On Writing

Hello friends,

And greetings from my favorite vacation spot in the entire world, Breezy Point NY. After a long summer of trips and events and ministry, it's nice to be able to step back, take a deep breath and recharge the batteries. 

One of the things that I do when I'm going through this recharging stage is to re-evaluate what it is that gives me energy, what it is that is lacking from my life when I'm too busy that brings me joy. When I'm on vacation, I make it a point to make sure that my bike comes along with me because during the sumer I often lose focus on cycling just for fun. I make it a point to bring my guitar along with me to spend some time songwriting. I spend some time in the scriptures, and real deep time at that, not just a surface read through. These are the things that can get neglected when life gets too busy, and it's important to hit the reset button before things get ramped up again in the fall. If I've done vacation right, by the time I get back I'm not only well rested, I'm back in the habit of resting. 

And so last night, I read an e-mail from Examiner.com that reminded me that I am in fact still considered a correspondent for them. I signed up for this news organization in 2009, to write articles about Christianity, if at all possible directly related to the Pittsburgh area. My last article for them was in 2009. It just simply slipped off my radar. So when I read that e-mail, I was reminded that one of the ways that I recharge best is when I'm writing and writing frequently. This usually leads to a sad, sorry attempt to write a not well thought out book. I can't tell you how many "Chapter one" documents exist on my computer that were born at this very beach house only to be forgotten in the return to the real world. So I don't think that a book is the right answer, at least not right now. 

I think the answer is to try to keep myself accountable to writing both here at the J-Blog and on Examiner. I sat down last night and came up with a schedule for myself, and hope to actually be able to keep up with it. You can expect to see posts here at J-Blog on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and new articles at Examiner on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Again, I don't have the world's best track record when it comes to keeping up with these schedules, but I'm going to do my best for you guys! As always, if you have any topics related to youth ministry, seminary, worship, or book reviews, please leave a comment here below. I have a few posts already swirling around the old noggin to get us kick started, but this blog is way more fun when its a conversation than when its just me ranting. 

See you Friday!

Godspeed,

Jason

The War of Art: A Book Review!

(Note: I started working on both of these posts earlier in the day, but I was really disappointed with the writing. This is saying something, as most of my blog posts go up without any editing at all! Anyway, sorry for the delay. Enjoy!)

Hey gang!

Bible study forthcoming today. But in the meantime, I read a book! We should throw a small parade or something.

I actually found The War of Art from Donald Miller's blog. I have been thinking a lot about improving my skills as a writer, and when his list of books you should read crossed my eyes, I hopped on Amazon and got to the reading. I started with the War of Art, and I'm instantly hooked on it!

The basic idea of the book is that to be a creative artist, you have do dedicate yourself to the task at hand. Steven Pressfield takes the romance out of being an artist and reminds us that it takes some pretty serious work to give birth to our creations. The book is mostly geared towards those artists who are full time freelancers, but I think there are a few applications for the rest of us as well.

1. Resistance is brutal.
Pressfield actually personifies that demonic force that keeps us from getting our stuff done. It's in the room with me right now. It's standing between me and the pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen. It's winning. Some people call this "writer's block", but when Pressfield labeled it as Resistance, it opened the door to all kinds of different areas of our lives than just writing. Resistance talked me into quitting the gym. He's talked me out of finishing my next sermon. He's a crafty little devil he is!

2. Act Like A Pro
This was huge for me. When I first started writing songs and playing guitar, I saw it as a kind of hobby. It wasn't what I did, it was what I did when I didn't have anything else to do. And yet, when I'm not in a band, when I don't have a place to let my music out, I feel empty and hollow. It's taken me forever to come to terms with labeling myself a "musician" or an "artist," but that's exactly what I am. Pressfield would tell me that it's not only ok to call myself what I am, but to embrace it and run towards it as though I was a professional. An amateur only pecks away at their calling from time to time, as though it were some kind of hobby. A pro runs full speed after what they love, willing to toss it all overboard for the next gig or the next project.

Spiritually, the book goes everywhere and seems to embrace a multitude of faith ideas from Christianity to Muses and Greek Mythology. However, if you can work with that and some pretty colorful language from time to time, I think this book is a huge help to worship leaders in particular. I wouldn't chuck it out for youth pastors either though, because we face resistance on a near daily basis. You can pick it up from Amazon by following the link below!

Godspeed,

Jason

Coming to terms as an artist.

