Wow! Look at God!
The people who know me best know I’m going through one of the most difficult times in my life. People who believed in me hoped and prayed I would get to this point as soon as I could … the point where I stopped trying to conquer life the way that makes sense to me. My take on taking on the world made lots of sense to me and led to some degree of professional and financial success, but it left me ultimately hopeless and empty.
In just a little bit more than a week, I’ve turned my eyes back upon Jesus and recaptured that joy unspeakable and full of glory that I’ve been missing for the last several years.
Tonight I was watching the Olympic opening on NBC and I read a tweet from someone I was following that said, “Praying for the Cfni recording tonite! It’s gonna rock!”
Praying for the Cfni recording tonite! It’s gonna rock!
Kari Jobe
karijobe
Somehow, some way I was following someone who tweeted about CFNI. I went to CFNI and not many people know what it is. Don’t get me started about how going to CFNI was not the greatest of experiences for me, but I loved it for the music. Each year they record a new praise and worship album and it’s always very influential in terms of the music you start to hear in churches around the world.
So I clicked on the person who tweeted that. It’s a woman named Kari Jobe and she just happens to be a worship pastor at a church five minutes from my house. That isn’t enough to move me because I’ve been sick of worship music for the last eight years. I clicked through to her Web site and then through to her YouTube page and OMG!!! She writes songs about God and our love relationship with Him that are not cliché and redundant.
The first thing I watched was this video …
Then I watched this one …
And then this one …
Do I need to tell you? I’m going to Gateway Church on Sunday. 
He who the Son has set free is free … indeed! I also bought her album.
Existential Crisis at Work
Existential crisis, derived from existentialism, is a stage of development at which an individual questions the very foundations of their life: whether their life has any meaning, purpose or value; whether their parents, teachers, and loved ones truly act in their best interest; whether the values they have been taught have any merit; and whether their religious upbringing may or may not be founded in reality.
Palin’s Church and the Gay Thing
I feel like I have to weigh in on this. The church Sarah Palin once attended appears to believe people can be “healed” of homosexuality.
Background: I’m a born-again Christian who loves … is that the word? I value gay people. I believe God blessed the planet with gay people and I don’t care if anyone agrees with me. Gay people make the world a better place in many, many ways. As a Christian, I cannot deny that the Bible calls homosexuality a sin, but I don’t care. My position is that, if God thinks it’s a sin, He has the power to change it and if He wants too … I’m okay with that, but I haven’t seen evidence of it, and I hope He doesn’t.
In my life, I’ve seen gay Christians who love God and their committed relationships are blessed by God.
Let’s just call it a sin since the Bible does. So is gluttony and we share God’s grace for that. Divorce is a sin that Jesus talked about (He didn’t talk about homosexuality), and the church has largely extended God’s grace to divorced people.
Sarah Palin may or may not be where I am in my belief that we should love gay men and women whether they stop being gay or not. I hope that isn’t what God wants. Lots of Christians hope God wants them to change. Either way … it isn’t up to us. It’s up to Him.
What is up to us is that we love each other the same as we love ourselves. I extend a bunch of grace to myself and therefore I extend almost an unlimited amount of grace to anyone who doesn’t hurt me personally.
I believe the church will move toward extended unconditional love to every person who walks the planet. Sarah will too. Is she there yet? I don’t know, but if she loves Jesus, I know she’ll get there because He loves and died for me … just as I am.
Read MoreMy Dark Nights and the Church
I grew up in church and loved it, but I haven’t been back in about 4 years. I’ve never stopped believing what I grew up believing though.
On random nights, it seems like maybe once a month, I put on some gospel DVDs and try to tap into the joy unspeakable and full of glory that I remember from church. I’m angry at church, though, and so sometimes I have a bad gospel night where it pulls up all the reasons I don’t go any more.
The biggest reason I stopped going is that churches were becoming more and more focused on gaining political power and less focused on loving people. The specific reason I stopped going is that I’m angry with my last pastor and until I can let that go, it’s going to be an ongoing issue in my life.
When I have this dark nights of the soul, I often cry out to the twitter community. I’m not expecting a solution, it’s more about yelling out a window, and I guess hoping someone will hear.
I have a great life with a great wife. We were talking about my inner struggle this morning and the metaphore I used was that I feel like my life is a helium balloon that represents all the good things. Inside the balloon is a rock and that represents my resentment against the church and my last pastor. It seems like a mission impossible task to get rid of the rock without poping the balloon, so I just live with the rock and deal with it emotionally from time to time.
I don’t have an answer, but it seems like anyone who happens to read my late night tweets and wonders, “what’s up with that guy?” should have some kind of explaination and context.
Read MoreI Used to Sing Gospel Music
Tonight American Idol started with a worship song. I was a little blown away and a lot impressed because Simon doesn’t seem friendly to Gospel. When AI contestants have sung gospel songs in the past, Simon called it, “indulgent.”
I posted my surprise on Twitter. @KevinPorter asked if I thought there was something wrong with that. I dropped the nugget that I used to be a Praise and Worship leader. Some Twitter people were surprised and I realized that I never posted the YouTube video of me singing Southern Gospel on Christian TV here. Here ya go! (I’m the one on the left.)
FYI, a Praise & Worship leader, for those outside the club, is a lead singer/music director at a charismatic/non-denominational church.
Read More
Riding the New Media Wave Sometimes Makes Me Sea Sick
Doing what we do, producing GeekBrief.TV, is often exhilarating, but isn’t constant, so it reminds me of an old gospel song that says, “I thank God for the Mountains, and I thank Him for the valleys. I thank Him for the storms He’s brought me through. Cause if I had never had a problem, I wouldn’t know God could solve them. I wouldn’t know what faith in God could do.” It’s about how low points in life give us perspective to appreciate the high points.
High points are when everything is clicking, production is flowing smoothly and feedback is strong. Low points are usually when opportunities and responsibilities are too fast and furious. Riding the top of the wave is an adrenaline rush, but each individual wave falls apart and it feels like we’re under the force of the water trying to get back to homeostasis.
I wouldn’t trade what we do for any other job because it’s the ultimate blend of independence and responsibility. There are times that it is fun and times when we’re scared to death. Other times… we just wish for a few days in a row of smooth sailing.