Thoughts After a Shane and Shane Concert

On Saturday I ventured up to Cedarville, OH primarily to hang out with my friend Becca and also to see Shane and Shane in concert. Here are a few thoughts from the trip:

1. Sugar-free Red Bull works as well and tastes just as good as regular Red Bull.
Even though Red Bull is an essential part of my routine when I run sound at concerts, it was needed for this one as well. I ended up staying in Cedarville until after 1:00am talking and then decided to drive the 3 hours back to Wilmore so I could make it back for Church in the Morning. I had a hard time deciding on the sugar-free variety but I am now sold on it. It does lack just a little in the "liquid Smartie" taste as Nate Jacoby coined it. But it's hardly noticeable and if you don't think about it the difference is non-existent.

2. Shane and Shane seem like the type of people I would want to run sound for.
I have not always had the greatest experience running sound for artists. Some are great people to work with and some are just jerks. Sadly this includes worship leaders as I've worked with more than my share of difficult worship leaders. While you can't always tell what an artist is like from on stage you can notice a few things. The first thing I noticed was how laid back they were. There were a few minor sound glitches and things didn't sound "fantastic" but they (and their openers) were incredibly laid back and just rolled with it. We found out halfway through the show that Shane Everett was actually the one running sound for the openers and doing the 'check' for he and Shane Barnard. This is amazing. Most bands tour with a front of house tech (at a minimum) and usually a monitor tech, and are completely anal about everything, this was assuredly not the case here. They approached the show as if they were just spending an evening with friends and weren't worried if everything was going to be "performed" correctly. They didn't seem to present themselves as stars and appeared really down to earth. It could be argued that all this is a facade, but from my experience (although limited) it seems that they are the real thing. I came away from the show thinking that these are the type of people that I would enjoy running sound for and would even do it for free if given the chance. That is much more than I can say about most artists and as sad as it may be this includes a good number of Christian artists and worship leaders.

3. Shane and Shane's newer songs seem to lack the lyrical "zip" or depth that the older ones have. I'm not quite sure what it is that I'm referring to here, but there is a noticeably difference in the lyrical content of the older songs and the newer ones. The newer songs are still good, but they seem to be lacking in power and the ability to pierce to the heart when compared to the old ones. Maybe this is because many of the older songs were actually modified Psalms or other pieces of scripture. One could argue that I am just biased because the new songs are obviously new and I haven't had time to emotionally and experientially associate feelings with them. Although this is a valid point I don't think it's necessarily the correct one. I think the new music is good but it seems that they are trying to be more lyrically creative and while not bad it is bringing a slight shift to the scriptural weight and deep yearning that has come to define their music.

4. I can't think of a sentence which describes this point.
At the concert Shane and Shane played the song "Yearn" which includes these lyrics:

Holy design
this place in time
that i might seek and find my God
my God

Lord i want to yearn for You
i want to burn with passion
over You and only You
Lord i want to yearn

I think this song is fantastic and it is one of my favorites. As they were singing I had a few thoughts concerning the phrase "that I might seek and find my God." While the thoughts in the song convey a sense of yearning and longing for God and also convey a Scriptural anticipation they also sounded to me in that moment to convey a sense of not having found God yet. While this is a beautiful perspective on the 'already but not yet' nature of the Kingdom and our lives with God I also thought of this phrase in juxtaposition with a phrase from the Divine Liturgy of St. Chrysostom. The phrase I'm referring to in the Divine Liturgy reads:

We have seen the true light; we have received the heavenly Spirit; we have found the true faith, worshiping the undivided Trinity, for the Trinity has saved us

To be fair I don't really see these phrases as juxtaposed but it was entertaining this thought of apparent juxtaposition that started the following thoughts. While the lyrics of the song are meant to convey a longing for God it seems to me that if taken out of context they could be used to convey a sense of postmodern agnosticism. It seems to me that one of things that typifies postmodernism is an unwillingness to definitively claim truth. This tendency may also be creeping into some of the more 'emergent' circles of Christianity in their attempts to be relevant. While postmodernism says that we can't know truth or, maybe more aptly, that all truth is relative, the postmodern church may be tempted to work within that paradigm and thus claim that there is truth and we think it is in Christ. This leads to a sense of 'we know, but we really can't be sure.' Thus, for the postmodern individual, we are still hoping that we can somehow, if it were at all possible, "seek and find our God," as the song says.

