Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Revised and Updated Song-Writing Workshop Manual

Several years ago I compiled resources about leading worships into a manual: "Facilitating Community Song-Writing Workshops." It contained advice from some of my mentors about running music workshops, to which I added some of my own on-the-ground experiences from doing so in the Philippines. A friend of mine suggested that I update the manual for a broader readership (that is, not just about Philippine music) and re-do the section on technology. So I took his advice and have updated the manual, revising it for the first time in about 7 years.

The revised manual can be downloaded here. I hope you find it helpful. Feel free to write me with corrections and suggestions.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

40 Thoughts upon Turning 40 (part 2)

Here are the final 20 thoughts about life on the occasion of my 40th Birthday. See Part 1 with the first 20 here. (Note: I couldn't figure out how to get Blogger to start the numbering at 21.)
  1. Cable TV is a rip-off. I don't need or want all those channels all the time. There is no technical reason why I shouldn't be able to buy programs one-at-a-time. I don't want to pay for ESPN every day. But I would pay $10 (or more) to watch Syracuse and Duke play basketball in February. Until you let me do that, I will get by with my antenna and Netflix (and the Slingbox at my dad's house).
  2. Mowing your lawn is the single best thing you can do for it. I have gone through periods of my life when I treated my lawn with all kinds of things: organic stuff, chemicals, you name it. But the yard never looks as good as the day after you mow it. So just mow it, and forget the treatments.
  3. It took airlines way too long to let us use devices on planes. Like my mp3 player was ever going to bring down a 747. 
  4. Get a library card. Your town or county gives these away for free (if you live in the US). You can provide yourself the equivalent of a university education. And you can check out audio books to listen to as you drive. 
  5. When in doubt about what to do next, start by showing up. Woody Allen (I think) said that 80% of success is just showing up. Hiding from a problem won't make it go away. 
  6. When presented with a new idea, refrain from immediately sharing why it won't work. This is just good manners. Of course there are 8 reasons why your sister shouldn't lease a BMW. But she doesn't want to hear those from you. Even if she is looking for a reason to be talked out of it, start with at least one positive point.
  7. You get out of a marriage what you put into it. This statement also applies to any relationship, your job, church, etc....
  8. Say you are sorry. Apologies go a long way toward fixing most problems. (Note: This isn't always a good idea if you've just been in a car accident.)
  9. Telling lies is too much work. Just don't lie. It makes life so much easier to tell the truth. Then you don't have to keep track of who you told what to. See yesterday's point about baggage.
  10. Change your engine oil regularly, but not as often as the dealership tells you to. From the Car Talk guys: Changing your oil every 5000 miles is just fine for modern engines. 
  11. Don't stay anywhere longer than is necessary. This is a vow that John Wesley required of Methodist preachers. It's just great advice for everyone.
  12. Break up big jobs into several achievable tasks. You won't write the great American novel today. But you probably can write three good sentences before lunchtime. This applies to learning an instrument or a foreign language: a little bit every day does wonders.
  13. Take control of jet lag before it takes control of you. I used to travel across time zones fairly frequently. My experience has been than jet lag is 90% mental. If you expect to arrive at your destination tired and beat up then that's how it will play out. But if you have a plan to stay awake until bedtime at your destination, then you can get in sync with your new time quickly. I found it best to have meetings and events happening right away, keeping me busy and awake until nightfall. Then before you fall asleep at bedtime, set an alarm for midnight. That's when you wake up and take two Benadryl to help you sleep for another 6 hours. Get up at 6:00am and start the day with the rest of the world. Better yet, go for a walk as the sun comes up.
  14. Have a travel kit ready to go at all times. Packing for a trip is a major drag. Looking for a bottle of shampoo or a razor or a tube of hair gel will make you crazy and waste half your day. Keep all that stuff in its own travel kit that you only use for trips. It will cut your packing time down by 60%. It will also come in very handy in emergencies like unexpected hospital stays.
  15. Know how much money you are spending and where it is going. It took me way too long to figure out a way to track my family's spending. For years I lived with anxiety, not knowing if we would be able to afford our lifestyle. A simple spreadsheet fixed that for us. 
  16. Church is where you take Communion. I have belonged to organizations that made me question if I really needed to attend church on Sundays. At Asbury College we were required to attend chapel three times a week. The mission organization I belonged to also provided time for frequent prayer and Bible study. So why go to the hassle of joining a church if one can worship with colleagues or classmates? One word: sacraments. Your college or office chapel services (probably) don't baptize people or celebrate Communion. That's enough reason to make sure you are in a real congregation. 
  17. Nation-states should not be the basis for picking teams for sporting events. Every World Cup and Olympics reminds me how much I dislike rooting for a team (or individual athlete) based on what passport they carry. It just feels wrong. It also creeps me out that FIFA and the International Olympic Committee are two of the world's worst-run organizations.
  18. Professional men tennis players don't go to the net enough. I miss serve and volley play. Why does everyone these days stay at the baseline?
  19. Jimmy Fallon needs to bring back guest hosts on the Tonight Show. I love Jimmy Fallon, but he still has a way to go before surpassing the master, Johnny Carson. One thing that Johnny did, which Jimmy needs to re-introduce: guest hosts. It builds up another generation of comedians, and it gives the current host a break. I would rather watch Will Ferrell or Owen Wilson be a guest host than a re-run of Jimmy.
  20. Confession: I hated Moby Dick. I just didn't get it. The narrative is broken up at multiple points for no particular reason. Is the whale a metaphor for something? If so, what exactly? Other "great" books I dislike, but for other reasons: Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

