Posts Tagged ‘Andy Crouch’

Highlight(s) of the week: (1) My seminary retreat. Guest speaker was Andy Crouch, who was awesome! His theme was “Live More Musically” (see notes 1, 2, 3, and 4). (2) Practiced Sabbath this past Sunday, which for me was really turning off my phone. I really enjoyed spending the time with my family without any distractions. (3) Amanda was runner-up for “Teacher of the Month,” which is voted on by students. This is actually a greater achievement than it sounds because she only teaches two grades (versus others who teach 3 or 4) and has only been there for one month. I’m proud of her.

Live More Musically session 5

Why do we worship on Sunday?

The Jewish people have never forgotten on what day is the Sabbath – the seventh day of the week
•    then, we hear of a group of Jews who worship on the first day
o    something so great happened on the first day that they saw time in a new way
o    N.T. Wright – the change from Saturday to Sunday is one of the biggest evidences of the resurrection of Christ
o    The Lord’s Day – the early Christians called it the “eighth day” – what God had done is so huge that the seven days couldn’t contain it

The change to Sunday touches billions of people today – people on Sunday often do something different than they did every other day

Time
Practices remind us of Discipline
Breath in singing reminds us of Sabbath – we have to stop in order to breath
Dissonance reminds us of Suffering

Only when notes are playing in time do they make any sense

daily quiet time? – comes from a Western, modern idea that humans are like machines – but humans are like music
•    we treat people like machines that do the same thing every day over and over again until you die
•    the early church structured their lives around Christmas (Christ’s birth) and Easter (Christ’s resurrection)
o    before Christmas, spent four weeks preparing – Advent
o    after Christmas, celebrate what God  has done
o    for 40 days, Lent – leading up to Easter
o    days after Easter, celebrate Easter

o    we treat in our churches one day – Christmas and one day – Easter
o    Andy’s family during Advent –  fast by eating vegan every meal – remember every meal that there is no meat and no dairy – light Advent candles and read Scripture
•    12 days of Christmas to Epiphany – they feast
•    40 days of Lent, fast from foods
•    Easter, feast

feasting and fasting

Humans aren’t made to be monotonous beings – we need variety

Let’s live meaningfully in time now anticipating eternal time

Psalm 84

session 3 was a Q&A. Q&A’s are difficult to take notes on so…

Live More Musically session 4

read Psalm 22v1-18 alongside playing “Prelude 8 in eb minor” by J.S. Bach

When we set out to live musically, I wonder if we realize it’s going to involve minor keys
•    minor key – works in reverse way of major key
o    major key – resonates, works with the way of the universe
o    but minor keys – the key of dissonance – create in our ears that we can’t consciously hear it – something is not quite settled

Dissonance | Suffering

Andy – went to voice coach and realized that he has a natural limit to his voice (8 notes) and if he goes out of that he will lose his voice
•    so, the thing he loves to do – leading worship – he can’t

Also, liked to write
•    part of editing Regeneration magazine – put in a lot of time, effort, and fundraising, and it eventually went “down the tubes”

Andy fell into the miry clay
•    wife got a job in Swarthmore, but he missed Boston (his home)

What does it all mean? All those years of friendship and ministry? – what did it mean to grieve that?

What in your life is dissonant?

This is part of living musically

fugue – musical composition of “voices”
•    fugue weaves between major and minor – eventually as you develop the minor key it ends of in a major key and vice versa
•    as they work together, you hear a sense of harmony

•    better metaphor for Christian life than you are a sinner (dark, deep, minor), then Jesus (happy), but you’re still a sinner (dark, deep, minor)

Christian life is more like a fugue – multiple voices, keys, tensions playing at the same time – theme takes time to develop

Some things are still unresolved

fugue – Bach deploys dissonance to bring about beauty
•    Fugue 8 in d# minor by J.S. Bach

