moving to a new blog

If you’ve followed this blog at all, you’ve noticed no new content for a while. That’s because I’ve been working on a new one over at our church’s new web site. So I’m going to redirect you to that space, and let this one go dark for now.

A storyteller’s definition of Christianity

I’ve been keeping tabs on Ben Arment’s STORY project for a while, and his conference is happening right now. So in my Twitter-verse, I’ve been seeing constant updates about it. Our current worship series at Concordia is “Stories of the Saints”, where we are using the stories of the people of Scripture as a launching pad into the great story of Scripture – that of Jesus.

So I’ve been surrounded lately with the powerful concept of story, and the now-clichéd phrase that the church possesses “the greatest story ever told”. Like all clichés, it is one because it’s true.Yet the Gospel of Jesus is not a Aesop-ian fable with a moral at the end; it is a true story with the perfect restoration of all things at the end.

This morning I watched a couple video clips of comedians telling stories, and they’re funny because the stories illustrate the ridiculousness of the truth sometimes. (In case you’re wondering, the two clips were Brian Regan’s “Me Monster” and Mark Gungor’s  “Tale of Two Brains” – ok, technically Gungor’s wasn’t a story, but it had a good narrative feel.)

Mix into that some study and reflectio on church leadership, and my brain is full thinking about how we engage people with this: telling God’s story – the Gospel of Jesus – and people’s stories, and helping people to understand how they are related.

One of the best summaries I know is a statement by my friend Matt Ziprick – a pastor in Edmonton, AB – at a youth gathering a few years ago: that Christianity is “where God’s story meets your story”. It’s the heart of faith, that a person who believes that Jesus did what He did “for you” is one who has true faith in Jesus.

And it’s a great way to use the concept of story to learn more about how Jesus really does re-write our stories.

iPhone blogging

So I got an iPhone when we moved to Canada. So far I love it. And I just found out there’s a Wordpress app so I can blog directly from the phone.

Maybe this a good way to revitalize!

Looking ahead

The storm is almost over.

These pages have been quiet the last few weeks while we’ve made the transition from Spokane to Penticton. It’s not that I’ve had nothing to say (doesn’t happen very often, I know); it’s that I was just all wrapped up in what needed to happen. But overall, the transition has happened fairly smoothly, and we’re now feeling somewhat settled and ready to move forward in Penticton.

There are still some lingering clouds from the storm – selling our house in Spokane, for instance, has yet to happen – but we’re now so excited to be able to get out of waiting mode (we were in that mode for almost 4 months) and transition mode (the last 8 weeks or so), and into full-fledged “let’s go” mode.

I’ve had a great first couple weeks in the office in Penticton, having great talks with our pastor, Vic Morris, and catching up with a few of the key leaders already. I led musical worship for the first time yesterday. We’ve got a gathering happening tomorrow night with our volunteer worship team – musicians, tech people, etc. I’m excited for that, to be able to re-connect with a lot of people (I served part-time at the church almost 5 years ago for 8 months), and meet some I haven’t met before. I’m lookin forward to building on what’s already there – a solid foundation for our worship and music ministries.

We’re also working on plans for the Discipleship life of the congregation for this next season of ministry – both the immediate fall 2009-summer 2010 season and the longer-term season of the next few years. I’m excited for where God is going to be leading us!

One of the biggest reasons I’m excited is that I see my role here s very much a “next level” role. That is, I’m coming on board to help take us to next levels in our journey. My primary role is not to do a lot of tasks, but to build people. And when I think of the amazing gifts of the people, I can’t help but be excited.

My prayer for these next few weeks is for us to catch a renewed sense of God’s leading, and then to follow Him wherever He leads us. It’s going to be a great ride.

Packing Week

Packing has begun in earnest at the Schutz household. Things are coming off shelves and then shelves are coming down (and packing surprisingly small thanks to Ikea’s furniture model, shrink-wrap, and duct tape ), and we’re getting ready to move from Spokane, WA to Penticton, BC on Friday.

As with all moves, it’s a time of sadness and mourning while at the same time being a time of excitement and looking-forward. It’s now getting very “real” as we see the piles of boxes in the garage growing quickly.

God has been exceedingly good to us throughout this difficult time, and we’re now thankful to be able to look forward in a more concrete way. I start work at Concordia Lutheran Church in Penticton on Aug. 1, and we’ll see what God has in store for us as we begin this next chapter in our lives and ministry.