40 Thoughts for Turning 40 (part 1)

To mark my 40th birthday, I have compiled this mostly random list of 40 thoughts about life. Part 1, with the first 20 ideas, comes today. Stay tuned for the final 20 tomorrow.
  1. Walking is the single best thing you can do for your health. It's just a fact. No need for fancy sports equipment or private sessions at the gym. Just get outside and take a walk. That's it. No excuses.
  2. Children are a blessing (part 1). When Sarah and I were new parents we were scared to death about messing up our kids. When should we feed them? What should we feed them? When should they go to bed and awake up? Our own sleep deprivation of those early months made the paranoia even worse. Then we heard someone say that the main goal in parenting should be to raise children who are a blessing to others. Not geniuses. Not Olympic champions. Blessings. For some reason that advice put us at ease and brought back a level of sanity to our lives. 
  3. Children are a blessing (part 2). There are too few opportunities in life for generations to mix. It's proven that elderly folks do better when kids are around. Ideally, day care centers and preschools should visit nursing homes (or locate themselves on the same property). The church is one last place in society where the generations can meet. Make sure your church is kid-friendly, and by all means encourage parents to bring their kids into the services. 
  4. Exercise in the morning. If you think that you will hit the gym or the pavement after work, think again. 90% of the time you won't. Get it done first thing in the day, or it won't happen.
  5. Accomplish something first thing in the day. This is related to the last point. Knocking out a small-ish task first thing in the morning can give you such a rush. Get something crossed off the list before answering email or reading your Twitter feed. It puts you in charge of the day, not the other way around.
  6. Keep your inbox at zero. There are only a few things that you should do with an email message: delete it without reading it, read it (quickly) and delete it, forward it to someone else, file it for future reference, or respond. If the response will take a while or requires you to gather more info first, then hit reply and save it in Drafts. Or pick up the phone and call the person instead. Emails are not for pondering over for days and weeks.
  7. Password managers are awesome. "Internet security" is an oxymoron. The fact that every website requires you to create a username and password makes it worse, not better. But I found that LastPass really works. I think I'm in love with it. I'm (almost) ready to delete the very conspicuous list of usernames and passwords that I keep on my hard drive.
  8. Facebook has jumped the shark. Sorry, Mr. Zuckerburg. Each day I find it less rewarding to go to your site. Maybe it's because I've now re-connected with all the long-lost friends that I care to. But mostly what I see in my newsfeed are links to videos and recycled materials from elsewhere on the internet. I don't want to know what 18th-century poet or NHL team I am like. Boring.
  9. Most things worth doing aren't things you want to do (at first). If we only did the things we felt like doing, then we would never get off the couch. I realize you don't want to go to that meeting, or get up and attend church. (And of course you don't want to go to work every morning.) But you will be glad you did. 
  10. Any empty stomach makes me think of God. Sadly, I can go for a long time without thinking about God. I've found that fasting from food prevents this from happening. When I skip a meal for spiritual purposes, the hunger pangs always remind me to pray. Want more God in your life? Fast from a meal now and then.
