I really believe that one thing that is absolutely essential to any faith community (or any community, for that matter) is fellowship.  

This is more than friendship, but, friendship is an integral part of it.  In fact, the term we so easily throw around in church circles has a much, much deeper meaning to it.  In the New Testament, the word rendered in English as “fellowship” is the Greek word koinonia.  This word has a host of integrated meanings:  Strong’s defines it as “fellowship, association, community, joint participation, intercourse (not the sexual kind!)  (Strong’s  G2842)

Another denotation is “the share which one has in anything.”  I think that really sums it up.  The faith community – and I don’t care if it’s a church, a mosque, a synagogue or a meeting house – needs to share in things together.  if we don’t – if we walk out the door on Sunday afternoon and don’t see each other until the next week  - then the church will surely die.  We need to invest in each other’s lives.

Yesterday after church, a group of people decided to try out a new Chinese buffet restaurant that had opened in the city.  More and more people caught wind of it, and next thing you know, there were about 20 of us standing outside the door to this place.  You know what we saw when we got in there?

Churches.

Lot’s of obvious church groups were filling the  place.  Churches eating together, laughing together, enjoying one another’s company outside the building.  Groups interacting with one another.

Our church plant in New York City makes it a point to schedule time like this every single week.  Sometimes it’s a huge meal, sometimes it’s coffee and cake, but they spend time together every week.  Not praying, not doing ministry, not rehearsing, not attending classes.  (all of which are important) But just enjoying one another’s company.

I think a lot of struggling or stagnant churches don’t do this.  I know there are times at my own church where this is fallen off, and the entire atmosphere has changed because of it.  And I know from my experiences with the Forge, that church people need this kind of thing, and often it doesn’t happen.

If we’re going to change the world together, we have to like each other.

I don’t want to debate that point.  The administration had to back off that stance, anyway.   But it brings up a larger point: tolerance, or lack of it, of other people’s ideas.  There is an irony there. For the most part, I have found that the people who scream loudest demanding tolerance are the most intolerant.

Entering 2012, the two of the largest social issues in America are same-sex marriage and abortion.   In both cases, but especially the former, there are cries for tolerance.  Yet, it seems that same tolerance is not freely given both ways.  For example:

• In Massachusetts,  Catholic Charities was forced to stop offering adoption services, because they would have been required by law to place children with same-sex couples.
• In New Mexico, a Christian photographer Elaine Huguinen declined to take an job photographing a same-sex commitment ceremony on religious grounds.  She referred the couple to several other photographers.  The couple filed a complaint with the state Human Rights Commission, who ordered Huguinen to pay $6600.
• In New York, Yeshiva University was forced to allow same sex-couples in their married dorms.
• In New Jersey, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association  - a Methodist organization – was sued because they would not rent their boardwalk pavilion to a same-sex couple, even though the pavilion is privately owned. OGCMA also lost some of their tax-exempt status.
• Recently, a well known Dutch abortion doctor posted an article on Facebook describing, step-by-step, how to do an in-home chemical abortion, including how to lie at the pharmacy to get the needed chemicals.  Facebook took the article down but then restored it, even offering a public apology to Dr. Gomperts.  Meanwhile, several pro-life activists created one of those “What they think I do…” posters about abortionists, ending with the photo of an aborted child.  Facebook promptly took it down, and instructed the poster to remove it from anywhere else he might have posted it.  (the poster can be found here)

The list goes on and on, which begs the question:  Shouldn’t those who demand tolerance be showing the most tolerance to others?

Keep in mind, in the first three above instances, in not one case was anyone prevented from anything, really.  Catholic Charities was one of dozens of adoption agencies in Massachusetts.  New Jersey has over 200 miles of shoreline to get married on.  And there were dozens of photographers in Albuquerque to take pictures.  (One of whom did)  Yet in each case, instead of saying “I respect you and your beliefs, as I want you to do for me.”  the “aggrieved” party or parties (with the state in cahoots) chose to trample on the rights of others.

If we are going to have a dialogue, we need to have mutual respect. Without that, nothing can happen.  We don’t have to agree with each other.  We can agree to disagree, and that’s fine.  But we need to respect one another as people.

