Hold Me Back

I’ve been listening to Jason Gray’s latest album, Everything Sad Is Coming Untrue, quite a bit these past few weeks. The lyrics of “Hold Me Back” I’ve found particularly compelling. It’s a whole lot more honest than most of the songs I find myself singing these days.

When it’s best that I fail
Don’t let my will prevail
Cause my salvation is
My magnificent defeat

I need you to hold me back
Hold me back
Cause it’s just like me to
Run from the one who loves me

That’s a hard prayer, but it’s one we all need to pray a lot more often than we do.

The Evolution Of The Geek

Why I Am Not A Muslim

Often in my travels there are “local attraction” magazines waiting for me in the hotel room. Most of the time I trash them, but for some reason I leafed through one today. What caught my eye was an interview the magazine did with a local Imam. The following snippet made me ache for this man’s soul:

San Diego Reader: Where do you go when you die?

Imam Taha: I am working very hard in my life to be blessed enough to be granted paradise.

SDR: And what happens if you’re not blessed enough?

IT: I’m not thinking about any other place but paradise. I cannot even think about it. It’s so painful and so hard, even when I think about hell.

I cannot imagine a more destructive concept of eternal life than this viewpoint, one so prevalent I wonder if human beings (certainly Westerners) have a hard-wired susceptibility to the notion. It’s just so terribly logical. Grace makes much less sense, but I’ll happily play the fool.

I’ve Been Slacking

At least with respect to posting here. Shame on me. I guess life just isn’t terribly interesting when it’s lived away from home. I’ve been reading a lot, which has been nice, but I haven’t been writing down meaningful quotes, not because I haven’t read any, but because I’ve been too “into” the stories to stop. This is particularly true of Dune, which I cannot believe I’ve never read before. It’s truly awesome. I was able to jot down the following statement, though, which I found insightful.

The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.

I’m both frightened and excited by what the future holds for my children, especially with regards to technology. Anyone who doesn’t feel the same just isn’t thinking enough.

Speaking of thinking, if you’re a person who cares about being successful, I would highly recommend the blog Little Things Matter. So much of what I’ve tried to say about leadership, communication, email habits, etc. can be found here (in a much more concise and well-expressed form). This particular tidbit really caught my eye:

I have never met anyone who took pride in their work, but not their car.

True or false? I’m interested in hearing your opinion. As of yet I have been unable to think of any counterexamples.

Answers

Thanks to everyone who sent me replies. The winner was my favorite Nazarene, Brannon Hancock. Here are the correct answers:

1. D (Elevate) – I can’t believe no one got this right.
2. B (60 minutes) – 4 songs, prayer, sermon, closing song. Nice.
3. B (75 minutes) – And it was this long only because it had a 5 minute coffee break in the middle of it.
4. A (100 folks) – It was an 8am service, what can you expect?
5. B (500 folks) – All crammed into a high school auditorium.
6. D (67%) – Yeah, I barely knew any of the music I sang. And if you exclude one of the services, the percentage goes up to 90% unknown. Interpreting what that means I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader.
7. D (105dB) – And it was mixed incredibly well. I loved it (just wish I knew the songs!) Incidentally, I’ve had complaints at EBC for sound levels a full 10 dB less than that (i.e. about half the perceived volume).
8. D (All 3) – Makes me thankful for the folks at EBC who work hard to not make mistakes in this critical piece of Sunday morning ministry.
9. D (All 3) – No surprise there.
10. C (2 of 3) – Perhaps I need to show them my tiny rubber band trick.
11. C (twice) – Really liked the method of serving done at Flood.
12. D (All 3) – Natch. This is California.

In completely unrelated news, I’m now on my 5th book of the trip. Here’s what I’ve read:

• Jayber Crow – Wendell Berry (9/10)
• Sin Boldly – Cathleen Falsani (8/10)
• Through A Screen Darkly – Jeffrey Overstreet (7/10)
• The Air I Breathe – Louis Giglio (4/10)
• Dune – Frank Herbert (in process)

Good times. But I trade them all for a kiss from my wife and a hug from my girls. Thank God for Skype!

