today, i joined the world of twitter…yes…twitter.  my understanding is that twitter allows users to post what they are doing at a given moment, much to the delight of those who are viewing their “twitter feed.”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter)

stalk away world, stalk away.

Well, i will submit this and leave it at that – the Andy Williams Christmas album is the best Christmas album of all time (narrowly passing the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s Charlie Brown Christmas for the gold).  i have it on vinyl, and it was so good, that i decided it was worthwhile to pay for it once again, in a remastered format, for 99 cents, on itunes.

This past weekend our launch team for Renew went down to Annapolis, MD for a weekend conference .  We joined three other east coast church plants for a weekend of worship, study, bonding, and church plant conversation.  There were many, many, memorable moments – not the least of which involved a good friend, a dance floor, and a randomly placed stripper pole (don’t worry, there were no strip clubs or strippers involved).

All in all, God used the weekend to challenge my heart with a number of things.  One of the friends i met was JR Woodward.  He spoke a bunch on what i would consider to be “the reality of church planting” and the perception of “success.”  His track record on this speaks for itself – he’s planted a very “successful” church at Virgina Tech (over 1,000 people now attend) and is currently pastoring/planting three churches in the LA area (one in Hollywood!).  And yet, he stressed the gospel over the other means by which we typically evaluate success (i.e. numbers and finances).  It seems obvious, but i was impressed – and encouraged.  He quoted a great missionary to India named Leslie Newbigin, who when asked, “Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the church in India?”, would answer, “I believe Jesus rose from the dead, and therefore the question doesn’t arise.  In regards to a fact, one is not optimistic or pessimistic.  One is believing or unbelieving.”

What a refreshingling simple way to view our lives – is Jesus at the center or not?  That’s really what matters most.

Thanks to those of you who came out to support us at Connections Cafe in New Jersey on Saturday.  It was a good environment for Phil and I to try out some of the new things we’ve been working on.  We had a good time meeting some new artists and connecting with some new friends.  Next up for us is a little recording work.  We will be working on some of the songs we played last weekend.  We’ll let you know as soon as we have something for you to listen to.

So Phil and I have an acoustic show in New Jersey this weekend.  To be honest, we’re pretty excited about the songs we’ve been working on for the event.  We hope you can come.  While we do plan to sing wakeup sleeper songs, we have also begun to journey into some new musical territory – we call it electronic folk.  It’s essentially this: Phil and I have a deep love for both electronic and folk music, yet when one plays an “acoustic” show there are certain expectations and constraints by which one must abide.  Said constraints often inhibit one’s ability to journey outside the realm of acoustic guitars and capos.

(this is a capo)

Therefore, we have attempted to combine the two genres into one genre with a dual nature – one being folk and the other being electronic – thus we call it (wait for it) electronic folk (or if you’d prefer electro-folk, although the latter may sound supercilious to some.  Also, there are some references to electro-folk already on the web).

Anyway, we’d love to see you there.  Phil has written an especially amazing song about Ecclesiastes that I think is worth the price of admission within itself.  In case you’re interested in joining us, it’s at:

Connections Cafe

18 Turntable Junction

Flemington, NJ 088220

http://connectionscafe.biz – beware, the website is extremely not updated, and thus does not list us or anyone else who is to play in the near future – but we assure you, we’re coming with guitars and plenty of electro-folk.

Some close friends and i have been talking a lot about what it means to be a church.  What things are required?  What things are optional?  Is music required?  Is prayer required?

I recently heard a pastor define church in this way: “the local church is a community of regenerated believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord.  In obedience to Scripture they organize under qualified leadership, gather regularly for preaching and worship, observe the biblical sacraments of baptism and communion, are unified by the Spirit, are disciplined for holiness, and scatter to fulfill the great commandment and the great commission as missionaries to the world for God’s glory and their joy.”

Now, conversely I’ve recently heard of an author that defines church using Matthew 18:20 – “Where two or three come together in my name, there i am with them.” – essentially arguing that “two or three” gathered “in His name” is all you need to call it church.  It could be in a home, a park, or a bar – the only criteria is two or three in His name.

So which is it?  Are both correct? Can both be simultaneously correct?  What is required to call something a church?  I think this is important as it relates to our identity as the body of Christ.  Also, our definition of church impacts how we relate to those that don’t know Christ.  To be honest, I had never thought through this until I graduated from college.  I had just sort of looked for what seemed like a good solid church – whatever that meant.  I mean I know what it meant to me, but who is to say that those were the same things God looked for in a church that He liked? It has occurred to me that if I don’t know what the bible says about church, then my criteria for what makes a good church could be, well, “unbiblical.”

Any thoughts?

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I am the unblogger.  OK, so now that i’ve been out of the hospital for a number of weeks, i decided that it was time i update my blog so that people don’t continually think i just got out of the hospital this past weekend for the next year of my life.  Special thanks to my good friend Peter Gowesky for not letting me forget that fact.  There is so much changing for Kristi and me right now.  I will try to keep this more up to date if i can.  The 10,000 foot view of our life right now is that wakeup sleeper’s “break” is still in effect although i will be leading at my church pretty consistently in the coming months.  (www.theresonatecommunity.com)  We’re trying to evaluate how to proceed with the band, although my calling feels clearer than ever – to write songs, lead worship, and teach people about worship.  So regardless of what happens with wakeup sleeper, i will continue in that pursuit.  In the mean time, i am writing songs, and will try to share them as i have recordings.

I spent two days in the hospital this past weekend.  From what i can gather, I had some sort of intestinal infection that rendered me emergency-room-bound on Friday afternoon.  All things considered, I’m home now and feeling much better (and even eating solid food again).  yey.

Last Saturday I had the priveledge of teaching on worship to a group of people at Hilltown Baptist Church here in Pennsylvania.  I feel like it turned out to be a great time of discussion and brainstorming as we tossed around questions about the topic of worship.  Additionally, i had the opportunity to share about my theology of worship.  During one of the activities i played a number of song clips and posed the question “is this a worship song?”  The idea was that basically i would consider them all to be worship songs because i think we are constantly worshipping something, whether that be God, ourselves, another person, or something else entirely.  And the songs often talked about things like fame or love.  The question i still wrestle with, however, is whether or not to call all songs “worship songs.”  Is all music worship?  Instrumental?  Non-instrumental?  Content? Where is the line drawn?  And for that matter: is all art worship?

I believe we are at an impasse.  A better question would probably be “where do we go from here?”  But isn’t that always the question?  Proskuneo is the greek term for the word worship and it is literally translated: “to turn and kiss.”  In other words, we are turning our affections away from things that don’t deserve it and directing them towards God.  That has been the goal of our band wakeup sleeper for the past year – that we would inspire people to this end through the songs we wrote and the worship we led.  That’s why we named our first EP The Turning.  Of course we are completely at God’s mercy for those things to happen, so I’m hoping that he used us to accomplish those things in our ministry.  But in any case, He has made it clear to us in more than one way that it is time for a break.  A break?  Yes, a break.