Jazz and Pedagogy

Dr. Douglas Groothuis has a thoughtful essay dealing with the relationship between jazz and pedagogy. He writes:

I am a philosopher, a professor, and a jazz fan. In the midst of a philosophy class, I may wax enthusiastic about the transcendent qualities of a John Coltrane saxophone solo or the preternatural swing of drummer Buddy Rich. These comments are not merely idiosyncratic. They reflect a philosophy of pedagogy that is saturated in jazz sensibilities. The classroom should swing; students and their professor should spend time in the woodshed; the class will jam on philosophical themes deeply rooted in tradition, but be open to new chops.

It is difficult to fit jazz into a tight analytical definition in which necessary and sufficient conditions are stipulated. But jazz is known for at least three salient and laudatory features, all of which translate fruitfully into a philosophy of pedagogy.

Read the whole thing.

Genius

10 Reasons We Don't Do Altar Calls

Recently a comment card came to our staff asking why we don't ever do altar calls at Desert Springs Church. Our teaching pastor, Ryan Kelly, sent these 10 bullet points around to the staff for their consideration. I thought I would pass them along:

1. The altar call is simply and completely absent from the pages of the N.T.

2. The altar call is historically absent until the 19th century, and its use at that time (via Charles Finney) was directly based upon bad theology and a man-centered, manipulative methodology.

3. The altar call very easily confuses the physical act of “coming forward” with the spiritual act of “coming to Christ.” These two can happen simultaneously, but too often people believe that coming to Christ is going forward (and vice-versa).

4. The altar call can easily deceive people about the reality of their spiritual state and the biblical basis for assurance. The Bible never offers us assurance on the ground that we “went forward.”

5. The altar call partially replaces baptism as the means of public profession of faith.

6. The altar call can mislead us to think that salvation (or any official response to God’s Word) happens primarily on Sundays, only at the end of the service, and only “up front.”

7. The altar call can confuse people regarding “sacred” things and “sacred” places, as the name “altar call” suggests.

8. The altar call is not sensitive to our cautious and relational age where most people come to faith over a period of time and often with the interaction of a good friend.

9. The altar call is often seen as “the most important part of the service”, and this de-emphasizes the truly more important parts of corporate worship which God has prescribed (preaching, prayer, fellowship, singing).

10. God is glorified to powerfully bless the things He has prescribed (preaching, prayer, fellowship, singing), not the things we have invented. We should always be leery of adding to God’s prescriptions for His corporate worship.

Uh... Ok

Vinyl

Vinyl is on the rise. Read about it here.

The Way, The Truth and The Life

Ian Campbell on the irony of Jesus' statement of being, "The Way, The Truth and The Life":

This man says that he is the way; yet the paradox is that for him to be the way means going the way of the cross, and the way of betrayal and dereliction and pain. He says that he is the truth, and yet for him to be the truth means that the lie is in the ascendancy, as false witnesses rise to condemn him and the hour is given to the power of darkness. This man is the life, yet the irony is that for him to be the life for his people, the grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die. He can’t be the way for us unless he goes the way the Father has ordained for him. He can’t be the truth for us unless he meets the father of lies face to face and does business with God against the prince of darkness. He can’t be the life for us unless his body lies dead behind the closed door of a rich man’s grave.

Read the whole thing.

Pandora.com

If you love to find new music you have to check Pandora.com. I just started using it and can't get enough! Here is what it is all about:

When was the last time you fell in love with a new artist or song?

At Pandora, we have a single mission: To play music you'll love - and nothing else.

To understand just how we do this, and why we think we do it really, really well, you need to know about the Music Genome Project©.

Since we started back in 2000, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of fifty musician-analysts has been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more - close to 400 attributes! We continue this work every day to keep up with the incredible flow of great new music coming from studios, stadiums and garages around the country.

With Pandora you can explore this vast trove of music to your heart's content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings - new and old, well known and completely obscure - to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.

You can create as many "stations" as you want. And you can even refine them. If it's not quite right you can tell it so and it will get better for you.

