Chase the Setting Sun...

I've been thinking about different Holiday traditions as Christmas quickly approaches. I decided to put up a list of my top 10 favorite holiday traditions (in no particular order)

1. Peanut Butter Balls

• Those of you from Ohio might call these "Buckeyes". We were always forbidden to call them that because most of my family attended Indiana University for college. They are basically a mix of peanut butter, butter, and powdered sugar rolled into a ball and covered in chocolate. Pretty phenomenal!

2. Christmas Vacation

• This is by far the greatest Christmas Movie of all time! No matter how many times I watch it I think I pull a muscle laughing every time. Just watched it last night with my parents and Grandmother for the second time this season (their first time ever!) and it was amazing. After the movie my 89 yr old grandmother said "Well Joe, I think that is the first movie I've seen since Hoosiers. (in the theater)". At that rate, unless she lives to be 120 it might be the last movie she sees. What a great last movie! (I'm not sure she'd agree with that statement).
  

3. Edward Scissorhands on Thanksgiving Day with Courtney

• This tradition started our first Thanksgiving together when we were dating. The movie was on TV and I was (still am) a huge Johnny Depp fan so we watched it. We've seen it most Thanksgivings since (although we missed the last couple years until this year).

4. Christmas Morning Cinnamon Rolls

• Every year since I can remember we have had Pillsbury cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. We would awake to the smell of garlic and onions sauteing (Mom preparing her famous stuffing for Christmas dinner), open presents, then stuff our faces with cinnamon rolls. Courtney and I continue this tradition.

5. Putting up the Christmas Tree (Mexican Style)

• Every year growing up it was always fun to put up the Christmas Tree. When I was growing up that usually occurred either the 1st of December or sometime after Thanksgiving and before Dec 1st. Now, although Courtney likes to try and get me to put up the tree sometime closer to HALLOWEEN, it is still a lot of fun. We make queso dip with mexican seasoned ground turkey (a tradition her family started...I think without the meat though) and play Christmas music while decorating. Definitely more fun this year now that we have a house and don't have to move half of our furniture into another room to fit the tree.

6. Dinner Rolls

• See previous post "On a Roll...a Holiday Tradition"

7. Starbucks Peppermint Mochas

• Most of the year I can restrain from too many Starbucks runs...Christmas season kills me though with the Peppermint Mochas. I'm addicted (and drinking one as I write this).
  

8. Christmas Eve Service

• Last year I participated in the 6pm Contemporary service on Christmas Eve at Castleton United Methodist Church. This year, now that I work at the church, I was responsible for picking music and organizing the service. As much work as it is to organize a Christmas Eve service, it really is a lot of fun and I am looking forward to the actual service. I'm also looking forward to next year, hopefully I'll be able to take the service to the next level. This year I stuck closer to what is expected from the past as my first Christmas Eve.

9. Phao Student Ministries Family Christmas Dinner

• This year was our first annual Phao Student Ministries Family Christmas Dinner. Last Sunday we had about 100 people show up to Fellowship Hall in a snow storm to join us to celebrate the Christmas season and our ministry. We gave out thank you gifts to some of our great volunteer leaders, had a white elephant gift exchange with the students and gave out information for summer mission trips. Props to Steph for the idea and everyone that helped decorate and pull it together!

10. Snow!

• I've been loving the snow this year. I think having a house really adds to the enjoyment of the snow. I don't really even mind shoveling the snow. It's been a lot of fun watching it snow while in my living room drinking coffee and enjoying the warmth of our fireplace (even if I have already burnt through most of the wood we have).

Anyway, I am enjoying this time of year more and more as I get older I think. What are your favorite foods, movies or traditions during this Holiday Season?

**Our Contemporary Christmas Eve service this year will be at 6pm in the Castleton United Methodist Church Sanctuary of of 71st Street and Shadeland Avenue, Indianapolis. Join us!