Tale Of Three Churches

I found it immensely enjoyable spending the weekend sampling a few local churches. Admittedly, it can be difficult when visiting a church for the first time to focus on genuine worship instead of doing analysis and critique, especially for a person like me who constantly thinks about church structure and worship service organization. I don’t want to live in the analysis state forever, so in the interest of purging the minutia out of my mind, I present to you Jud’s weekend worship trivia quiz:

1. Which of the following is NOT the name of one of the three churches I visited this past weekend?
   A. Newbreak
   B. Flood
   C. Green Valley
   D. Elevate
2. What was the length of the shortest of the three services I attended?
   A. 45 minutes
   B. 60 minutes
   C. 75 minutes
   D. 90 minutes
3. What was the length of the longest of the three services I attended?
   A. 60 minutes
   B. 75 minutes
   C. 90 minutes
   D. 120 minutes
4. What was the approximate head count of the smallest service I attended?
   A. 100
   B. 200
   C. 500
   D. 1000
5. What was the approximate head count of the largest service I attended?
   A. 200
   B. 500
   C. 1000
   D. 5000
6. Of the 15 or so songs I sung over the course of the weekend, what approximate percentage were ones I’d never heard before?
   A. 7%
   B. 20%
   C. 33%
   D. 67%
7. During the music, what was the loudest sound pressure level (SPL) I measured from my seat?
   A. 90 dB
   B. 95 dB
   C. 100 dB
   D. 105 dB
8. How many of the three churches had difficulties with their lyric projection ministry?
   A. Zero
   B. One
   C. Two
   D. Three
9. How many of the three pastors used headset microphones?
   A. Zero
   B. One
   C. Two
   D. Three
10. Of those, how many had to fidget with them to keep them in place?
    A. Zero
    B. One
    C. Two
    D. Three
11. How many times did I take communion this weekend?
    A. Never
    B. Once
    C. Twice
    D. Thrice
12. At how many churches were flip-flops spotted on stage?
    A. Zero
    B. One
    C. Two
    D. Three

Submit your answers in a comment. The person with the highest score will win a sweet prize (cash value of 10 US dollars, but its value goes far beyond that). Good luck!

Whoa

If even a tenth of the world’s Christians were the kind of people who might inspire a non-Christian artist to want to capture or honor or evoke their lives in some way, Christianity would conquer the world.

Is that the kind of life I’m living? Most days it sure doesn’t feel like it.

Bullet Points

Don’t feel like spending a lot of time on this post, but don’t want to miss a day, so here’s some random thoughts:

• Great day to be a Red’s fan
• Giovanni’s Pizza in San Diego is awesome
• I’m reading a book called Sin Boldly
• Said book is amazing (go read it now)
• Still not adjusted to Pacific time
• Work is seriously busy, but that’s a good thing

Have a great night y’all!

Just Briefly

Not sure what it is with me and sports dreams, but two nights ago I dreamed I was playing hoops with none other than Michael Jordan.

My secret? Let him do all the dunking.

Speaking of dreaming, I’m pooped. This west coast thing has its perks, but Pacific time is not one of them.

Double Feature

I remember just a brief bit of dream from last night’s slumber. I was watching the Indianapolis Colts play football (can’t remember who they were playing, opposing jerseys were white, so it might have been the Patriots). Peyton faced fourth and one, and they were going for it. He dropped back to pass, way further back than normal quarterbacks do, and fired a pass just as he was absolutely clobbered. The pass flew right into the hands of a defender, who intercepted it, but then stood there and did nothing until being tackled.

If I were an NFL star, I'd want to be just like Peyton

The pass was replayed several times during the dream, always from different angles, including a pretty cool one where I was watching through the eyes of the guy who intercepted the ball. Finally they showed a replay of the hit of Peyton, but strangely, when he got back up, he was wearing number 14 instead of his usual 18 (which, even in the dream state, I immediately recognized as being wrong). I couldn’t figure out if maybe it hadn’t actually been Peyton on the field, or if he’d switched numbers, or what.

On a completely unrelated note, I’ll wrap things up with a quotation from The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team that I found myself surprised to agree with.

Consensus is horrible. If everyone really agrees on something and consensus comes about quickly and naturally, well that’s terrific. But that isn’t how it usually works, and so consensus becomes an attempt to please everyone, which usually turns into displeasing everyone equally.

Been there, done that. How about you?