Bass Licks

I'm a bass player. I love playing bass and don't get to do it nearly enough.  In moving to camp, living in an amazing place, and being blessed with all that life is now.....the thing I miss is playing with a band.   Bass, unlike other instruments is as much about mixing melody with rhythm as it is about playing notes. Without at least a drummer, playing by myself is not always very fun.  So I'm always on the lookout for ideas that will inspire me to try and new things on bass in the absence of other musicians.
So when I saw this...


I thought it was some inspiration (not that I can play it...yet)
J.S. Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" - Norm Stockton (Lincoln Brewsters Bassist)
By the way HT to mike for the video

Now Here's the thing.... (and follow me this is a bit of a tangent)  If Norm Stockton can play like this, why does Lincoln Brewster not showcase him a little more in songs?   Actually....maybe he does, I don't actually own a Lincoln Brewster album, I rely on the hits as supplied by LIFE 100.3 so the one song that I have heard quite a bit lately is Lincoln's version of "Salvation is Here" (here's a YouTube link) which is a cover of Hillsong United.   In the Hillsong version there is one of the most amazing bridge/bass solos I have heard in a long time (in Christian Worship songs at least) but Lincoln passes it up for a pretty simple guitar noodle.  (both can be heard at around the 2:20 mark).  I know very few bass players that can nail that line.  In fact most worship bands skip it, change it, etc.   But Lincoln you've got a great bass player there.  If you're going to cover the song.....cover the best part.  And hey LIFE, why play a cover when he has his own great songs - and the original version is so good.
 
Maybe this should be a post about how I hate when the original song gets lost behind a cover by a more popular band.... but hey what do I know, I don't work in radio any more ;)

PS.... no offence to Life 100.3  They are a top shelf radio station......trust me I've lived other place that don't have good Christian radio.  (just in case anyone from there stops by) 

Richard Dawkin's voice on the radio

Was Browsing Microclesia today and saw this post with imediatly jumped out to me

Camille Puglia writing in Salon
… I was recently flicking my car radio dial and heard an affected British voice tinkling out on NPR. I assumed it was some fussy, gossipy opera expert fresh from London. To my astonishment, it was Richard Dawkins, the thrice-married emperor of contemporary atheists. I had never heard him speak, so it was a revelation. On science, Dawkins was spot on—lively and nimble. But on religion, his voice went “Psycho” weird (yes, Alfred Hitchcock)—as if he was channeling some old woman with whom he was in love-hate combat. I have no idea what ancient private dramas bubble beneath the surface there. As an atheist who respects and studies religion, I believe it is fair to ask what drives obsessive denigrators of religion. Neither extreme rationalism nor elite cynicism are adequate substitutes for faith, which fulfills a basic human need—which is why religion will continue to thrive in our war-torn world.

It was interesting to me, because I've always wondered about why Dawkins was so focused on religion and his hatred towards something he doesn't even believe in.   I think I've read the tone of the "some old woman with who he was in a love-hate combat" when reading his books.

2010 Begins

I'm one of those people that spends a lot of time thinking about different ideas.  My wife recently told me I should tell her more of what is in my head, "it's kind of interesting".   I guess this blog is afflicted by the same problem.   In both cases I don't like to verbalize (or type) my thoughts until I really have them all thought out.  When pressed, I can give you my thoughts on Airline Security, Twitter, Technology, Theology, New Haircuts, The Death of the Emergent Church, and lots of other things.  But often I never get around to writing those things down.

I've been thinking about raising kids and teaching them.... how we've deprived them of creativity because of technology and our terrible school system.

What a church should look like in my life. 

What it's like getting ready to become a dad for the first time.

Hopefully, I'll spend some time in this year actually getting some of these things down

My Destination Christmas List

Can you have a Christmas wish list for places you would like to go?

If there were I would have a giant circle in the catalogue for this one.  I found the conference that, wow, I wish I could go to.   It's called:  The Electronic Gospel: How Technology Shapes Our Faith.   It's at Dallas Theological Seminary and I know I would love it.

The main speaker is Shane Hipps and other than Marshall McLuhan no one around this blog gets more direct attention.   It also features Scott McClellan of Collide Magazine and John Dyer of the blog Don't Eat the Fruit,  both of which I have enjoyed various interweb posting from.   All of them are asking great questions about how all this cool technology around us is effecting us on deeper (or not so deep) levels.


There is so much stuff being written about technology and the effect is has on our life, culture and faith.  It would just be fun to be at a conference, where people wouldn't instantly glaze over when the things like the four laws of media are being talked about. 



The price is really reasonable, it would just be the cost of getting there.... anybody what to donate a place ticket to Dallas?
Oh well, at least the Tweets and after posts (post posts??) will be fun to read.





HT to Jon for giving me something to get my hopes up

Preach it Shane

Shane Claiborne has a great article in Esquire addressed to those who don't follow Christ.

At one point Gandhi was asked if he was a Christian, and he said, essentially, "I sure love Jesus, but the Christians seem so unlike their Christ." A recent study showed that the top three perceptions of Christians in the U. S. among young non-Christians are that Christians are 1) antigay, 2) judgmental, and 3) hypocritical. So what we have here is a bit of an image crisis, and much of that reputation is well deserved. That's the ugly stuff. And that's why I begin by saying that I'm sorry.