  11. It's better to pray often than long. I used to try to be like the spiritual superstars of old and pray for hours on end. In fact, I wouldn't even pray unless I had at least 30 minutes to do so. Then I realized that I wasn't praying very much. So I gave myself a break and started praying shorter prayers. Now I pray more than I used to, all during the day.
  12. It is hard to beat an S&P 500 index fund. If you have your money in any other investment, you aren't getting the return you deserve. That's because you are probably paying someone else too much to manage it. (If you are invested in gold, then you are betting on society as we know it to collapse. In which case your gold won't do you any good anyway. Someone with weapons will come and take it from you.)
  13. Singing with others in church brings me closer to God. I hate (hate!) worshipping in an environment where it makes no difference whether I sing or not. The accompaniment shouldn't drown out the congregation's voice. When I can hear other people singing, it reminds me what the church is--a choir of imperfect but (usually) sincere people trying to offer their best to God. 
  14. For every person that really likes me, there is another who really doesn't. When I was in the 10th Grade, I attended a leadership seminar for young people. One speaker taught that we need to get over the desire to have people like us. He said that 25% of the people we meet don't like us. Another 25% really do. The other 50% are still making up their minds. He said that's true of every person, and there is not much any of us can do about it.
  15. Myers-Briggs has never made sense to me. Not much to say here, just that I don't get it. I've never been able to explain what all those letters mean. Nor can I ever remember what letters have been assigned to me. Definitely haven't figured out what difference it makes to how I'm supposed to treat people.
  16. Spend time with people who are better than you. Your social environment is so much more important that you think it is. If you want to be thin, hang out with skinny people. If you want to be sharp, intentionally look for people who are smarter than you. It works the other way, too: Want to spend more money than you can afford to? Make friends with someone who maxes out their credit cards. 
  17. Baggage stays with you. As a pastor, I firmly believe in forgiveness and new starts. However, there are things we do in our younger years that stay with us. Some relationships will never recover from certain kinds of neglect. Some brain cells will not grow back. The older you get, the more baggage you accumulate. Better to have less baggage, especially when your health starts to fail. (By the way, this is my paraphrase of the entire book of Proverbs.)
  18. I'm still unconvinced that a smart phone is a worthwhile investment. I just can't justify paying the phone carrier over $100 a month. Instead I use a dumb phone on a prepaid account, and I have a Kindle to use when I have wifi coverage. 
  19. Playing doubles (in tennis) is less challenging than singles, but it's better than sitting at home. There are few things in life that I enjoy more than squaring off against someone on the tennis court, one-on-one. (Especially against someone who is better than me. See point #16.) Lately I've been playing a lot of doubles, because that's what we do here in my town. It may not be as awesome as singles, but it's still pretty great. My tennis skills are improving, and I'm making new friends. If I restricted my tennis-playing to only singles, I would get to play a whole lot less. 
  20. You have to be terrible at some things for a while before you can be good at them. Listen to Ira Glass say it in his own words: http://vimeo.com/24715531.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

How Highly Does Your Church Regard Scripture?

