just being christian

I have rules.  No sweater vests unless the high temp is 70 degrees or lower.  No sweaters unless the high temp is 55 degrees or lower.  No Christmas music before Thanksgiving.  A long time ago I learned that you’re gonna learn to discipline your image. You think I got where I am today because I dressed like Peter Pan over here? Nope.

This year I was very tempted to break one of my rules.  On Oct 12, Mike Crawford and the Secret Siblings dropped an album to raise funds for the church’s Advent Conspiracy fund.  The double album that these cats released a couple of years ago is one of my favorite albums ever.  Thus, I was bummed when the rumored 2009 release of the Advent album didn’t materialize.  And the wait was on with hope that the album would drop in time for Advent 2010.

Good things come to those who wait. It took a lot of restraint, but I did wait until Thanksgiving to finally indulge in this album.  And boy, is it fantastic.

But that’s just my opinion.  There’s a chance you won’t dig the album. Even a good chance. I can think of two reasons it might not tickle your eardrums right off the bat.

1. Only three of the album’s ten tracks are traditional Christmas carols – I’m good with that.  I’ve been in the process of reimagining Advent for myself over the past couple of years, and I appreciate the original tracks as well as the more obscure Christmas cuts on the album.  But Christmas carols are like comfort food.  We tend to gravitate toward them because they elicit an emotional reaction that we suck up to capture positive memories we have of Christmas seasons past.  It’s fine.  But you won’t get that fuzzy Christmas crack feeling from this album.
2. Some may think the album is over-produced – I heard this complaint a couple of times regarding the last album that Crawford and the Secret Siblings released.  Mostly it came from people who worshiped at Jacob’s Well and were used to the less-produced live sound of the worship sets there.  You couldn’t take the last album and recreate the same sound in worship.  The tracks were layered and had an experimental sound to them. I appreciated that sound as it pushed the envelope and was a very different sound compared to a lot of the worship albums out there.  This Advent album has a similar vibe.

I don’t mention those two points to turn you off to the album.  Just to give you realistic expectations going in.  The good news is that you can legally stream the entire album for free, and then purchase either a download or physical copy if you dig it.

It’s going to take a lot of self-discipline for me to not rock this album year-round.

Renew and Restore

Last Sunday we sang Joy to the World at church. Probably not my favorite Christmas hymn.  But then again, my favorite is Lo, How a Rose, which isn’t exactly burning up the charts. I might not have my finger on the pulse of popular Christmas music.

But this JTTW.  We’re singing through it and we get down to the fourth verse.  I’d heard the fourth verse before.  Sang it before.  But looking at the words in the hymnal they smacked me. f

I’ve been pondering the links between nationalism, patriotism, religion and spirituality as of late.  Trying to figure out how I really feel about those links, and how I’d can articulate those paradigms.  And this verse gave me some serious food for thought.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Interesting.  A couple of questions this raises:

• What does it look like for us to use our power the way Christ uses his power, specifically to rule with truth and grace?
• What would it look like if our nation proved the glories of Christ’s righteousness as well as the wonders of Christ’s love?

Hymns aren’t scripture, but we’ve been singing that one since the early 1700′s so it must be of some continuing value.  And as much as Christians throw around the line about America being a Christian Nation, this hymn give us something to ponder as we look to put reality behind those words.

Renew and Restore