So this clip comes on of Paul Young and in less than 30 seconds I decided I was going to read his book. Young is one of those guys who’s brutally honest about his relationship with God and his opinion of the establishment we call the church, and that intrigued me. So I went home and began researching The Shack.

The first thing I found was that it’s an hugely popular book. This book has sold something like 4 million copies. OK, that’s fine, whatever. The second thing I found out was that this book has no major publisher. Two dozen publishing houses, Christian and non-Christian refused to publish it, so Young and some buddies published it out of their garage. Now this is getting interesting. The third thing I discovered is that the Christian establishment hates this book. They hate it so much that I found many articles by heavy hitters in the Christian church that actually said it was dangerous to read this book and we should stay away from it. Fiction, dangerous??? Yeah, that cemented it for me, I was GOING to read this book.

So I downloaded it from the iTunes store Sunday night and began reading. Monday night I was finished. Here’s my take.

First of all, it’s important to understand what The Shack is and what it is not. Let’s start with what it is not. The Shack is not the Bible. It is not a replacement for the Bible. It is not an addendum to the Bible. More importantly it does not claim to be any of these. So what IS it then? To put it as simply as I can, it’s a fictional story about a man named Mack who’s been beaten down by life, and ends up meeting God face to face, and having a conversation with him.

I thought it was a fascinating read and for me it really brought out, in a very frank way, a lot of the feelings I think many of us feel about God and about religion. I’ll be honest, at times I’ve doubted that God cares at all about me. I’ve even doubted his very existence at times in my life. And don’t get me started on my feelings about “The Church”. But of course you can’t say that out loud, you heretic! However I think that’s what makes this book so inviting. The author is frank about his dissatisfaction with the church. He voices his doubts about God out loud. He argues with God at point blank range. It’s a brutally honest discussion that pulls no punches. Young writes about what everyone has felt but was to afraid to say. But he doesn’t just bash God and then walk away. That would be cowardly. No, he explores God’s personality, God’s essence, God’s motives, and eventually redeems the main character by strengthening his relationship with God and giving him an understanding of his own shortcomings, the glory of God, and the incredible power in Jesus’ sacrifice.

I honestly was more moved by this book than anything I can remember reading in a long time and it has fueled my interest in digging deeper into the Bible to find for myself the God that has so touched Young. In fact, I sat down immediately after putting this book down and read several of John’s letters and most of Mark.

Now there are some things that apparently have pissed people off… the fact that God is represented as a large black woman, or that the Mack character openly doubts God yet is not immediately torched for his disobedience. I even read one review that claimed that the book was portraying the Holy Spirit as a lesbian! Yeah, that’s exactly what I came away with. (Not!) All I can say is it’s a bit sad that people cannot tell the difference between fiction and non-fiction, and do not understand the concept of using metaphors to explain a concept.

Anyway, I’m going to give this book five crosses and a hail Mary (that was a vague SNL reference, for you hipper folks). I thought it was a very moving and entertaining story, and like I said, it’s really sparked my interest in digging deeper into the scriptures. Check it out.

http://theshackbook.com/

Seriously though, can’t wait for this album to hit the streets. Enjoy this sneak peek of the recording process.

At any rate, like I said, it was an awesome weekend. I am blessed to be a musician first of all, but more blessed to be able to use that talent to serve God. I played clubs and bars for over 20 years before giving that up completely to play for my church and I just gotta say what an amazing ride this has been. Friday I played an acoustic set with four of the most talented people I know for about 300 people. Saturday and Sunday I got to play for several thousand people, again with some insanely talented people including Patrick Contreras, who’s a well known musician in these parts.

So from Friday to Sunday I played the cajon and the drum set. I played ballads, R & B, Blues, and straight up rock. From a musician’s standpoint, it’s heaven. I’m getting opportunities I’ve never had before and I attribute it all to just deciding to give my playing to God. Pastor Steve talked a lot about that today. About giving up doing things for yourself, and finding God’s greater purpose for your life. My playing has taken on a larger purpose and I’m reaping the benefits of that. I am blessed.

But that’s not what really made this a great weekend. What made it a great weekend was watching people come to Jesus. We did something Clovis Hills has never done before, we did a public call for baptisms. Anyone who wanted to come forward and get baptized could do so. Right there in the service. Honestly, I didn’t expect many people to come forward. Our church is a church geared toward people who have never gone to church, or simply have been turned off by other churches. It’s a church for people who don’t like church. But Steve gave the call, we kicked into a song, and people came. And they kept coming. 45 people in all, being baptized in their street clothes and driving home soaking wet. It was just so moving to see people making a decision to live for a higher purpose. These are lives that are changing for the better, right before our eyes.