Right now my Young Adult Discussion Group is reading through "Messy Spirituality" by Mike Yaconelli. This week we are on chapter 5, "Odd Discipleship."

Mike is talking in a part of this chapter about the church he pastors and how it is an odd group of people and how their service is "growing".

"I pastor the slowest growing church in America. We started twelve years ago with ninety members and have ungrown to thirty. We are about as far as you can get from a user-friendly church--not because our congregation is unfriendly but because our services are unpredictable, unpolished, and inconsistent. We are an "odd friendly" church, attracting unique and different followers of Christ who make every service a surprise."

We often try to justify what makes a good service by the quality of the "product" we produce, the quality of the music/sermon, the number of people in attendance, the amount (or lack) of awkward moments, blunders and other oddities.

Maybe what makes a good worship service are those oddities, blunders, awkward moments. Maybe it's as few as ten or fifteen weirdos coming together as the Body of Christ and worshiping together and enjoying fellowship with each other.

As we continue Renovate, our Saturday evening contemporary service, my thought on what makes a good worship service is changed and molded weekly. It is so easy for me to worry about the quality of the band, the sermon, the numbers in attendance...when really all that matters is that a few people that might not attend a church anywhere else are coming together and interacting with Jesus in some way, even if just for a few minutes.

I'm sure there will be many posts to come covering my adventures in music and ministry.

Last night was Rally #3 for Castleton United Methodist Church's capital campaign. Courtney and I were asked to share our stewardship witness with the attendees of the rally. Here is basically what we said (although in the moment a couple sentences I think got left out of the actual talk).
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We agreed to speak tonight because we’ve heard recently about what our sacrificial giving today can mean for tomorrow, and about how today’s sacrifices are tomorrow’s blessings. We truly feel that we’ve been able to reap the benefits of the giving of those that have come before us so we wanted share what sacrificial giving means to us.


I’m going to start by reading a quick quote from C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity that basically sums up how we feel God is calling us to live.

I'm afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words,if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away way too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them ~ C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity

Two years ago, this coming Monday actually, Courtney and I got married right up there. It was the high point in 23 years of us, and our families, being blessed, by God, through this church. Castleton UMC over the years had given us each other, most of our closest friends, and most importantly; showed us the blessing of Jesus Christ crucified for us.


That C.S. Lewis quote I just read kind of sums up how we feel about giving, and how we feel God calling us to give. A passage from Malachi 3, that has been shared already during our worship services recently kind of sums up why living this way is worth it to us.

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. ~ Malachi 3:10

Over the last 25 years, God has already poured out so much blessing on us, through this church, that we already don’t have room enough for it. Imagine what would happen if we acknowledged that and stepped up to God’s challenge to somehow, in some small way, repay this church just a little bit, by contributing and giving a little extra to this capital campaign. If we are already blessed beyond what we can hold, I can’t imagine what might be in store for us next. Not only for us, but the Castleton UMC as a whole.


It is because of this that we have decided to be a part of this campaign and contribute in any way possible. Honestly, right now we don’t have much to give in the first place and our current 10% tithe seems pretty huge. At the end of the month I will be switching jobs, which is one of those blessings that God has poured down on us that we have been praying for, for a long time. That blessing however does come with slightly less money than I was making before as I go from a full time and a part time job, to just one full time.


A couple months ago we put down a number that, at the time was sacrificial for us. It wasn’t much, but to us it was a sacrifice. Even though we will have slightly less income we have decided to go ahead and honor that original commitment and find a way to make it work. We will make that work without loading up our credit cards or incurring any more debt than we already have in student loans, my car and our house. Right now, that number is almost certainly out of our means, but we will find ways to cut back and put it within our means.


We do this because Jesus has already loved us and blessed us so much that out of the overflow of that blessing we find joy in giving back to God and His church.

It has been a crazy spring season so far. It seems that life has hit light speed and shows no signs of stopping. As difficult and crazy as that makes it, I have to say I am loving it.


Some background...