Psalm 22v1-18 – greatest explanation of human dereliction
•    after v18, the psalmist immediately changes his mood – “you have rescued me”
•    when he is mocked, he remembers when he was delivered, and looks for his second deliverance

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

-Exodus 20v8-11 TNIV

I think the idea of “sabbath” (or rest) has been lost on many of us, Christians (particularly, in America). We ultimately have fallen into the idea that we (the Church) need to be best, fastest, quickest, coolest, most exciting people because otherwise the world will look elsewhere. I think this is somewhat true, and there is great benefit in attempting to attract the “un-churched” (for lack of a better term). However, in our attempts to be these things, we have inevitably lost sight of the beauty of sabbath, the beauty of rest.

Andy Crouch reminded us at my seminary retreat that God asked the Israelites, a people of agriculture and farming, to take a rest (a sabbath) from such things for one day. I can imagine their Canaanite neighbors looking at them and tilling in their fields saying, “Ha! What a foolish idea! They’ll get stuck behind. Don’t they know you can’t stop farming for sake of losing everything you already did?” Strange, right? God is constantly asking his people to do something that is completely ridiculous in the eyes of their neighbors (building a large boat for a worldwide flood is another good example). But by taking a Sabbath, the people (a) separate themselves from their society - they are different; (b) they better relate with each other - Jubilee, the ultimate sabbath, spends time relieving each other of debt, etc.; (c) and they relate with God himself - “on the seventh day, God rested.”

My thoughts here are three-fold: what would it be like for God’s people (the Church) to rest on Sabbath (a) in relation to society, (b) in relation to each other, and (c) in relation to God himself?

As far as society is concerned, I’m speaking from my background as an American. My father recently came back from a trip overseas to visit a plant in Europe the company he works for had just purchased. He told me that Europe, which is known for its extensive holidays (another form of rest), is struggling to keep up with America, which has less extensive holidays (rest) because it is so production-driven. Thus, Europe may have to adapt to keep up. What?! Isn’t this a shame? We are forcing the world to become like us - a production-driven people, and hence, more stress-filled lives. [I presume you understand that less rest can easily produce more stress.]

So, if the people of God in America rested, sabbath would become a counter-cultural statement. Rest is subversive to the American message (even the American dream?). Our neighbors would look at us and say, “Ha! What a foolish idea! They’ll get stuck behind. Don’t they know you can’t stop producing for sake of losing everything you already did?” Unfortunately, the Church in America, in it’s being Americanized, has adopted the attitude of production, instead of, the biblical attitude of rest. What would it be like if we all on a certain day just stopped (!)? America would hate us because our lives are telling them - “Calm down. Rest. Sabbath.”

Also, I think rest would help us relate better to one another and God. Imagine spending the day resting with people. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? What if we turned off our phones and our laptops? What about if instead we feasted (feasting, not fasting, that’s for other days) together? Shared stories together? Spent time getting to know each other? Playing games together? Our relationships would be deeper and more meaningful. But success in these areas would be more difficult because, get this, we would actually have to stop and get to know each other (ha!). I’m not being sarcastic. That’s hard.

We would also learn to rest and reflect on the glory of God. Sunday is a great day for this, but it doesn’t have to be Sunday. It could be Saturday. It could be Friday. But what day could some of us take to reflect on God’s glory? Praise him. Pray to him. Spend time with him. Worship him through his creation and with our lives. Isn’t it interesting that in the Ten Commandments God really explains the reason for Sabbath almost as much (in our English Bibles, not sure of Hebrew) as he does for creating false images? Perhaps, putting work and labor above God is idolatry? I’ll leave that one up to you.

The problem is that we don’t want to stop, do we? We don’t like it. It’s comforting having my cell phone on me at all times. It’s comforting being on Gmail. It’s comforting. But interestingly, God isn’t into the business of always being comfortable. In fact, he’s very much in the business of uncomfortability - Have you ever asked someone with leporsy to dip themselves 7 times in a dirty, filthy river to get healed? Or have you ever presented yourself in front of a king (dictator) without him calling for you and knowing full-well that he could kill you for doing that? God is very much in the business of being uncomfortable.

