http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BlogOneAnother/~3/251581074/spitzer-

As I recover from this nasty cold/flu/thing, I feel a rant coming on.

Eliot Spitzer! You have perpetuated this image of prostitution as a high-class institution, full of mystery only available to the initiates. Did it not strike you that you are increasing the demand? As MomLogic asks, "What does a woman do to you for $4,300 a 'session'?"

People of the press! Your fascination with the possibility that the prostitute will gain fame from this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Did it not strike you that by projecting this image of glamour, you are increasing the supply? Follow the example of the New York Times and clearly identify "high-class prostitution" as an oxymoron!

Fools! Thanks to you, another "John" will kiss his family good-bye to leave for an important "business trip" to Thailand -- or simply arrange for an "escort" right in the suburbs. Another desperate girl will be lured by promises of love and comfort, only to find herself beaten, raped, tortured until her will is crushed.

And being well-informed fools, you probably know that the modern-day slave trade dwarfs that of the past. It's just better hidden, and by your actions, you have served their purposes.

I dare Spitzer and the press to sit down and watch Lilja 4-Ever. It's easy, just put it in your Netflix queue. Organize viewing parties -- heck, I'll host one if you want. I dare you.

Technorati Tags: slavery

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BlogOneAnother/~3/252672412/homeless

I have to thank our Mexican-American neighbor for taking me one day to his favorite haircut place. The price is cheaper than anywhere else. All of the workers are Vietnamese. And for some reason it is a favorite hangout for gang members; most of them wait outside while their buddy gets his hair trimmed to perfection. Every time I go, I set foot outside my familiar world of the highly-educated tech worker.

As I was walking in a few weeks ago, I noticed a couple of guys hanging out in the parking lot. Freshly shorn and having just paid in cash (instead of using my card), I was walking back to my car with small bills in my wallet, when I saw the same two guys. "Hey," one of them said, "can you give us a hand?"

"How can I help you?" I asked, walking over.

"Can you spare any change?" he asked.

"Sure, what's up? What do you need it for?"

"Aw man, we're homeless. Anything helps."

Technorati Tags: homeless

I had received $5 bills in change, so I gave them each five dollars. "It's not much, but I hope this helps," I said.

Their jaws dropped. "Oh man. Can I give you a hug?" Before I knew it, I was drawn into a large embrace (he was a big white guy), and even got a kiss on the neck! The other guy, a black fellow, extended his arms to me as well, and I got another hug. "God bless you, man," he said.

The first guy added, "I hope God blesses you for that."

"Oh," I replied, "he already has. That's the way it works." I extended my hand. "My name's Jon."

"I'm Nick," the big guy said. "And I'm Junior," said his friend.

"I'm glad to meet you guys. So what's going on -- you're homeless?"

Nick pointed at a nearby shopping cart with some aluminum cans in it. "Yeah. We spend part of our time gathering cans, and part of our time asking for help."

"You know," I said, "I know nothing about your world. How do you survive? Like, where do you sleep?"

"We sleep under the bridge over there," Junior said. "You know, the 85 overpass? We have tents there."

"Do you sleep during the day?" I asked.

"Oh no, we sleep at night," Nick replied. "We have to gather cans during the day, before the garbage trucks come." Junior added, "Yeah, we have to work with the garbage schedule."

"But we have to be careful at night," Nick said. "Sometimes the crazies come, and they slash our tents."

"And we have to watch for the police, who try to kick us out," Junior said. "So we stick together."

"Junior and I have been partnering together for 10 years now."

"Wow," I said. "Like I said, I know nothing, so thanks for teaching me." I shook their hands once more. "It was great to meet you. Maybe I'll see you guys again sometime." They thanked me again, and I drove off.

I didn't get very far, before I thought: Wait a minute. One of the things I want to do in the Jesus Dojo is assemble care packages for the homeless. But what do they need the most? These guys can help me! So I turned back around and went back to them.

