i’ve had probably a hundred different rice krispie treats in my lifetime, each one served from a different kitchen. 99 of them tasted exactly the same—-pure crunchy, sticky goodness in my mouth. so why is it that the ONLY one that doesn’t taste like all the others is this one?
the original?? i think not. you are an insult to my grandma’s recipe. shame on you.

reason #1,263 i love working with zach fonville: this is the video promo/bumper he conjured up for a sermon series starting this sunday at fellowship.

wanna know what worship pastors sometimes spend all their time doing? this morning i spent a couple hours talking with a team of people about whether or not we should increase the amount stage light on a guitarist if he’s soloing during a worship song.

“yes. we put light on the singers. why wouldn’t we put it on a guitarist? people want to see what’s going on.”

“no. it makes too much of the guitarist, and not enough of God.”

“yes. but increase it by no more than 25% for fast songs and 10% for slow songs.”

“why do guitar solos anyway? is a church really a place for guitar solos?”

“sure. increase his light, then tell him to kick over his amp, drop to his knees, slide on his back and go Marty Mcfly on us.”

“come to think of it, why have guitars? is church really the place for guitars?”

the funny thing is that of the people talking about this, none of us really cared. we may have our preferences, but we weren’t talking about our preferences, we were talking about the preferences of the people who might be there next sunday morning. in fact, we know that if we increase the level of light during a guitar solo, it just might “snag” someone out of their worship. right or wrong, it grieves us to know that anything we do could make it difficult for a person to worship. that “snagging” thing happens all the time. it may not be a guitar solo, it may be the volume of the band, or it may be the color of the worship leader’s jeans. it may be that the worship leader is wearing jeans. it may be that a song used the word “me” three times more than it did the word “God” or that it wasn’t written before 1900. it may be the typo on the lyric slides. it may be that the vocalist took her microphone out of the stand. it may be that a person had to move over a seat and sit next to a total stranger.

it could be lots of things, and believe me, worship leaders think (stress) about it all, all the time. we secretly love getting wrapped up in all those details under the disguise of “minimizing distractions for people.” (it’s really just a way that we can feel like we’re in complete control of everything). what i often forget is that there are two components to consider when leading people in worship: the essentials and the non-essentials. as far as essentials go, there’s really only one—the simple yet deep truth that there is one God on high who deserves our worship. that’s the only thing that we can’t afford to get wrong. it’s also the one and only cause of our worship. and it’s the only thing that matters.

ahhhh, if only things were so easy. they aren’t and won’t be this side of heaven. so until then, we get to struggle through it together.

whether you’re a worship leader or a worshiper, we like to spend more time in the non-essentials. these are the things that show up on the comment cards and get talked about in meetings. these are the things that in the grand scheme of things don’t matter, yet they so often stop people from worshipping. really? if the light is too bright then you are derailed from worshiping the One who created light? really. we’re all guilty.

another word for the non-essentials is “preferences.” there’s a million of them and they all run rampant over each other in any worship service. i tend to mistakenly believe that creating the right mix of “preferences” will cause people to worship. what causes someone to worship is not the non-essentials, it’s “the essential.” this isn’t to eliminate the need to think through the non-essentials. these are important things that can make a worship service more accessible and effective, but only when they are put back in their rightful place behind the essential. i feel a responsibility as a worship leader to think through preferences, but do i spend as much time helping people escape their preferences? helping them understand how un-essential those preferences are? helping them care more about the preferences of others? helping them ultimately grow as worshipers?

no.

by not doing so, i’m creating ruckus for a community of people who honestly and anxiously want to worship God, but can only do so when things are just the way they like it. that’s not their fault. it’s mine.

allison (my hottie) and i both just turned 30…on the same day in fact. (no, not really, that was a joke. but we are both newbies to the 30s). so we’re each compiling a list of 30 things we want to do in our 30th year. here’s her first 15. here’s mine:

1. write a bad song
2. go 10 days without spending any money
3. keep a journal of any word i encounter that i don’t know the meaning of
4. memorize a poem
5. play organized/competitive volleyball regularly
6. read a complete fictional book series
7. go to seminary (i cheated on this one, but so did allison on her #2)
8. start learning a foreign language (sort of cheated here too b/c of #7, but why not!?)
9. learn my neighbors’ names
10. get a trendy moleskine notepad and fill it from cover to cover
11. for a week, only respond to emails/texts over phone or in-person
12. less all-day golf. more early-morning tennis.
13. blog once a week
14. do the prayer of examen everyday for a month
15. give up one thing i do daily for a month
16. learn bass guitar (for real)
17. ride LR public transportation
18. win a game of settlers of cataan
19. take Lucy on a daddy-daughter date to Imo’s in STL
20. call a friend once a week for no reason in particular

that’s 20 which is 5 more than i promised. more to come!

here’s a second video to add to the discussion of creativity. these guys suggest creativity has limits and needs to be handled with care in the church. a few quotes that stood out:

• “Creativity can easily distract from content.”
• “We’re not trying to win people to creativity. We’re trying to win people to the gospel.”
• “This should bring great peace to the soul of a worship leader. This should release you from the pressure to be more creative than you were last week. You role is to find your way again and again and again to the content of the gospel.”

the lingering question: is it possible to exaggerate the role of creativity in churches?

“creativity and sufferering are linked…are you okay with that?“

here’s a great video of author Elizabeth Gilbert discussing the perils of the creative life. in it she raises a worthy question: is genius something that a person has, or something a person is? if we view it as the latter (a trend that began during the renaissance when humans put ourselves at the center of the universe), then anyone who has ever had a creative moment is expected to produce that same level of creativity at all times. if you’ve ever created anything praiseworthy, then you understand these expectations. this is a dangerous amount of pressure for creative people to bear (people who historically have a tendency to be fragile, irrational, paranormal and depressive). as she says, we need to protect ourselves by not giving into this view. toward the end she includes a thought about how creativity has been hailed in parts of history and the world as a glimpse of God. the compelling and all-too-real question she poses is, but what about when that ‘glimpse’ is gone? what about what about when you’re the artist and that creativity doesn’t show up in your life the way it once did? this is the agony and reality of every person who’s ever made something—creativity doesn’t always last. so, what is the job of the creative person then? her answer: to still show up, even if creativity doesn’t.

very, very interesting (and freeing).

“maybe (the creative life) doesn’t have to be so full of anguish, if you never happened to believe in the first place that the most extraordinary aspects of your being were not from you but maybe if you believed they were on loan to you by some unimaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life…”

…and other airport/airplane reflections from our recent trip to mexico:

1. Cinnabon, you’re the devil. smelling up the place like that is soooooooo unfair.

2. wearing sanitary masks in the airport might be the healthy thing to do, but do you realize how weird you look? i mean, why not just dress up like the scary guys from Outbreak?

3. apparently working the Ben & Jerry counter at the airport across from the Cancun gate can make a person really cranky. i guess i understand that, but at least put up a sign or something. “i’m in a bad mood because you’re going to a beach and i’m not. now shoo.”

4. Memo to DFW: did you realize that there’s a major highway running directly through your airport? was there not enough room in the north texas desert for both of you?

5. if you are an airport with free wi-fi (eh hum, Little Rock), you and i are friends for life. if you’re name is Boingo, we will never, ever, ever be friends.

6. Skymall, you never cease to amaze me. truck antlers?! genius!

7. i’m 6′4″. the female security guard who “wanded” me wasn’t even 4′ tall. i hope somebody got that on camera.

8. who thought it was a good idea to make a plane-full of americans fill out customs forms that were entirely in spanish? again, please tell me someone got that on camera.

9. when forced to choose between catching up on my seminary homework or reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Percy won. i mean, he’s a demi-god…that’s kinda theological, right?

10. in-flight movies? good idea. Deal or No Deal reruns with Suze Orman promos interspersed? bad idea. what’s a guy gotta do for some “Paul Blart Mall Cop”?

11. Suze Orman has really white teeth…really white teeth.

so allison and i just got back from a celebratory trip to the foreign land of mexico. there will certainly be a number of posts on both of our blogs regarding the events that happened in and around that trip. in the meantime, however, is a short list that i composed entitled, “How To Give Away That You are An American.” i’ll confess that during our trip, i was guilty of one (wait, no) TWO of these things…but i assure you, just two of them.

HOW TO GIVE AWAY THAT YOU ARE AN AMERICAN

1. walk around the airport in hot pink crocs that have flowers on them.

