Alex and I are back with a new recording (feat. the awesome floral couch from Thompson)! We apologize for how long it has taken us, but we have a TON of music we've worked on, so we're starting to record it for you. Here's a cover of a worship song by Bryan and Katie Torwalt called "Nothing Is Holding Me Back". We performed it last weekend for the Union Frisbee Tournament worship service and we thought we'd share it with all those who weren't able to attend (or if you want to hear it again!). Be sure to watch to the very end for some laughs. *hint hint*
P.S. -- Alex and I are getting ready to work on original music together, so look out for new sounds and hopefully more gigs!
Since my last post was so incredibly long, I thought I'd lighten things up this time. I've been thinking a lot about music and how I haven't had much time to devote to my music, so naturally, I went back and started listening to my older songs. For some reason, most of my videos were removed from YouTube when I deleted my Goole+ profile (because who uses that? and why are there so many strangers adding you to their circles??). Therefore, I decided — in a state of nostalgia and fogginess from illness — to re-upload some of my more recent work on my new YouTube channel.
No pressure to hit the "play" button below, but if you're curious about the kind of stuff I wrote before starting seminary...the next three videos give you a peek:
(Wow, I had really long hair back then...)
I'm hoping to start writing a whole new set of music (and more music with Alex!), so stay tuned and "follow" on the right of this blog so you don't miss out when a new song drops!
As my time at the APCE (Association of Presbyterian Christian Educators) 2016 conference is coming to a close, I'm reflecting on all of the wonderful knowledge I've gained, the excitement that has been stirred in me, and the love and pride I feel for my school (Union Presbyterian Seminary) and all of the educators surrounding me.
There's a lot I could say about all of the workshops I've attended and the people I've met, but I think the most important information I can share here are the top three lessons I've learned (these are going to be very brief synopses):
1. We need to start kicking over some tables
Rev. Otis Moss III is a fabulous preacher. I truly hope that everyone in their lifetime can hear a preacher like him. He is funny, engaging, passionate, and it is simply impossible for you not to believe in God when listening to him speak, because you know that he possesses a divine gift. But my point here, is that Moss preached about Matthew 21:12. *Go read it in your Bible* He explained how this short verse packed layers upon layers of socio-political and economic commentary into its words. People were being exploited. Jesus was mad. So mad that he "overturned the tables"! He said he had seen enough and sometimes the best way to make change is to literally turn the tables. We — in our present communities — need to stop being afraid of kicking over tables. We need to start recognizing when change needs to occur (in our churches and our societies) and ACT.
2. We need to re-engage the family
Dr. Rodger Nishioka spoke about the most definitive factor for young adults remaining committed followers of religion. This may come as no surprise to some, but it's family. Children who had parents or caregivers that demonstrated the importance of faith and frequently pray and/or read the Bible were more likely to stay connected with their own faith. If this is something you already knew, good job, but do you practice it with your own families? Do you help demonstrate how other families can keep faith active in their everyday lives? This is our job as educators and servants of the church. How effective will trying to foster faith in a child be if that child's parents do not continue the faith formation at home? Or perhaps they just don't know how to continue at home. Education needs to go beyond the Sunday School classroom. It needs to reach our families.
Bolstering this concept, I attended a workshop by Dr.
Karen-Marie Yust (my CE advisor) on faith formation in young children. I will
definitely not do her research and intelligence justice in this short space,
but Yust explained how babies as young as three months of age will demonstrate
morality. Their concepts of compassion, empathy, morality only grow as they age
and their way of making sense of it all is through “trusted informants” —
people the children trust to give them reliable information. We as parents and
educators of young children should recognize their questions as complex
reasoning and allow them to observe as well as ask to understand what they cannot see (God). Most shockingly, it
was expressed that children do not learn to trust a pastor simply from hearing
them speak during “children’s time” on Sunday mornings. The pastor would have
to visit that child in Sunday school regularly, etc. to establish a truly
trusting relationship with the child. So, not only do we need to re-think how
we’re doing faith at home, but we need to extend that same mentality to our
church staff and volunteers.