Preparing for a bittersweet weekend

I went to our worship music team rehearsal at Redeemer tonight for the first time since we left 3 months ago. It was so much fun to play with a team again, and such a blessing to me to see some of “my” team again.

I was there to prepare with the team for this coming Sunday, which will be my last official Sunday at Redeemer. It won’t necessarily be the last actual Sunday there, but it’ll be the last time I’m there as a called worker. (if you don’t know our story leading up to this, best give it read so the rest of this post will make sense…)

So I’m going to be helping to lead music for the later 2 services and preaching at all 3. There was a previously scheduled congregational meeting for 11:45am on Sunday, so I will use part of that agenda to ask the congregation to peacefully release my from my call, and then we’ll gather after that meeting for a reception to say an official farewell, but (probably more importantly) to celebrate the 4 years that God gave us to live and work together for His kingdom.

So if you’re reading this and you’re Redeemer folk, or in the Spokane area, I hope you’ll be able to join us at 8:00, 9:30, or 10:45 for worship, and then again around 12:15-12:30pm for our reception. (And if you are Redeemer folk – come to the meeting to give your voice to the budget and election of officers.)

It truly will be a bitter/sweet day. Bitter because leaving was not what we had planned. Sweet because we will get to celebrate God’s goodness in the midst of struggle, and because I will have the opportunity to share God’s Word with the church family through word and song once again.

God is Good. All the time. Even on bitter/sweet days.

The wind blows where it wishes…

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
John 3:8

This verse from Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus should be my life verse, at least for a little while. At least over the last few months, it has certainly felt like I’m being carried only by the Spirit of grace, not really knowing from where things are coming or where they are going.

You may know that we’d been living in Spokane for the last four years and I’d been working at Redeemer Lutheran Church. This spring we ran into some immigration issues, and had to leave the country while we sorted them out. So since March, we’ve been somewhat nomadic, living in various places in Western Canada with gracious family and friends. We were waiting for an answer from the US government about whether or not we could get a new visa to continue living and working in Spokane.

This past week, we still didn’t get an answer. But what we did get was clarity about one thing: we are not going to be able to continue our life and ministry in Spokane.

How did we get clarity about that? We were going to need to have an answer by August 15 of this year, and it became clear this week that it is just not going to happen. Though we could still wait until Aug. 15 to see what happens, we believe that would be foolish to do so; it’s all but guaranteed that we won’t have an answer by then, and it longer makes sense to keep waiting.

That’s all worded rather generically, and obviously there are a lot of details missing. The whole story is just so complicated that it would require a good supper and good beverages to tell, so I’ll not attempt to tell the whole thing in these pages.

But the bottom line now is that Suzanne and I have decided that it would be best to seek a new direction for our life and ministry. Since the door to working in the US is now shut, that new direction will lead us back to Canada. As with the wind of John 3, we’re not yet sure where that will be, but God is gracious – we are exploring some opportunities already, and He’s taking care of us in the midst of it.

It’s been a rough week, discovering that we cannot continue to live and work among people we love dearly. We are feeling pain, loss, and grief. For me personally, a big part of the pain is that God clearly called us to Redeemer four years ago, and I believed that He wanted us to stay. I believed there was so much work I had yet to do there. And if I’m honest with myself and with you, I still believe that.

Yet it seems that God is now calling us away. Right now I’m really struggling to come to grips with that. Yet His sovereignty is often a mystery, and He calls people according to His purposes, not ours. And when we can’t see His purposes clearly, it’s often hard to take. But I take comfort in two things: 1. if my feeble human mind could fully understand God all the time, I sure wouldn’t respect Him very much, much less worship Him (Romans 11:33-36), and 2. the Biblical example of Joseph, whose earthly circumstances seemed hopeless, yet God used all of those events not only for Joseph’s good, but for the good of an entire people (Genesis 37-50).

So we’re preparing to move back to Canada, hurting and wounded right now, but confident that God is leading us, even when we don’t have a pillar of fire, or (as a good friend recently put it), a great big neon sign, to follow.

Thank you to everyone who’s been praying for us and encouraging us. We will continue to covet your prayers as God leads us by His Spirit to a place we don’t yet know, in a timeframe we don’t yet know, but with the absolute assurance that He is with us in the midst of it.

