Jean Claude had a heart

…even when he was young.

Please Hang Up and Order (An Open Letter to the Cell Phone Guy/Lady)

Dear Cell Phone Guy/Lady,

Seriously? What is so important that you have to talk on the phone at full volume while you are in line and then whisper your order to me, only to return to your conversation while looking at me like you are annoyed because I am asking you to pay?

HTD (here’s the deal). If you are on the phone, step aside and finish your conversation so that the person/people behind you can order. Or better yet, hang up. It’s simple really. Otherwise, your cell phone conversation looks like a big middle finger in my face.

So here’s what I’m going to do as this continues: While you are having your conversation after you order, I am going to call your order to the barista (as required of me) only I will do it at a slightly louder volume than usual. I will also tell you how much you owe me, only again I will do this at a slightly louder (but still courteous) volume. Yes, I realize that this will annoy you, but really, isn’t this what you are doing to me and others?

So Mr/Mrs/Ms Cell Phone user, I ask this of you. Please hang up and order, or let others after you order first.

thank you,

Your Barista – The Brown Kid

I Will Not Let You Grow Old (An Open Letter to My Friends)

This was inspired by a lady I saw at Starbucks one day. I wanted to share this letter that I wrote with everybody to let you know what kind of friend I can be. I care too much about all my friends to let this happen to them, as I hope you do also. If you know the kind of person being described here, please pass this on to them. enjoy!

2/27/09

Dear Friend,

I won’t let you grow old with you believing that you are younger than you truly are. Talking and dressing like you are 40 going on 20. Eventually, it might become embarassing.

Low rise jeans with muffin tops or Abercrombie fashion on a JC Penny body. Faux hawks at 50 and puka shell chokers choking out the last bit of sense that you might have.

Front butts playing peekaboo out the bottom of camisols and beer guts in a wife beater are never sexy. Both seem to reveal denial and freshly inked tribal tattoos.

Fake tans and highlighted hair make for an interesting contrast. Not intersting like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but more like Michael Jackson and Priscilla Presley.

So it comes to this: I promise as your friend to inform you rather than embarrass you if this happens to you. I would rather inform you than allow you to become red in the face. I would hope that you do the same for me. Let us grow old and move forward rather than trying to deny the inevitable. Growing old is a rite of passage and it is for you and me.

Sincerely, Your Friend,

The Brown Kid

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas Carols

Am I the Grinch who stole Christmas carols? I had some people ask me to do Christmas carols during our worship at Roosevelt Community Church. As a staff member of a church that practices and obeserves the Advent season, this brought up a few Questions for me:

What is the true job of the ministers of the church?

Is the true reason to appease the congregation? Should we say “give them what they want”, or should we liken our job as ministers to teach what, how and why we believe as Christ followers? As a staff member of a church which follows the church calendar, only to find themselves in the middle of Advent, then I believe this is a great teaching moment. What if we taught the idea of patience in the midst of the season of antcipation. otherwise, to put it semi-crudely, we experience the climax without the foreplay. It’s just straight to the money shot and we don’t realize what had happened in between it all.

As an artist, what am I to do?

Do I simply go with the congregation, or do I challenge them to think? Is that not the purpose of the worship leader – to help people think, see, and experience Jesus in different ways? Maybe we need to push people outside of their comfort zones. Instead of singing the familiar tunes of  “Angels We Have Heard on High”, we challenge people in experiencing the anticipation through the ideas of  “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus”.

What tears me apart as an artist is I want to challenge people, but on the other hand I have to think about the feelings of the congregation. So what can I do? Do I feel like a sell out, or keep the integrity of the season? I opt for the later, myself. Which draws another question:

Why couldn’t there be more accesible ways of explaining the Advent season?

Really, in teh singing world, you are stuck with a handful of songs that describe teh Advent season…about three I believe – the two more recognizable being “Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel” and “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus”. After those two you need to be creative. I’ve written an Advent specific song that we share as a congregation, and have allowed artists to share in teh past through visual arts of painting. I wonder if, you who are reading this, you have any ideas? If so, please let me know.

I would say that I am the farthest from being grinchy. I start my Corporate Christmas ways on November 1st. I listen to music and tour around Target looking at the lights and decorations that have been made by children and prisoners from foreign countries (that’s a topic for a whole other post). I just want to teach my congregation just a little bit of restraint. I want to have one place where they can reflect and not be sucked into what they are hearing outside of the walls of our little church. Somewhere where they can learn a little more about their faith. Call me crazy, but that just might be what the church service was designed to be.

St. Arbucks Jumps on Board

…two years too late.

