Hey everybody. James here. Just finishing up an evening burrito. Tasty. Looking forward to recording some new Hello Industry music in the weeks to follow! It’s been a blast arranging this music and I absolutely can not wait for you to hear it.  We’ve been blessed to find out this week that we have a studio space!!  There will be pics.  And videos.  And lots and lots of updates so stay tuned!  

Small Bread

Then Jesus passed around the smallest most crunchy piece of “bread” the disciples had ever seen along with a quarter-sip of grape juice to wash it down. He instructed them to face forward, ignore each other, to think about how we was going to die for them and how sucky that made them, and then once they had accepted that fact they could down the bread and the juice. (The key here is to wait until you get together, then completely ignore each other. Don’t smile.) Then He instructed them to repeat this process once per week for the rest of eternity.

I’m not complaining about the size of the bread. But I think the size may be indicative of the state of the entire process as it stands in the American Church today.

Maybe it’s time to re-think this.

-np

What I learned today: no man is an island.

Or at least, I’m not one. Whether I like it or not, I need human relationships. I think I must like the idea of flying solo. Intimacy in friendship is the one thing I long for but the one thing that scares me the most - what if they don’t like what they see? But I can’t do it alone. I get to a point when I just can’t see straight.

Within 2 weeks of the end of my women’s bible study, my perspective is skewed, my attitude sour, my thoughts negative, my patience thin, my peace gone, my ambitions frustrated. 

Is it because I depend too heavily on my small group for spiritual growth? Is it because I was being spoon-fed while i was there? Is it because I assimilate to whatever is most recently in my ear? 

No, I don’t think so. It’s because that group, along with Sunday mornings, those are my check-points for the week. It’s maybe like going to a chiropractor, getting adjusted twice a week. Within just a few days those muscles surrounding your vertebrae start to pull those bones out of place, back into the old kinks and painful places. Getting adjusted knocks those vertebrae back into correct position. Over a year or two, there is growth, you can see it from the x-rays. Your back is straighter and your muscles have learned to stretch and comply.

You’d think I was an advocate for chiropractors… in fact, I’ve only been adjusted once. But… I think the analogy is a good one. At least, that was what I learned about chiropractic health in the introductory videos that first session. 

My fleshly muscles have a pattern, a way they want to go. They want- *I* want- to go my own way. Unless I have the regular check-points of a group of friends who can speak Truth into my life and challenge me, and a sermon that reminds me of the Truth of who God is, I slip so quickly into the wrong idea of who He is, who I am, and who is in charge, and why.

I don’t want to surrender. What is the point? I want to be in control. I want to think what I want. I don’t want someone else determining how I should do things. I don’t *really* trust that God is GOOD. <—- these thoughts become so often repeated that I can’t actually see straight and true. 

*sigh* Maybe someday I will stop waffling back and forth. The good news is, when I was in high school, the pendulum swung for a month, two months or even longer before it turned the other direction. At least now, 10 to 15 years later, I do know better. I do know, even while I reject it, what is true. I do trust my Right mind even while my Wrong mind is making the decisions. I’ve learned from experience, I’ve tasted what is good. And I really don’t want to be left up to my own discretion. Thankfully God knows my heart better than I do, and He is a gracious and compassionate God. And the periods of indiscretion are less frequent and last much shorter.

My job is to make sure I have those check-points and relationships in place for those times when my perspective is off. Without them, spiritual growth is very slow and arduous, even impossible sometimes… at least for me.

So today I took the step, called a friend, set up some accountability, regular battery-recharge “meetings”. The responsibility for growth is my own, but we need each others’ help and encouragement and friendship on the journey. Sorry if that sounds corny. But I can’t do it alone. 

-Heather

Simplicity in Worship

I heard Edward McManus make a statement a few years ago that has stuck with me ever since. He was answering the question, “why don’t we have a dance ministry anymore?”. His response was “because we don’t have any dancers”. His response was so simple and at the same time alarmingly profound. Why should something that makes so much sense be so profound to us as a church? I believe it’s because we tend to skip an important step when we’re in the planning stages of our services, events, leadership structure, mission, vision, etc -> we forget to ask ourselves who *we* are. Maybe it’s because its easier to look around, pick the top five churches in our opinion, and pull our definition of “church” from what we see. Churches have dance ministries. Churches have dramas. Churches have young hip worship leaders and guys with thick black rimmed glasses (refer to church worship video floating around). Formulating our idea of what we should be this way is not only lazy, but it creates an impossible task which we then spend the rest of our time and energy and focus as a church trying to accomplish -> becoming someone we’re not.