"I told you I'd see you again!" I said. They looked at me with curiosity. "I just had this thought. I'm part of a group that wants to learn how to help guys like you. So what can we do, what do you need?" I asked. Nick opened his mouth and pointed to where teeth should have been. "Dentistry," he said. "I need to see a dentist. Oh, but, I realize that's a lot of money for anybody," he added sheepishly.

"Yeah," I agreed, but filed away the thought: How can we provide dentistry for the homeless?

I explained, "We're thinking about making care packages. So what would be most helpful, what should we put into these packages?"

Without hesitation, they replied in unison: "Hygiene. We need hygiene."

"What?" I stammered back. They took turns answering in one unbroken stream:

"Deodorant, shampoo, soap."

"See, we can get showers once a week at City Team, but we have nothing to get clean with."

"We don't want to be stinky when we go into places like McDonald's."

"Sometimes we'll go into a place where the bathroom locks, just to clean up with the soap."

"So hygiene would help a lot."

"Yeah, like those small trial packages."

What about clothes, I asked? Again, in alternation:

"Oh, we can get those at Goodwill."

"Yeah."

"I keep two sets: one to live in, one to wash."

"But socks would be helpful."

"We go through socks."

"They get pretty bad. They can stand up by themselves."

"OK, socks." I replied. "But how do you do laundry?"

"There's a laundromat right over there."

I had no idea; I've never noticed public laundromats because I've never needed one. And then, I thought of Just One's "Laundry Love" projects. I asked, "Would it be helpful if our group got soap and quarters, and you could do your laundry for free?"

This got them so excited, they were both talking at once.

"That would be great!"

"Yeah. Talk to the owner. Maybe he would get a tax break for it."

"Wednesdays would be best."

"Or Thursdays!"

"Just let us know. We'll spread the word."

"But what is this group you're talking about?"

"Well," I said, not sure what to say, "there's a group that just started meeting in our home. I guess we're kind of like a church, except it's more like we're tired of just giving our money to the church and expecting them to do something with it. Because, you know, the church is people. It's us."

"Yeah!" Junior exclaimed, "the church is people! That's what I say!"

"Shoot," Nick said, "you could even hold services in the laundromat. People would come."

At this point things went in a surprising direction. A young man and two teenagers rode up on bicycles. They were not homeless. "Hey Junior!" one of them called. They exchanged greetings. "This white dude was looking for you." They described him. "Calls himself Cowboy." Nick and Junior glanced at each other. Was this somebody they wanted to meet, or somebody they wanted to avoid? Was he a drug dealer? Junior surprised me by pulling out a cell phone and checking some information. A homeless guy. With a cell phone. It struck me as odd at first, but I thought, if I were homeless, a cell phone would be one of the first things I'd need.

I took my leave. But I carry this encounter with me.

So, what's next? How can I mobilize people to turn the Jesus Dojo from ideas into actions? I want to have a party where everyone assembles care packages. And I want to try a Laundry Love project.

(I also want to be mindful of any pitfalls, any dangers to avoid; I will ask someone I know on City Team for guidance.)

Who is with me?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BlogOneAnother/~3/254079367/homeless

This past Sunday after helping with church tear-down, our family decided to go to Erik's Deli for lunch. I parked the car and was explaining the pagan symbols of Easter to the kids as we walked towards our destination -- right past a homeless guy sitting with his cardboard sign. Inside the restaurant, I told Kay, "I'm going to give that guy a few bucks," and walked back out.

I greeted him, squatting down to get onto his level. I handed him four dollar bills, saying I hoped it would help him. "Oh yeah," he said thankfully.

"My name's Jon," I said, extending my hand.

"I'm Richard," he said. Still holding my hand, he looked intently at me. "Are you a Christian?" he asked.

"I'm trying to follow Jesus, so yeah, I guess so," I replied.

"I thought so. I could see it in your eyes. I'm a Christian too." Then he added, "That makes us brothers."

Technorati Tags: homeless

"That's right," I agreed in amazement. "So what's going on?"