Now, this always brings up, “Well, we don’t want to be legalistic.” So, most respond, “So, let’s just drop the idea.” However, I’m not talking about legalism. I’m saying let’s find what is preventing us from resting, from sabbath, and removing it for one day. For me, it may be turning off my phone, not going on Twitter, and not running to a million places in one day. For my wife, she could use the phone because people call her for different reasons than me. They call her for chances to rest like spending time with family. People usually call me to do something. For my wife, it may mean that sabbath day she doesn’t cook. That sabbath day she doesn’t clean. [And it doesn't have to be Sunday! I mean, tell Rick Warren or Rob Bell to rest on Sunday.]

Sabbath is a subversive act. It subverts the messages of our societies. It subverts how we “surfacely” relate to each other. It subverts our “too busy-ness” to spend time with God. Sabbath, perhaps, is the most subversive thing we can do. Sabbath, perhaps, is the thing that can most separate us from this world.

So, stop reading this blog (all 2 of you), turn off your computers, and go rest. Do it! Rest. Calm down. Sabbath.

What can we learn from people who lived musically?

Practice | Disciplines

•    discipline – an uninteresting thing that you do over and over again until you get good at it

•    the Christian life is basically about the same thing

Breath | Sabbath
•    set aside your work and do not do what you normally do

•    we need to breath in order to talk/sing
o    somehow we think we can do ministry without resting

•    If we want to live more  musically as Christians, we have to learn to stop what we are doing – take a “breath”
o    take a day of rest

Psalm 131

Early church read, “pray without ceasing,” and asked, How do we do that?
•    They said it has to do with breathing
o    when you breath in, prayer; when you breath out, prayer
•    Prayer
“[breathe in] There is Another, [breathe out] who lives in me.
[in] There is Another, [out] who completes me.
[in] There is Another,  [out] whose righteousness is mine.”

In prayer distractions become the material of our prayer

“Live More Musically” session 1

-Harmony: note C (major) is a combination of various frequencies
-we all are searching to live our lives in harmony with what God has designed
-Rhythm
-first thing we hear is the rhythm of our mother’s heart
-Meaning
-you want the song to give meaning to the moment you are in
-Improvisation

How do we get these things?

Playing a CD vs. Playing a violin
- how do they differ?
Violin: (a) personal investment, (b) discipline - time, (c) unpredictable, (d) preparation/maintenance, (e) flaws, (f) creativity, (g) active, (h) one place, (i) expensive, (j) tired, (k) few can do

CD: (a’) easy, (b’) instant, (c’) predict., (d’) batteries, etc., (e’) perfection, (f’) not, (g’) passive, (h’) many places, (i’) cheap, (j) infinite, (k’) anyone

What happens when you pratice and continue to? You eventually enjoy it.

What happens when you continue to enjoy it? You become satisfied.

The whole culture tells you that the way to live more musically is to be at a sustainable satisfaction (i.e., buy the CD) - get it now!

But lasting satisfaction comes with the hard road of practice

What’s addiction? Starts with the first time being very very satisfying
-keep looking to get it like the first time - but you can never get it
-eventually you kill yourself looking for the same satisfaction

Jesus, “Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it. Anyone who loses his life will find it.”
-if you start with what is unsatisfying you’ll find lasting satisfaction

We must convince people to lie their lives in the logic of “practice” and not “purchase”

The Psalms
-Psalm 1 - “happy” and “delight”
-all the psalms are about how to be happy
-you being blessed comes from giving of yourself
-but it comes from “practice” (not purchase)
-as you pratice it produces longevity
-ends on a dark note - last word “doomed”
-scornful isn’t just unhappy - it is refusal to be happy
-what is doomed? Being unblessable - not allowing blessing

The way of God is about being the person who is delighted