Just finished worship rehearsal. Our worship team is divided into 2 bands, Band X was tonight. They are awesome, and we had the most courageous new drummer join us tonight - Rhyan. He's not only talented, humble and genuine, but he has 2-toned hair like a mohawk. So, he's in and I think he's fantastic.

We are singing Baba Ye on sunday, a song that I learned in Nigeria from my choir. I think we will do it justice, although I miss my choir students so much. I think they would get a kick out of watching us play their music. It is a yoruban worship song that sets a beautiful melody to the Lord's Prayer "Father, your let your kingdom come and your will be done."

Band X has also come up with a fantastic version of Te Alabare which we are teaching again to the church on sunday. Bob's awesome ska guitar with Gil's happy bass lines will be sure to get everyone out of their seats and dancing. I just love putting fun rhythms to lyrics like "I praise you, I glorify you!"

Mark Scandrette is coming to teach on Sunday. We are very lucky to have him mold our vision for the small groups at our church. Here's the link to his book that he'll be teaching out of.  http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Graffiti-Making-Life-Jesus/dp/078798437X/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200037173&sr=8-1
I found it to be refreshing and thought provoking. I hope his dojo concept finds life here at The River.

and last but not least, a funny judah quote...
yesterday he was sitting at my desk watching "Cars" on my computer and he reached over to grab a bottle of water. By accident he dumped it over and there was a quick scramble to save everything on the top of the desk. I told him that even when we do something by accident it's still good to say sorry, and he said "It wasn't an accident mom, it was a bad idea."

Truly a Canadian child - witty with ease.

So, it's been another fascinating week in the world of being a professional christian.

is there really anyone good at this type of work?

I've been thinking alot about the dynamics of coming together and being church. What should we be doing that would foster the feeling that we are all in this together? "This" being a tightrope walk of practical faith having one ear cocked to the mystery of the Spirit while looking squarely at the stuff of daily life: cleaning toilets, talking with people who aren't like you, and paying the bills. "This" being the mysterious interconnection of our will and God's will.

As someone who's in charge of planning what we do when come together, i'm more mystified than I am certain that all of what we do together is really helping us be the church. What does it take to feel connected? To know after our time together that these people,
these people we call our church family,
these are the ones that are going to help me become like Jesus
and know the kind of "abundant life" that He claimed to offer.

If everything we do together on Sunday morning is to help us love God, shouldn't it also be helping us love one another? Those 2 things were interconnected in Jesus mind, why do they feel so separate sometimes?

At the leadership community meeting last week, you could hear 2 lightbulbs come on for us in the room. One was the idea that not everyone feels God's presence in the same things. The second was that gender is a tangible representation of an aspect of God's character. The result of these two realizations was a humility in worship the next morning that was palpable. I could literally feel a space open up for us to be ourselves and to be loved. It was really beautiful. I even had a guest come and tell me he could feel something authentic in the room that drew him towards God.

I think these two ideas make way for conversation on a whole new level. And i'm really excited to see what happens when we come together to listen to how we each connect to God, and how we can love God by loving our neighbor in the immediate sense. Not requiring the person next to you to be exactly like you in order to worship together. Looking for a way that our words could be the loving words of Jesus to someone. Praying for someone else's experience of God to be so utterly transformational that they walk out with just enough faith to carry someone else to Jesus instead of just themselves. Loving our neighbor in the way we love God through worship makes a way for us to be life-long learners, not just of who God is, but who we are to be as His people, who we can embrace into our family and maybe aspects of ourselves we didn't even know were there.

If we don't go this route, then I think i'm just going to start a drive-in church - we could all sit in our individual cars, listen to the talk on the big screen and then respond by tuning our radios to the style of music we like and sing like crazy to "Better is one day" either in hard rock, or soft rock, or reggae, or techno or whatever style we personally feel in the mood for.

My son has a tremendously helpful heart these days. I hope it's not just a phase. He's at our feet constantly saying "help, help" and then grabbing the broom out of our hands to get into the mess with us. His help isn't always very helpful, but in his 2 year old pronunciation, his word "help" sounds more like "hope" than help. I am always nudged into a momentary reminder that help, really is pretty similar to hope. In matters of faith, i'm realizing that my hope is in the way that God brings us together to grate off our edges and start to look a little more like him. And as much as it hurts sometimes, the more I look around, the less I think this life of faith can be any other way. Much hope for me to keep on keepin' on as an exile in a foreign land comes from asking for help from you.

well, that, and possibly chocolate, a glass of red "grape juice" and Corinne Bailey Rae's debut album at the end of the day!

shalom,
kdk

Hey! Welcome!
So, here we are, my first attempt at blogging. This should be fun.

My hope for this blog is that it will be the sticky fly paper to catch my fleeting thoughts on worship, following Jesus, and living in the Kingdom which is really just another way of talking about worship. I love talking about worship so this should be easy.

I'm really looking forward to worship tomorrow. I love the group dynamic. People come in, carrying a million things that no one else could identify, and because we come together, and God being all-powerful and all-unpredictable, people are able to open their hands and change is possible. Not just because of the mystery of how the Divine speaks to our hearts in unpredictable ways, but also because we have the opportunity to be Jesus to one another - to listen, to cry alongside, to have faith for someone who doesn't have any that morning. That's what I love when we come together. It's not just about singing music, or hearing a well crafted phrase, it's about coming into contact with a living Word that lives and breathes and moves even as we hear it. Who knows what could happen tomorrow: who could be an instrument of God for someone, whose heart could released to live in a totally new way?? Stay tuned...

kdk