Starbucks announced that they will give money this holiday season to the (red) campaign. Seriously, didn’t this happen already? Isn’t everybody done with the (red) campaign? Of course, it’s a good thing, as St. Arbucks will donate .05 cents from every holiday trio sold (Gingersnap Latte, Peppermint Twist Mocha, and the Eggnog Latte), but what if instead they said they will donate all procedes from the holiday trio sold on one day? I am sure more people would be on board for this. Maybe Uncle Howie should have been on board two years ago when the (red) campaign was relevant.

It’s Too Early For Christmas in the Church

As a worship leader, we are to direct people into God’s presence. This is pretty simple thinking. The thing that we have to take into consideration is what we are teaching our congregation as we lead them. Case in point: I’ve had a few people ask me when we start playing Christmas tunes at RCC. To this I reply, “at Christmas”.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the corporate season as much as the next guy, and don’t think for a second that there won’t be posts about it! My favorite CD is the Charlie Brown Christmas. My favorite Christmas movies are Die Hard and Gremlins. But when we truly begin to remember the real season of Christmas, we must remember what is happening in the Church calender. Before we can rejoice, we must reflect. Before we can celebrate, we must anticipate. Before we can recieve, we must wait in expectation.

We know how the christmas story goes. We know that Jesus comes and is born in Bethlehem, and that there are shepherds and angels and three wise men, a star, a manger, etc, etc. But we must reflect going into the season. We must look at why this savior is coming. We must reflect what this savior is doing in our lives and those around us. We must anticipate the coming of renewal.

So, as a worship leader, this is why I don’t play any “CHristmas” tunes until Christmas eve (i.e. Joy to the world, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, What Child is this, etc). I even extend it into the epiphany season, but by that time corporate Christmas has shoved it all down our throats and we are sick of it. Oh well. The Church goes on, but we must be continually teaching people the proper way to worship – why we worship and how we worship – in order for it to make sense.

This would have been mine

…if I was in the 11th grade.

HIJACKED!!!

If you read the post below about my “After Election Hangover”, it got quite a response. A great deal of a response actually! It started out good, but suddenly we started debating over abortion. Not a bad thing really. I like that people are actually discussing stuff here (it hasn’t happened for a while).

I hope that the conversation continues as it is very respectful and backed by well thought out responses – thank you. I did also want to point you to another site who is talking about this strange division in the church over politics rather than morals. Eugene Cho, from Quest Church in Seattle, is asking us to Kiss and Make Up. Please check him out. Anybody who is a cover boy for Sojourners magazine is worth the time to read.

ps – Check out his links that he put up to other thoughts that he has had in the past! They are great.

My Job Description

As a staff at Roosevelt Community Church, we have been asked to write out our job description and what we do at RCC. Below is what I have so far.

“I am an artist who is in love with Jesus. I want to inspire others to see this love through my expressions and in themselves, and in turn allow them to find new and different ways to express this love through the arts.”

This is what I have so far for my job description, but it is also my personal mission statement for my life. Do you have a job or “mission” statement for what you do? It doesn’t have to be spiritual or anything, I just want to know, if somebody asked you what is your personal mission statement for life what would it be?

My After Election Hangover

I feel hungover. I can’t believe what happened last night – I keep wondering if it really did happen. A lot of people on my facebook status updates are angry – more are angry than happy. But overall, I am glad for what happened last night. I am excited for the future of America. I feel that for once my vote counted. But I still feel hungover.

I voted for Obama because I am a democrat at heart. I always tell this story about when my mom taught me about voting when I was a kid: “Remember when you vote”, she told me, “to mark everyone with a ‘D’ next to their name”. Now obviously I don’t vote this way, and all kidding aside, the reason I feel hungover is because I feel as if I did something awful last night. I feel as if people look down on me because of my choice. As if I am less of a Christian because of my vote and my political stance as a democrat?

A lot of my friends are angry and sad, and then they threaten to leave the country, and then they say that they are putting it in God’s hands. I wonder why we as Christians say things like, “we have to put it in God’s hands” when the situation is bad in our opinion, but if it turned out the way we planned, then it suddenly “God is good”. This is where the seperation of Church and State was a good thing.

Maybe then, we shouldn’t vote as christians, but instead as Americans. When religion creeps in then all hell breaks loose. Maybe the mistakes we make are when we mistake our faith with our morals. Hmmm. this is complicated to explain. Maybe what we think are Christian values that we vote on are really things that we do simply because we have believed that all along. Maybe they are things that we believe because we were told they are good or bad.

Either way, we witnessed history. I feel more proud of America than I ever have been in teh past. I am one of the millions who have witnessed what has happened, and truely believes more than ever that anything is possible.