Okay, so I’m doing my laundry yesterday at good ole Golden Isles Cleaners and Laundromat over on Altama (partly because of my broken-down dryer and partly because of the gratis wifi hotspot) and I notice a gaggle of old ladies over in the corner commenting on the show that was being shown on the big screen.  I’m not sure what exactly the name of the show was, but it was one of those judge shows.  You know the type:  Judge Judy, Judge Mills Lane, Judge Brown, Jury Duty, Pet Court, Family Court, etc.

I sat there for a moment just listening to the pathetic rants of the various (forgive me if this is mean) white-trash “plaintiffs/defendants” and started to get angry.  I’m talking “Hulk Smash” angry.  What a filthy, rotten perversion our society has made of justice where small people broadcast their small problems to a world of laundromats and old ladies with nothing better to do than to act as if these people and their problems actually mean something to them.

Now, I get that as humans, we all have an inward desire to see justice done, but come on…by Judge Judy?

I actually had to fight the urge to stand on top of the uncomfortable plastic chair I was seated in and start ranting about how people had no right to expect real justice for themselves if this garbage was the only justice they exposed themselves to, but I didn’t because then, I’d be no better than the rest of ranting people in this world who choose to do nothing.  So…as of today, I’ve decided to passionately pursue justice in my life.  What does that mean?  Well, I’m figuring it out, but it looks something like this:

-Suppose, like today at lunch, I pass a piece of trash on the ground on my way out the door of my favorite coffee shop.  That piece of trash is an injustice in this world.  It’s small, sure, but it’s an injustice.  It makes the whole area look bad and immediately makes me think negatively about that coffee shop.  Justice would be to pick that piece of trash up and toss it.

-Suppose, like yesterday, I see a man yelling at his little girl in McDonald’s for no good reason, saying things like “Jesus Christ, you drive me f*&#ing nuts!” as he storms away.  That man has committed an injustice on his child.  Justice for me was to walk up to her before I left and say “You’re a pretty little girl.  I like your glasses.  They kinda look like mine.”  Her smile told me justice had been done.

El Ben is issuing a challenge to you:  As you go about your day, open yourself up to see the injustice around you and what you can do to change it.  Take a little action, it doesn’t have to be huge, just something to chip a little bit off the injustice around us.

Maybe with a lot of us taking some small steps to restore justice to the world, we won’t have to depend on garbage like I saw on the T.V. to satisfy our sense of it.

I’m a young guy and as such, I’ve rarely felt the gut-wrenching agony that older, more experienced people talk about from things like losing a child, getting unexpectedly laid off, or burying their parents. I’m talking, of course, about emotional pain, because physical pain I can deal with. I’m really good at turning on the ignore switch and just dealing with it. I can even deal with it without medication. Heck, I prefer to deal with it without medication.

Emotional pain, however, I’m not so good with. Despite being a “drama llama” (thanks Renee), I really don’t like people to know what I’m feeling, a habit that I picked up from my dad. Giving people insight into my emotional state makes me feel weak, so I avoid it like the plague, and we all know how healthy that is. I guess my question this week for you guys is this: How do you (or don’t you) deal with pain? Do you self-medicate (overeat, overspend, etc), do you numb yourself, or do you have your own little way of handling it?

Spill.

Okay, so anyone who knows me knows that I’m a TOTAL sucker for good music. Now, ever since I came in contact with Kari Jobe’s music about two or three years ago (on one of the CFNI worship albums, Glorious), I have been totally captivated by her ability to lead people into times of passionate worship. To me, one of the measures of an artist is the ability iconify a song not their own and make it theirs, i.e.: Jeff Buckley with Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, or Joe Cocker with the Beatles’ “With a Little Help from my Friends.”

Contrary to popular belief, Revelation Song was not written by Kari Jobe, but by an East-Texas housewife named Jenny Lee Riddle, but everyone knows this song as it is sung by Ms. Jobe.

Revelation Song is an interesting song in the fact that it contains only four chords (D-Am-C-G). This gives the lyrics the spotlight, to be sure, but it also is demanding on a worship band in the area of dynamics. Intensity has to be TIGHTLY controlled on this song or else you risk either stealing its iron or GROSSLY overplaying it.

That being said, watch the following video below to see the utter MASTERS of dynamics, Gateway Church, do something that can only be described (in the words of Emeril Laggasse) as “kicking it up a notch.” Watch for the INCREDIBLY cinematic interlude that starts after the third verse (around four minutes). I’d suggest watching the whole video, but pay SPECIAL attention to this particular section. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUGH-UAfa-w

Yes, that’s me shaking my badonkadonkdonk. Something tells me I’m gonna regret it later. Anywho, this is the Elevate Worship Confession #1. Special thanks to Jay and Brooke for the video.