"Oh, the doctor says I have neuropathy in my legs. I can't stand for very long. That's why I can't keep a job. I'm trying to get SDI," (State Disability Insurance), "but they say it can take a year for all the red tape."

"Are you from around here?" I asked.

"Yeah, I grew up here," Richard said. "I went to Oak Grove High School." He named his middle school, and tried to remember the name of his elementary and kindergarten. He was once a child who never imagined this future.

"So you've seen a lot of change, I bet," I commented.

"Oh, yeah. All the highways, 85 and 87. When I came back from Arizona, my parents said I would be surprised."

"Do you have family in the area?" I asked.

"My parents are dead," Richard replied. "I have two siblings, one in Florida and one in Santa Rosa. But they're struggling to get by themselves, so I have to take care of myself. And this," he said waving his cardboard sign, "is the only thing I could think of."

"Wow. That's rough," I said.

"Not really," he smiled. "I get enough to eat. And I keep a little garden."

"A garden?" I asked, surprised.

"Yeah, in an open lot. I want to grow tomatoes."

"Oh, tomatoes grow like crazy if you get it right," I commented.

"Yup. So right now I'm just trying to collect enough for the tomatoes," he said.

"Well, I'd better get back in to my family. Say," I said, remembering how Rich recently wrote about how the heart of God is close to the poor, "I'll make you a deal. I'll pray for you, if you pray for me."

"Sure," he replied. But he surprised me by taking it a step further: "I'll pray for you right now."

And right there, he prayed for God to bless me. I laid my hand on him and prayed that God would provide for him and cut through the red tape.

Back in Erik's Deli, I related all this to my family over lunch. Then Kay took the initiative. "Kids," she asked, "what do you need for gardening?" They tossed out some answers. "What else?" she quizzed them. And finally, "Do you have some money with you? Would you be willing to help this man?"

So having finished lunch, we walked out together. Richard was still sitting there with his sign. I squatted down again and introduced him to my family. "We heard about your garden," Kay said. "What do you still need? A trowel, or any equipment?" she asked.

"Oh no, I have a shovel," he said. "What I need is the soil, and the plants themselves."

"The hardware store is just around the corner," Kay said. "Would it be helpful if we took you shopping for those things?"

"That would be great, then I don't have to do this," he said, excitedly packing his cardboard sign and cushion into his backpack.

As we walked to the hardware store, Erin said, "Now we have something to share with the Jesus Dojo."

"What church do you belong to?" Richard asked. I told him, and he said, "I belong to [such and such] church." (Unfortunately, I don't remember what he said. Was it Blossom Valley Bible Church? "I'm friends with the pastor. I see him pretty regularly, and he brings me things like socks."

I said we were also trying to start something in our home. "You mean a Bible study?" he asked. "Not exactly," I said, "though we would look at the Bible. More like trying to figure out how to live what it says, like doing things to help people in our neighborhood."

"My church does a monthly party for the homeless," he told me. "They get us together in someone's home and serve some good food, like soup. One time we had homemade lasagna! And then we watch a movie."

"That's neat!" I said. "That's the kind of thing I want to learn."

Meanwhile we found our way to the gardening section. Kay picked out a nice bag of soil for him, asking the kids to wrangle it into the shopping cart. "Do you need a watering can?" she asked him, pointing out some next to the soil. "These are kind of big. Can you manage something this size? Do you have a place where you can keep it?"

He lit up again. "Sure, I can stash it. That would be great!"

Then it was on to the plants, where he hemmed and hawed over different varieties of tomato plants before picking out one with Kay's help. "Would you like anything else?" she inquired. Well, if we didn't mind, green beans would be nice, he said. Kay kept asking, "Anything else?" Richard kept thinking of just one more plant, and the kids scurried around helping to locate them. Tomatoes, green beans, chili peppers, and cilantro: "I'm going to make salsa!" he said with a laugh. He explained that he shares whatever he grows with other homeless people.

