prayerbookproject

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...

new life in rwanda

This past Sunday evening I had the privilege of playing music at a benefit dinner for our friends, Dano and Jennifer Jukanovich. This summer, Dano and Jennifer will be leaving Seattle for Rwanda to begin an adventure called Karisimbi Partners with their friends, Carter and Kerry Crockett. They will be working with the government of Rwanda to help create/equip/encourage mid-size businesses. They hope to see their work stimulate the economy of the country as it continues to rebuild after the genocide of the previous decade.

Is this not incredible? They are leaving as families, in community, to be business people doing God's kingdom work in Africa. This is a different kind of mission movement! (Read Barbara Kingsolver's novel, The Poisonwood Bible, for the antithesis.) They are committed to be there for at least 3-5 years and need your support.

Accompanying them on this journey is Caroline Joan Peixoto, founder of Ballet Rwanda. She is building a ballet school from the ground up. Also incredible. She too could use your support. 

At the heart of the program on Sunday night was Enric Sifa. He is a singer-songwriter from Rwanda currently living in Portland, OR. Enric lost both his parents as a result of the genocide. Since being orphaned as a six year old his life has seen both tragic darkness and resurrection goodness. It was a thrill to put together a band to work with him. I encourage you to check out his music. He has a brilliant future ahead of him.

(from L to R) AnnaMaria Pasley Horn, Jeff Brumley, Enric Sifa, Jayme Koerselman, Brian Moss and Jeffrey McCormack

coffee for justice

Throughout the month of May Storyville Coffee Company is giving every dollar of profit to International Justice Mission. I bought a pound and brewed up some "prologue" for the first time this morning. I don't want to go too hyperbolic on you, but WOW this bean is transcendent. (OK, that's probably a wee bit hyperbolic. But really, this is good bean.) And with all of the profit going to IJM how can you go wrong? So break out your burr grinder and your french press and your billfold (it's not cheap, but worth it) and order up.

from the website...

Our approach is simple: the best beans, artfully roasted, and rushed to your door while they are still fresh. We roast in Seattle and ship the same day to anywhere in the U.S.

All orders are roasted to order each week and beans are on your doorstep days later. Becoming a Private Reserve Member means always drinking the absolute freshest coffee possible.

Passion for the art of the brew is rare. For many, brewing has become automatic or drive-thru. Here at Storyville, we want to help you discover a coffee ritual that creates space and invites you to think, to create, to dream.

the end of one journey and the beginning of another

This week marks the end of two journeys; the end of a Lenten journey to the cross and the end of my journey here at John Knox Presbyterian Church. These past few weeks have been marked with joy, sadness, longing and hope. I spent Sunday with many good friends and found myself deeply blessed. The church gave me a send off in the afternoon and then some of us gathered again in the evening for food, drink and goofiness. It was a perfect day here in Seattle and we had a sweet time together.

It is no coincidence that my last week here and holy week are happening at the same time. As I have been leading worship here over the past almost nine years I have known the story of this week to be the foundation of every story. As Christians we are tasked with practicing resurrection everyday. (For a poetic viewpoint read the following manifesto.) This task is not a means of salvation, and by using the word "task" I am not implying some kind of legalistic mumbo jumbo. This task can only be accomplished when we live, pray and work in the knowledge that God has already accomplished it in Jesus Christ. We practice resurrection in grace time knowing that our work and calling have been planned out for us from the beginning of time. But it still our choice to make. (Matthew Whitney's new painting "Free Will" is an interesting exploration of this choice.) Will we practice resurrection? The way(s) in which we answer this question will greatly impact the way(s) in which we worship God.

It is difficult for me to think about what is next because I have so much to let go of first. The painting above, I Will Be The Glory In Her Midst by Scott Erickson, was given to me on Sunday as a gift from JKPC. I find that it expresses a wholeness and completion that we have not yet experienced. It is something still to come. And so, we keep pressing on in the faith knowing that our hope is an eternal hope. In Jesus Christ we will know eternal togetherness.

from seattle to vancouver

I have been working at John Knox Presbyterian Church in Seattle for the past almost nine years and it has been a wild, joyful and bumpy ride. I am thankful for the many who have come alongside me in this journey. I am thankful for the many opportunities I have had to sing the old hymns, the new songs, and many psalms in between. God has been faithful to me in the midst of my own uncertainty, and after a long season of listening and discerning...it is time to move on.