As I thought about this postmodern agnosticism I thought that the church does not need to commiserate with the postmodern as many of the emergents do. Rather, the church needs to boldly shout as the Orthodox Church does that "We have seen the true light; we have received the heavenly Spirit; we have found the true faith," and this truth is in "worshiping the undivided Trinity," because "the Trinity has saved us." Maybe this sounds elitist or arrogant, but in an age of uncertainty where all truth is perceived as relative we do not need to fall into the trap of claiming we don't know. It seems to me that if we truly wanted to be relevant (I shudder at the use of the word) then then best thing we can do is boldly proclaim what we know to be true and hold to that truth no matter how much the culture claims that we can't be certain. For it truly is a mystery that "Christ has died, Christ is risen and Christ will come again." But just because it's a mystery doesn't make it any less true. It seems that now more than ever we should be embracing the historic creeds of the Church, not because they're ascetically pleasing (like the emergents use them) but because they indicate the truth that has been handed down to us through the ages of faith.

Beaux Arts Ball

On saturday I worked a show in Lexington called the "Beaux Arts Ball" and after talking about it with Eryn I think it has given me a new perspective on postmodernism. To understand that point though I need to do a brief description of the Ball.

The Ball is basically a masquerade rave. The costumes varried quite a bit, a few examples are: tetris blocks, S&M gear, rabbit suits, and stategically placed duct tape. The people were mainly 20-30 something with the few exceptions of older people in their 40s and 50s. The events for my stage were as follows:

8:30-10:30 - 1st DJ
10:30-11:15ish - Drag Show (fashion show with drag queens)
11:20-2:00am - 2nd DJ (with a fashion show at the begining)

To describe the event a little more it was basically a dark room with loud techno music with people "dancing" all over each other. It's hard to describe it without getting really graphic, but lets just say that I saw guys kissing guys, girls kissing girls, and guys kissing girls, I saw people wearing nothing but dog collars and chainlink thongs, and a bunch of other stuff. So the event was truly eclectic, to put it one way.

Ok, hopefully that gives you at least some picture of the event.

The event definetly transcended my normal experiences and was eye opening. I think the saddest part was the Drag Show and they way the croud reacted. When these women came on stage (they do like to be called women) the crowd (about 1,500-2,000 people) reacted to them with more excitement and more zeal than rock stars normally get by their screaming fans. It wasn't just the gay men that were excited but everyone was cheering them on with and was excited to see them "strut their stuff"(for lack of a better descriptor). It made me sad to see these men who found their fulfillment in dressing and acting like women, and buying into the lie of society. It almost made me cry, it was sad because they really seemed to be enjoying who they "were." Now obviously I tried to justify their joy by saying, 'well i bet they're really broken, they probably cry to themselves a lot, they probably aren't really happy, they're probably hurting really bad on the inside.' But ya know what, I can't make those kind of qualifications. That's just a stereo type I've been taught by society since I was young. These people may be truly happy with who they are, yes they're lost, they need Jesus, they're flling themselves with lies, but they may be happy with being drag. It was thinking back on this and the rest of the event that led me to my thoughts about postmodernism. Yes I'm finally getting to the point.

The experience was wierd, and my mind has images in it that I wish weren't there, but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, i mean i really think that this event typifies a whole segment of the population, i think this was post modern america, not what we vaguely concieve of as postmodernism. I guess my thoughts on this issues aren't as formed as I would like them to be, but it just seems that we treat postmodernism like it's something that we can look at and examine in a lab. I feel like what we concieve of didn't match up at all with what I observed saturday night. I'm entirely sure how to describe the difference, but I know there was one and it seems to me that after observing these differences these people do not need postmodern ministries. They don't need us to understand postmodernism they don't need us to keep talking about it as if it's a static reality that we can fix once we crack the code. This is a whole group of society, they're all governed by different assumptions and different things make them tick, they may be postmodern, they may be modern, who cares, they are lost and broken people. What they need is for the church to stop dialogue over how best to reach them and to start being the church. They don't need the church to create new lame ministries that will reach to their inherent postmodern philosophies (or lack thereof) but what they need is for the church to be the church.

We spend all our time, especially in academia trying to asses the culture, asses the postmodern world thinking that we can crack this code, churches can implement the solution and then all the culture's probelems along with ours will be solved. Can we not see past this ridiculous fallacy? All the church was ever asked to be from God was the church. All we were asked to do was love God and love others. Creating postmodern christian raves is not the answer, creating christian coffehouses isn't the answer, sure they may be fun and good, but the answer is to renew the church, to call the people of God to set their focus on one thing and one thing alone - Loving God. We need to abandon, what seems to me to be, our faulty conception of postmodernism and embrace intimate love with the Holy Triune God, rather than embrace a newer more accurate conception of postmodernism.

I guess these really aren't new thoughts. I feel I've said this same thing before. I feel these people looked more like true postmodernism than what we concieve it to be. I don't know exactly how to describe it (for that I apologize), but I do believe that it doesn't matter how this differes from our conception, as long as we focus on being the real church, which is by nature overflowing with love.