3. We need to stop checking our experience at the door
I am incredibly privileged to have access to Rev. Dr. John Vest. I've heard him speak three times at this conference and I took his Intro to Evangelism class at Union last semester and I can honestly say that I always learn something new when he speaks. During a presentation in front of the entire gathering os APCE, Vest urged us as Presbyterians to move beyond viewing God as an idea — a concept to be intelligently analyzed — and remind ourselves why we care about God in the first place. How do we know God is real? Validate the experiences in your life that have formed your faith. And then evangelize! It works best if we can articulate our experiences. I originally come from a faith background that is highly concerned with relationships. I was constantly told that Jesus wants to talk with me and I should talk to Jesus like a friend. Moving into the Presbyterian church, I immediately got the sense that this kind of "emotional Jesus-talk" was not gonna fly. No one seemed to want to talk about their friendship with Jesus or the last time they felt God's presence. How we talk about God needs to change. And how we talk about CE needs to change too — our job isn't just to feed information, our job is to help form and direct spiritual growth within our youth.
Lillian Daniel —author and preacher — also gave a plenary on this topic. She compared church to high school and challenged us to face our fears. If we heard someone describe the hurt and challenges they faced in high school, the teachers that abused their students, and that they were offended by our choice to attend high school, wouldn't that sound a little crazy? (It's hard to paraphrase this whole analogy) Now, their feelings may be very valid and it's ok to empathize, but we as Christians have been hearing this about the church for too long without saying anything back. The loudest voices concerning Christianity are all one-sided. But that's no surprise, because the rest haven't tried to add their voices. It's no wonder people have a radical view of what "Christianity" looks like. We apologize for everyone else's negative experiences, we apologize for history in which we played no part. And we're afraid to share our good experiences for fear of offending someone else. There is good in the church and good in faith and we need to start speaking up.
So, I came across this collection of videos out together by a church called Vintage in Raleigh, NC. The series is definitely a few years old (I remember watching them when I was in middle school), but I still find them funny to this day, although for a different reason. They were originally created for use in a Sunday School class on the topic of Jesus. In the video descriptions on YouTube, Vintage Church says,
"This is a satirical look at what some people think Jesus is like. Thank goodness He's not."
When I first saw these videos I was not religious; I saw them as funny because they seemed to be making a mockery of Christianity. But seeing them again as a seminary student and understanding the purpose of the videos brings a new appreciation to them. In middle school, I found the videos funny, because this is what I truly thought of when I imagined Christianity. Today, I find them funny because it's so ridiculous and contrary to the "real" Jesus. But of course this is what some people think; this is what I thought! That number of "some people" who believe Jesus is this way is actually growing (or at least the number of people who truly care about the real message of Jesus is shrinking). I know that this depiction of Jesus is farce, but now, how can I use this to help explain who Jesus really is? How does this challenge me to stand up for who I know Jesus to be? And, most importantly, how do I know who Jesus is and his relevance in my life? How. How is experience.
I invite you to watch the compilation of all four videos below and share your thoughts in the comments! I hope it also makes you chuckle ;)
P.S. — Video #4 is also cool because it includes the scene where Jesus is turning over tables in the temple, which is what lesson 1 is about!
As a good former employee of Victoria's Secret, I got excited to watch the annual VS Fashion Show this week. However, my partner had some people over in our apartment just beforehand and I had been working on school papers in the bedroom. I naturally entered the living room and announced the channel would be changing from whatever sports game they had on TV to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.
I know it's wrong to make assumptions about people based on their gender, but I have to admit, I thought they would be more excited. I mean, this was their free pass to watch a bunch of gorgeous women walk on stage in expensive lingerie. But they didn't say a word. They just sat there awkwardly. As the fashion show continued, two of the guests started to make comments about how ridiculous the outfits were and how stupid the models seemed to be. While I can understand where all of these comments came from, I have a tendency to defend things, simply for the sake of defending them, if I feel that they have been wrongfully offended. If I were watching with my friends or even just my partner, I probably would have made comments about outfits I thought were over-the-top too, but in this setting — where my living room had been filled with boys (none of which offered me a seat on my own couch to watch my own show, by the way) who couldn't appreciate the wonder of the VS Fashion Show — I was on the defensive. I had a comeback to everything.
And the straw that broke the camel's back was when Adriana Lima (one of the models) was shown backstage making the sign of the cross before walking onstage. One of the guests audibly scoffed and made a comment about how ridiculous it was. I immediately responded, "What? You don't think she can be religious and be a Victoria's Secret model?" He didn't respond.
But I told my mother this story and she actually agreed with him. She said that she had the same reaction — not because she couldn't be religious (although she questioned that too), but that it didn't need to be televised.
Now this got my attention.
Me: So, the problem you had was the fact that it was shown on camera?
Mom: Yes. I think the same thing when someone kneels and thanks God after making a touchdown, as if God really cared about his team enough to help him do that.
I did get her to clarify that she feels this way about all religions (not just Christians); she simply thinks that religion should be a personal experience that one keeps to oneself.
