The summer time has come and gone. I’ve had a great time.
As you all know, for 6 weeks this summer, I started the first Urban Worship Songwriting Internship. It was an amazing time! We had 5 amazing interns. They wrote 18 quality songs. We wrote urban worship congregational songs about justice, shalom, reconciliation, the Holy Spirit, and other not so common worship themes. We had a really great time. To learn more about the interns experience, you can log onto:
After the internship, I recovered for a few weeks and headed to the UK for training in Arts in Missions. There were about 60+ professional ethnodoxologist with a variety of expertise from ethnodramatology to musicology to various forms visual arts. It was a really great time. I was on the worship team and each day we worshiped in the style of a particular continent or country, which was led by an native and/or export of that particular place in the world. Again, it was great time! Check out this youtube video about the event:
Currently I’m in Atlanta at the Catalyst Conference. This is my first year here. I’m not speaking or playing, just attending with a group called Uptick. It’s been a good experience. If you haven’t been to Catalyst, I want to encourage you to go. Someone told me that Catalyst is the best and worst of evangelical Christianity all in one place. It’s a great place to do an Andy Crouch Cultural Analysis:
1) What does Catalyst assume of the world?
2) What does Catalyst assume about the way the world should be?
3) What does Catalyst make possible?
4) What does Catalyst make impossible (or at least a lot more difficult)?
5) What new culture is created in response to Catalyst?
If you've been to Catalyst or know about Catalyst, do the cultural analysis and let me know what you think!
Many of you know I like writing and you might have been wondering why I haven’t written a post since Christmas! Well, things have been a little busy for me.
I’ve been on a heavy travel schedule over the past 4 months. In January, I was at the Calvin Symposium on Worship. I was at the Symposium with the International Council of Ethnodoxolgist. I gave a couple of presentations, participated on a panel on multi-cultural worship, and was on the global worship music team. One of my personal highlights of my time in Michigan was playing on the worship team with some amazing musicians. Some of people on the ensemble were Josh Davis of Proskuneo Ministries, Jay and Joy Kim of King’s Region, my old friend Kenny Wallace, and superb percussionists Paul Neely. I want to encourage you all to check out what these people are doing because they are doing some great things.
I also want to encourage you to check out some of the work of Michael Hawn. Michael is a hymnologist that specializes in discovering and understanding non-Western hymns. He taught a few hymns from Africa and South America at the Calvin Symposium and it was a great time!
A few weeks after the Calvin Symposium, I went to Washington, DC to co-present a seminar on Justice and Racial Reconciliation in Congregational Life to a group of church planters called the Ecclesia Network. I co-presented with Don Coleman and Corey Widmer. Don, Corey, and I labor together with others in our local church community we call East End Fellowship. East End Fellowship is a multi-ethnic, economically diverse community in the East End of Richmond, seeking God’s joy and justice for our neighborhoods out of a love for Christ. The majority of us live in the same neighborhood where we worship and do mission together. We shared a little bit of our experience and how our understanding of Scripture forms our congregational life.
After the Ecclesia National Conference, Don Coleman and I went to a round table/conference in Atlanta that was sponsored by a group of urban church planters, pastors, and leaders called The Rebuild Initiative. The Rebuild Initiative came out of a need for black pastors and church leaders that are theologically reformed, evangelical, missional, and serving in the urban inner city to get together for fellowship, encourage, and sharpen of one another. This network is being spear headed by Dhati Lewis, lead pastor of Blue Print Church in Atlanta and some of the brothers from Reach Records.
It was a refreshing time being with theologically like-minded brethren that care about the plight of the inner cities in America. For those of you all that know me, I have a big of a heart for my people in the urban inner city, just like I do for multi/cross-cultural ministry. Our inner cities are too often being forsaken by many of our evangelical Christian brethren in their mission focus. Most of the church planting that is going on is happening in areas where the financial resources are and the missions are going overseas instead of across the track to the urban poor areas. Again, it was refreshing being brothers that carry the same kind of ache and burden that I have in my heart for my urban brothers and sisters. It was good to be with brothers that know that the Gospel is the primary hope for our inner cities and while we are sharing the Gospel, we know we have to teach children and adults how to read and help convicted felons get a job. I know for sure, I’ll be doing some writing about these issues at a later date, but meanwhile check out the YouTube video of the rapper Lacrae being interviewed by John Piper.
At the end of March/beginning of April, I flew out to St. Louis to attend the Music, Space, and Liturgy conference hosted by Bifrost Arts and Covenant College. The mastermind of this conference was Isaac Wardell who is the Director of Worship Arts at Trinity Presbyterian Church. This conference was interesting because the focus of the conference was on how we can be biblical thoughtful and intentional in our use of music, worship environment (architecture & visual arts), and liturgy in the context of congregational worship. There was a lot of thought provoking ideas that was shared at this conference. I hope to share with you all about some of my take-a-ways at a later date. Meanwhile, Isaac wrote a curriculum that you can get by clicking here.
One thing I will share now concerning the Music, Space, and Liturgy Conference is that we played a couple of old school gospel songs that I haven’t played in years! I enjoyed playing “God Has Smiled On Me” by Rev. James Cleveland and “Just A Closer Walk With Thee”. I’m really grateful to Isaac for sending me on a good ol’ stroll down memory lane.
In between my trips when I was in Richmond, I finished up the production of two artists: Logan Jones and Lori Michelle. Logan and Lori are two singer songwriters. Logan’s sound is more of a guitar driven sound. Lori’s sound is a soul/R&B sound. These two are in the midst of getting the CD design, manufacturing, and all of that stuff that doesn’t have to do anything with me anymore, so I want to encourage you to frequent their websites so you’ll know when their projects will be out.
Lastly, I’m in the final stages of my book and CD. My editor gave me his last edits and I’m going through my book for the second time to make sure that it is saying all of what I’m meaning to say and making sure I’m not saying anything overtly foolish! There might be some subtle foolishness in there, but I’m hoping nobody catches it! I’m just kidding, but in all seriousness, I hope that this book and accompanying CD will be a blessing to Christian communities that desire to reflect God’s heart for all people in the context of Christian communities in worship.
So that’s the update on me. I hope to post again soon!
The last couple of weeks have been crazy, good, and challenging. I've been at the studio working on the music and audio for the PRC DVD. The DVD is coming together. I think you will enjoy watching it.
About a week ago, I went to the One Conference about Racial Reconciliation. The conference was sponsored by the Acts 29 Network. They a good group of people and it was great connecting with them.
While I was in Charlottesville at the One Conference, I connected with Alex Mejias of High Street Hymns. He's a great guy and you should check out his High Street Hymns stuff. I'll be playing with Alex 8pm, March 20 at his show, "Hymns for Haiti". I'm hoping to get him in for an interview on MAM TV soon.
I should be back on the blog wagon, so stay tune. I have more to share.
Friday, October 7, 2011 at 10:53AM 