Last April I attended the Transforming Culture symposium in Austin, TX. Among the attendees were artists, pastors, theologians and many who, like myself, found themselves to be a strange combination of the three. David Taylor, the guru behind it all, helped to encourage within me the sense of adventure that is and is becoming my vocation of artist pastor. I believe that I am called to be an artist. I believe that I am called to be a pastor. And I believe that somehow I am called to be a pastor to artists and an artist to pastors.

The next stop on the journey is Regent College in Vancouver, BC. I will be studying there as an MDiv student and will also be working there (over the course of the next year) as the Worship and Chapel Coordinator. While I am excited to begin my work there I know that it will be difficult for us to leave Seattle and our many friends here. The details are nowhere even close to being worked out and we have a long road ahead. Yet we are also filled with hope and expectation.
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I was talking with a good friend this morning who reminded me that our God owns the "cattle on a thousand hills". Upon a cursory reading of Psalm 50 (which, as it turns out, is never a good way to read Scripture) these words could slip past us as archaic, or agrarian at a time when fewer and fewer of us are. But this time I let the visual sink in. I grew up in Iowa and have many memories of driving through the flat, but hardly barren, countryside of Iowa and seeing farm after farm full of crops and animals. Our God is a God of abundance.

In Psalm 50 we also read, "Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against you: I am God, your God. I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are ever before me." Is this not harsh? God does not rebuke us for our sacrifices or offerings? Does God need our worship? Or our sacrifice? Or our money? As if it was even ours to give? Even the ability to sacrifice is an invitation from God. The Psalm ends, "Those who sacrifice thank offerings honor me, and to the blameless I will show my salvation." In our worship to God we are preparing the way so that God may show us that He is the Way.
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Easter will be my last Sunday at John Knox Presbyterian Church. We will remain members of the church and I will be under care of the Session as I move towards ordination in the Presbyterian Church. Your prayers are invaluable and I am grateful to know that we are not alone on this path. God is good. All the time.

hearing is believing

...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17

I have not written anything here in quite some time as I have been saving all of my writing for a research paper that I turned in earlier today entitled, "The Reconciliation of Word and Image through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ as found in the theology of Jacques Ellul". Assuming that you're not as excited to read it as I was to write it I'll not copy and paste all fourteen pages here. I do, however, have some unanswered questions I feel like throwing out there.

In his book, The Humiliation of the Word, Ellul writes that only words have the ability to tell the truth. It is impossible for an image to do so. In fact, the best an image can do is to envision reality and this reality is often times a false one. (Are you still reading? Yippee!) As you can imagine, a statement like this has some massive implications. What about paintings? films? photographs? Don't forensic scientists rely on evidence to determine the outcome of criminal cases? Maybe so, but this is not what we're called to as Christians. Ellul says that evidence is evil when it comes to faith. "Seeing is believing" does not even begin to fit into this kind of an equation. My question is, if it is impossible for an image to tell the truth does that mean it is impossible for an image to lie? Because I think images lie to us all the time. And what about those who are blind? Or deaf? While Ellul invites the reader into new ways of seeing and hearing there is no mention of those who are physically incapable of doing so. These questions were too big for my paper and they're too big for this blog post. But I do intend to keep looking for answers.

Ellul's argument is important for us to hear and I think his prophetic voice is going to be more and more relevant the more visually dependent we become. I have been to seminars before where painting was equated with preaching. While I was excited about the concept at the time I am becoming more skeptical. You can paint brilliantly and include symbols for days but it will never be the same as preaching a sermon. Conversely, the greatest sermon will never be able to show us what Roualt does in his brilliant colors and dark corners. There is a "quiet renaissance crescendo" happening in the world of the arts and I am extremely excited to see what happens next. This is a time for good listening and good looking, intelligent conversation, and deep engagement by the church. (What are you reading? This book would be a good start. Or this one. Or this one.)

The most important thing Ellul writes in response to all of this is that ultimately there is only one place where word and image are reconciled - Jesus Christ.

wisdom, glory & virtue

InterVarsity has graciously posted the audio from the plenary speakers of the Following Christ conference last month. There were many great speakers at this gathering and I was both encouraged and challenged to hear what they had to say. An obvious highlight was hearing N.T. Wright teach on Paul's letter to the Colossians. 