I got home to find a Twitter post from somebody saying “Neat magic trick Jesus. But the world is still full of ignorance and hate. Your move.”. And to that I would say that Jesus has already made his move. He made it when he died on the cross, rose from the grave and wiped away our sins 2000 years ago. So it’s not His move, it’s YOURS. What are you going to do with it?

I hope everyone has had a fantastic Easter. God bless.

Mission San Juan Bautista

The first ride of the season is complete! Our mini tour of the California Missions was pretty awesome I must say. Even though we had a small turnout, we had a dynamite time and for you guys who didn’t show up, you missed out.

Our tour took us across the valley floor to Little Panoche road which winds over the mountains and pops out in Hollister. We stopped half way over at the Panoche Inn to have a cup of coffee and stretch. It’s a popular place for bikers and other travellers and the owners are just the nicest people on the planet. After a brief stop we continued on, passing all sorts of bikers and even a small group of folks driving classic racing cars, complete with leather helmets and goggles on. So cool!

Our first mission stop was San Juan Bautista. The Mission in San Juan Bautista is pretty interesting, but it’s old and not very attractive architecturally. I did get my favorite picture of the day there though and that’s the one you see here. The town of San Juan Bautista itself though is really cool. Little shops, pubs and restaurants line the main street and it really has that charming quality that so many little California towns have. We checked out the mission, dropped into Mom and Pop’s pub for a quick beer, then hit the road.

Our second stop was the Carmel Mission, formally known as San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo Mission. This mission is far more ornate and architecturally interesting than San Juan and it’s also kept up better. I really enjoyed the beautifully kept garden areas and I think the statues of the various saints and priests were the most interesting to me. The huge pipe organ was also pretty impressive and I wish I could have heard it play.

Even though the buildings were interesting and it was interesting seeing a bit of history, I came away feeling kind of let down. Being a Christian I think I expected to feel moved at being in such religiously significant places, but honestly I felt just the opposite. I felt spooked and a little put off, and here’s why.

First, there obviously was a lot of energy spent erecting tributes to men. What I mean by that is everywhere you look there are plaques and statues giving praises to priests, or saints or the Pope. I mean EVERYWHERE. For a religion that very clearly states that we are all sinners and that the first on earth shall be the last in heaven, the Catholics seem to spend a lot of time worshiping each other. Christ seems to be presented as almost secondary to the holiness of the saints and past priests.

Secondly, the blatant commercialism is a major put off. Now, I expect a mission to offer souvenirs to tourists in order to help maintain the grounds. But when you plaster Our Lady of Guadalupe on just about everything imaginable, I think it kind of cheapens things. It was like Gene Simmons was the marketing director for the mission. I fully expected to see holy toilet paper and thank goodness I did not. I did however see Bible-opoly though, where Boardwalk is now Jerusalem and you build churches instead of hotels on your properties. I don’t know, it was just too much.

Aside from those things though, the buildings and artifacts are fascinating and beautiful and it was very cool taking a peek back into history. We finished the day with a lunch in Carmel and then rode back home. It was an outstanding day to ride a motorcycle. Can’t wait for our next ride where we’ll be heading to Half Moon Bay to enjoy some fantastic riding, food and drink.

That date has arrived.

During the past few weeks my old friend Chris “Mouse” Chmielewski and I have joined Paul and the immensely talented Tim and Jill Douty to rehearse the 13 songs that came out of those songwriting sessions. That list was then pared down to 10 songs and yesterday we entered the studio to lay down the first tracks on the new album from our group, The Avenue.

Recording in the studio is an interesting experience. I’ve done it only twice before so I don’t have a huge amount of experience, but I can say without a doubt that this time around has been so easy compared to the first two. The first time through, I was working with guys who are very talented but also very particular. Nothing wrong with that at all, but for my personality and playing type, it makes the process more stressful. The second album I played on I was responsible for playing drums as well as recording and mixing down the album. I’m not an engineer so this was a huge learning experience for me as well as a ton more work. This time around I just got to go in and play drums and working with such a bunch of really laid back guys made the process so easy. We all exchanged ideas, gave suggestions and then let the drums just “happen”. I think the end result is a set of simple, solid, very natural feeling drum tracks.

So my tracks are done. 8 hours to lay down 11 songs (we recorded an extra song before realizing it was on the “cut” list). Not too shabby if I do say so myself. On Wednesday we go back in with Chris to lay down the bass. Then we’ll progress on from there. If all goes well we should have a finished product by May. I’m really stoked about this album and I think it’s going to be a first class product. I’ll be posting here as we continue to make progress.

And what an amazing time Christmas really is. It’s the one time in all of history when God actually steps foot on the Earth in human form and provides a way that we can be forgiven for our sins. This is so significant and I’m amazed that people don’t get it. We can be forgiven! What other world view or religion offers complete reconciliation with God? None that I know of. In most religions you just kind of have to be as good as you can and then hope when everything is tallied up you come out with enough brownie points. The bad part is you don’t know how many points you have, how many you need, or how much longer you have to earn them.

