This End Down

I’ve been keeping up http://intervarsityuf.org/ for the last few years. It runs on a proprietary PHP/MySQL Content Management System I wrote specifically for the site (called CampusPress, but I wrote and named it before I’d heard of WordPress–I promise.) It’s essentially an underpowered version of some of the simplest posting and paging features of Wordpress, and were I to start again I’d just install Wordpress.

The problem is, not a lot of people (as far as I can tell) actually use the site. People often find us through the site, but it’s seldom that I hear a student talking about their use of the site or discovering something new through the site. It’s a pain to remember to update it, since we can do Notes and Events in Facebook, and getting students whose lives revolve around Facebook to regularly use an external web site is ridiculous. What intrinsic motivation do they have to regular visit the site? Nothing. And few to none of them use RSS readers, so that does nothing.

On the other hand, the Facebook group

• Allows us to create events with RSVPs and photo galleries
• Allows students to invite friends to events and discuss rides/etc
• Gives me a convenient way to message everyone (we have a Listserv on the web site, but e-mailing students is almost worthless these days–if you want a response, send a facebook message)
• Requires no backend programming or updates
• Is free

Finally, Facebook pages are even more powerful than groups:

• They allow your page to be visible to non-facebook-users (increasing outside visibility)
• They make your group an actual facebook entity, meaning you can use the Publisher–release status updates, write/import Notes, post links, photos, and videos–and these updates show up in your students’ feeds
• Using a new feature called Insights, you can track your visits and the popularity of certain aspects of your page
• There’s much more possibility for customization, allowing you to add tabs and customize your site design and programming using FBML (Facebook’s version of HTML)

So, I’ve created the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at UF InterVarsity Christian Fellowship – UF Undergrad page I realized after I created it that I should’ve named it “InterVarsity Undergrad at UF”, so I hope that doesn’t come back to haunt me when Greek (and Grad?) chapters want their own pages. I’m trying to figure out if I should start a new page now, before I invite people, or try to learn how to change it.

Once I learn how to change the name or just start a new one (or just stick with this name), I’ll put up more information about how everything’s working out in the transition. I tagged this with “facebookpage“, and hopefully I’ll remember to do the same in the future.

Happy birthday dude.

After watching this video (via Lifehacker) from the initial Google Wave presentation, it makes a lot of sense. However, it’s a darn long video, so I took some outline-form notes for anyone who doesn’t want to sit through the whole thing.

Here’s the video: http://bit.ly/2ubKlY

And here’s the outline:

Tonight, as I brushed my teeth and walked around the house to close up for the night, something a student told me last week at Chapter Camp took hold of me: I am a grown up.

This sank in because I had just left the bedroom where my wife slept in our bed (not the cheap college mattress, mind you, but a real bed with a frame underneath it) in front of our TV (not the 15″ one you inherit from your old roommate, but a real brand new TV). I was looking down at the full-sized bathroom that I share with my wife (not my roommates), at my hands complete with wedding band, and thinking about the house we’re hoping to rent for next year.

As I wandered out into the living room to check the thermostat, I thought about the electric bills I care for, the health insurance documents on the kitchen counter, and the cars we have to keep in repair.

Somewhere between the bathroom and the living room it kicked me in the gut: I am an adult. I am a grown man. I am 24 years old, have a facial piercing, and on most days I wear Nike sneakers, jeans, and a t-shirt, so you could most certainly call me an immature adult. But let’s face it: I have a wife, a job, a car, and we have our own place, furniture, and plans. I am, in the ways it is recognized and quantified in American society (or at least in my head back when I was a young pup), a grown-up.

You know what? It doesn’t feel as different as I had expected. I like it, that’s for sure. But I don’t feel much different than 5-year old Matt. I’m even beginning to lean a little toward Matthew, my childhood name.

The reason I put the qualifiers in front of “a grown-up” is that I’m not entirely sure that any of these accomplishments are necessarily tied to my spiritual growth and maturity. It’s interesting to claim myself a grown-up and yet feel so childlike so often. I hope that some aspect of that childlike nature will never go away, but I really do wonder if at some point I’ll feel more grown up. What does it take? A mortgage? Kids, perhaps? I already have a grey hair, for whatever that’s worth.

Praise the Lord for doing what he has in me to bring me to the point where I can love and respect my wife without too often falling into self-centered tantrums. Praise him for parents who taught me responsibility early on to help me survive moving halfway across the country for school. Praise him for a fellowship that nurtured and encouraged me to grow up in the way I look at people different from me. Praise him for my partner in this new part of my life.

I wish I could say I have a well-researched, Biblically-based opinion here. I don’t. I’ve just thought about this some times and want to have a discussion with some people. I don’t have all of the answers–in fact, I have far more questions in this area than I have answers. I also don’t want to repeat my experience of starting huge, divisive comment flame wars. So, as a preface: if any discussion happens and if it starts getting heated, I will just shut off the comments and delete any heated comments. That having been said, here’s my thought:

I’m trying to figure out what I think about professional worship musicianship (the title/position/cultural entity, not them as people). There are a lot of things involved in this discussion and a lot of things that affect how I can look at the discussion. Here are a few.

