| [..who i am..] |
|---|
| I am trying to be the best husband to Jessica and father to Connor I can possibly be. In the daytime (and after they go to sleep) I am the Innovative Creative Arts Pastor at Powell Church in Knoxville, TN. I love songwriting, creating stupid videos, apple computers, and pie. |
| [..blogs that i read..] |
| journey to claire |
| real live preacher |
| bill wolf |
| cult of mac |
| adam mayfield |
| bob carlton |
| adam feldman |
| futility closet |
| jeph hurst |
| jason edelen |
| jon reid |
| church marketing sucks |
| kem meyer |
| anthony coppedge |
| betsy wolf |
| mark nelson |
| multi-site arts |
| [..graphic & video resources..] |
| sxc.hu |
| igniter media |
| sermon spice |
| highway video |
| worship house |
| digital juice |
| church marketing lab |
| [..music & artists..] |
| gregadkinsmusic.com |
| greg on Myspace |
| new city cafe |
| bill mallonee |
| the innocence mission |
| andrew peterson |
| andrew osenga |
| over the rhine |
| nickel creek |
| david wilcox |
| rich mullins |
| hem |
| andy gullahorn |
| jill phillips |
| arthur alligood |
| dave potts |
| [..my so called music career..] |
|
| [..52 songs in 52 weeks..] |
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| [..where i serve..] |
| powell church |
| [..disclaimer..] |
| I am on staff at Powell Church in Knoxville, TN but the opinions, thoughts, comments, and humor on this page are solely my own. Wade in at your own risk and be warned, I'm a bit of a goofball. |
| [..my site feed..] |
| RSS |
| [..archive..] |
Blogging up a Storm
Now would be a good time to send you over to my friend Jeph Hurst's great blog InPursuitOf. Jeph is probably my best friend (of course excluding my wife, I'm not an idiot) and his latest post inspired me to write as well on the subject of open mic night community.You can read Jeph's recollections of the times on his site... here are mine...
It did not matter what night of the week it was or what else was going on... if there was an open mic night, Jeph and I were going to be there, usually with a handful of new songs or song fragments to try out on an audience we knew would be honest with us. It's hard for me to imagine now how earnest we must have seemed... usually at open mic nights, people come with guitars and notebooks full of poetry. Jeph fit right in with his beat up old guitar case. Me however, on nights i was lazy I showed up with a 120 bass full size accordion and on nights I had something I really wanted to sound right, I showed up with a full size keyboard that took two people to carry. Carrying a full size keyboard through a crowded bar is one way to meet people... wearing an accordion around your neck through downtown is another.
More than the playing, it was about the writing... the nights we didn't go to a bar to play, we would lock ourselves in the church we grew up in (often until way after midnight) and we would write, share, practice, make Krystal's runs, talk about the relationships we were right in the middle of ruining becuse we were spending all of our time on music, and laugh about the people we had met in the clubs. Looking back, the songs I guess aren't all that great... probably won't win any awards, but man what a snapshot of who we were in those years.
Knoxville is a great town... I've lived here all my life and have tried a few times to maybe move away but it just won't happen... I'll probably be here forever and I pray that God lets me... Most of those places we used to play are different now or closed but man, I can remember everything about them. Manhattan's was king with its giant stage, excellent host Jimmy, and it always drew the best crowd. I remember the night Benny Skyn who I practically worshipped came to talk to us and offer us tips on phrasing and storytelling. Benny is to this day one of my favorite songwriters and no one in town knows where he went but word is he's in Texas working in a prison. Bullfrogs was a reggae club with a horrible stage and no crowd to speak of which was also good because it meant you got to play more songs. Patrick Sullivans... carrying the keyboard up 3 flights up stairs was not cool. Ivory's... man, my favorite because they had a baby grand. BW3s... a stage the size of a coffee table but excellent wings so all was good.
Jeph has posted one of my songs that I am slightly embarassed about called "Gentle Healer" and you can hear it on his site... he says one of my best... I say not really but hey, I'm glad he likes it. I'll post a different one... this is a song Jeph and I wrote together on a retreat in Lexington, KY. We were talking one day over lunch (at Joe Balogna's) about the Matthew Shepherd murder and the www.godhatesfags.com church who was there protesting his funeral... we were talking about how the church lifts up sins like homosexuality and abortion to a higher level of sin than "everyday sins" like pride and greed and lust. The more we talked, the more disgusted we got... I remember looking around at a rather diverse lunch crowd and just thinking over and over again about how badly we all needed grace and we were all completely screwed without it. We went back to the church and sometime around midnight, we had this song finished. Jeph wrote the music to the verse and chorus, I believe I came up with the chords for the bridge, and I remember the lyric just kind of writing itself out loud. It's also the last song we wrote together and probably my favorite.
Listen to Amazing Grace.
Okay, so the title's not that original...
What does this have to do with Cars?
Nissan has a pretty cool ad campaign going right now called "Shift".