The good news is, in a couple years people who follow their religious convictions might be a protected minority under the law.

It’s laziness.

Blogger suited me fine.  It was easy to use, easy to skin, easy to do everything.  I had no need to change.  I still don’t, really.  But…

WordPress is more customizeable.  There are tens of thousands of themes out there, anything you can imagine, and then with some php and css you can customize them more.  Blogger is making strides in this area, but is still lagging behind.

Lots of add-ons.  Like themes, there are plugins for everything.  From commenting to appearance to stats to media to… whatever.

Widgets. ’nuff said

Comments.  I’m not a big fan of Blogger’s commenting system, and there are not a lot of third-party ones that work with it.

Ownership.  There’s a lot of stuff you can’t do on Blogger because you don’t own the server.  I had to do a stupid workaround for the redirect because I can’t get to the htaccess file on Blogger.

Shutting up Klampert. Joel’s been bugging me for years about my Blogger blog.  Haters gotta hate.

There are, of course, some disadvantages to using WordPress.  Blogger is free.  Blogger is integrated deeply into Google (of course, Google owns it) so the site gets indexed almost immediately.  But, in the end, WordPress wins.

I understand that iPads are awesome.  I get it.  But there is a lot of awesomeness packed into an Android tab as well, and in some cases, the ‘droid does stuff better than the iPad.   So then, here are ten cool things you can do with your Android tablet.   (I am using an Acer A500 running 3.2 Honeycomb.  I also know that the iPad can do a lot of this stuff.)

So if you are on the fence about stepping up to a tablet, here are some reasons why.

1. Google Earth  - Google Earth is way, way cooler on a multi-touch than it is on a desktop.   Using your fingers, you can soar over landscapes, rotate orientation, and change altitude and angle.  It really feels like on of those CSI-like displays you see on TV.

2. Use it as a music stand – If you are a musician, there is a great app called MobileSheets which is like an electronic songbook.  Using the companion desktop application, or natively from the app itself, you can load pdf or image files of chord charts, lyric sheets, sheet music, lead sheets… whatever.  They can be organized many ways, and sorted into setlists.  You can use your finger or a bluetooth page turner to flip through the charts, and there is a built in media player and metronome.  

3. Watch HD TV – The A500 has an HDMI port built into it.  When connected to an HDTV, it streams video at 1080p effortlessly.   No Netflix device, no problem.  Just hook this puppy up and watch away.  I was watching for a few hours the other day on battery with no issues.  The tab detects the TV as soon as you plug it in, changes the orientation and begins streaming audio and video. Now if I could just figure out how Netflix makes its “suggestions.” ( Buy the cable on Amazon – I only paid 3 bucks!) 

4. Read a good book – All tablets, including the iPad, have built in e book apps, and there are dozens more available on the various markets.  My favorite is the Nook app, but there are many others.  While it is not, obviously, like turning pages in a real book, there is a convenience to it.  Plus, I can read in the dark. The Nook app can go from black on white to white on black, as can most of them.  Using a tablet is not as comfortable as using an e-ink reader if you read a lot, but it is great for the occasional to moderate reader.  The Nook app works well, and you can easily side-load your own books, including Adobe Digital Editions DRM-protected books (using the desktop app to authorize your tab.) 

5. Draw a picture – I just found the Autodesk Sketchbook Express app, and I love it.  It’s great for doodling or serious sketching, depending on your level of talent.  The controls seem quite intuitive and easy to use, and the free version is quite powerful.  I can’t imagine what the paid version does.  

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.  - A nice way to open the show, although the constant uber-closeups of the Boss’ face kept me regretting the decision to buy a high-def TV.   Meh

Bruno Mars  - I’m not a big Bruno Mars fan, really (and I’ve used “Grenade” to talk to kids about how not to feel), but this rendition of “Runaway Baby” was fun.  Good Job!


Alicia Keys and Bonnie Rait – their tribute to Etta James was touching, but nothing outstanding.  Boos to the Grammys for leaving Etta out of the memorial video later.  Meh


Chris Brown – Say what you want, the man can dance.  He can apparently lip-sync,too.  I loved the setpiece, and the energy was contagious.  Twitter was abuzz with posts about how Brown seems to have been “forgiven.”  Whatever.  Not too bad. 


Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson.  - She sang great.  He looked so uncomfortable in that suit, it was a distraction.  Plus, his mic cutting out at the end will probably get someone fired.  Meh


Foo Fighters – Oh, yeah!  Real rock, in the tent, in the parking lot.  ”Walk” was one of the best numbers of the night.  On a scale of 1 to Foo, this was a full Foo.  Plus, Dave Grohl made Slayer cool again for four minutes.  Mas excellente.


Rhianna/Coldplay.  She sounded great as always.  Chris Martin sounded a little rough, but the band pulled it off well.  Not too shabby


Maroon 5/Foster the People/Beach Boys – Maroon 5 owned “Little Surfer Girl.”  Foster the People seemed uncomfortable.  The Beach Boys couldn’t have seemed more disinterested, especially Brian Wilson.  Meh.


Stevie Wonder – He wasn’t a performer, but ten seconds on the harmonica was full of awesome.


Paul McCartney – Ooof.  This was depressing.  But I could watch Joe Walsh and that orchestra for ten minutes.  Where’s the instrumental track?

Civil Wars – Who are these guys?  I love these guys!  Best surprise of the night!


Taylor Swift – I love the sweet, sweet irony of Taylor Swift singing at the Grammys a song about how everyone says she can’t sing… and then completely owning it! And getting a thunderous, standing ovation.  Love that lyric change: “Someday, I’ll be singing this at the Grammys.”  You go, girl!


Katy Perry – An ok performance with a lot of fire.  Meh 


Adele – Oh yeah.  No fire.  No levitation.  No army of dancers.  No visual effects.  Just an amazing set of pipes.  Performance of the night.  Full of win!


The Band Perry/Blake Shelton/Glenn Campbell – the feel-good moment of the night.  How can you not love Glenn Campbell?  Ten Rhinestones 


Tony Bennett and Carry Underwood – Aren’t we running the “duet with Tony Bennett” meme a little long?  Enough, already!


Jennifer Hudson – If you stayed dry-eyed during her tribute to Whitney Houston, you might have no soul.  Jennifer didn’t try to sound like Whitney, which was a win.  She held it together, which was more win. Randy Jackson once told Jennifer she shouldn’t sing Whitney Houston songs.  Sorry, Dawg, you’re wrong.  Full of class. 


Chris Brown/ li’l Wayne – Chris should have kept it at the first performance.  Yuk.


Foo Fighters – More Foo, more win! 


deadmau5 – Mike Kim summed it up best on Twitter:  “I have seen the Anti-Christ. He has come in demonic Mickey Mouse form at the 2012 Grammys.”   ’nuff said

Nikki Minaj – Um, yeah.  What was that?

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Paul McCartney/Dave Grohl/Joe Walsh/Bruce Springsteen/Rusty Anderson/Brian Ray – Holy cow, this is the best Grammy finale I’ve seen in years.  Just basically these six guys shredding for six minutes.  (Well, five of them were shredding, and Bruce was showing why he has Little Steven in his band. Someone tune the Boss’ guitar, please!!!)  This was win at it’s winningest.   Please don’t let it stop!

This film got recommended to me by a guy at a forum I post on.  I was intrigued by his description of it, and it was on Netflix, so I thought “Why not?”  I’m glad I did.

A little background.  China has the largest migrant population in the world – 130 million people who follow the work, usually from the farms in the west to the cities in the east to work in clothing or electronics factories.  Last Train Standing follows several years in the lives of Zhang Changhua and his wife, Chen Suqin – migrant workers living in Guangzhou and working in a clothing sweatshop, living in a tiny, run-down apartment.  Each year they travel home to Sichuan to during the Spring Festival to visit their family – including their teenage daughter Qin.  For sixteen years, they see her a couple of days a year, which means they have no relationship with her, and she resents it deeply.

What follows is typical parent-teen struggles – arguments, fights, bitternrss, rebellion. Qin drops out of school and moves to the city herself to work in another sweatshop, trimming threads. Eventually she goes to a different city and gets a job as a waitress in a nightclub, while her parents worry about their 17 year old daughter. Suqin considers moving home to take care of their younger son.

