITH AND KRISTYN GETTY
IN CONCERT
Monday, October 19th @ 7:30pm
Regent College Chapel
Vancouver, BC
$15 for students, $18 for everyone else. 
(Regent College Students: PAY WHAT YOU CAN at the door!)

new york and seattle

This past weekend I had the joy of speaking, playing music, and leading worship as a part of the Art Show on Main at Union Center Christian Church in Endicott, NY. Tamara Murphy and the crew put together a wonderful weekend of music, visual art, writing, worship and food. It was so good to see how God is working within the church to bring about new imaginative expressions of art in the life of worship.I also had the opportunity to work with Jason Harrod. His songs continue to inspire me to keep making music and I hope we have more opportunities to work together in the not too distant future. _____________________________

On this Saturday night I will be back in Seattle at John Knox Presbyterian Church to speak about The (first) Vancouver Project. This is the last stop for this exhibit before it disperses. It is an amazing collection of work by an amazing group of artists and I highly encourage you to check it out if you have not yet had a chance. Jeremy Mangan and Matt Whitney, two artists from the project, will also be sharing about their experience. I hope to see you there at 7:00 PM. (RSVP via facebook.)
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“What if you had to go to a church that had had no music since the early 1500s? It’s unimaginable. Yet the void you can’t imagine is there—a 500-year lack of visual arts in Protestant churches..."

Visual Art in the Church. It is really happening.

artist in "community"

This past Sunday I was introduced as the artist-in-residence at First Baptist Church in Vancouver, BC. As I am not completely sure what this means yet I will keep my comments about this brief. I will say, however, that I am very excited to have the opportunity to work with Darrell Johnson, the new Senior Pastor at First Baptist. For the past nine plus years he has been teaching and leading the MDiv program here at Regent College. He also happens to be one of the best preachers I have ever heard. His new book, The Glory of Preaching, came out not long ago and is already setting the new standard.

Edna Grenz has been working as the Minister of Music at First Baptist for about 19 years and I am also excited to have the opportunity to learn from her. I do know that I will be writing music from time to time that will, hopefully, go along with where the church is at.

While I have been baptized I am not a "Baptist." I am also currently on the ordination track in the PCUSA. This has led to some interesting conversations already and I have even been labeled, jokingly or not, a deserter of the Presbyterian denomination. This kind of stuff drives me crazy. This is also the very reason why I have avoided the ordination track for so long. I have not wanted to pick a team for fear of being boxed in by a team. I certainly see the benefits to the process and polity of the Presbyterian system which is why I am still "on board" so to speak. However, I have never felt called to a denomination. My calling has always been wrapped up in people. My artistic calling during my time in Nashville was to and with Michael Card. My calling to the church in Seattle was with Bryan Burton. My academic calling to Regent College involves every single amazing person I have met here so far. And my calling into this new artist-in-residency is towards the people I have met at First Baptist; most especially, Darrell Johnson. God only knows what the future holds and that suits me just fine.

Ultimately, whenever God calls us we are being called to a person, or more specifically, to a community of people. First and foremost, we are called into thetriune community of God. The theological types out there are instantly thinking of the word perichoresis . I would get into that but then I might look too seminarian right now so I will let you do your own research if you want to. Second, we are called to the Church. With all of the re-definitions being proposed these days I will also choose not to really get into what this means. However, the Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. All of this points to the kingdom of God; the one Jesus kept talking about all of the time. And Jesus keeps calling us to himself which is ultimately a call into community. There is no way around it. So, that being said, the title of artist-in-community might be more fitting. We'll see...

concert this wednesday

I will be performing a concert of songs from the Prayerbook Project this coming Wednesday night at First Christian Reformed Church in Vancouver, BC. This will be my first concert in Vancouver (since 2001) and I will be singing songs from both Prayerbook, no. 1 and what will hopefully become Prayerbook, no. 2 at some point next year. Trevor Vanderveen just finished up a sermon series on the psalms and I am going to do my best not to mess up his solid teaching. I hope to see you there.

Brian Moss and songs from the Prayerbook Project
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
1st Christian Reformed Church
2670 Victoria Drive - Vancouver, BC
7:30 PM

orientation, disorientation and new orientation

As some of you already know, this past April I resigned from my position as the Director of Worship, Music and the Arts at John Knox Presbyterian Church in Seattle, WA so that I could move to Vancouver, BC and work as the Worship and Music Coordinator for Regent College. Up to this point most of my time has revolved around leading worship in chapel, but I have a new job that kicks into high gear on Monday morning: full-time student.

For the past ten+ years I have worked as a worship leader and musician, and I have been quite comfortable doing so. (And by "comfortable" I am referring to both the good and bad connotations that could be derived from such usage.) The idea of hopping back into the shoes of a full-time student, for the first time in over ten years, fills my heart with a fair amount of fear and trepidation. The pinnacle of this anxiety revolves around beginning my studies in Hebrew. But as the Hebrew scriptures tell us, the fear of the LORD, not the fear of learning Hebrew, is the beginning of wisdom. (Proverbs 1:7) And so I enter into this new phase of life both fearful and trying not to be. If that makes any sense at all.

This kind of inbetweenness reached its zenith during this past week when I both led in new student orientation and went through new student orientation as a new student. As someone who has been both leading in worship and studying the psalms, the word "orientation" instantly triggers my love and respect for Walter Bruggemann.

Bruggemann's categorization of the psalms seems to be the most simple, profound and useful one out there:

"Human life consists in satisfied seasons of well-being that evoke gratitude for the constancy of the blessing." ergo psalms of orientation

"Human life consists in anguished seasons of hurt, alienation, suffering, and death. These evoke rage, resentment, self-pity, and hatred." ergo psalms of disorientation

"Human life consists in turns of surprise when we are overwhelmed with the new gifts of God, when joy breaks through the despair." ergo psalms of new orientation

- from Spirituality of the Psalms by Walter Bruggemann

As the new students at Regent College, myself included, worshiped together this past week, I experienced living into all three of these things at the same time. This past year has certainly been one of the most difficult of my life. While I have so much to be thankful for, I cannot deny that I have experienced so much pain as well. Bryan Burton, my pastor, good friend and old boss, wrote well of this tension in his latest blog post. The call to follow Jesus is a call that requires dying to yourself, and this kind of dying to yourself happens on many levels. (One very tangible way this is currently happening for our family is that we are living in a community house with other Regent students. So far it has been great, but it also represents a transition.) And change is never easy. To quote D.H. Lawrence: 

Do you think it is easy to change?
Ah, it is very hard to change and be
     different.

It means passing through the waters of
     oblivion.

In the midst of the oblivion, one does well to remember that...

God is our refuge and strength,
       an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
       and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam
       and the mountains quake with their surging.

Psalm 46:1-3, NIV

In an effort to sum up my random feelings on this beautiful day in Vancouver, two days before my 35th birthday, I leave you with the video journey of Christoph Rehage. The longest way is often the best way.

The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

undercover pig at calvin college

Barn Interior (before restoration) by Egbert van der Poel

Conservation turned into excavation when Calvin College sent off a recently donated painting, Barn Interior, by Egbert van der Poel. A flayed pig was discovered under what turned out to be excess paint that was not original to the painting. The painting had obviously been doctored to cover up the pig and we can only guess at the reasons why. What we do know is that the pig in this painting is critical to its composition. It's exclusion damages both the integrity and quality of the work.

Barn Interior (after restoration) by Egbert van der Poel

This potentially "offensive" painting is tame to our post-postmodern eyes; especially when compared to any number of other "offending" paintings that have been made since the 17th century. But if you were to hang this painting in your home which version would you choose and why?