Go to their website and play with this "shift" thing. It has nothing to do with cars that I can tell. Actually presents some interesting ideas, so much so that our high school group is going to use the "Shift" theme for this school year for their wednesday night worship.
Go to Nissan Website. Click on "Inside Nissan" and then go to "Shift". It will bring up a flash animation I would recommend starting on the upper left square and then going through the whole site by hitting "next". Pretty cool stuff from a car company. And I don't say this because I drive a Nissan either. Even though our X-terra is pretty stinkin cool.
SAMMICHES!!!
I was in subway today and a man was in there with his daughter who looked to be about 6 or 7. He was ordering a sandwich and he asked if they could add bacon when his daughter shrieked "Daddy no! You can't! You're on the subway diet!". It was pretty funny.
I mention this because I have a friend who sat with Jared on a plane a few months ago and let us all know that Jared is a pompous jerk who treats flight attendants badly and cusses loudly in front of children. Yikes. Also, much to my surprise, the babe in the commercials really is his wife. Who knew.
I wonder if subway employees find it funny when every time I go in there, I make it a point to refer to them as "sandwich artists"?
Lies I learned in Church
I'm thinking of doing a sermon with this title and was wondering if you kind folks could help supply me with some lies you learned in church. Reading through "Blue Like Jazz" inspired this and many of these ideas here were provoked by Donald Miller's writing. Here are just some thoughts I'm toying with so far:
1. Homosexuals and Liberals are our enemies.
2. Spirituality is something you do alone (to become a spiritual person, you have to have a lot of quiet time, isolation, study, etc. The bible seems to indicate a call to community, not solitude.)
3. Jesus was white.
4. Jesus was crucified with his robe / loincloth on.
5. The older you get, the more "mature" in your faith you are and the more you have your act together.
You get the idea. I think the first two there have some potential for a talk... the other 3 not so much. Let me hear some of yours.
How should we then give?
Thanks to Jared Williams for calling my attention to this interesting discussion going on at Mike Todd's blog.Click here to read
Mike is asking some tough questions about giving. I'm still thinking this one though. As a paid full time minister, my thoughts are a little different on this than some... I'll post my thoughts in the comment section of the posts on Mike's blog so you can see what I think there. Go read!
Good reading lately...
A couple of good reads lately:The Celtic Way of Evangelism by George Hunter - an interesting little book about the Celtic people and their approach to evangelism through community. Most memorable passage is how the community valued a guest above anything else. For example, say a priest was in the middle of a fast and a guest came. The priest would immediately break his fast and share a meal with the guest because that guest and how welcome he felt was far more important than the priest's fast. Good stuff.
About a boy by Nick Hornby - Sometimes you just need a good story and this novel is excellent (as is the film). Raises some interesting questions about the nature of relationships and it also convicted me of how shallow and selfish I can often be.
The Passion
The new Mel Gibson film about Jesus called "The Passion" is finished and trailers are now available. I'm really looking forward to this one. Mel said he made this movie because he felt like no movie had ever accurately or powerfully portrayed the suffering Christ went through. I'm not sure of Mel's faith or where he's coming from but I did see him talking about it on Larry King and I was moved by his reasoning for making the film. He apparantly is shooting for reality... not hollywood which is why the movie is in Latin and Hebrew (I think Hebrew but it may be something else) without subtitles. This is quite risky... no subtitles? It will be a bit hard to understand but I think the point is that we WILL understand... the power of the story is beyond language. From what I understand, Mel is not in the film and from looking at the trailer, this doesn't look like "Jesus as Braveheart" or anything like that.
Just from watching the trailer, it looks like it will live up to the hype... just the 2 minutes shown is powerfully shocking.
Click here to view Trailer
Back for 2 days...
Well, back from Vacation until Sunday when I leave for an exciting week of church camp with high school kids in Indiana. Should be fun in that way that only church camp can. It's a wonder with all of my experiences at camp growing up that I'm not scarred for life and NO, I don't mean THOSE kinds of experiences. Get your minds out of the gutter people.Here's a brief trip report and I'll have some pictures later if any of them are worth seeing.
Favorite City - Seattle / Santa Barbara (tie)
Least Favorite City - Los Angeles
Best Meal - Cheesecake Factory - Seattle
Worst meal - Anything in Yellowstone National Park
Most beautiful drive - Going to the Sun Road in Glacier national park
Most breathtaking sight - Grand Canyon of Yellowstone
Coolest experience - Blue man Group in Vegas
Biggest disappointment - Experience Music Project in Seattle. Save your cash.
Miles driven - 3708
Times my pregnant wife puked on the side of the road - one. In Grand Tetons National Park. A little snack for the wildlife.
Amount I won in Vegas - zero dollars and zero cents.
Best state for driving - Washington (seattle to spokane is beautiful and lonely)
Best view of the Ocean - Big Sur, California
Strangest law - In Oregon, it's illegal to pump your own gas. I knew those people were weird.
