So Angie is gone in Colorado for work and I picked up the DVD “Start The Machine,” a documentary on Angels and Airwaves. It has been sweet to see and ever since Rob Bell made me look at the behind the scenes looks at stand up comedy in an email he probably doesn’t remember at all, two music videos have made me think of church planting and preaching in a different light. One is Green Day. The other is this one. Tom Delong of Blink 182 started this band and it chronicles the band as they start their journey much like “The Comedian” does of Jerry Seinfeld when he works on totally rebuilding his act. It is so close how it all fits with starting a church. The challenges, the payoff, the love, the dedication, the hardship, the craziness, the thought process….
Here are a couple parts that jumped out at me:
12:50 – Tom is working where to go with a sweet guitar riff with a song, doesn’t know where to take it and in trying to figure it out he says, “It has to be the ultimate payoff. There are a bunch of things that sound good there, but whats the absolute best thing? I’m just trying to figure out cause if I was in the audience and I was hearing this, it’s so good, it better go somewhere f****** awesome.
- I love that! Because that is what it’s so about as we work to craft services and sermons. Yes the Holy Spirit and God play a part an enormous part of that. But, we have to do our part too; They take our part further then we possibly could. How would what we say and how we state it best impact people’s lives? How would the songs, the creative aspects, and make it the best we can? There are so many things we can do that could fit, sound, etc that would work okay in any given service, but what’s the very best for that particular point we are trying to communicate to the congregation that week where they deeply grasp what we are saying while being captivated by who God is?
And right after that the drummer of The Offspring fame is talking about how even though Tom can’t get the whole conceptual idea of the song across all the time, whatever he throws out there so they can catch, brings together this sweet song.
- Vision. Sometimes you just have to give people glimpses of what you imagine and let them help you take it to where you wanna go.
And at 56:09 one of is bandmates is talking to him about a bad interview he gave and said to him: “you want so hard to be back to where you were and be relevant and immediately and like before you used to be like, before you had this band you whatever you guys wanted to do you could do it right then cause it meant something cause…”
- Totally wrestled with that. The concept of what I could be doing and what I am. It’s so much harder starting something new. But, sometimes you just have to follow what you believe in and give it all to that.
Anyways, it’s an interesting and comfortable feel in starting something new. Pretty sweet.
Posted in Church Planting, Creativity, Leadership, Music, Pastoral, Preaching, Vision, Worship