The Music Genome Project was founded by musicians and music-lovers. We believe in the value of music and have a profound respect for those who create it. We like all kinds of music, from the most obtuse bebop, to the most tripped-out drum n bass, to the simplest catchy pop tune. Our mission is to help you connect with the music YOU like.

We hope you enjoy the experience!

Not Cool

Charlie Hall and his band recently had a ton of their music gear stolen. They report on their website:

Stolen gear... : ( - 11/01/2007 It's true. We did have some gear stolen....a lot of it. All of Dustin's drums, Kendall and Charlie's guitar amps, Quint's bass amp and speaker cab, a keyboard stand and several thousand dollars worth of CD's. I haven't posted until now because we hadn't quite figured how we were going to handle any donations, but we're ready now. Thanks for all your offers already! Anyone that wants to help can send a check to:
Generation Productions
611 Broadway
Oklahoma City, OK 73102

In the subject line of the check please write "Gear Replacement". I will post a complete replacement cost of all the gear stolen in case anyone wants to know, but we're still gathering all of that, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $15,000 worth of equipment/resources. We've already received some donations and if we happen to receive anything over that amount we are donating the overage to the International Justice Mission <>. Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers. We appreciate the offers of help and are thankful for anything at all.

Driscoll on Osteen

Prince Caspian

Get a sneak peak at Prince Caspian the movie by clicking here.

(HT: Shepherd's Scrapbook)

Why Muslims Follow Jesus

JD Greear has an encouraging post entitled "Why Muslims Follow Jesus". He reports:

• How Muslims consistently describe the dreams and visions they have. There is an eerie commonality in the dreams they experience. At least 3 different Muslims in my life have reported a supernatural dream to me, 2 of which converted to Christ and 1 didn't. And I got the Tennessee chill bumps when Woodberry reported of the Muslim who saw thousands of his own people in worship of God.
• How many Muslims say that what stood out to them when they read the Bible is how loving and accessible God is. In their words, the Qu'ran emphasizes the threat of God's punishment, the Bible God's everlasting love. Woodberry says "In the Qur'an, although God loves those who love him, his love is conditional. He does not love those who reject faith (3:31-32). There is nothing in the Qur'an like, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:10), or, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8).
  
• How many Muslims pointed to the assurance of salvation that Jesus offered as being attractive to them. Woodberry says, "One Indonesian woman spoke of her fear, based on a tradition attributed to Muhammad, that the bridge over hell to paradise is as thin as a hair."
• That Christianity, contrary to popular folk lore, is growing faster than Islam is in the world, and it is mainly through conversion.
• The disasters in Asia, Muslim-on-Muslim conflict and the imposition of Shariah law have produced an unprecedent openness to the Gospel among Muslims in the last 30 years. MORE MUSLIMS HAVE BECOME CHRISTIANS IN THE LAST 30 YEARS THAN IN ALL THE YEARS FROM MUHAMMAD UNTIL NOW COMBINED. Praise God!

Report on Halloween

Well, we decided to take seriously the challenge concerning Halloween that I posted a few days back. It was great. We had a small group of people from church over and set up in the garage with candy for the kids and hot cider and hot chocolate for the adults that stopped by. We met tons of our neighbors that we have never even seen before. Had some good conversations and believe that it was a great first step to building relationships with those we are typically isolated from. It was a great experience and we now look forward to making it a tradition.

Church-O-Ween

Anthony Bradley on Halloween:

Every year on October 31st many churches celebrate Halloween alternatives, what some call “Halloween in disguise,” with “Harvest” or “Fall” festivals. I read about this over at About.com. Candy, costumes, games, and everything Halloween except for the “evil stuff.” Why do churches do this?

Isn’t Halloween one of the best opportunities Jesus followers have to love their neighbors and build relationships for the Gospel with them? Jesus tended to not escape his context for “the shire” but brought the Kingdom to it. Isn’t following Jesus is a call to mission and live all of life for the Kingdom? A missional church sees itself as a local missionary and takes every opportunity to be incarnational, indigenous, and intentional.

Every Christian is a local missionary and avoiding non-Christians on Halloween seems odd to some of us. Isn’t it an evangelisitic dream come true to have such an easy opportunity to have non-Christians come to your home in your own neighborhood? If we want non-Christian families in our neighborhoods to meet Jesus shouldn’t we at least be home when they come knocking on our doors?