We rang it all up, along with a couple of other items like a trap to keep the rats away. It came to $50, which the kids paid for with their allowance money. Richard thanked us, I gave him a hug, and he practically skipped away with the shopping cart of gardening goodies. Kay said, "That was more than I was planning on, but really, it's nothing to us. It would have taken him a long time to get fifty dollars, and he probably wouldn't have gotten all that he wanted."

Back in our car, I asked, "Kids, what did you learn in today's Jesus Dojo?"

"That homeless people can be quite nice," Erin said.

"That here's this homeless guy, and he's a gardener, how weird is that," Trevor said.

"That it feels really good to help someone," Shelly said.

I went on and asked, "Trick question: Who did we help today?"

"God," said Trevor.

"That's right," I said. "Jesus said whatever we do to help someone, we are doing for him. Pastor Dave taught that Jesus didn't say, 'It's like you're doing it for me,' or 'It's as if you're doing it for me." Jesus said, 'You're doing it for me.' We don't understand how, but that doesn't make it less true.

"So we helped Jesus. Who else did we help?" I continued.

"That man, Richard," they said.

"Who else?" I pressed.

They were stumped, so I answered: "His friends. Remember, he's going to share what grows in his garden."

"Oh yeah," the kids said.

++ Thank you for the privilege of letting us experience this together, as a family ++

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BlogOneAnother/~3/255944419/worship-

A growing number of people (like Alan Hirsch) are critical of "Jesus is my boyfriend" worship music. Some of the criticism is that it is over-romanticization, even eroticism, and specifically that men feel awkward singing love songs to Jesus, 'cause hey, he's another guy and that's just weird.

I, too, am critical of "Jesus is my boyfriend" but I think I mean something different. What I see is shallow sentimentality, what I call "white bread worship" -- all fluff, no substance. Some of it is certainly shaped by the lyrics of popular songs, because I think the reason they become popular is that they are inoffensive. But I think it goes beyond the songs to the attitude of the worship leader and the way some churches view worship as a means to an end.

Technorati Tags: worship

What is the role of worship, specifically musical worship, in a church gathering? For the "traditional service", it can be overly cerebral. The music itself can be challenging and therefore one must concentrate on getting the notes right. The better lyrics are lofty, beautiful, and stirring; the worse lyrics are so anachronistic that we no longer know what we are singing. (I'm sorry, "Here I raise my Ebenezer" means nothing to me.) The flow of the gathering is herky-jerky: flip to this page, stand up, sing this, sit down, flip to a completely different page. The interspersing of music seems fairly random, interrupting the liturgy.

In contrast, there's the "contemporary service" -- what is the role of musical worship there? It's to set the stage for something else, a transitional device to prepare people for central high point: the sermon. Instead of being cerebral, the focus is on being emotional. Well, one emotion: happiness, the only safe and church-approved emotion there is. The goal is to make people feel good. Worship is evaluated according to whether it "engaged the people," meaning did they stand, sing and clap. And the way you do that is by singing safe songs in the lowest common denominator, and by cheerleading. Oh, and between songs don't forget to say a pointless prayer, again as a transitional device.

I'm probably going to come off as a Vineyard bigot here, but bear with me.

The wide acceptance of "contemporary worship music" is often cited as a success of the Vineyard movement to which most such music can be traced. When my non-Vineyard family members see a church that has a "worship band" with drums, bass, maybe even an electric guitar, they often comment, "Oh, this is just like what you do in the Vineyard, isn't it?"

No. It's not.

The musical forms are simply the surface. What continues to make the Vineyard unique is the underlying values, and especially the value of intimacy with God -- music as a vehicle for meditation, for prayerful surrender, for healing by "doing business with God", for the refocusing of your life on the amazing worthiness of God. Worship is not a means to an end: it is the end, literally. As Keith Green asked, will you be bored in heaven, or will your heart be captivated?

