Brandon Woosley

Still Remembering Gene

One of the people who helped change my mind in an irrevocable way is named Gene Eugene. He died 11 years ago today, and I wanted to take this place to celebrate him for the way he changed my mind. Gene was a musician, the lead singer and lyricist and guitar player for a band named Adam Again, which later led to him being a part of other bands (Swirling Eddies, Lost Dogs). He was also a music producer. What Gene and several other musicians did for me while I was in my late teens and early 20’s was make Christian music that was not derivative* of what was happening in “Secular” culture. It was music that was earnest and authentic, an expression of art and heart and spirit that also spoke the language of the world around it (and me). The music of Gene Eugene (and others) was simultaneously timely and true.

*Of course, virtually all music is derivative in some way – it’s almost impossible to use instruments and voices to do something that hasn’t been done before on some level. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the tendency of Christian “culture” when I was a teen in the late 80’s (and sadly, still today) to take something from popular, “secular” culture and imitate it for Christian consumption, implicitly with all of the “secularity” scooped out and replaced with Jesus. As in (to borrow an actual comparison guide that is about 3 and half years old): “If your kids want to listen to Lenny Kravitz, Stevie Wonder, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, then they’ll love Hyper Static Union!” It happens with music, books, film, performance art – pretty much any form of cultural expression that can be copied. And it has all the power and depth of a Wayans brothers spoof film. Which makes me wonder who will be the Christian who comes up with a “Christianized” version of Charlie Sheen’s twitter feed? (apologies to Joe Posnanski for blatantly borrowing his footnoting technique, which is utterly sensible to me)

And that experience I had of modern music by Christians that stood on its own merits dropped a rock so large into the pond of my soul that it is sending off ripples still. Simply put, Christians should be the best culture makers, because we are children of the Maker of true culture. Gene Eugene was one of the first people to help me come to that thought. Thanks, Gene (and Charlie Peacock, and Michael Roe, and Steve Hindalong and Derri Daugherty, and Terry Scott Taylor, and Mike Knott, to name a few).

Trouble with Lies (lyric by Gene Eugene, 1988)

They unveil their latest crusade
It’s some moral outrage they’re stopping
Worldwide, religious arcade
It means their income was dropping
The host looks sincere
Irrelevant facts aren’t a part of his career

The trouble with lies
When you tell them you still got to sell them
With the look in your eyes
Oh, that’s the trouble with lies
As far as I’m concerned
With the lessons I’ve learned
I’m determined to try and survive
Without lies

This time it’s her out ’til two
He hears the car in the driveway
He wonders what story she’ll use
Did she get lost on the highway
He knows what it’s like
He had to come up with a good one last night

I wish you could just tell the truth
I hear your voice getting nearer
It brings back the crimes of your youth
Avoid your eyes in the mirror
The trouble with lies
Is that you start to forget where the real man hides

Like St. Patrick

I’ve been trying to get to this all day. Better late than never, especially if you might happen to live on the West Coast and reading this.

I recently read The Celtic Way of Evangelism by George Hunter III. It’s not a new book, but I only learned of it in the last year. The subtitle is the key: How Christianity Can Reach the West…Again. Hunter’s thesis is that the pattern of evangelism which Patrick initiated, and which the Celtic Christians used for about 200 years, offers wisdom to the modern American Church, which is living in a context much more like ancient Ireland than the America our grandparents lived in (or the America we imagine used to be).

I’m not going to rehearse all of Patrick’s story tonight (it’s a little late for history), but for an American Christian (like me) or an American church (like mine) there are enough points of contact to both discomfort and direct a better way forward. Patrick had the option of a safe, comfortable, securely Christian life (remaining in England as a parish priest), but he set aside that comfort to lovingly engage a pagan culture that he also knew (having lived in Ireland as a slave). He engaged that pagan culture by getting to know it intimately and living inside of it, rather than disdainfully holding it at arms length for the sake of keeping himself “unstained” by it. His model of engagement centered on becoming at home in a place and setting up a community there which was intentional and generous about inviting and welcoming outsiders. He and his team expected to change the culture, rather than working to protect themselves from the corrupting influences of the culture – it would seem that they believed that the truth (both in their hearts and in their lives) would win out over false perspectives on God and life.