But in Jesus we have the God of the universe coming to Earth as a human, to live among us, to teach us, heal us, love us, experience life with us first hand, and ultimately to endure the horrible death of crucifixion in order to completely wipe our dirty slates clean. Give us unlimited points! Matthew 21 says “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

And so this is an incredible time of celebration. And what’s just as important is that it’s a time for ALL of us to celebrate. Christmas is not something that belongs to an organization, or a belief system, or a cultural group. Jesus came for ALL of mankind and that is something we so often forget. We’re so wrapped up in the traditions and that slogans and we spend so much time being offended by people saying Happy Kwanzaa that we forget the fact that Jesus came for all of us. He came for the Kwanzaa celebrators, the Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Sikhs, the plain old non-believer, and everyone else. Romans 3 says “Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too”.

So I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge this fantastic event we’re celebrating and to wish every single person out there a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Browsing the site today I found that they have added a really cool feature and so I wanted to blog about it. They’ve added the ability to use reading plans. If you’re not familiar with reading plans, they are basically a plan for reading the bible and there are many different plans depending on how you want to approach the Bible. Some focus on the New Testament, some focus on certain timelines, some are well balanced and cover various parts of the bible every day. Some are also based on time, so if you want to read the entire bible in 6 months or a year, you can if you follow the plan.

The bad part about plans is that they were mostly tied to a certain start date. So if you wanted to read the bible in a year you started on Jan 1 and finished on Dec 31. If you missed a day or two, you had to catch up or you screw up your plan and then it’s real easy to get lost.

YouVersion fixes this by adding check-off’s for each day you read. So now, rather than having certain readings tied to certain days, you just take them in order at your own pace. I’ve been wanting this type of feature since I totally failed at my “bible in a year” reading plan last year.

You can also use the mobile version of their website on your iPhone, so there’s more opportunity to read the Bible regardless of where you’re at.

Check out http://YouVersion.com

Today we found out that she got turned down for another job. This one only a part time position making less than half of what she made at her last full time job. It’s crushing and it’s a testament to how crappy the job situation really is in this country.

So she’ll continue looking. But it’s hard. We’re fine financially. We can’t do a lot of extra things, but we can pay the bills so I’m not complaining. But the mental and emotional toll is what’s hard. This is when you start questioning yourself. You start questioning where you’re going and what you’re doing and what you’re worth. And as a husband I not only have to carry the full burden of our finances, I also have to bear the burden of the emotional well being of my family. Self-pity and self doubt are evil things and can quickly paralyze. So it’s up to me to keep things positive and everyone motivated.

What really works on my psyche though is just wondering where God is in all of this. It’s really easy to just say everything’s in God’s hands. But in real life, when you are facing something that you honestly feel is important for very valid reasons, and yet it’s just not happening for you… it really starts to work on you.

There’s a song I like, and honestly I don’t even really know or care what the song is really about, but there’s one line that says “What if God doesn’t care?”. And if there’s a chink in my armor of faith, it’s that thought. What if the things we think are important just aren’t important to God? What if they just don’t matter one way or the other?

And so this is where my faith gets confused. I always hear people say that God is leading them into one line of work or another and then they fail fantastically. And I just wonder, really? Was God really leading you to that collosal failure? Or did you just have this grand dream on your own and God really didn’t have an opinion one way or the other?

I don’t want to sound like I’m having a major failure of faith because my wife hasn’t found a job. That’s not the case. There’s two things I believe are true; that God loves us, and that God is in complete and absolute control. But my problem is learning to accept the fact that my plans aren’t always in line with God’s plans, and even though sometimes God’s plans can feel a whole lot like indifference, I need to believe that ultimately his plan will be better than anything I could have made for myself.

• US citizens give 3 times the amount of the French and 14 times the amount of the Italians.
• Conservatives give more than Liberals.
• The poor give a higher percentage of their income than do the rich.
• Religous people are more likely to give and to serve than non religious.

So what this says is that even though America is labeled the greedy monster of the earth, we’re more generous than any other country on the planet. The people who talk about compassion and caring the most are the ones least likely to give or serve, and the rich really are greedy #$%%@’s after all.

Another thing I find interesting, and possibly concerning, is that organized religion takes in the most contributions. The question I would then ask our religious organizations is; What are you doing with all that cash? I mean, I’m sure you’re using some of it to spread the gospel… though the apostles did a really good job of that without a lot of cash. So are you putting the rest to good use in our communities?

Take a second to follow this link. We all need to ask ourselves; What are we giving? Who are we giving to? Can we be doing more?

http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/charity-who-cares/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34193069#34193069