I did shake my butt on this video, so if you’re offended by that type of thing, then don’t bother watching it, but I find it hilarious that I have that talent…not that I’ll ever use it again.

The Following is quoted from Fred Mckinnon’s blog.

Hey Everyone,
Usually when something seems “too good to be true”, it is. In this case, that doesn’t seem to be the way things shake down … and this is verified by USAToday news.

A rather new Payment Processor (like PayPal, Alertpay, etc) has launched by the vice chairman emeritus and current founder of AOL (American Online) to create “Revolution Money Exchange” … a competitor to PayPal.

Through tomorrow, you will get a free, $25 credit if you open a banking account with them. I just did it, and the $25 was in my account right away, and of course, I’ll be xferring it to my bank account right away, too!

Help a brother out by setting up a free account by clicking the button below. This will give you a free 25 dollars and give me 10 more.

If you’ve ever asked me about what I see myself doing in five years, ten years, or what you think God has for me to do in the future, I’ve probably either beat around the bush for a few minutes or told you straight up that I know that I will pastor a church one day. I say I know this because…well, I do. It’s kinda like the way you know a song is about to come on the radio before it comes on or the way you know a person’s about to call you just before they call you.

I just know.

Whatever the case, I’ve really been giving a lot of thought lately to what that church would look and feel like. I think I’ve got a grip on several aspects of it, and there are some that are not quite there yet, but I would like to share with you what I do know already and that is the purpose. The purpose is twofold, but simple (this is not a pithy statement of purpose and vision, so don’t take it as that commercialized bull that I detest so much):

1.) To facilitate an authentic, intimate creator/creation relationship (in which a person worships passionately, prays often, lives righteously and hears clearly from God), upon which all Christian life rises or falls.

2.) To provide authentic, intimate community in which people can be introduced to a loving God through the love of the saints. (Caring for widows and orphans, comforting the afflicted [and afflicting the comfortable], setting the captive free, healing the sick, casting out demons, and preaching the gospel [with words, if necessary.])

Loyal readers, you know that if ever I get something that tickles my funny bone, I’m gonna share it with you, so get ready to feast your eyes on this:  Jesus People.

Apparently, a group of comedians have been spying on we Christians and have nailed down our mannerisms and habits to a “T.”  Watch these videos (which are a surprisingly accurate critique on mainstream Christianity) and take the opportunity to laugh at yourself.  Ever been “that guy?”  I know I have. Keep in mind that this is parody, so it can get a bit extreme with the sterotype.  Enjoy (I’m partial to part three myself):

Part One:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Part Two:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Part Three: MY PERSONAL FAVE!!!! If you don’t watch any other, watch this one!

Online Videos by Veoh.com

This stuff is funny.

Okay loyal readers, as promised, I have a report on how the Walk to Emmaus was not cheesy, did not suck, and various other thinly-veiled accolades hidden behind noncommittal euphemisms .   Oh my God, that was a tightly-constructed sentence!  I just listened to it in the Mac Talk tool in textedit on my new mac and nearly giggled in glee.  I’m such a total word nerd, but I digress.  As aforementioned, Emmaus did not, in fact, suck.  I’m gonna have to recant a little and say that there were parts that were just a bit cheesy, but not overwhelmingly so.  For instance, the first song we did for worship was (I kid you not) “Do Lord.”   (As in: “Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me.  Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me.  Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me, away beyond the blue.”)  I haven’t sung that song since VBS back in the days where I still refused to eat actual chicken off the bone, considered lettuce grass, and still thought girls had cooties.

So there was the absolutely stellar presentation of my favorite mid-eighties to late-nineties selection of worship music, which actually ended up being kind of nice in a strange, nostalgic kind of way, kind of the way that old cartoons like Pirates of Dark Water and the Smurfs have that “Oh my God, I was a total retard when I was a kid” kind of appeal.  I have to give props to the guys from Saint Simons United Methodist Church for their great job on making two acoustic guitars being played at the same time not sound like a total train wreck, a feat which is not easily achieved.  Anywho, content-wise, Emmaus propagated a lot of truths that are sort-of common knowledge, but we bear hearing over and over again, and featured a pretty solid base of clergy and lay-people who had some great things to say.

