Megachurches are Desegregating on Sunday Mornings

We just got back from a youth rally in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was a great weekend! As we led worship at the churc on sunday, us guys noticed two men in booths in the balcony. we asked later about what those guys were doing there (the sound and video was in a booth on the main floor). The church said that have two translators for their worship gatherings: one for Spanish and one for Chinese! Members whose first language isn't English can pick up a headset and hear what is being said and/or sung via these translators. In my opinion, this is a HUGE step in reaching out and becoming a church that knows no borders. It goes beyond language and race and states that the good news of the kingdom is for everyone!

As I was thinking about this today, I stumbled upon this article on Yahoo. Now, you can deride megachurches all you want, but new research shows that they're more racially diverse, finally beginning to overturn the assertion that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week. In one-third of megachurches minorities make up 20% or more of the congregation. It's a small start, but a welcome one.

To read more, click here.

Link

or just copy and paste it: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070220/ap_on_re_us/megachurches_race

The Academy Awards

We just finished our worship small group, and we rushed home to catch the 2nd half of the Academy Awards. Of all the award shows out there, Vicki and I LOVE watching the Oscars. We both admit it, we are movie junkies. We'll watch them all. The dramas, the action, and the fantasy (i'm still working on appreciating chick flicks). But the Oscars is in another class! It's the Superbowl of acting and cinema! Some people love to watch it just to see what all the actors and actresses are wearing, but I love the awards themselves. I've always had my opinions of who should win for best actor (Joachin Phoenix was robbed last year! His Johnny Cash was perfect AND he sang all the songs himself! He did much better than Jamie Fox for Ray- but it was the same kind of role and the Academy won't do that two years in a row) and actress (very lean this year, but The Queen I think has it), best supporting actors, etc. In the past, we would watch every movie up for the main awards, especially movie of the year. But having a baby has changed all that. Now we do good to see a movie once every other month. So, I haven't seen even one of the top movies! (But we did see Ghost Rider . . don't waste your time . . .)

So far, I been disappointed, surprised, glad, and both surprised and glad at this year's winners. I've really wanted to see Pan's Labyrinth for a while, and, after all those awards, and I HAVE to see it now! Jennifer Hudson for best supporting actress was a surprise, but a well deserved winner.

Anyway, I don't know if you have a soft spot for the Oscars, but if you do, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this year's Academy Awards.

Beatboxing flute

This is simply amazing. Maybe Tony B. could learn how to play the flute and incorporate this into his drum solo somehow!

SOUTH AFRICA HERE WE COME!

It's on! Watershed has had many opportunities to sing all over the U.S. In 2007, we are going international! This spring, we are venturing into the icy tundra of Ontario, Canada and this summer (July) we are raising money to go minister to the believers and unbelievers in South Africa!!! I'm very excited to see what God is doing with us!

If you are interested in helping us get there by prayer or by finanical support, please let us know! We'd love for you to be a part of this adventure with us. All those who are involved will get a copy of our limited edition "Pray For Africa" EP. It will have some live tracks of Watershed leading worship as well as a remix of the ever-popular Jambulani (which, BTW, is an americanized typo we found out, the original version is called Jabulani!).

On the Watershed front, things are exciting right! We're hard at work on a new worship album as well as sheet music for churches who want to use these songs in their worship gatherings. We also just released our first ever volume of graphics for powerpoint/MediaShout/Easy Worship, etc. called ESTATIC V.1. It's 215 pictures and 5 AVI loops that Vicki, myself, Heath Hollensbe, and Stephen Proctor took over the last couple of years. We've been using these graphics in our worship times and shows, and the demand for them pushed us to creating this product. I pray that God does some awesome things with ESTATIC and blesses people with these who are a little more right-brained like me!!

But enough about that stuff, I'm sure many people are wondering about one thing . . . . the baby! Well, I'm getting used to taking the back seat to Genesis. And rightly so, she is beautiful. She has such a fun personality! She isn't scared of anyone and is such a social girl already! (I'M DOOMED when we get to Jr. high . . .)

We have traveled with her a lot in these first 4 months of her life, and, to my relief, she is great on the road. You see, I have always had this fear of being THAT ONE family on the plane with THAT ONE baby who cries and cries and cries . . . . and then cries some more. The stories of the flight with Jeffery from Bill Cosby lore flash before my eyes every time I step foot onto the ramp down to the plane. And every time she has surprised me. She has gotten only slightly fussy, nothing that a slightly warmed bottle of formula can't fix. And for being 4 months old, she has flown to Florida once and Nashville twice already. Genesis already has 9 states under her belt!

Yes, we are adjusting to parenting life fairly well. We have bumps and turns in the road, but I think we are doing OK. Thus concludes my first update of 2007. There's much more to come, so stay tuned!

-chris

King Tut

We went down to Chicago a couple of weekends ago to see our friends Ben and Nikki, but also to see the Tutanhkamen exhibit at the Field Museum. It was awesome! First of all, I am fascinated with ancient Egyptian culture, so it's easy for me to get excited about stuff like this. Vicki just had to humor me for a couple of hours (she really didn't mind it all that much) while we walked through the golden pieces of art and religious artifacts.

As we walked in, it felt as if the high priests were pulling back the curtain to the Most Holy Place to show us the ark of the covenant. What we were seeing had been hidden from sight for over 3500 years. A wooden chair, which should have disintegrated 2,000 years ago, stood proudly bearing the marks of the young king. His grandmother's casket, covered in gold and adorned with ancient spells from the Book of the Dead, sat in the middle of one room begging people to come closer. A crown, a dagger, and a golden necklace were prominently displayed in one of the final rooms. A creative video showed that Tut was buried adorning these priceless pieces. He wore them until they were pulled off his mummified body in the early 1900's. Man, I could've stayed in there all day!

I don't know if there is a hobby or a particular part of history or subject that you find fascinating. You know you don't regret it when you explore that world. What is that one thing for you?

Indulge me

Worship and lament

I can remember growing up in a very traditional southern country church and noticing one Sunday that every song we sung never made it back to praising God. We sung about heaven and evergreen trees. We sung about ships and mansions. But I distinctly remember one Sunday never singing one song that addressed God at all. Now this is an extreme example, and I'm not bitter at all about it . . . :) But you see my point!

Truth is, there are waves of inspiration in worship music, we write what we are experiencing and frame it within the biblical story. During the depression, we wrote songs of hope and longing for the future when we wouldn't struggle like we do. Recently, we have written songs expressing the joy we feel was missing from the corporate worship.

In light of this, I agree that the element most missing in our worship is lament. Everyone goes through painful situations, divorces in the family, loss of loved ones, etc, etc, and there is very little to express that in our services. We tend to clean things up a bit in our offerings to God. But that shouldn't be the point, should it? God wants us to be genuine and come to him in the midst of our pain, our dark times. He wants our heart, broken or not.

As I read through the Psalms (our guide to "worship music" from ages past) and it seems that about 2/3 of the songs has massive elements of lament vs. 1/3 which are upbeat and positive. It seems to me that we have some writing to do! We need more songs that express our questions, confession of sins, and just simply "God, where are you?" Off the top of my head, I can think of only a handful that do this well: Deep Calls to Deep (being the only true lament I know), Healing Grace; Lord Have Mercy; Have Mercy O God (another Randy Gill original); Create in Me a Clean Heart (maybe?); and Blessed Be your Name.

I love the honesty in these songs. It doesn't clean up our spirituality, it leaves it messy. God is big enough to handle our problems AND our questions. Don't you think?

-chris