~ Ben

Postmodernism

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm a bit tired so I apologize in advance for any points that seem to be unusually unclear or nonsensical.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about postmodernism and the Church's response to it. Some of this thinking has come from classroom readings, some from dialogues with friends and some from my own experience in a postmodern "intentional community."

Thinking back to my Houghton days, oh so long ago, I remember how I was all about postmodernity and the "emergent" movement. I was so excited for this new paradigm in which to minister. A paradigm which seemed to throw off the shackles of modernity; especially the scientific method and the need for empiracle proof of all things, and seemed to embrace experience, narrative, and people.

I was all for this new paradigm for the majority of senior year and did not become wary of it until Doug Pagit came along and told us about his emergent church: Solomon's Porch in Minnesota. His lack of concern for orthodoxy bothered me, along with the lack of spiritual depth with which this emergent leader spoke. I am not trying to criticize him personally, but I observed this in his lecture and my subsequent conversations with him. My main concern with this was that he was one of the key leaders of a movement and seemed to lack deep spiritual passion - usually a bad combination.

Although this was a red flag, I still was a fan of postmodern christianity represented by authors like Pagit, and McClaren, and what is becoming countless other authors. This changed, however, when I came to Asbury.

At Asbury one can hardly hear students and some faculty talke for long without hearing phrases like: "our story", "our narrative", "emergent", "community", and other words and phrases that are hot phrases in the postmodern christian dialect. (To be sure, the context these phrases were spoken in ways often spiritually deep and packed with meaning.) Added to this I started to attend "Communality" an emergent-like intentional community in Lexington that had a very postmodern vibe. With the combination of these two factors and some readings in one of my classes, I began to have a new perspective on postmodernism and Christianity. I guess one could say that I was simply getting burnt out on the phrasology, but I would argue that I was begining to see a broader picture than what I had seen before.

I began to wonder why I was becoming dissillusioned with this Christian embrace of postmodernism. I wondered if it was the apparent lack of spiritual power that I observed in Communality and Pagit. I didn't think this was it because at the seminary there was incredible depth. I wondered if I was just sick of hearing the word story and narrative. Maybe, but it seemed to be larger than just annoyance. I wondered if I was just merely too far entrenched in modernism that it hurt to break out. I didn't think that was it either. I kept asking these sorts of questions trying to pinpoint what I disliked about it and then the other day I seemed to realize my problem with it.

It's trendy.

I think that we as Christians are making way too big a deal out of postmodernity. We're racking our brains trying to discifer the global culture, the way the world is taking shape. We're trying to be relevant by accentuating community, story, and other postmodern things, when really we're just hopping on the newest Christian fad.

I'm not saying that postmodernity doesn't exist, I'm not saying we should stop trying to understand culture, but I'm asking "why do we care so much?" Why are we so busy trying to understand what the world is thinking. It's as if we need to figure it out because we have a way to project the gospel to the whole world at once and it needs to be relevant to all. I am convinced this deep need to understand the entire culture is nothing but an immediate product of our mass targeted Christianity (church growth movement) which is deeply rooted in modernism. We're becoming obsessed with community and story because it is the next gimmick we can use to sucker mass groups of people into the Kingdom (or what we narrowlly view the Kingdom as being - i.e. the local church). The Kingdom always grows one individual at a time (though it does not emphasize THE individual in all things) and it is always working by the power of the Spirit.

Yes, community and story are genuinly important to some (and rightly so), but to talk about them all the time seems like a mere gimmick. To value community is not to continuously talk about it, rather it is to live within it and structure one's life within community and to value story is the same.

We've missed the mark. We constantly focus on global contextualization when really that's not the issue. The real issue is local contextualization. Why do we care what the whole world thinks and how society is moving. To be concerned with that seems to me to be an excuse for us to become blind to what our neighbor thinks and how she or he is moving in life. We constantly seek to look on large scales, when the real ministry of the Kingdom is done on small scale. In the case of the Kingdom of God, bigger is not better!! - Well at least not until the parousia.

The book of Acts shows us the movement of the Kingdom from Jerusalem outward. It starts small, with a rag tag group of Spirit filled disciples and grows into a large Spirit filled movement that encompasses much of what was then the known world, including Rome. While we may not have the same scenario here, we do have something analogous. We are constantly looking at Rome and beyond and trying to figure out how to reach it, but we haven't even concerned ourselves with Jerusalem, let alone forged a path to Rome.

We need to stop talking and start living. We need to stop theorizing about what the world is thinking and start dealing with the thoughts of those around us. We need to throw our hands in the air and say "who cares about postmodernism." We need to realize that the only ones talking about it are philosophers and Chrsitians (not that the two groups are mutually exclusive) and realize that the average person on the street, doesn't need postmodern Chrstians, they need real Spirit-filled Christians to help them in their needieness - both spiritual and physical.

So who does care? Not I.