Worship Wars?

We're currently in the book of Psalms as we read through the Bible as a church and I am reminded again of how many of the songs we sing on Sundays come right from this book. In light of this, it makes current 'worship wars' (worship war: when churches fight over the music part of a worship service) even more interesting. There's primarily three camps: traditionalists (hymns and organs, baby), contemporaries (the louder the better), and blended (acoustic versions of Shine, Jesus, Shine followed by Rock of Ages).

I'm not a musician, a vocalist, or even really all that qualified to write a post on worship, but what is interesting is the two primary charges that get leveled against churches who follow the contemporary style.

• Charge #1- The Devil's Music. While not flat out saying it, some still hold onto the perspective that drums are bad, guitars are from the devil, and anything that sounds like top 40 radio can not be pleasing to God. Fortunately, this charge has greatly diminished in recent years and you seldom hear this charge anymore.
• Charge #2- Weak Theology. The argument here is that the hymns contain deep theological truths that are missing in today's worship songs. This statement is a half-truth. Yes, the hymns of yesterday contain deep theological truths. But to say that contemporary worship music doesn't is not completely true, because many of the newer songs are right from the Psalms! I know there are examples of contemporary songs that are theologically weak, but I would suspect you could say the same of some hymns.

SuperFreakonomics

I loved the book Freakonomics and just received its sequel SuperFreakonomics the other day. The book's premise is that the authors, one a journalist and the other an economist, debunk things that we think are true (but actually aren't) and also probe into things that we rarely think about but are in fact fascinating when you look at what's going on underneath the surface. The books have revealed such nuggets as

• your child is more likely to die in a swimming pool than by a gun in a home (yet we give no almost no thought when children swim at a friend's pool or at a hotel birthday party and yet instantly worry when we learn that a friend's home has guns)
• you're more likely to die as a result of an elephant attack than a shark attack (and yet shark attacks get all of the press when they occur, and elephant attacks never do. The authors attribute this somewhat to pop culture, in that elephants get portrayed as cute and fun, think Dumbo or Babar, while Jaws forever immortalized the shark).
• the most popular names for babies come from the wealthier social classes and make their way to the middle class
• a realtor will take more time to sell their own home than they will to sell your home

In the sequel, the authors will also look at child seats, and supposedly reveal how they aren't any safer than a normal seat belt for children (I've thought this for awhile, and it explains my rather lax use of child seats).

Finally, one of the more shocking conclusions from the first book has to do with a connection between abortion and crime rates. I'll be preaching on that in January so more to come later.

Hillcrest and Carnivals

We hosted a carnival for Children's Home Society (CHS) this past Wednesday Night. Over 30 Hillcresters filled candy bags, ran bean bag and ring toss games, and supervised a jump house with an 18 foot slide for the 60 or so kids who live at CHS. CHS is a unique place in that it functions essentially as an orphanage for the state. Kids ages 4-13 come to live there, most for the short term, while their parents work through various issues or while the state works to find foster care families or adoptive homes. Hillcrest has a unique relationship with CHS in that several Hillcresters work at CHS as teachers or staff who live with the children.

Hillcrest also has a unique relationship with carnivals. We love them! In fact, every year I've been at Hillcrest, we've had a carnival of some sort- a block party, a harvest/Halloween party, and now for the past couple of years, the CHS carnival. It's in our Hillcrest DNA to do at least one carnival a year. In fact, when Halloween came and went this year, some Hillcresters got the carnival 'twitch', and seeing that there wasn't one for Halloween, were wondering if we were doing one this year.

I like carnivals, but they are also a lot of work. They take a lot of energy, a lot of volunteers, and a fair amount of cash to pull off. And I'm not against carnivals for the community or as a means to invite people to your church- this can be very effective outreach. I'm just more wired to do a carnival that fits our mission, and in this case, the CHS carnival is a perfect fit. November is also National Adoption Month, so the carnival fits as one of our tools to raise adoption awareness within Hillcrest.

My favorite story from the carnival comes from the face painting booth, where my wife Tarina along with others, was painting faces. One of the little girls wanted Tarina to paint a dolphin, which caught Tarina off guard. Tarina's a great face painter, but she is used to painting less intricate designs, and had no idea how to go about painting a dolphin. This little girl happened to have her mom with her (sometimes mom and/or dad come to CHS to attend special events such as this with their children) and her mom had a tattoo of a dolphin on her arm! The perfect reference point for the face painting design!

It's Official!

We finalized Kinsley's adoption yesterday with our attorney and a judge. Hard to believe that we welcomed Kinsley into our home only six months ago; it's like she's always been with us. We praise God for his continued movement in our lives.

Sticky Ideas

How do you get people to care about what you are saying? How do certain ideas stick to our collective consciousness, even though they may not even be true (such as tampering with and poisioning Halloween candy, an unfortunate urban legend)? Just finished an interesting book called Made to Stick that outlines why some ideas survive and thrive and others don't. It's great for pastors, teachers, managers, coaches, parents, really anyone who's in the business of communicating ideas and desiring that people live out those ideas. It's an interesting read and the authors propose what I have found to be a useful model. If you don't want to buy the book, you can check out the model, hear a podcast, and get other free goodies by going to the website here.

The Monkey at the Book Fair

This past week I volunteered at my son's book fair that the school was hosting in connection with Parent-Teacher conferences. It's quite a remarkable scene- hundreds of books on shelves that take up most of the gymnasium, most of them nicely priced, designed to continue a child's love of learning and education. Of course, Scholastic Books isn't stupid, they, like most companies, are generally pretty good at not just selling something, but also marketing other things to make up for the great deal you get on these books. So stationed right by the check out at the book fair is a couple of tables' worth of trinkets: erasers, pencils, fake money, pointers with big hands at the end, posters of the Jonas brothers and Alex Rodriguez, you know, the other tools necessary for a child's quality education.

For the first half of my shift at the fair, my son did well. Perfectly content to come home with his $5 book on mummies (though the Flat Stanley book was a close second, because he knows nana and auntie teach on that book). The second half, the Scholastic marketing demons took over, and he became fixated on his trinket of choice: a stuffed monkey, complete with a carrying case. He used every angle to get me to buy the monkey:

• It's only a couple bucks more than the book (true).
• It comes with a book (kind of true, the book looked more like a pamphlet).
• I love it (of course you do).

I tried every which way to tell him that he was not coming home with the monkey, but he was welcome to come home with the book. He persisted at me until asking why I would let him buy a book but not a monkey (especially since it's only a couple buck difference). I surprised myself when I replied, "because I value your education, and I will spend money on that. I do not value you having another stuffed animal, of which you have 30 at home, and that won't contribute to your development so I will not spend money on that".

Now of course, we buy him and his siblings toys, trinkets, and other stuff. But when pressed, I admit that I value certan things, and will pay for certain things, over other things. My wife and I come from families that value education and that work in education. There's the story of my grandparents who took each of us grandkids out shopping for school supplies before they started kindergarten that furthers this value for me. I'm thankful for the moment to clarify that value for my son, and for me.