In January of this year I took over the reigns for Castleton United Methodist's contemporary/blended service on Sunday mornings at 11:00am (in addition to my fulltime job at Garrison Law Firm). My charge was to turn it from a "blended" service into a full blown "contemporary" service in terms of music. At the beginning of March my wife (@courtgarr) and I closed on our first house. We began looking for a home in early January and found a great house in Fishers. Soon after that our church began a capital campaign to retire the debt associated with building our current sanctuary. On the same day that was started, Matt Lipan (@mattlipan) and I were given the green light to start a brand new Saturday Night Contemporary service on our Castleton campus. Immediately we went to work on advertising for musicians, interviewing worship leaders and developing the service. All the while participating in hours of meetings regarding the capital campaign and all of the tasks involved in making that a successful venture for our church.


On May 14th Court and I took possession (finally) of our house. Immediately began the work of packing to move along with preparing our new home for our arrival. We spent the following week painting, cleaning, replacing things, adding new things until the house was ready for us to move in this last weekend.


On top of all that we started a new discussion group on Tuesday night at George's Neighborhood Grill for the '20 somethings' group in our area.


With all the craziness that has gone along with all of the things I've been involved in and doing lately I have to say that I haven't had this much fun in a long time. It has been a blast searching for, buying, and moving into a new home with my wife. Starting this new service (even though it technically hasn't started) has been a great experience and a lot of fun as I've put together a completely new band with new faces and talents. Even the capital campaign, as boring as that may sound, has had it's moments.


I am completely looking forward to the following months and years as I continue to lead some great bands and services and get to finally live in our new home and experience life as a home owner.


Although at times I may complain...It has been a great few months and promises to only get better.

Tonight I spent three heavenly hours in a meeting for leaders of our church's capital campaign. Ok, maybe all three hours weren't heavenly. Nonetheless, it was beneficial in some ways. Just some background. A few years ago our church built a new sanctuary. It was long overdue and completely necessary in my opinion. Of course there are only two ways to pay for a new building like this 1) pay in cash and 2) go into debt. It is now our task to pay off the debt.


A phrase that our campaign coordinator brought up a lot was "sacrificial giving." His challenge to everyone in our meeting, as well as the church as a whole, was to "give sacrificially." I got to thinking, what does it mean to give sacrificially? Is it different for everyone, or does it mean the same thing? C.S. Lewis came to mind...


In Chapter 3 of his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis says this,

"I'm afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away way too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them."

This to me is what it means to give sacrificially. As human beings we are particularly driven by our own status in society. What car do we drive? How big is our house? What kind of clothes do we wear? How many followers do we have on Twitter? We want to at least match if not exceed those in our income bracket in our possessions.


C.S. Lewis says that we should take a look at what everyone else in our income bracket has and make sure that we have less. He doesn't say that we should give away 90% of our income, but we should see how others are living comfortably (or more than comfortably) and give a little more. Our giving should make us a little uncomfortable.


The church talks a lot about tithing. Personally, my wife and I do tithe our 10% each month. However, I'm not sure that formula works for everyone. For some people, 10% is outrageous and would bankrupt them to just all of the sudden start forking over 10% of their income. For others, 10% is a drop in the bucket and they would have to go up to maybe 20-30% before they feel the impact.


I think giving sacrificially means the same thing for a person making $20,000/yr and someone making $1,000,000/yr. It is the specific numbers that are different. Give until it makes us a little uncomfortable.


So I am challenged to try take another look at our finances over the next couple of months before the giving phase of the campaign starts and see if we can sacrifice a little more. To be honest the 10% we do give right now feels like it hurts enough, but maybe God can help us find a way to squeeze out a few more percent to try and pay down some debt.


How is God challenging you to give sacrificially?

As you have probably noticed thus far; I have been going over what makes a worship service good, in particular, the worship music. This seems to be one of those things that, depending on how you look at it, is either really simple or really difficult. Much of the time it's insanely difficult for me, I think, because I am always over analyzing it based on my knowledge of music.

