Spontaneous Combustion

At rehearsal last night, we ran through a song that just didn't work. So we tried it again. I still didn't think it worked.

This thought was confirmed when the sound engineer pantomimed sticking his head in a noose to end his misery.

We ditched the song. I thought for a minute...waited for inspiration...only once since I've been in my current role at PCC have I pulled a song out of thin air. We plan pretty specifically and we generally stick to the plan.

But not this week.

An old song came roaring into my head that would fit the moment. I've got gratitude on my mind, which is odd, because these days are filled with sorrow (I hate cancer. I hate cancer. I hate cancer.) But gratitude is the theme for this part of the worship set.

And so we improvised. I shouted out some chords, said, "Just follow me - you'll get it."

And they did.

It's moments like that when the joy and privilege of making music is most evident. Starting from scratch - no recording, no charts - nothing but our ears to hear and our imaginations to create.

It was a great band, and we had a great time. Because the song came out of the past - like I think the last time I played it was about a decade ago - and I don't have a recording, I made a scratch track. Which is me using a midi keyboard, wearing a cheap pair of headphones and yelling "PLEASE TURN IT DOWN!!! I'M TRYING TO RECORD SOMETHING!!!!" It's just past midnight and I just finished. I sent it off to the band so they'll feel more comfortable for Sunday.

And the magic will happen.

By the way, all this will take place at the Westchester Campus. I'm heading east this week for a little movie theatre church. Undoubtedly, the Powhatan band nailed the song that we killed and they'll have it all together. They're going to be awesome. At the movie theatre, we'll be making it up as we go along.

Well, not really. But it might be a very good day to check out Westchester...9:30 AM...comfortable seats...and great music...and YOU know the rest of the story!

Grin.

We Can't Come Down

Life is beginning to speed up again. A dip in both my attitude and my real-time schedule gave me a bit of a break for about three weeks - but things are amping up, and I find myself waking up each day with a long list of stuff on my mind. Most of it is work related - we are close to moving our church services into our first permanent facility, and with that comes many changes and decisions. At the same time, we plan to launch a second site - to reproduce ourselves - just a few weeks after The Big Move. It sounds insane - and it feels insane - but it's truly what we feel called to do.

If it was easy, I'd be worried. It's not easy. It's challenging and confusing and overwhelming. We - our staff - finding ourselves freaking out at various times during the day. With just cause.

It's challenging because it's new and fresh, unlike anything we've ever done. Everything in our future as an organization seems discombobulated - service schedules, office locations, signage, set-up, service length, leadership teams. We have no idea how to do church at a movie theater, which is where our second location will be.

Everything seems discombobulated, with more unanswered questions than any of us are comfortable with.

And yet....it's in wrestling with the questions that we find answers, and discover more about ourselves, and - most importantly - redefine just why in the world we are in the middle of such a chaotic and challenging mess.

We know why we do this.

We are called. Our church is a living organism that breathes the truth of this one thing: God loves people. Many people are very far from him. We want to help. And this mission - this holy discontent - drives us to our knees begging for guidance, and draws us up to the challenge of - again, again and again - doing whatever it takes.

So - crazy times for us. We can't even decide what to call the church(es) in their new, separate locations. As my coworker Susan said today, we are having a bit of an identity crisis.

But it's only regarding the external. We know who we are. We know why we're here.

We're doing a good work. We can't come down.

We're getting 'er done.