Sibelius 6 drops

I just got an email from the makers of Sibelius, music notation software, that version 6 has dropped, and is available now. Anyone who’s interested in notation software (which should be anyone who’s in music ministry ) should seriously look at Sibelius or one of the other products in their lineup. I know that sounds like I’m a shill, but I promise you I make no money from them at all by saying anything good or bad. I just think it’s a fantastic thing.

As a full-time musical worship leader, I can tell you that Sibelius is one of the best tools I have in my toolbox. I’ll write another post on why everyone who leads music ministry at their church should check out notation software, but for now, here’s what I’m most excited about in Sibelius 6:

Magnetic Layout: automatically adjusting lyrics, dynamic markings, etc. to position them properly underneath notes. In previous versions, it put them in a default position which needed to be tweaked. This alone would save me hours in scoring.

ReWire support: glueing Sibelius to Cubase (I’m also a long-time Cubase user and fan) is brilliant.  Cubase has always had scoring features, but they’ve never been that great, honestly. To be able to record a Sibelius score into Cubase, add acoustic tracks (like guitar and vocals) and sync them up will make demo production so much easier.

Audioscore: input music with voice or other acoustic instrument. Sing your ideas into the score! Sure, it’s a Lite version bundled, and the Pro version (read: more money) probably works better, if Photoscore is any indication (and it probably is, since Neurotron makes both). But still, this also will be a huge improvement in getting ideas into notation much more quickly than going from voice to keyboard to notation.

Better playback engine: it’s always had high-quality sounds, but loading sounds from Kontakt Player has taken time and latency has been a problem. So if the native sound playback engine lives up to its billing, it’ll be so much better.

Of course, they proclaim a host of other improvements too, all of which I’m sure will be helpful.

The one question I do have which I haven’t seen answered (and really wouldn’t expect see on their marketing anyway) is if they’ve improved copy protection at all. Their copy protection scheme has always been annoying to work with, IMO. So we’ll see whether that’s changed at all.

I’m gonna have to get my hands on this upgrade as soon as I can.

Church musicians, do you have experience with Sibelius, Finale, or music notation in general? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts too – comment away! And stay tuned for another post(s) for my argument(s) on why this type of tool is essential for doing church music work well.

Tribes: borrowing from the church

I’ve said it before and I’m sure this won’t be the last time: Seth Godin is a marketing genius. He’s helped to transform the marketing landscape from a focus on mass marketing to permission-based, tribal marketing. It’s making a huge splash in the business world, and even the church has gotten heavily on board with this kind of thinking.

I am just in the middle of watching one of Seth’s talk on Tribes from the latest TED conference. And it finally struck me (sometimes I’m slow) that the church has had it backwards. What Seth has discovered to be true in the business world has always been true of the Christian church (including the Old Testament church): tribes are the foundation of getting a message out.

As I’ve also said before, I love irony. So here’s the beautiful irony in this: the church is jumping all over this concept of Tribes, and saying “thank you, Seth”. The reason it’s startling to find this “new” way of “marketing” in the business world is because churches also chased the business world when it was heavily into mass-marketing. (And many still do, admittedly.) Really, Seth should be saying “thank you, Jesus” (in more ways than one ).

Really, when the REVEAL project revealed that churches would do best to focus on Jesus and the Bible instead of performances, comfort, and slick packaging, and when the business world realizes that small groups and relationship-building are the best way to get a message out, why should anyone in a Christian church be surprised at that? It’s what the church has been about since the beginning of time.

The top 3 reasons I’d get a Mac

After reading this thoughtful blog post from Smashing Magazine, I was thinking more about Macs and all the arguments for and against them (surprisingly, the blog post mentions a few of the latter). As a Windows user, I’m not a fanboi, just one who’s always used Windows machines (except for laying out our Grade 11 creative writing magazine). I’ve been bugged for a long time (you know who you are, Taylor) to switch, but haven’t really ever found a compelling enough reason to shell out so much more money for the same computing power.

(One disclaimer before I go further: As a musician/armchair designer, being a Windows guy dooms me to loserdom. Macs are all over the design/music/production world, but I don’t really care that much. As I’ve said before, I don’t derive my self-worth or talent from the computer I use. It’s a tool. That’s it.)

Giving it some thought this afternoon, I thought of the top 3 things that would convince to me to jump in, and none of them (well, maybe #3) have much to do at all with the “traditional” reasons one would think are strong arguments (eg. “it just works”, “OMGSHINY”, “you can run Windows inside it!”, and the like…) Read the rest of this entry »