I am way overdue in posting this interview with Travis Prinzi. I read Prinzi's Harry Potter & Imagination: The Way Between Two Worlds last fall and LOVED it. For those who love all things Potter, in my estimation Prinzi's work is the best book I've read on the subject. Prinzi not only brings a wealth of learning about literature, and particularly fantasy literature, to bear on the J.K. Rowling's Potter oerve, but he also thinks interdependently. He avoids merely splicing quotes and others' insights, but rather he engages other writers and Rowling from his own point of view. The questions Prinzi asks in HP & Imagination kept me riveted, and he writes in a style that is a delight to read.Read more

In November I did what no thinking person would do in the middle of an economic crisis: I quit my job and traveled halfway around the world, to Australia.

I left behind a steady stream of income and a heap of security in the hope that I might find a little more freedom, creativity, and vision for the future. So, I jumped on a jet plane for a very long trip down south, where I would spend the next two and a half months connecting with old friends and rediscovering my Aussie side. (Quick interjection: I was born in Australia, but moved to the States when I was seven.)

Along the way, I picked up a thousand little lessons from those who have walked a few extra steps down life’s journey. Prominent among them was this concept of cultivating life.Read more

 In the liner notes to the best selling album of all time, jazz pianist Bill Evans describes the challenge that jazz ensembles have when performing a piece of music:
 
Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording.
 
Kind of Blue is the gold standard for the word “masterpiece.” Rarely do the planets line up to bring together such talent at the heights of their careers quite like this recording.

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“Do you want to get well?”  This may have seemed like a silly question for Jesus to ask a person lying ill for 38 years.  After all, the answer appears obvious.  Who would choose to struggle against persistent sickness, when an offer of healing was available?  Why watch others receive the soothing balm when you, in your own flesh, could be cured?  Surely the man near the pool of Bethesda wanted what Jesus was offering—a life of restored physical health, or more simply, just to walk again. 

In many ways, I can deeply relate to this first century story.  Although physically well, I battle other chronic ills, more spiritual and emotional in nature.  I ache for the friend who has turned away from God and I cry over the pain of unmet desires.  I pray to God about desperate and seemingly desperate situations, but sometimes I don’t hear anything in return.  I occasionally feel what C.S. Lewis described when he was swimming in the grief of his wife’s death.  Hoping to find God in his own despair, Lewis found “a door slammed in [his] face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside.  After that, silence.”1   This is hardly the response one hopes to get when all resources are depleted and the last Kleenex used. 
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 I recently read through the Psalms and was blown away. A few thoughts struck me. The Psalter includes every range of emotion imaginable: grief, joy, angst, triumph, etc. The songs were more historic, specific, and interactive than any other worship songs I am familiar with. God's people sang prayers for specific deliverance from specific enemies, and they praised God for historic acts of intervention. It seems to me that the Psalter has fewer songs about the general traits of God than we do. Also, they include liberal use of the first person. The Psalms are perfect, and their poetry is stunningly beautiful. I'd love to hear all 150 Psalms set to music. On that note, I'll close with a Psalm that my friend Eric Priest used in his awesome album Psalms and Hymns. Psalm 46:10-11:
 
Be Still, and know that I am God.Read more

Blogging is not the format for careful arguments and developed strategies.  It's more for letting thoughts drop out of your head and seeing how God uses it all.  But this is something I've thought about for quite some time, so here's hoping it comes out clear...and begins a conversation.
 
My ministry is marked by two poles of emphasis.  First is a faith that Jesus Christ is indeed Lord and Savior of an invisible church, unhindered by worldly boundaries.  My days with YoungLife, FOCUS, the Army Chaplaincy, and even now at the Center for Christian Study have been about finding ways to realize this secret and shadowy countryside where anyone who follows Jesus is a brother and a sister.  Some cringe when I call this work 'ecumenical', but I still see it as an evangelical ecumenism, an apostolic catholicity.  The church of which Christ is the Lord is one church, even if we can't see that from where we sit. 
 
The second emphasis is a desire to see the visible church in our times have the greatest possible impact on the culture, the common way of life, of our nation and community.  For a number of reasons, I believe this includes Christ's deployment of the old mainline.  They may be tired, lapsed, sleeping or dead, but they still have that huge sanctuary on the corner of First and Main with a steeple whose shadow tickles the courthouse steps. 
 
So then, Five Principles for Mainline Resurgence...Read more

 
Read this bracing, honest interview about his life with back pain, now cancer, hurtful things that Christians say, and walking with Christ.

You Will Call, I Will Answer.

“How do I feel this good sober?” is a persistent question in Pink’s pop hit, “Sober.” I’m drawn to the brutal honesty in this song that portrays a woman struggling with addiction. She goes from feeling “safe up high, nothing can touch me” to lamenting her continued dependence on her substance of choice to feel good.  Over the past few months, I’ve listened to this song over and over, drawn to the truth and cutting beauty of its words. It reminds me of the frightening power of my own sin and addictions.  We all have them. For some it is drugs or alcohol. For others sex or pornography. But for others perhaps it’s building the perfect career. Or having the perfect family and home.  However our idols manifest themselves, they promise us everything yet in the end leave us with nothing.Read more

Interesting piece by Prince Raney Rivers. Read the article here.

Excerpt:

Several years ago I visited the Rev. Jason Barr, senior pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I saw firsthand what transition looks like after change has run its course.

When Barr arrived at Macedonia 15 years ago, the church used a pipe organ and primarily sang anthems. When he introduced drums to worship, a church officer removed them from the sanctuary. Barr brought the drums back in and chained them to the floor.

Under his leadership one traditional service at Macedonia became three contemporary services. A few hundred members mushroomed into 2,500. I always assumed the contemporary worship at Macedonia was simply an expression of Barr’s theology or perhaps a sign of pragmatic pastoral savvy. But recently, I heard Macedonia was planning to reintroduce traditional worship to the congregation.

I had to find out why. Read more

“ Oh God, you are my God, and I will ever praise you!”  A line from the very popular song, “Step By Step” written by Rich Mullins and Beaker in 1991.  This is a song that you are probably very familiar with and maybe even tired of hearing if you are involved in a church or familiar with church music at all.  Being a musician, I have performed this song literally hundreds of times.  I have seen audiences big and small stand and sing this song together with an excitement and joy that goes much deeper than familiarity or popularity.  It’s not likely that everyone in the audience is a good singer (unless you’re at a Church of Christ service).  J It’s not even dependant on the performance being flawless, although this helps.  There is something about singing that we resonate with and are drawn to.  There is something about singing truth that brings hope and joy regardless of your belief.Read more