And if we look around we might realize that the rest of the world has caught on to this. The Church does not have a reputation for creativity and innovation. While there are pockets within the Church that display this, the whole still comes across as behind the times, a copy of things that happened 10 or 20 years ago. “If you like U2 then you will kind of like so-and-so-Christian-band.” “If you like your homosexual hair dresser then you might want to try my straight Christian hair dresser.” But a copy of something else is never remarkable. It’s not innovative. While some Christians may love their safe Christian alternatives, the rest of the world just shrugs and then listens to U2 and goes to their excellent hairdresser. And I don’t blame them - they’ve chosen the better thing. Meanwhile the “sacred” and the “secular” continue to separate and drift apart and the Church becomes more and more irrelevant to anyone with a perspective that includes but is not limited to it. And the God who dwells within the hearts of this community, of the Church, slowly drifts out of reach as well.

We’ve made it complex. We’re stressed and overwhelmed because our one good musician moved out of town - but the show must go on. Churches have music and we’re not a church if we don’t have music. So we throw some poor soul on stage who has no business holding a microphone let alone singing into one and appoint them the new worship leader. “Failure” is not an option… But we failed a long time ago by skipping possibly the most vital step in the life of any Church or of any individual. We forgot to ask ourselves who *we* are.

What would happen if we stopped everything today and returned to this question? What if we let what we do (and don’t do!) flow out of *that*, with no regard for what we’ve seen other church communities or bands or speakers or companies do? Right now, from my perspective, the American Church is about 10 churches doing somewhat unique yet eerily familiar things and then hundreds of thousands of other churches emulating those 10 churches. We’re frustrated and overwhelmed. We’re hiring more and more staff who we hope and pray can “take us to the next level” (read: “get us closer to replicating one of these 10 churches”). But there’s a tiny part of us screaming out to *let us be who God made us to be.* My hope is that the Church eventually hears and responds to this voice. That we drop our presuppositions about what church should look like and we look around us at the individual artists, teachers, doctors, moms, dads, and pizza delivery guys that make us up. That we put their hands on the steering wheel and help them take this thing to the place only they can take it.

It’s so simple and at the same time so alarmingly profound.

I Need Thee!

Hey friends! Enjoying the beautiful blue skies and cool weather! Today I’m thinking about Bach Preludes, yard-work, Bicycle Safety Town, good coffee, and practicing the discipline of self-control and patience with my family.

We heard a really great sermon from Pastor Jim yesterday at RCC. I keep having to give over that control, and I keep getting frustrated with my circumstances, and then frustrated with myself for requiring everything to be perfect in order for me to be “happy”…  But it is a journey and the thing I keep trying to place in the forefront of my mind is that while this is a huge struggle (being patient and persevering), Jesus loves me even more. And as long as I try to buckle down and just try harder, the more I fail and frustrate myself. It is only when I admit my inability to do it alone that I find contentment and freedom. And not that I want my goal to be contentment - that’s not it! I would have it be that my words and thoughts and actions would bring God honor. But on my own - oh! On my own they don’t!

I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord! No tender voice like Thine can peace afford. I need Thee, O I need Thee! Every hour I need Thee! O Bless me now my Savior, I come to Thee!

I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby! Temptations lose their power when Thou art nigh! I need Thee, O I need Thee! Every hour I need Thee! O Bless me now my Savior, I come to Thee!

I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain. Come quickly and abide, or life is vain! I need Thee, O I need Thee! Every hour I need Thee! O Bless me now my Savior, I come to Thee!

-Heather

Hi Donation Site is LIVE!

Many of you have asked for a way to speed up album recording or to help the band play live shows. As of today you have a way to help. Here you go: http://bit.ly/hi-donate