What is really striking about this documentary is the fact that even though there is sparse dialogue,and it’s all in Chinese, I resonated with the struggles of these parents.  They live away from home and family, in abject poverty and despair, and yet, have hope for the future of their children. There are some difficult and uncomfortable moments here. Changhua gets into a violent fight with Qin at one point. You watch the Zhangs living their meager life, wondering why they put up with all they do.  They seem little better off then if they had just stayed on the farm.  Their family is falling apart. Yet, they have one another, and that bond is strong.

All in all, a worthwhile film, leading to understanding of universal struggles and (for me) an unfamiliar culture.

Many Christians go through their walk without ever really considering the idea of spiritual warfare as something real and tangible.  Even though the Bible clearly tells us that’s where our battlefield is, a lot of people push that to the back of their minds as being some kind of metaphor.

Michael Leehan knows better.  In his book Ascent from Darkness: How Satan’s Soldier Became God’s Warrior, he takes the reader on a real-life, painstakingly chronicled journey of his commitment to satanism, a commitment which consumed over twenty years of his life.  Far from the Hollywood-stereotype goatskin pants-wearing, bonfire-dancing “devil worshipper,” Michael was a family man, a business man, and even a close friend to many Christian men.  However, he openly gave his life over to Satan at an early age, intentionally disrupted the work of churches, sowed discord among congregations, an preyed on “lukewarm” Christian women.

Anyone who has been involved in spiritual warfare will immediately recognize the honesty and truth in Leehan’s description of his spiritual encounters.  Others might know many of the same types of people he runs into in various churches around the country.  There is a lot that is familiar here.  Still, some of the scenes Leehan stages literally had my heart pounding in my chest. There were times I would read multiple chapters at a time, because I could not put the book down.  Indeed, I read the whole thing in four sittings.  It was that engrossing.

Where does one begin to review or summarize an album of this… epicality? Epicosity?  Epicness?
It’s big. Thirty-four tracks big.  Over one hundred minutes of music big.  This ain’t your father’s EP.
The title is big.  Officially, it is Give Us Rest, or (a requiem mass in c [the happiest of all keys]). Coming from this band, none of this should be a surprise.  What should also not be a surprise is that the album is absolutely brilliant.

Built around the traditional form of the missa cantata Tridentine mass – literally “sung mass” – used from the mid-sixteenth century through the mid-twentieth. Specifically, Crowder uses the form of the Requiem Mass - the mass of the dead.  Thus, the piece is divided into the traditional parts like the introit, kyrie, gradual, agnus dei, etc…
Just as the catalog of the David Crowder* Band is an eclectic mixture of styles, so is their magnum opus; you’ll find rock, pop/dance, neo-classical, electronica,  metal, choral…  even bluegrass.  The beginning of the album completely draws you in… a door opening, footsteps echoing across a floor, a voice speaking softly in Latin.  A piano, strings…  Oh, great God, give us rest/ We’re worn thin from all of this/ At the end of our hope with nothing left/ Oh, great God, give us rest. It’s chilling and welcoming at the same time, and an understandable lament from a band who has done so much to change the face of worship music over the past decade.

Throughout are woven traditional Crowder songs like the first single: “Let Me Feel You Shine,” and “After All (Holy).”  Then the Sequences – a collection of varying pieces of vastly differing styles, numbered instead of named, sprinkled with Latin and drifting into the almost purely instrumental – that close out disc one.  Just like the mass itself,  the second half opens on the offering, travels through the agnes dei (Lamb of God), the Great Amen, Communion and finally the Pie Jesu - a Latin chant which translates as “Merciful Lord Jesus, grant them, rest.”  Thus, we’ve come full circle, ending on the wonderful “Oh My God, I’m Coming Home.”
As a coda, there are several tranditional-style hymns, song in a somewhat bluegrass style, but sounding very much like you might hear in a small country church in east Texas… “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms/ ‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus,” the original “Jesus, Lead Me to Your Healing Waters,” and finally, beautifully, “Because He Lives.”

