soundtrack to a saturday

Morning: Burlap to Cashmere


When I hear this recording, I am jerked back to 2000.

I am behind the wheel of a 30 ft RV, towing a refrigerated trailer so small that I cannot see it in my mirrors yet so heavy that we're barely breaking 4 MPG. I'm heading west out of Salt Lake City...and as I cross the salt flats, the sun rises behind me to illuminate the Big Nothing that is Northern Nevada. I mash the narrow pedal and the RV shudders in protest.

We listened to to BTC's Anybody Out There for 2200 miles in a 40 hour banzai run from Cincinnati to our first showing at Burning Man. I associate this album with the desert, with destiny, and with faith running high. It still makes me want to roll in the dirt, sleep in a tent and call down life on dry bones.


RetroTech Trivia: I shot this photo with a digital camera I swiped from Steve Sjogren. Keep in mind that it was six years ago. The camera was the size of a tennis shoe and shot photos directly to a floppy disc....like, six of them per disc. We returned home with a box full.


Afternoon: Passion: The Road to Oneday

While church planting, we wore these songs out completely...and loved doing it. We made a lot of mistakes - if I posted them all, we'd find some of you rocking in the corner sucking your thumb (because you're making them now) - but we did a few things right. Worship was one of those few things. Sometimes I think the success Adam is seeing now was earned breaking strings on these very songs.

Our little congregation - a reworked Jesus Poeple movement with Palm Pilots and cell phones - met in school band rooms, hotel meeting rooms, a storefront, an apartment complex, and the gymnasium of a church owned by a deaf congregation For all we goofed up, we sure enjoyed worship. I had tears in my eyes more than once this afternoon as I listened to these again, remembering how we would make those funky little spaces ring.

I laughed remembering Julie Demos breaking a string, slipping her acoustic guitar off and reaching back for Tim Johnson's electric mid song. Sensing the gift of leadership on her, he unstrapped it and handed it to her! Something about a five foot tall, petite blonde going Joan Jett on that red guitar still cracks me up. She never missed a beat and neither did we.

Some days I wonder if any of those people read this blog. If they do, I hope they know they were (and are) loved.

SpiritLife Community Church trivia: With 60 people, we often had four worship leaders who could have held their own on any stage anywhere. And incidentally, the deaf church building had horrible accoustics. No joke.


Evening: Stuart Greaves , IHOP Nightwatch Czar

We worked right up until service time tonight, so we snatched the webcast from our big comfy couch.

Stuart set some sort of strange precident by preaching on eschatology, quoting Bill Cosby and mentioning The Gap all in one thirty second period. But it was very, very good. I still maintain that his accent makes him sound even smarter than he is. Which is pretty honkin' smart.

Nightwatch Trivia: OK, I have nothing on Stuart. But I'm open. Nightwatchers, just pray about what the Lord might have you tell me. Just so I can pray effectively, of course.