It is difficult to categorize and label churches these days. Denominational affiliation is sometimes a helpful guide to understanding a congregation's beliefs and practices, but there can be wide variations even within a single denomination. The "evangelical" label continues to lose its meaning, since that term can increasingly be applied to many different kinds of congregations. Few churches want to be called "fundamentalist" or "liberal"; those names usually come from outsiders projecting their own critical judgments on a congregation. But even self-identifying words like "progressive" or "traditional" still leave a lot to the imagination. Of all the many things can be used to categorize and classify church groups, often the most important factor is what level of authority that Scripture is granted. Recently I heard a pastor at a large gathering invite the people to join "Bible-teaching" or "Bible-believing" churches. I'm pretty sure he was promoting a high authority of scripture, which probably speaks to his assumptions about how the Bible was inspired and limits the kind of questions one can ask of it.

I have attended many "Bible-teaching" churches. But several of them, while claiming to put a high value on scripture, don't actually use the scriptures in worship. I remember attending a large evangelical church one Sunday morning. We sat through 45 minutes of worship before a single verse of scripture was read or presented. Through all the announcements and singing none of the pastors on the platform referenced the Bible in any way. The projected slides that contained the song lyrics did not even include references to the verses we were presumably singing about. Not until the (very long) sermon was about to start did the pastor read a few verses from the Bible.

It's hard for me to believe that the scriptures are honored if they aren't used to worship the God who inspired them. Over a decade ago the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship published Ten Core Convictions about Christian Worship. Point 3 is "Deep Engagement with Scripture." This commitment involves more than what kind of authority is given to the Bible. It points instead to how worshippers encounter Scripture when they gather together.

"Bible-teaching" churches often distinguish themselves against liturgical churches. "Liturgy" is used by some as a negative term to criticize worship services that are seen as stuffy, inflexible, and rote. Certainly there are some places where the worship has become just that. But in a liturgical worship service there will undoubtedly be numerous encounters with Scripture. It will be read out loud, and I as a worshipper will have the chance to respond to it through prayers, songs, and congregational acclamations. One of the beauties of a liturgical service is that I know that the scriptures will be proclaimed. Even if the sermon is uninspiring, the gospel will be presented--often more than once.

How is your congregation using Scripture? Is it read, proclaimed, shouted, and sung throughout the service? Or is it used as window dressing to support the message that the pastor wants to preach?

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Hymns: More Flexible Than You Thought

image from sainjamesucc.org
Hymns have been getting a bad rap since the invention of the overhead projector. Many churches dismiss hymns as "traditional" -- meaning inflexible. But at least for the past few hundred years hymns have been adapted to fit the needs of various congregations. Even the most traditional churches have never been locked in to use hymns in a certain way. And today's most contemporary of worship leaders still find that only the text of a standard hymn will do in some situations.

Many people don't realize just how much flexibility you have with hymn-singing. These days we often associate a hymn with a specific set of words, set to one and only tune. But hymnals have always been designed to let you switch up the hymn tunes with different words. In an age when people didn't read music, the congregation probably only knew a handful of tunes by heart. If the pastor wanted to introduce a new set of words to go with the sermon, then the congregation could just sing those new words to a standard tune. This is how Charles Wesley composed so many hymns. (There are over 50 credited to him in the index of the United Methodist Hymnal.) He didn't come up with a new tune for each set of words. Instead, he arranged the syllables of his hymns in a pattern that fit an existing melody.

Today's hymnals still allow us to do this kind of mixing and matching. In the back of any hymnal there are several indexes, including one called the Metrical Index. Every hymn is listed there according to its meter. I'm not referring to the two numbers stacked on top of each other at the beginning of the song (right after the clef and key signature). The meter of a hymn is shown in a different set of numbers, usually at the bottom of the page, that indicate the arrangement of syllables. For example, this photo comes from hymn 577 in the UM Hymnal: God of Grace and God of Glory. The meter is 87.87.87. That means that there are 8 syllables in the first line. The next line has 7 syllables. Then that pattern of 8- and 7-syllable lines repeats twice.