The packaging of the CD is pure Crowder as well.  ( I still have my Remedy swag).  The insert opens up to a 9×9 perforated poster with liner notes on one side, and stylized versions of various DC*B album covers on the other which can be mixed and matched and shuffled and combined with two acetate film silhouettes – one of David and one of the “Crowder Asterisk.”   Check it out here.

The album art itself is a marvel of metaphor.  The hummingbird is a creature that can move in any direction, yet it expends so much energy it must feed constantly. It will sleep so deeply that the only thing that can awaken it is the warm light of the sun. (Did someone say “Let Me Feel You Shine?”)   I wonder if that is how Crowder views himself.  Scattered around the cover are various physics equations dealing with mass.  (Get it, mass?)  But a little physics knowledge will tell you all of these equations deal with mass at rest. This gets deep, but “mass in c” might be a roundabout reference to a time of transition.

All in all, an amazing piece of work and a fitting capstone to a brilliant (and altogether short) run as one of the most innovative Christian bands out there.   Get it, find a nice road to drive by yourself for a little over an hour  and a half, and pop this puppy in.

I love live albums.  There is a sense of size, of depth, of warmth.that you really cannot get in even the best studio recording.  The last couple of years have seen some great live worship recordings: The I Heart Revolution by Hillsong United, Happy Day by Tim Hughes, Remedy: Club Tour Edition by the David Crowder* Band, to name a few.  So I was eagerly anticipating getting a review copy of Spirit Break Out to listen to.

Tim Hughes is one of my favorite worship leaders and songwriters.  We play a lot of his songs at church, I love the Happy Day record, and I think “Here I Am to Worship” is one of my favorite worship songs.  Tim’s footprint  is all over this thing, but so are the footprints of a lot of other great people like Ben Cantelon and Nikki Fletcher. The title track is brilliant, a combination of power and depth that I really like, especially when the easy, deep rhythm gives way to an unexpected rap by Myles Dhillon.  The opening track, “Spirit of the Living God” is a perfect entry into this experience, building from a gentle drum rhythm to an powerful anthem, leading into the peppy “New Day,” which is reminiscent of “Happy Day.”

All in all, this album is a great listen, and will be, I’m sure, a great source for some new songs for the church.  I already plan on doing a couple of them, and Worship Central is more than happy to share, with chord charts for their entire catalog on their website. They even have an iPhone app with charts and a transposer for all their songs.

Spirit Breaks Out released in the UK in September, where it cracked the top ten album downloads on iTunes.  It drops in the US on January 24.  They are touring in the UK and France in January and February; one can only hope that they decide to do some shows in the US later in the year.  In the meantime, enjoy this:

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this album free from Kingsway/Integrity Music to listen and post a review on this site. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255

I do not get political on this blog, and that is intentional.  While I have strong opinions politically and do not hesitate to share them – usually on other people’s blogs – but this is a place for discussing music, movies, families and technology.

Unfortunately, there is a storm brewing which affects much of the core of what I do here, along with what many other bloggers, webmasters, churches, small companies and others do .  It is called “SOPA” and it is bad.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? 


SOPA stands for the “Stop Online Piracy Act” which is a bill currently working it’s way through the U.S. House of Representatives. (along with its Senate counterpart, the Protect IP Act, or PIP) On its face, SOPA is designed to protect US copyright holders from online piracy and copyright infringement, none of which is a bad thing.  Criminals should be stopped, and I think we can all agree with that.

SO WHAT?


The problem is (and there are many problems) that this is a really poorly written bill that is so sweeping in its scope and so vague in its language that it could potentially be a threat to the very fabric of the internet. And I’m not exaggerating, sadly.

SOPA empowers the US Attorney General (meaning the Justice Department) to take action against foreign and domestic websites that are “facilitating the commission of [copyright infringement.]” in any way.  What’s frightening about that is that there really no guidance or definition for what “facilitating” means.  Basically, it’s whatever the AG says it is.  So what happens once that determination is made?

The if the website is a “US-directed” site, meaning that their income (ad revenue) or user base (visitors) come from the US, Justice can do a few things, including:

• Force US companies from paying for advertising on the site
• Force US service providers to block access to the site.