Hymnody

I sent this email to our worship leaders and I thought others might be interested in it.

Why do we try to incorporate a hymn each week into worship?

The shortest answer I can give is to quote C. S. Lewis on old books: “Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook–even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. None of us can escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes.” (from his introduction to Athanasius’ On The Incarnation).

The same thing is true of songs. There are some great worship songs out today and I want the majority of our worship to feature them. But I don’t want us to just feature them. They have notable weaknesses (pdf link) and so I want the “sea breeze of the centuries” to blow through our worship and keep us rooted.

Having said that, traditional hymn music doesn’t really connect with today’s students. That’s why I urge you to seek out or make up (yes, you are allowed to do that) contemporary arrangements for the hymns that we do sing.

I’ve found a few that illustrate what I’m talking about. Check out http://igracemusic.com/igracemusic/hymnbook/hymns.html

Each one has a sample mp3, lead sheets, tab sheets, and other resources available for worship teams.

Another excellent example is the Dave Crowder band’s recording of “All Creatures Of Our God And King.”

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to explain myself on that for a while but I’ve never actually gotten around to it.

So there.

Look, I’m On TV! Sort Of. Not Really.

Inspired by Mark Driscoll’s example, I videotaped last week’s Chi Alpha meeting and put it online using Google Video. So now you can just go to google video and search for something like “Jesus at Stanford” and the video will appear.

Or you can just go to the xastanford.org website and see it there. Google lets you embed the videos wherever you want. Pretty amazing, huh?

Not bad for our first try. Now I need to brainstorm about making it more attractive–the blackboard is pretty unappealing. For that matter, I’m not all that appealing–I need a fashion makeover or something. And I need to talk slower. Still, not too bad for our first try.

So why do we record these meetings? I can imagine someone alleging that it’s some sort of egomaniacal thing. As a rebuttal, I can only offer my poor grooming skills. Egomaniacs exfoliate.

So why do we record our meetings? 3 reasons:

1) We want to make it easy for our students to invite their friends to come.

Chi Alphan: “Come check out this meeting. It’s the best thing since sleep. And the wheel. And fire.”
College Pagan: “Wow. What’s it like?”
Chi Alphan: “Your computer on?”
College Pagan: “Yeah.”
Chi Alphan: “Go to google video and search for ‘Jesus at Stanford’ — that’s one of our meetings.”

2) So our students still be part of our community when they’re doing a study abroad. We’ve been listened to on at least three continents. I’m gunning for the whole globe!

3) I sometimes refer back to previous messages and it’s easy to say, “You know, I talked about that a few quarters ago. I don’t have time to explain all my thoughts on that right now–go get it off our website and ask me any follow-up questions you have.”

Since we were already recording in MP3, video was a no-brainer. We can do both easily, so why not?

Things Which Interested Glen Last Week

Things I bookmarked last week on del.icio.us.

Disclaimer: these links are posted automatically using the excellent yawd hack and are merely things that were interesting enough to bookmark for future reference–I may or may not agree with the views expressed by the linked pages. In fact, I may not have even read them yet.

Footnotes Are Infinitely Superior To Endnotes

I hate endnotes. In fact, I loathe them. They force me to read with two bookmarks and for no good reason. Footnotes are a fundamentally superior way to attribute information and are even better for digressing without interrupting an argument.

Yet more books use endnotes than footnotes. Why?

Turning A Phrase

Our neighbor is applying for a job as a professor and part of her job interview will involve lecturing to a class, so last night a bunch of us got together and listened to her practice her Salem Witch Hunt lecture (her expertise is in colonial history). It was quite good. She’s got a lot of knowledge and presents it well.

At one point she mentioned how the confessing witches described in lurid detail their covenant with the Devil which, along with several other intriguing details, involved kissing his butt. Literally. To make a deal with the Evil One they believed you had to apply your lips to his posterior.

And they described this in lurid detail. Lurid.

Being a lover of words, I immediately began to think of ways to allude to the act of kissing demon tush that would fall short of lurid but would nonetheless be evocative. I came up with three:

  • giving the Enemy of All Flesh a hiney hickey
  • kissing the heinous anus
  • smooching the sulfurous sphincter (alternate ending: Satanic sphincter)

Coming soon to a sermon near you…

update: my neighbor has blogged about the evening as well. With a photo. And yes, I am the one who remains nameless. Also, I edited one of my wordplays because I felt a verb that I had chosen for variety was stronger than I had intended to be. There’s a distinction between humor and vulgarity, and I think my original verb was too crass.