Patrick and his teams of community planters – not merely church planters, but people who set up shop in a place for the purpose of changing the place with a new community – thought big. They expected something massive and powerful to happen.

In every one of these areas, I think I fall short. I get there sometimes, but not enough. Not nearly. I don’t really live as though I expect God to do life-changing, community-changing things often enough. And I don’t challenge my congregation to expect that as much as I could.

But I want to be like Saint Patrick. Today’s as good a day as any to start.

Worship Wars Wisdom

I’m almost through reading Transformational Church by Ed Stetzer. Specifically, read the chapter on worship this afternoon, and even as it affirmed some of the directions I have been thinking about, it challenged others, including some of my long-standing thoughts about blending worship with elements from a variety of eras and traditions. I’ll say more about it in the next couple days, but for now, this was one of the points Stetzer and Thom Rainer made that I was already on board with: reverence is a more important measurement than relevance when evaluating your worship service. Of course, part of the reason for this is that God is relevant, and does not need us to make him seem so. When we are focused on making worship relevant, we are often overlooking that reality; if we were approaching mindful that the transcendent and imminent God is already completely present and engaged with this moment, we would be in awe of him, and our worship would therefore be more reverent.

Change, Conflict, and Church

I suspect that all of us have had periods of time when suddenly, unexpectedly, a topic or theme or idea or things becomes pervasive: you see a model of car for the first time, and notice it, and then suddenly, every time you are driving, you see another one; or you hear someone use a catch phrase or word that is new to you, and for the next week, every conversation seems to feature it. If you’ve never had that experience, then I imagine that this post will spur it on for you: everyone you talk to for the next week will want to talk about the phenomenon of suddenly seeing something everywhere!

Anyway, I’ve been having relational moments, conversations, and reading over the last couple weeks that have been circling around the issues of change and conflict, particularly in the local church. Before you start to worry about me, understand that I don’t see this as a bad thing. Change and conflict can be (often are) uncomfortable, but they are also the path that can lead to growth and definition.

In the book Transformational Church, Ed Stetzer says, “Churches do not change until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” That statement causes just about every person I share it with to nod in agreement, sometimes while grimacing. The next step to keep in mind is that when churches then change, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have embraced change, just that they have given in to the unavoidable. And that is where conflict comes in.

I’ve often thought, when considering how conflict happens in church life, that a significant reason why church conflicts can be explosive is that many of us in churches are conflict-avoiders. We don’t want to fight, or to have to say something difficult to someone, and we put it off as long as we can. Eventually, the pressure built up by keeping the lid on the issue explodes, and the conflict is sharp, painful, and a memory we will strive to avoid the next time – probably by doing things the same way.

Yesterday, I heard another angle on the issue though, from a friend, and I think he’s on to something as well. He suspects that the reason church conflicts often involve someone (verbally) punching someone else in the face is that there are people in churches who know that churches are full of polite people, people who aren’t inclined to fight back or be aggressive in the ways sometimes seen in other communities, and the “punchers” know that they can get away with it.

I hadn’t thought of it his way before, but now that I do for a while, I think he’s got a point. So, you combine people who know they can get away with being brash, and people who are eager to avoid conflict because conflict isn’t Christian or nice, and people who are sitting on their disappointments and frustrations until they pop – and you get church conflicts, which often seem to turn into holy war over side issues.

How do we begin to change these dynamics? Well, I think this is the starting place – admitting that we don’t like conflict, and it makes us uncomfortable, and when we get pushed to the point of saying something we don’t always handle it well. The starting place is confession. The next step? Well, that’s for another time.

A New Beginning

I’m going to climb back on the blog horse, starting today. This is the place you can find projects I’m working on, extra information related to things happening at St. Paul Church, stuff I’m finding valuable (books, websites, etc.), and thoughts I’m having.

I’d love for these things to promote conversation, so please feel free to comment, and I promise to be participatory if you do.

Thanks

Brandon