2. act really surprised and annoyed when the poolside waiter tells you that they don’t have any Sprite Zero. then have your wife back you up and have a conversation with her in front of said waiter about how unusual it is that there’s no Sprite Zero. then make a plea for any variety of Sprite (of which the waiter has already made known there is none of).

3. wear a baseball hat.

4. when you get there, walk out of the airport with an open beer in one hand and the rest of the 6 pack in the other, and then ask your wife where the kids are.

5. be a male in a swimsuit that covers at least half your thigh.

6. talk loudly all the time.

7. impress yourself with how much spanish vocab you still remember from high school.

8. get really, really excited about the amount of duty-free cigarettes, alcohol and jewelry you can purchase before exiting the country.

9. crazy headgear of all varieties, such as (but not limited to) visors and large straw-hats, usually involving some combination of flourescent colors.

like i said, we were guilty of some of this, but just some! more reflections to come about our time away from america-land.

you’ll have to excuse me while i blow the dust off things ’round here. it’s been a little slow for any of you interested in the life and times of bradherndon.wordpress.com. part of the reason is that our computer has been hogged recently by the blogosphere’s newest celebrity—allison herndon, aka my hottie-boom-bottie. she’s been whipping out her posts in a crazy and restless fashion. if you want to see what type of hilarious wit i get to be around daily, or if you’ve got a hankering for some cornbread, or if just want to laugh at the misadventures of our little ones, head on over to theyellowdesk.wordpress.com. in fact, bookmark it and check back daily, because i can almost guarantee she’ll have a few dozen posts up before my next one.

this morning my car made a turn it doesn’t usually make. for 5 years i worked out of a church office that backed up to a nursing care facility. yet my only exposure to that nursing home was seeing an occasional worker sitting on the back steps for a smoke break. at the recent urging of a friend, i pulled up in the front of this home, where i sat nervously in my parked car for a few moments watching the rain fall on my windshield. moments later, my right hand was being grasped Mrs. Jones, an eighty, maybe ninety-something year old woman who was slouched in her wheel chair in a crowded hallway.

“you know why i wanted to hold your hand?” she asked.

“no, why?” i leaned in closer.

“because i like boys.”

i laughed curiously and asked if i could sit down next to her. for the next hour we talked about her grown boys and the pains of being old. her head was held up by a brace. every few minutes her eyes squeezed out tears from pains in her shoulder. i listened as best i could to her soft, weak voice trying as hard as she could to talk over the noise of the hallway–nurses yelling back and forth, other patients wheeling themselves past us, one worker cleaning the floors.

i spoke up over the noise. “i’ve got two kids myself. we just dropped my daughter off at school for the first time.”

“your heart must be pounding.” (she was 60 years older than me, but she hadn’t forgotten the nerves that come with being a parent.) “what grade is she in?” she asked.

“well, she’s actually in preschool.”

she was silent for a moment. “why does she need to go to preschool?”

i’ve heard this disapproving tone before. moms and grandmothers are perfect at it. i didn’t know how to respond.

“well, it’s just one day a week.”

“oh, well that’s okay. i was about to have to frown at you. parents don’t give their kids enough of their time these days. if they did, we wouldn’t need prisons.”

our time was filled with more advice for me as a parent, mostly things that would shut down the penitentiaries. but after hearing i worked for a church, she gave me a new set of suggestions.

“you go to your groups and get them to spend some money to build us old people some better places to live. and then you bring back some more young people like you to visit us. it’d do you some good.”

but my favorite advice from this witty, wise, frail woman was just before i left.

“tonight you get on your knees with that little girl of yours, and you say your prayers with her. keep ‘em short so she can remember them.  you pray for that old lady, and be sure you say that, okay? ‘that old lady’– but in your prayer, tell your little girl that the old lady is actually God’s little girl. because i am. you got that?”

a few minutes later, i left Mrs. Jones where i found her. before i could get up she grasped my hand again.

“i told you earlier i like boys. i like kissing ‘em too.” she leaned in and kissed my left cheek with her delicate lips. “you tell your wife and your little girl that i already gave you some sugar on that cheek today, but they can have the other.”

moments later i was back in my car watching the rain fall on the windshield. i cornered God in that moment, confessing that i too easily and frequently read past scripture’s call to “look after orphans and widows.” all i could do was thank God for Mrs. Jones and for pulling my car into that parking lot this morning.