Take today for example. We played some older songs during our worship set. Not to us by Chris Tomlin, We Fall Down, How Great is our God, and Mighty to Save by Laura Story. Pretty basic worship songs. The beginning of our opening set my amp malfunctioned and Matt, our pastor for today, had to vamp for a few minutes while I figured out what was going on.

We finally got everything together and played through the first song ok. The second song the slides were wrong and we lost our place and ended the song incredibly awkwardly all at different times. The next two songs towards the end went fine.

Being who I am (a music nazi) I was ripping myself apart the rest of the day because the beginning of the service went bad. Talking to people after the service though, and my wife later, apparently no one really noticed the apparent train wreck I felt was occurring and thought we did a great job. So either I'm completely nuts or everyone was lying to me.

Now I'm sure it wasn't quite as bad as I imagine, I always am ridiculously hard on myself about these things. I know that God can break through our crap and still show Himself through technical difficulties and missed song endings. I shouldn't worry about that. The problem is, and maybe it's not really a problem, I take my job so seriously that every little mistake I take upon myself for not rehearsing the band well enough or not preparing well enough myself. I mean, I'm the leader, if something goes wrong it's my fault, even if someone else is the one that forgets something or makes a mistake. It has to be my fault for not rehearsing them well enough.

Anyway, from what I was told after, the music went fairly well. So does it really matter all that much in a worship service if the music is stellar or we play the coolest, hippest, new worship songs? I guess not. All that matters is that we are true to the reason we are there, to worship God. If we hang on to that God will break through our mistakes and show Himself to those worshiping with us.

Maybe someday I'll get over it and stop killing myself for minor mistakes and details...ok probably not, but at least after letting off some steam I can realize that God is a Bizillion times bigger than me and nothing I do can get in His way.

Today is Easter Sunday. With that comes so many great things, most of all the hope of salvation in knowing that Christ died for our sins and is risen today. One thing I was not expecting is how much I enjoyed and was moved by the music today.

I am a contemporary worship director at Castleton United Methodist Church in Indianapolis. I prefer contemporary worship, it typically moves me to a greater extent and I am able to worship more through it I believe than traditional worship. Today however, was a different story. Today our Music Director brought in an orchestra complete with brass and strings as well as some percussion. It was amazing in combination with our usual choir. They did "Christ the Lord is Risen today" and "Hallelujah" from Handel's Messiah and it was amazing. The way it was all put together with the orchestra and choir just gave it this holiness or "weight" to it. I have to say I much preferred what we had today to what we would have had in the contemporary worship service...which is saying a lot since I run the contemporary music at Castleton.

Nice work Dr. Wright and choir/musicians. Well done!

I'm sitting out on the balcony at my apartment right now. I have a Sam Adams Boston Lager in my Sam Adams Boston Lager frozen glass and have some music playing in the back ground (Myles Kennedy if you couldn't have guessed). It is 80 degrees and I'm getting pretty stoked about summer. Lot's of stuff to look forward to this summer.

First thing, we get to move into our new house in mid-May. We have a nice house up in Fishers. Currently the former homeowners are renting it from us until mid-May when their house is done, or May 14th, whichever comes first. Coming with the new house will mean doing lots of homeowner stuff...mowing the lawn, landscaping, building a deck out back etc. I have to say I'm looking forward to all of that. I might even teach Courtney how to mow the lawn.

Also, hopefully by the summer we will have hired a worship leader at the church (see post below). If all goes well this will be someone that shares my vision for what our church needs to be doing in terms of contemporary worship and outreach to the currently non-existent young adult population in our church. So that is exciting.

At the new house I will have a room all to myself for my music. I am very much looking forward to having a place of my own I can go and work on music, play some guitar or drums and relax. I can maybe even get back into doing some recording which I haven't done in over a year and a half.

All in all, it's going to be a pretty sweet summer.