• I’m a full-time employee of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a Christian campus ministry. I’m essentially paid (although, since I fund-raise, it’s a little more complicated than that) so that I can do all day the type of ministry that all Christians are called to, but have less time to do because of their full-time jobs.
• I love the worship leader at my church, Steve Adams. I don’t think he should be asked to do the work he does without being compensated.
• I believe someone could make the point according to Biblical precedent that no one should be “paid to minister” (the term “professional ministers” comes up often in these discussions). However, I believe that these sorts of arguments–at least, in the context of what I’m discussing here–forget that there’s also no Biblical precedent for “churches” like we have today, so unless you’re a part of a house church type movement, I’m not sure if I think this argument holds a lot of weight. Also, there was this guy in the Bible named Paul who set a little bit of a precedent here.
• I regularly enjoy the music recorded and written by professional musicians. I’m currently listening to music from Eddie James, and have benefitted greatly by the ministry of many modern Christian worship leaders/musicians–among others, Jason Upton and Fred Hammond.
• I make a distinction here between Christian musicians and Christian Worship musicians. I know that all Christian music can be called worship; however, a musician who is a full time musician who is a Christian is, in my eyes, different than a full-time worship leader/musician. Derek Webb writes desperately God-focused music, and while his music reflects more strongly a deep relationship with God than many mainstream worship leaders, I consider him a Christian musician, not a worship leader. Tell me if you think I’m wrong. I’d love to think more on this topic.
• I recognize that the previous point is debatable, as I have a somewhat tenuous distinction between the two. I have a very arbitrary distinction in my mind that is definitely a stretch and which I recognize as incomplete: I feel like Derek Webb and his compatriots (for an extreme, see Pedro the Lion’s David Bazan) have the freedom to have whatever relationship with God they have. They can have good days and bad days, they can question God and their faith, and they can show themselves as regular people. I don’t feel like worship leaders are given the same allowance to be human.
• Compelled to feel joyful: I would venture that every Christian, at one point in their lives, has sat in a Christian gathering while everyone else smilingly sang “You Give Me Joy” or another such song, and thought, “I have no joy! I’m such a hypocrite for singing this!” I would urge them to sing anyway, and see how God moves in their hearts. As a worship musician, I have a similar experience–yet it’s so much easier for me to sit and play the bass lines to “You Give Me Joy” without engaging at all in the lyrical/spiritual content of the song. This is definitely a danger.
• I recognize the value of smiling if you’re on stage at church. I also hate being told to smile, and cannot force myself to do so if someone’s required me to.
• I feel something of a weight when I’m in a church full of people dancing, jumping, and singing. On the one hand, I’m so happy that God means so much to people. On the other hand, I can’t say that I can confidently claim that the church is bringing that sort of joy out into the world. Yes! Given one or the other, I’d prefer people be joyful and passionate when they’re intentionally in fellowship and in God’s presence. But I feel like we can have both.
• Local versus Traveling: I also struggle some with the concept of the traveling worship musician. I spent much of my middle school and high school free time as a part of a very charismatic, spirit-filled group of worshippers who loved spending time in a literal upper room praying and singing and crying out, but who never (to my memory) helped a single poor person or saw anyone come to Christ. That same “worship culture”, for a desperate lack of a better word, is present in a lot of groups that jump and hoot and holler when their favorite worship musician comes into town, and they all have a big emotional Jesus fest, and then they go back home and do nothing. I’m not saying that anyone who goes to Christian concerts is bad! I’m saying that I worry that traveling musicians may feed into the subculture of Christian “worshippers” who are passionate at church and unengaged outside of church. Where local musicians/worship leaders are members of the congregations they minister to/with, traveling musicians don’t have the same connection. Again! I listen to worship CDs, I listen to other church’s podcasts, and I’ve been to plenty a worship concert in my day. I’m just somewhat troubled by the entire mindset of the traveling worship musician, and I’m struggling to find out why–and completely open to the conclusion that it’s just my personal issue.
• I may add more here. I feel like it’s a broader issue, but all this typing has made me forget all of my original thoughts about it.

The pastor of my local church body, Mike Patz, said something recently that I really appreciate. The gist was this: “I was thinking about watching Religulous [(a movie critical of religious people)]. Then I realized, I can criticize the church plenty on my own. I don’t need someone else to help me with it.”

In the same way, the last thing I want is for this to be a complaint session about the modern church. I’m sick and tired of “enlightened” Christians in my generation sitting around and complaining. Instead, I’m trying to develop a right theology so that I can be a part of bringing the church closer to Jesus, and would really love some people with more wisdom than me to share their insight into the areas of my confusion.

NOTES (added later)

• My friend Jeff asked “What’s a professional worship musician,” and then “What’s a worship musician?” This prompted me to think about what exactly makes one a worship musician–considering that “worship” certainly means more than music. Could part of my problem be a feeling that one can be a church/Christian event musician without being a true worshipper? I don’t know, but I definitely think that’s very close to the heart of the issue–at what point is there so much structure in something that it allows someone to “participate” in it without actually getting the point? Maybe it ties into my early  dislike for all things rigid and traditional.

I’m getting married Saturday.

We even set up a blog for it… which we then proceeded to forget about.

Our families are coming into town Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

We still have a lot to do before the big day. Today we’ll be finalizing wedding cake details, possibly shopping for some gifts/supplies, paying the florist, and working on our reception playlist.

I don’t really have the brains to write much else. But! I wrote something. That’s a start.