A good worship leader leads the way into this kind of worship by his or her own example, by being transparent, honest and real. When I lead, my goal is to bring myself before God, and in full view of others, rip open my chest to reveal my heart. I want to demonstrate intimacy with God, which feels pretty vulnerable. Yes, it is "a performance" in the sense that any good musician takes their craft seriously. But it is not "a performance" in the sense of putting on a show face. If anything, I am taking off my mask and letting you see a glimpse of what I do in private when I spend time with God and my guitar (or my iPod in the car).

Out of this come songs of honesty, both of pain and adoration. Songs sung, not about God, but to and with God. Something like, "You are beautiful, I love you."

Now take that same song and remove it from those values. You get what I call worship porn -- a shallow copy of the original, with no underlying story of ongoing commitment and interaction with the Holy One that calls for change in your life and effects that change into being. And only one type of emotion. And the point is to achieve that emotion.

In this context, I can understand why there is a backlash from people committed to the transformative power of Christ. When "You are beautiful, I love you," is sung by people who lack good teaching about worship and good examples to guide them, everything changes. The depth those words carry when I say them to my wife of over twenty years is different from the way I said them as an adolescent wanting to have a girlfriend, in love with the concept of being in love.

The words are not the problem. Intimacy is not the problem. If anything, it's a lack of committed intimacy. It's porn.

Let me use a real song example to push the envelope, one that grips my heart:

Let me know the kisses of your mouth

Let me feel your embrace

Let me smell the fragrance of your touch

Let me see your lovely face



Yes, it's erotic: "Take me into the king's chamber"! It is so erotic that most churches won't touch it with a 10-foot pole. Men, if it troubles you to sing that to God, may I suggest that it reveals a weakness in your theology: that God is exclusively a male figure to you. We say God is not male or female, but we really believe it. We are not teaching it, or the implications it has for how to live it out. This is not a bubble-gum adolescent pop song. It is love, adoration, surrender.

Another thing that distinguishes porn from the real thing is that it is about "performance": instead of taking off your mask, you put one on. The emotional range is one-dimensional. In worship porn, everyone is expected to be happy and fulfilled, so the worship leader smiles big and the worshipers pretend that everything is OK. Well, everything is not OK, but songs of pain or doubt from the Vineyard movement haven't caught on in the "contemporary worship" movement. When's the last time you sang

Lord I groan, Lord I kneel

I'm crying out for something real

'Cause I know, deep in my soul

There must be more

or

Whom have I but you

Whom have I but you

Though the mountains fall, they fall into the sea

Though my colored dawn be turned to shades of gray

Though my questions asked should never be resolved

Whom have I but you

Whom have I but you

Such songs are deemed off-putting. I tried singing "When the tears are falling… When I'm all but drowning… I cry a silent prayer that comes out of me" in a church where worship is largely happy-clappy, and it made people uncomfortable. I was told that lament didn't fit the church's culture, or the goal of getting people "engaged" by singing and clapping. (But the people there who are most like my non-church friends said, through tears, that it was the deepest time of worship they'd had in a long time.)

Here's another form of worship porn: Singing songs of sacrificial service, when you're not sacrificially serving. It's not that what you sing has to be true of your own life, because one important function of worship music is singing into being the things we want to be true. But again, there has to be a context of meaning and desire. Here, I totally agree with Mike Frost: Get out and live a life of mission, and your worship will come alive with desperation. Take those same songs and remove them to the safety of a context of personal benefit, and you get people feeling pretty good without actually doing anything. That's like -- well, I've used enough sexual imagery already, so I'd better not say.

Combine these aspects with a style of worship leading which is all about "being just like the recording." The vocal nuances are copied. The arrangement of the song map is set in stone, because "that's the way we practiced it." Perfect those transitions, so there can be no deviation in the song selection itself. These things subtly work together to create an understanding that the purpose of the song is to sing the song. The experience becomes strictly one-way, from the leader to the people, rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to interact with the people and the leader respond to that. Then instead of letting people interact with the music on their own terms, interrupt whatever is going on with prayers or chattiness between songs -- thus inadvertently taking the focus away from "doing business with God" and putting it back on the worship leader.