I have to say that my two favorite talks of the week were the Prevenient Grace talk given by Jay Hanson and Andy Holmes’ talk on Perseverance.  Other good talks were given by Joe Fendig, Neil Barley, Westy Westmoreland, and a couple of other dudes who were good, but whose names I forget.

Now, maybe I’m not supposed to share this, but I refuse to propagate the popular position that Emmaus is a secretive cult, so I’m spilling the beans.  If you go on the Walk, you’ll find that you don’t lift a finger…for anything.  Everything is done for you and you’re pretty much saturated in an atmosphere of people doing things for you.  I was served my food, cleaned up after, and ministered to by people whose names I never caught and who were so seamlessly integrated into the background, that I feel guilty to admit to you that I didn’t notice most of them.  Now trust me, as someone in “full-time ministry,” I’ve gotten VERY used to giving my time and attention to people.  I have been taught to serve people in every way and I find myself doing it out of reflex sometimes, and that’s not a bad thing.  What’s bad is that I had forgotten how to receive.

You see, you can get so used to being an outlet that you can forget how to let people pour into you.  It started out being very awkward letting people serve me because I had to fight the overwhelming feeling that I should be doing something, but once I got past the guilt, I actually felt my walls come down a little.  Then, there’s the BIGGIE, the really huge thing that I will never ever reveal about Emmaus because you have to experience it to understand.  It’s the one thing that I won’t tell you about if you ask me, not because I’m cultish and everything, but because it genuinely is a surprise and a pleasant one at that.

Let’s just put it this way: this past weekend was a turning point in my life.  I’ve been in some amazing times of worship and have clearly felt the presence of God before, but his weekend was the closest I’ve ever, EVER felt to the Body.  Ever.  If you have a chance to go on the Walk, then run, do not walk.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just go straight on the walk to Emmaus.

Decolores,
Ben

…at all.

More like, face-melting.  More to come.  I’m tired and am gonna call an early night.  Much love.

-Ben

I had meant to post this before I left for the Walk to Emmaus on Thursday.  I didn’t get a chance to.  Enjoy.

I’m sitting here in the laundromat, waiting for my clothes to finish drying, a near-constant task since my own dryer gave out a couple of months ago.  It makes me wonder how much I’ve spent at this laundromat.  Anyway, so I’m going to be out of commission for a few days, headed to the Golden Isles Walk to Emmaus.  I’m kinda excited, kinda dreading it.  Excited because it’s a weekend away from cellphones and crap like that, but not excited because I’ve got the sinking feeling that it’s gonna turn out to be cheesy.  I know, I know, I’m a terrible person for judging something before I do it, but I mean, come on.  It’s not like the Church has this great plethora of non-cheesy bag of tricks to pull from.  I swear to God if this turns out like that time in youth group where they told us to write the names of people we don’t like on a poster board and throw darts at them, only to find a picture of Jesus underneath…I’m leaving.

I’m having a bit of an awkward feeling, too, because earlier, I was talking to the people who are taking me to Emmaus (it’s a tradition to have others drive you to the place, which just strikes me as awkward) and I ventured into what might be called awkward territory.  Okay, so I was talking to these people and I asked them if I should eat beforehand because we meet at the thing at 6:30, which is kinda late to be fed and watered, and they were like “yeah, you should eat.”  Me, being the friendly guy that I am, was all like “Well, how about we meet early and I can take you guys out to dinner.”

I immediately had an incredibly awkward feeling.  These guys are a good forty years older than me…easy.  They’ve been believers for longer than I’ve been alive, and I just begin to think “Boy, I hope they didn’t take that the wrong way.”

The lady just chuckled a little and said “You’re so funny.”

Umm.  Okay.  Awkwardness level increased.

“Well,” I said, initiation my patented ‘foot in mouth’ syndrome, “we never get to spend any time together and I’d like to get to know you guys.  I’d be happy to buy you dinner.”

“No, no, no,” she laughed, “let me ask my husband.”

About two minutes of awkwardness.  I really meant that I would take them out to dinner.  Did they think I was gunning for them to take me out?  Because it was beginning to feel that way.

“We’ll pick you up at five-fifteen,” she said, “how’s that?”

Awkward.

“That’s fine,” I said, “I’ll look forward to it.”

“Us as well,” she said.

We said our goodbyes and I feel more awkward now a few hours later than I did then.  Wonderful.  God, I hope they don’t want to go inside my house when they come.  It’s a hot mess right now.  A big one.  A very large hot mess.

So…meditate on the awkwardness of that situation and tell me if I’m overreacting, because I’m feeling the overwhelming need to apologize to someone and I’m not quite sure who to apologize to.

-Ben