So I can go to the hymnal's Metrical Index and see that eight tunes in the hymnal have that same meter of 87.87.87. I see the tune name associated with God of Grace, which is CWM RHONDDA. It is also the same meter as the tune name LAUDA ANIMA, which is commonly sung as Praise My Soul the King of Heaven. If you know either of those hymns, you can try mixing them by singing the words of one to the melody of the other one. Back in the day (and still a few churches now) the song leader would announce the hymn tune that would support the words. Many folks knew the those capitalized hymn tunes better than the lyrics-based titles we use today.

That's because it has only been in the last century or so that specific tunes and words got paired together permanently. Notice that the dates listed for the words and music listed in the hymnal are often off by several decades. For example, take that most famous of hymns: Amazing Grace. John Newton wrote the words in 1779 in England. But the tune that we know today arose in America sometime in the late 1800s, and it wasn't even published with those famous words until 1900. John Newton never heard the standard melody that we sing today. That means that the song was sung for over 100 years to other tunes in the Common Meter (CM), which has the syllable pattern of 8.6.8.6.

So while it pains me to play mythbuster here, for the sake of history I have to let you know that this scene from the movie Amazing Grace could have never happened. It has William Wilberforce (a real-life friend of John Newton) singing a tune that didn't exist in his time. It's what historians call an anachronism -- something that is out of its proper setting.


This also means that some of the details from this famous sermon by Wintley Phipps are inaccurate. John Newton was indeed the captain of slave ships, and he no doubt heard the captives singing. But he didn't borrow this "black key" tune for his hymn. Despite that historical inaccuracy, it's still a great sermon, with some great points. You should watch this short segment if you haven't seen it already.


Saturday, July 5, 2014

Kingdomtide and the Church on the Fourth

Those of you of a certain age, who grew up in certain denominations, may remember a season in the church calendar called Kingdomtide. Back in the 1930s an ecumenical group of churches decided to give this name to the weeks between Pentecost and Advent, with an emphasis on Jesus' teaching about the kingdom of God. Later the season was shortened to a three-month period from late August to Advent. But nowadays the term Kingdomtide has pretty much been retired, even in the United Methodist Church, which was the last holdout to keep it going.

Kingdomtide may no longer part of the liturgical calendar, but US Independence Day is a good time to reflect on our relationship between the church and government. Churches throughout this country will take a variety of approaches to the holiday at services this weekend. Some will largely ignore the holiday and emphasize instead the lectionary readings or other pastor-chosen themes for the day. Others will sing a national song or two to open the service but otherwise go on with the rest of a normal service. But some congregations will make their service a complete Fourth of July celebration with banners, music, and sermons on topics like freedom and service and honor.

How we worship this weekend reflects and reinforces our theology of the kingdom of God. Our services make statements (implicit or explicit) about how God's kingdom relates to the church and to human kingdoms. In 1776 the thirteen American colonies rejected the rule of their earthly king and called on an unspecified Providence to assist their quest for independence. Since then the church in these United States has experimented with various forms of church-state relationships. The Methodist Episcopal Church started as its own denomination here largely because John Wesley's own Church of England -- the official church of the previous regime -- was finding it very difficult to thrive in a post-Revolutionary America.

Churches supported by a nation or earthly kingdom do indeed create complex issues that compete for a Christian's loyalty. Back in the first centuries after Christ's resurrection, some government officials would not get baptized into the church until they retired. The work of the nation, especially when it comes to waging war and enforcing punishments on criminals, can cause conflicts for Christians. (Constantine, the first Roman Emperor to convert, put off being baptized until he was on his deathbed.) Some theologians over the centuries have tried to make the case that the kingdom of God will be brought about through a combination of the church and secular governments working together under the lordship of Christ. Others have argued that church and state represent two very different kingdoms, even saying that wedding the two is a form of idolatry. Pay attention to your church's Independence Day worship service tomorrow (if you are in the US). How you worship is a statement of your congregation's (or at least your pastor's) beliefs about how these two kingdoms are related.

A Manual for Personal Piety: The Book of Hours

Book of Hours manuscript kept at Harvard University People have always encountered God outside outside of the times and spaces designat...