Neologisms

Two new words have bounced into my head recently, and I have graciously decided to bestow them upon the world.

  1. Gloth: gluttony plus sloth. Example: “Over the Christmas break many students are afflicted with a strong case of gloth.”
  2. Proctological: the adjectival form of proctologist. Example: “Q: How does this puppet work, anyway? A: You have to get proctological with it.”

Be the first on your block to use them–impress your neighbors!

Students Drive Me Crazy

Today I met with a frosh who is trying to choose between Chi Alpha and another ministry–we’ll call them Ministry X. A summary ensues:

“What I like best about Chi Alpha is the messages. Ministry X’s messages aren’t very good. And it isn’t clear what they believe. And I really don’t like their Bible study. Chi Alpha’s Bible study is much better. And I’ve found a place to serve at Chi Alpha–it would be much harder for me to find something to do at Ministry X because they’re so large. But I think I should choose Ministry X.”

That sound you hear is me slamming the door shut on my head repeatedly.

Federal Governance And Its Discontents

This is sort of random, but I find it fascinating so please bear with me:

Whenever power is split between one central and several regional authorities, we are talking about a federal system of governance. The most obvious American example is the federal government (Washington, D.C.) versus the state governments.

In a federal system of governance there is a built-in tendency towards tension between the central authority and the regional authorities.

Each side is trying to do the best they can from their perpective, yet each side keeps making decisions that don’t make sense from the other side’s perspective. This results in a lack of confidence in the other side. Most regional authorities probably have a 85–95% confidence factor in the national leadership (which is reciprocated by the national authority). This distrust centers on two areas: competence and character.

  • incomplete trust in competence: I believe that you mean well, but that you lack the necessary attention to detail/big picture perspective/fundraising knack/writing ability/knowledge of the issues/etc.
  • incomplete trust in character: I don’t think that you’re evil, but I do think that you’re operating with a different set of values than I am. You define honesty differently than I do, or you have a personal as well as an organizational agenda, or you lack the courage to disappoint people, etc.

I’m not talking about a complete lack of confidence, mind you. I’m merely talking about a lack of complete confidence. A complete lack of confidence calls for drastic action. A lack of complete confidence calls for mid-course adjustments.

Some specific examples of a lack of complete confidence:

  • “Will this really happen or is it just a big todo about nothing?” (character)
  • “This is what they say here and now, what will the emails say in three months?” (character)
  • “This is what they want to do, but can they really pull it off?” (competence)
  • “Are they willing to actually enforce this policy or it really going to be the same-old same-old?” (competence and character)

The Assemblies of God tends to use a federal system of governance:

  • Springfield, MO versus District Officials
  • District Officials versus Sectional Presbyters
  • the national youth department versus the district youth departments
  • Chi Alpha (see my notes on a Chi Alpha leadership team meeting)

Since we have a federal system of governance we shouldn’t be surprised when the same tensions emerge in our movement that we see in other federal organizations. But we are surprised. Not only are we surprised, we tend to diagnose it as a spiritual problem such as disunity, a failure to submit to authority, an example of unethical leadership, or the politicization of a spiritual organization.

While a spiritual problem may be present and exacerbating the situation, it’s not the causal factor. The tendency towards tension is produced by the structure itself.

Is the federal system a bad system of governance? No. It just provides us with challenges that we need to overcome: other systems provide other challenges and there is no panacea.

So what should we do if we realize that a lack of confidence is hindering our effectiveness?

A few things occur to me:

  1. Remember that this is a natural problem, not an intrinsically spiritual one.
  2. Remember that this is not evidence of a failing organization or failing leadership. This will recur over time regardless of the organization’s health or the leadership’s competence (although the frequency and duration of the cycles of mistrust will tell you something significant about the organization and its leaders).
  3. Realize that you would probably agree with the other side if you had their responsibilities and resources. You’ve seen it a million times: someone who previously agreed with you changed positions and all of a sudden became unreasonable. You would do the same thing.
  4. Be reluctant to criticize where you are not willing to help. I say “be reluctant” rather than “refuse” because sometimes you’re asked for feedback–giving it honestly is a matter of integrity.
  5. Be frank about the tensions and their reasons. Forthrightness is the long-term key to health. Pretending that they aren’t there exacerbates the tension.
  6. Focus on the issues and not the personalities (and most assuredly not on the history).
  7. Pray.