The year is 2000.  I am in English class at a high school in an affluent neighborhood.  I am assigned a list of vocabulary words and am told to use them in a sentence.  I do so, but one up the challenge and create a story series about a fictional family in my weekly vocabulary exams.  The year is 2001.  My friend’s kid sister tells me my English teacher, one Ms. Elizabeth Waller, has raved about my vocabulary stories to the class below me.  I feel suddenly validated as a writer.  Thank you, Ms. Waller.

The year is 2009.  I am in the habit of complaining about my job.  A friend tells me how he truly laughed out loud at my “status messages” regarding micromanagement and general office antics.  I am once again validated in my wit and literary skill.  A year earlier I had resolved to write a book, but at this point I forget the premise.  It matters not.

The year is still 2009, sadly.  Every Friday I wake up at the buttcrack of dawn to meet with a group of men to further our understanding of the world.  I imagine us as the freemasons, or better yet, the beginning of some powerhouse think-tank with the power to make the freemasons feel as if their liberties are completely taken away.  We are in charge now.

You can call it pride, arrogance, or even naivety… but my mission is to change the world.  I will do it with my story and I will affect one character at a time.  i’m starting with the character of you.  Your story is now blended with mine and we’re setting out on a journey.

One day we may look back and see this as a defining point in our lives where we crossed over from boring to awesome.  May, but probably won’t.  It’s closer to the truth to say that perhaps you will speak in to my life and I will attempt to somehow move you in the way you think.  And in that movement of poking, proding, irritating, and infecting that somehow you would see that there is a greater purpose to all that is here that we claim to live for.

I will write.  You will read.  And together, we will be set free.

Source: Signal vs. Noise

why not every other sunday? shouldn’t the celebration of Jesus’ birth be celebrated every sunday? shouldn’t the death and resurrection be something we take to heart when we serve every sunday? why is it that when a lot of us give our time it is centered and focused on a sunday in late march or early april or in late december when every retail outlet in america is excited about Christmas too?

what if you treated next weekend, which is neither Christmas, nor easter, with the same fervency, planning, dedication to excellence as you did your last “Christmas service” or “easter service”? you are reading this, so certainly you had a free moment this week to perhaps put in a little extra planning. what if you treated every guest at your church like you did the ones that showed up on Christmas Eve or easter sunday? i would argue that those that show up on a random weekend in july might appreciate that too. i would argue that it would be more beneficial to your church to focus on all those other sundays when you might actually notice someone new sitting alone instead of noticing the 100 people you last saw an easter ago are back.

i have, of course, made a gross generalization. flame suit on. but what if you showed up at church this sunday and put in the same effort you would on a “special” sunday? what if you made every worship service a “special” one? what if you realized that the God you worship died and rose again not just for sunday, but today, and everyday?… and with that… any given sunday…

for over a decade I have served in the music ministries of various churches. and for a decade I have battled with finding a way to “worship” as we go through the motions of singing songs and playing music. I have come to the realization that for me, the best way to do so is rock out and let go.

i’ll be honest. i wasn’t feeling it tonight. i didn’t know I wasn’t feeling it until it was all said and done. i thought to myself, “did i just lead tonight? well that was thoroughly unimpressive.” turns out having a 100 people singing back at you doesn’t do all that much for encouragement. the incredible thing is that there is the slight possibility that while you weren’t feeling it in the least bit, someone else totally could have been.

i am searching for some way to feel as if what i do on Sundays is actually honoring to God and not just going through the motions. i’m searching for a way to know if the words that people are supposedly confessing with their lips are more than words on a screen and cookie cutter chord progressions.

i want to know that church is more than just a social gathering of people that are largely cut from the same cloth. whether it be the color of skin and hair or socioeconomically, why do birds of a feather always seem to flock together? i want to know that we’re bringing something more to the table than just some Joel Osteen-esque health and wealth mentality. we might think that guy sounds like a looney when he preaches, but how many of us live our lives the way he talks about, believing we should get anything we want and never have to suffer a day in our lives, without even thinking about it or without someone telling us?

i am on a search for something deeper.