In such an environment, I started to think that maybe my "heart of worship" had become hard and cold. Then while visiting family, our family got to visit a Vineyard on a Sunday morning. It had been a while since we had been in a Vineyard, and that had been in a different area, so I wasn't too surprised when I didn't know a single song. I was surprised that it didn't matter that I didn't know a single song -- the transparency of the worship leader's heart immediately drew me into a state of worship I had forgotten was possible. I wasn't asked to stand, or sing, or clap -- though most people did those things, I felt no pressure to conform. The leader mostly had his eyes closed and just sang his heart, so it didn't matter that I mostly just let the words wash over me as I stood silently, with tears.

When Kay & I compared notes afterwards, we found it interesting that unfamiliarity with the songs did not pose a barrier to either of us, but that we had had the most spiritual time of worship in years. Maybe it's because we were in an environment where the purpose of the songs wasn't to sing the songs. The underlying Vineyard values may not have been copied by the "contemporary worship" movement, but they are still alive and well in the Vineyard.

Eh, maybe I am just a Vineyard bigot after all.

So back to "Jesus is my boyfriend" -- I'm afraid the "I'm a guy, I don't do that" criticism will lead people to shy away from intimacy in worship. Intimacy is not the problem -- it's that it's too shallow. Divorced from a context of deeper worship values, intimate songs come across as bubble-gum pop or as porn. While some songs are deeper than others, the problem is not the songs but with the context. Even mediocre lyrics can be meaningful when they are sung with meaning.

OK, enough complaining. Here are some biased suggestions:

• Go experience worship in a Vineyard. Part of the Vineyard heritage is to bless non-Vineyard churches, so they will be happy to share their experiences and understanding with you.


• Talk with your pastor. You've got to be together in this.


• Go with your pastor to a Vineyard worship conference. Pay attention to the underlying values.


• Rediscover that God is not male. What are the implications?


• Worship in private. What moves you? Why? What happens as a result?


• Lead people into mission outside of your worship service.


• Work to find (or write!) songs that express the unique call that God has given your church.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BlogOneAnother/~3/257198789/prayer-r

Our nephew Luke (Kay's brother's son) has gone missing at a national park in Ecuador. If anyone can survive this, it would be Luke, who grew up in Nepal. But I am worried. Please pray for his safety and recovery.

Update: A search party of around 100 people has not turned up anything yet. The weather has been poor enough to prevent helicopter searches.

Google Luke Dornon for more news.

Update 2: He's been found alive!

++ thank you, I know that things don't always work out this way ++

whew

http://jonreid.blogs.com/oneanother/2008/03/prayer-request.html

http://jonreid.blogs.com/oneanother/2008/03/worship-porn.html

http://jonreid.blogs.com/oneanother/2008/03/homeless-2.html

http://jonreid.blogs.com/oneanother/2008/03/homeless-advent.html

http://jonreid.blogs.com/oneanother/2008/03/spitzer-rant.html

http://jonreid.blogs.com/oneanother/2008/02/keep-jesus-in-t.html

http://jonreid.blogs.com/oneanother/2008/02/larry-norman-19.html

http://jonreid.blogs.com/oneanother/2008/02/one-day-720-m-1.html

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BlogOneAnother/~3/258672079/installi

Steps to install Windows XP:

1. Install XP itself.


2. Run Windows Update. I want to secure this system quickly to avoid attack, so let's initially go with the critical updates. What? There are 91 of them?


3. Done installing. Have to reboot.


4. Run Windows Update again. This time, get the recommended updates as well as any critical ones. Down to 15 of them.


5. Done installing. Have to reboot again.


6. Run Windows Update again. 10 updates this time.


7. Done installing. Have to reboot, for the third time!


8. Run Windows Update again. 1 update this time.


9. Done installing. Thank God, I don't have to reboot for this one.


10. Download and install anti-virus software. Run it.


11. Download and install anti-spyware software. Run it.

Um. How long have Windows users been putting up with this? I see Apple just issued a security update. It says, "Previous security updates have been incorporated into this security update." Fancy that.