N.T. Wright's first talk focused on WISDOM. "Wisdom is not just a quality, but a person." Wright told of the everyday battle between Lady Wisdom and Mistress Folly and how we live out our lives in the midst of the struggle. But take heart, redemption means new creation and this can be seen in the poem found in Colossians 1:15-20. This poem teaches us that the wisdom we need is the wisdom of Jesus Christ. When we understand this we understand creation.

GLORY was the subject of Wright's second talk. He began by quoting Irenaeus, "the glory of God is a living human being and genuine human life is a vision of God." The only hope for the world lives inside of us. Wright wove together passages from Colossians 2 and 2 Corinthians, and reminded us that genuine human flourishing always includes the carrying of the cross in our lives.

On the last morning of the conference, Bishop Wright gave a brilliant talk on VIRTUE. He compared learning the Christian virtues to learning to play the cello. When we practice scales and arpeggios regularly music that was once difficult becomes easier to play. The metaphor breaks down at a certain point, but as a musician I couldn't help but enjoy hearing this great New Testament scholar talk about music. (And I had to wonder if he kept referring to the cello because of the wonderful job Judy Lee was doing playing the cello in our group.) Wright also spoke very openly and honestly about sex and the Christian life.

I am thankful for the ways in which N.T. Wright points to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and teaches that God cares about how we live here and now. Heaven is here, right behind the thin curtain of reality, not some distant place where we'll leave "this damn world" behind. We live in the present in light of the future, and when we pray we "pierce the veil."

To hear more from FC08 speakers go here.

my fc08 top ten

Happy New Year! I am back in Seattle after having spent an unbelievably great week in Chicago. It was a privilege and honor to be a part of the 2008 Following Christ Conference and to have the opportunity to lead worship there. There are so many things that I could write about, but for now I will try to narrow it down to ten things, in no real particular order. The following are highlights from our entire trip to Chicago and go beyond the conference itself.

10. Having a luxuriant beard! (At least that is how Andy Crouch referred to it on the main stage when he presented his FC08 top ten list which, incidentally, was the inspiration for mine here.)
9. New Year's Eve dinner with friends at Smith and Wollensky Steakhouse...U.S.D.A. prime dry-aged Ribeye along with reserve vino from Mt. Veeder in Napa Valley. Thanks for the recommendation Bryan!
8. Talking with N.T. Wright about how we both wished we could play the cello.
7. Learning from Francis Collins that we don't need to be afraid of science or scientists or Stephen Colbert, and that a double helix on the fretboard of your guitar is a sign that you're probably pretty smart.
6. Deep-dish pizza at both Gino's East and Giordano's. Dave, I wish you could have been with us as our culinary tour guide.
5. Hearing Mary Kate Morse talk about breaking up a knife fight on the side of the road as a sign of human flourishing. (This was #1 on Andy's list.)
4. Visiting the Art Institute of Chicago.
3. Hearing N.T. Wright teach on Wisdom, Glory and Virtue from the book of Colossians.
2. Being able to lead worship at the FC08 conference with such an amazing and diverse group of friends and musicians. From Appalachia (Southern Harmony) to England (Delirious?) to Estonia (Arvo Pärt) to Tennessee (Indelible Grace) to France (Taizé) and a lot of other places in between...THANK YOU Darren, Anna Maria, Jeff, Jeffrey, Molly, Judy & Mark!
1. To know and see the words of Irenaeus "the glory of God is a living human being, fully alive" lived out in community.

going to Gino's for some deep dish pizza pie

busy now

Things have been going very well here in Chicago. I somehow imagined having time to post regularly during the conference which is not going to happen. I am thrilled to be here and to be working with an amazing group of friends and musicians. N.T. Wright spoke on "the hope of glory" this morning and it was a glorious morning indeed. More to come. Thanks for your prayers.

on the incarnation

"You must understand why it is that the Word of the Father, so great and so high, has been made manifest in bodily form. He has not assumed a body as proper to His own nature, far from it, for as the Word He is without body. He has been manifested in a human body for this reason only, out of the love and goodness of His Father, for the salvation of us men."    

- Athanasius

(In The Beginning was the Word by Sandra Bowden)