Sorry I haven't been around in a while. I don't really have an excuse, but you people don't pay me to blog for you, so deal with it!
A few years ago, I was asked by Pine Springs Camp to come and lead worship for them at a fall retreat called the Big One. It was a pretty big deal to me back then, as I was really just getting started as a worship leader, so I felt like this was a group of people taking a pretty big chance with me. When they told me that the theme of the weekend was "God at the Center", I didn't really have a whole lot of songs in my arsenal that delt with the theme (People have since come to me after the fact and told me about a ton of songs that could have worked, but I didn't know them then). So I sat down on my couch in my office and in one afternoon wrote a song that I felt would fit the theme pretty well. That song was called "Hold Me Closer", and is probably the only song I've written that people know and remember. If such a thing exists on my level, it's my only "hit."

(By the by, I would really like to hear how a song titled "When Donkeys Flew" sounds...)

Now, almost four years later, I find myself once again leading worship for the Big One, once again staring down a theme that has little to no offerings in the worship world (Agents of Change), and once again writing a new song on my couch. It is not the most creative thing I've ever done (the title is, well, Agents of Change, and the chorus words are "Ohhh"), and yet it's probably one of my favorite songs I've written so far. I am pleased with my creation.

Sometimes though I think I cheat myself. Often times when I write a song, I don't feel like an artist of any kind, I feel kind of like a guy who puts chords and words together, and sometimes they even fit. But I think it's important for those of us who consider ourselves song writers to consider ourselves artists. God has created us with this desire to create stuff, and we should be proud of that. I have the hardest time telling people that I wrote a song, I'd almost rather be not noticed. And while that can be awesome for someone who struggles with pride, I think it's good to let people know that you're creating stuff. God wants us to create, and create we shall.

So, if you're a song writer out there, create something today. Make something beautiful, or even better make something horrible (practice makes perfect). Let God speak to people through your art, through your songs. And feel free to take a little bit of credit!

--
PS:
We added a new friend to our family this weekend. Everybody, meet Melvin!

He's getting fixed right now, so he probably hates me. That said, he's easily the coolest dog on the planet! Marley loves him too!

Godspeed,

Jason

While I'm Out Part One: My Favorite Summer Event.

Note: I'm at the Alive Festival all this week (June 16th-20th), and big fields are not known for their wifi connections. So I've set up a series of timed posts related to the new book to keep you all entertained. Enjoy!

Right now (unless there were delays, and there probably were) I'm on the bus on the way to the Alive Festival. It's the official kick off of our summer programming. It's the event that we've been looking forward to for months. When we were down and depressed about what might have been going on around us during the school year, Ed and I would remind each other that Alive was coming. This is what we live for. This is what we're all about. When Saturday comes, and I wake up on the cold hard ground in a big field in Ohio, a tear will form in my eye as I begin the countdown until the next Alive trip.

We've been going on this trip since we were in school ourselves. Just yesterday, my wife pulled out pictures of Ed and I at Alive in 2001. We were not very old. We were babies. We had the time of our lives. I bet if you told us then that we'd be leading our own youth ministry trips to the festival in just 8 short years, we probably would have laughed in your face. We just loved being there. We still do.

We have this trip down to a science. We know how food is going to be prepared. We know how our tents are set up. We know how to arrange transportation. We know where to find the best bands, and how to get a free smoothy from the best smoothy stands. We have played frisbee on an island in the middle of the lake with The OC Supertones. We spent time with Switchfoot. Third Day signed my yearbook. This festival is the bomb.

One of my favorite parts of the trip are the nightly times of worship. Some of the biggest names in contemporary worship will be there to lead us. Folks like David Crowder, Chris Tomlin, Paul Baloche, Lincoln Brewster, and a bunch more have set the standard for worship music at Alive. It's huge too! Big lights, big sound systems, fog machines. Heck, they even had a disco ball once.

But I wonder about the youth leaders who are at this festival and desperately want to provide worship experiences for their youth. I wonder if they become a bit frustrated by the fact that they completely lack the skills or resources or know how to put together worship on this grand scale? Their fears are probably not soothed when they walk back to their camp sites hearing the kids say things like "That was the coolest!" and "Why can't we do stuff like that?" All of a sudden, our friendly imaginary youth pastor is scared to death of leading worship.

Fear not little flock. There are ways for worship to be even bigger than the Alive festival using even less "stuff". Your kids can experience worship in ways they never thought possible before. There are people out there who want to help you accomplish that.

More to come!

Godspeed,

Jason

The Book and the Poll Two: Electric Boogaloo.

Hello everybody!
Right now, if I've done this right, I'm sitting on the T making my way downtown for the Stanley Cup Parade! But, because I have some slightly larger plans ahead of me, and I promised I would use Monday mornings to poll you the faithful readers, I set this up to be a timed post. If technology is for me, this will all go together swimmingly!

So, here's today's question:

What was your favorite non-musical worship moment? A prayer station, a sermon that spoke to you, that cute girl you used to sit next to? Lemme know!

More this afternoon!

Godspeed,

J