I'm glad to see a person like Share Claiborne get such a platform to be read by a wide audience.

reading Marshall and Me

Found an excellent blog about the ideas of Marshall McLuhan written by Michael Hinton: Marshall and Me.  I have just begun reading back in the archives of post, but am very pleased with his excepts, quotes and ideas from the past.  I've added it to my RSS and will follow the thoughts.
I don't know how many people are as interested in the thoughts of McLuhan as I am..... but you should be ;)

Kid Blogging

So just in case it is not (blog) public knowledge, Brea and I are expecting our first baby around March 13th.   Acording to various pregnacy books, she is at the stage where she should be feeling the little guy kick and move (or yeah, we know we are having a boy).   This morning before church she was lamenting that while the book was rather certain that she should be feeling him, she had felt nothing.  He was quite a moving little guy when we saw him on the untralsound, so it's supprising that she wasn't feeling anything. We headed off to church  (which I will post about as well), sat down and during the worship set an older man in front of us began praying out in a loud voice.  Brea was already feeling the Spirit moving, but suddenly an the man began to pray she also felt the moving of our baby for the first time.   A very emotional start to our Sunday morning.   He has been moving all day, but so far it is not at a time that I have been able to feel it, but I am so happy to see Brea's joy.

Arguments against Virtual Church

I love to follow and analyze the various arguments that go on in the Blogosphere about the various new methods that are being used under the banner of "church"    I have commented myself on The Meeting House and things that I see around me, but one person I have loved reading is Bob Hyatt.    If all the latest trends are smoke, he has his infrared glasses on to see through it all.

He has a great post responding to this article In Defence of Virtual Church

Virtual Church is STILL a Bad Idea
I recommend reading the whole article, but here are a few highlights:

What do we call a church that not only fails to engage in, but makes a practical impossibility, the idea of church discipline? How will discipline happen in Second Life/Internet/Sim Church, where anonymity reigns and screen names and identities are changed with a couple clicks?
What do we call a church that not only fails to engage in, but makes a practical impossibility, the equipping ministry of the church? What about discipleship and leadership formation? How does one become an elder in a virtual church? What do we call churches without biblical eldership?
Can true community be mediated by a screen, or is it forged in the times at table, bearing one another’s burdens, serving the poor and one another together, at weddings and funerals, births and deaths … all the stuff that happens when I turn the screen off.

Shane Hipps is on the move

I'm a big fan of Shane Hipps.  His two books have played a significant role in my own journey of where technology needs to intersect with life and faith.   Today I picked up on a little news that he is moving to be a teaching pastor at Mars Hill.   That is pretty big news in a way I feel like the fan of the an indy band that has just made it big.  It's cool that Shane will now be part of the Rob Bell big picture and I hope that Shane's teaching about technology and the effects will have a bigger audience.  (Hey Shane, what are the four effects of NOOMA)  But in some way I feel like the hipster kid that now has to share his favourite band/author with everyone.    Any way.... Good hire Mars Hill.

FYI.... wow there are a lot of people that think Rob Bell and now Shane Hipps are teaming up with Satan himself.   Gosh.   I'd link to them, but then they'll just track back here and to be honest I don't need that kind of bother....  Just Google Rob Bell + Shane Hipps and see what you get.

The search for The Church

One thing that has not really happend yet since moving to Torrance to take the job at Camp Crossroads is for Brea and I to find a church body to be a part of.   We really want to be a part of a community, to find a people that want to seek Jesus on a daily basis and also seek to be Jesus to live close by.  A church body that is growing spiritually and is looking to make a difference (if not friends) in the community.
In the spring we went to the litle presbyterian church down the road.   The people there were very freindly and welcoming.   The worship service was pretty slow and mostly hyms out of the book, many at which even those in the pews didn't seem to know.  The teaching was good, but notably in sync with a common passage in the denonmination and thus not exactly as passionate as something that was brough personally from the pastor.    One of the main reasons that we had started with the church in town is that we want to tap into this community we live in and get to know people.  On thing about the church in Torrance, they weren't doing much to get to know their neighbours.   The pastor and his wife run a great afterschool program, but it's not something the community is interested in.   In the end we really felt it was right to look for other places.
The summer was crazy busy at camp and it wasn't untill fall that we had a few chancs to start looking at other places.   One church that often came up in searches and conversations was Glennwood Chapel.   It was a day in September that I went on my own,  Teen Challenge was there and it was a really great service.  (Since then we have started supporting them a little bit).   Brea was back for a few services on weekends that I couldn't and was excited by pastor Reg's preaching on what was the vision for the community that the church was in.   So a few weeks ago Brea and I finally had an oportunity to go together and were really looking forward to it.  It started off well enough - actually Life 100.3 was there which was cool, hadn't seen Scott Jackson, the GM in a few years - but then pastor Reg got up for his "sermon"  I have put it in quotations because it really wasn't a sermon at all.  Really just a presentation of what direction Glennwood needed to move in to become a bigger church.   It was just that, how to go from being a small church, to a medium church, to a large church.   I really started feeling sick.    I couldn't believe that someone would actually take the time to lay out a plan that was so stuck on numbers of people attending on a Sunday morning.   He used one slide that in esseces said a small church moves from being "Relationship Driven"  to "Program Driven"  - I wanted to walk out.    He also had slides that said rediculous things like the pastor needs to move from "caring for people" to being and "administratior"  So very quickly I was feeling like Glennwood is not the right place for us.

We are looking at other places and praying that God would give us a clue about what is the right place to be. 
So more on the progression later.    Would you go to a church that activly wants to move to a program bias?
We just want to be a part of a group of people that want to change their community and be changed by the Spirit.... not fill seats and build programs that people will hopefully want to come to