Since most American non-religious observances celebrate evil —Thanksgiving (gluttony), Valentines Day (lust), St. Patrick’s Day (drunkenness) — why create an alternative religious counterfeit on Halloween? After all, what message is the church sending to the world by ‘circling the wagons’ and avoiding our neighborhoods?

Read the whole thing here.

Report on Monday Night Football in Denver

I hope you all watched the Broncos game on Monday night. What a finish!

Highlights of the day:

1. Getting free tix from my buddy Pete who works for the Broncos.
2. Getting to walk around on the field during pregame.
3. Getting to hold the Broncos flag on the field with 25 others during the starting line-ups.
4. Watching the paratroopers land on the field before the game started.
5. Hearing the amazing roar of the crowd of 76,000 at Invesco Field.
6. Being amazed at the 20something girl sitting next to me (no, it was not my wife) who probably weighed about 100 lbs, throw down something like five or so 16 oz. beers.
7. Watching my friend Aaron Kampman (DE for the Packers) get three sacks on Jay Cutler. He had an amazing game. We got to chat a bit afterward.
8. Seeing legendary quarterback Brett Favre play an amazing game in what will probably be his last season, culminated by this 80 yard bomb that he threw for the TD in overtime to win the game. Unreal.
9. Packer fans are completely nuts. First of all there were like 20, 000 (no lie) at the stadium. They all seemed like complete dorks, but entertaining none the less. They are hard-core.
10. Getting to hang with my friends Jay and Pete.

Here are some pics:

Broncos vs. Packers

Tomorrow night I am going to the Broncos vs. Packers Monday night game in Denver. You can look for me on TV.

Why do we need to go to church?

Shaun Groves has posted a bunch of reasons why he thinks he and his family don't need to go to church and is soliciting pastors to tell him why he should. It's an interesting read. I encourage you to weigh in.

Shane and Shane Tour

Last night my wife and I attended the Bebo Norman/Shane and Shane concert here in Albuquerque. I have to say that it was not the most impressive show in terms of musicianship or rockstar coolness, but I think it was probably my most favorite Christian concerts that I can remember in a long time.

These guys really get it I think. Gospel is word and deed and they call the people they play for to faith and action. I left saying over and over that I think that was the most Christ-centered concert I have ever seen.

I would greatly encourage you to check out this tour if you get a chance. You won't be sorry.

Click here for the dates.

Being Missional on Halloween

For those of us who live in the ever isolated suburbs, this story from Mike Hubbard's blog post dealing with Halloween was moving to me.

He writes:

On Halloween, we pulled our grill and our fire pit out to the end of our driveway (we lived in Ballwin at the time). We bought hot dogs, had s’mores, and bought the best candy in the neighborhood. We just lit the fires when the rain started, and for about a half hour, we thought nobody was coming. We pulled the fires up to the edge of our garage and set up tables in our garage. Then the rain slowed down, and people started showing up. We offered hot dogs, hot chocolate, etc., Some of the people just dropped by, got their candy and maybe a hot chocolate, and kept going. But most of the people who came to our house stopped and spent a few minutes in our garage. That night I met multiple people who lived in our neighborhood, of whom I did not know. I had lived in the neighborhood for 13 years and didn’t know these people (that is sad). We actually shared Jesus with two parents who dropped by and wondered why we were doing this. At the end of the evening I was pretty amazed at what happened, knowing God had spoken into my life clearly.

Last year we did this again, this time inviting our Community Group to join us. We served hot dogs, s’mores, hot chocolate, and the best candy in the neighborhood. We were the best house to visit on the block, and we have a street that loves this holiday. As people stopped, we had the chance to visit with parents for a few minutes, and time to get to know the kids.

Next Wednesday night every family in your neighborhood is coming to your house. I want to encourage you to see this as a chance to live the mission of God in your neighborhood, or that of your Community Group.

(HT: Relevintage)

Proskuneo

Shaun Groves has an especially insightful post on the true essence of worship. You can read it here.