This is where I had an issue. I mean, HELLO, I'm in seminary and I'm taking a class on evangelism!
How can religion be solely a personal thing? A huge part of religion for many people is the communal aspect, the gathering component, the sharing with another person. So, why is it offensive for someone to do something that expresses their faith? Adriana Lima wasn't trying to convert anyone. She wasn't saying that anyone needed to go join a church or start believing in God, she was performing a ritual that was important and normal for her. I tried to explain that if Lima is truly a practicing Christian, she would believe that God is with her always and is probably the most natural source of comfort, so it would not be abnormal or out of place for her to reach for that comfort in a time of excitement/stress. Everyone does it. But according to my mom, it's best done in the privacy of one's own house, alone, in a back room, with all the lights off. OK, I'm exaggerating on that. But you get the point.
We argued for awhile — I would have liked to call it a debate, but she told me many times that I wouldn't change her mind and it was better if I stopped trying to convince her — and then the phone call ended, we said "I love you" and that was it.
Maybe it's the fact that I feel like I spent so many years unable to share and talk about my faith within my own family that I get excited when I see someone else who shares the faith. Maybe it's my new seminary education and the openness and encouragement I have felt to evangelize without a bullhorn.
But here's my question to you: is religion public or private? or both?
So, Alex and I know that y'all have been wondering what we have to show for our "music practices" — or maybe you didn't know that we'd been collaborating in the first place — either way, enjoy this rough take of the Fiction Family song, "Not Sure."
We have an ongoing list of songs we plan to cover (and possibly even some originals), but we would love your input too! Feel free to comment below with some songs you'd like to hear us cover...
P.S. - Alex and I are both first year seminary students at Union Presbyterian and we immediately bonded over our love of music. When we are not writing papers, taking exams or reading mountains of pages, we like to jam and talk about our faith.
The first installment of the live sessions is a recording of one of my original pieces, "Truth."
It is inspired by John 14:6 "Jesus answered, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'" (CEB).
Because I think it is difficult to explain the entire gospel in one song, this song tells the story of my encounter with the gospel and my struggle to stay in the gospel.
If you want to know what other songs explain the gospel for me, check out my post, "What is the Gospel?"
Evangelism and the gospel go hand in hand. You can't do one without knowing the other. And when I thought about how to define the gospel, words like Suffering, Pain, Love, Redemption, and Salvationcame to mind.
The gospel looks different for each person, because we all come to know God and Jesus in our own personal ways. For some, religion was always a part of their lives and looking down at their WWJD bracelets to ask themselves, "what would Jesus do?" was a natural action. For me, I experienced the gospel when I was most broken.
While I have a lot I can say about the healing powers of Jesus and the wholeness I feel when I'm in the presence of the Lord, my faith could often be described as "hill and valley" faith. This means that I had mainly experienced God in "aha" moments (these are hills) or in times of deep depression or anger (these are the valleys). But the key is to find your balance, where you are always connected to your faith (the space between the hill and valley) and only occasionally experience the highest and lowest emotions, because hill and valley faith is not sustainable and will only result in frustration.
If I had to give a short explanation of the gospel, I would say that it is the greatest story of hope and love expressed through Jesus Christ that sets an example for not only Christians, but all humans to live with purpose and to love one another. Because I am loved, I am called to show love and be love in this world to live out the Kingdom of God on earth.
I had to interview a Presbyterian pastor for a final paper in my evangelism class and when I asked him to define the gospel, he replied, "Luke 15 and Isaiah 35. We all get lost. There are many reasons why we get lost, but when we are found, there is a huge party." This really resonated with me, since my personal story of meeting the gospel consisted of my own "lost-ness."And what goes better with a party than music??
Since I experience my faith most through music, I thought I'd compile a "mixtape" of songs that best explain the gospel for me. The songs are compiled in an order to express the progression of the gospel as I see it. It starts with an introduction to Jesus, followed by a recognition that our hearts are fragile and misguided, which leads to a desire to give our hearts to Jesus and the change that this action creates within us. Then there are songs that express the importance of doing as Jesus taught (to be moved to help the world and point the world to Jesus. This is followed by a Christmas song — which I think is quite appropriate, considering the gospel revolves around Jesus Christ — and songs about the appreciating the presence of Jesus, our redeemer. It concludes with what I like to call the evangelism anthem. This Relient K track embodies the gospel, while embracing the idea that evangelism is about sharing the story of love more than converting someone.
Click on a title below to hear the track on YouTube.
