Wow. Tonight I was at amazing concert put on by my best friend Jeremy and his girlfriend Anna. They opened for a guy by the name of Ross King. I have heard of Ross before through another friend but had never really listened or checked out his music. So tonight I went with the intentions of finding who and what he was about. All I can say is I was challenged, touched and blessed by his music. One song really spoke to me tonight as he explained its meaning and preformed it. Its called "The Non-Religious Me". I will let the words speak. But this is pretty much what I have felt over the 6 months specifically with stepping away from the church that I was involved in and really just searching God out. Its been really a struggle for me the past 6 months to be honest, and I have felt like I am on a lonely journey most of the time. I am thankful that I can cling to Christ. That He is always there for me. I however think this is no excuse not to show Christ's love to others.

I picked up the CD that this song is on tonight and want to include the "footnotes" of what Ross King wrote about the song also. The CD is entitled "Perhaps I've Said Too Much". In addition to this song. There is also some other amazing songs on here and have really challenged me. Even though I have only gotten to listen half way through. Anyway this is what I have been feelings, thinking, frustrated with and dealing with. This is a good summery of that, and he does a good job at putting it into words.

From the CD insert:

"When are we going to learn that really spiritual people still have legitimate bouts with unbelief? When are we going to learn how to help and give grace to these people? When are we going to learn that, sometimes, bible study and worship music and good preaching aren't enough? Real Life - Real Healing, Real Forgiveness, Real Power, Real Freedom - Happens when we learn to love each other as Christ Loves US. The reason why we don't do it is because its so hard."



The Non-Religious Me
?Words and music by ross king
?© 2005 ross king


I couldn't find You in the sermons
?I couldn't find You in the songs
?I couldn't find You Sunday morning
?And that's when I knew something had gone wrong
?I couldn't see You in the reading
?I couldn't hear You in my prayers
?I couldn't feel You in my feelings
?And I began to fear that You weren't there


Then I thought I heard a sound
?Somewhere in me
?You said to stoop way down
?And that's where You'd be


I never thought I'd find You here
?Way down in my shame and fear
?I never thought that You'd draw near to this
?My faithlessness
?I never thought to look for You
?In this ditch that I've been crawling thru
?I never thought You'd listen to the plea
?Of the non-religious me


They told me they'd be praying for me
?And then they showed me to the door
?They made it clear that they'd ignore me
?Until I wasn't struggling anymore
?That's when I started feeling guilty
?This must've been my fault somehow
?If only I'd been stronger, maybe
?I would not be in this mess right now


Then I saw a nail-scarred hand
?Bleeding on me
?You said, "I understand"
?And You showed me mercy


I never thought I'd find You here
?Way down in my shame and fear
?I never thought that You'd draw near to this
?My faithlessness
?I never thought to look for You
?In this valley I've been crawling thru
?I never thought You'd listen to the plea
?Of the non-religious me


If we have no room for strugglers
?Where are they to go for answers?
?Didn't Jesus ask His Father for another way?
?And what does that say
?About the way we handle
?People when they're faith is fragile?
?Even Jesus slipped and stumbled when He
?Carried the cross
?Now the curse of the law is gone
?And in it's place: amazing grace


Blessed are the poor in spirit
?The Kingdom will belong to them
?Your love is strong but still they fear that
?You would never let them in
?God, I am a true believer
?Help me overcome my unbelief
?I stepped out on the raging water
?And now I'm sinking in the sea


I never thought you'd find me here
?Drowning in my shame and fear
?I never thought that You'd draw near to this
?My faithlessness
?I never thought to look for You
?In this valley I've been crawling thru
?I never thought You'd listen to the plea
?Of the non-religious me


"The Non-Religious Me" words & music by Ross King ©2004 Ross King. Admin. by Ross King. All Rights Reserved.


Emphasis added by me.



http://rosskingmusic.com/freesong/Non-Religious%20me.mp3


http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=263534613&s=143441

I'm stealing this post from another blog - but I find it really good and love the analogy. For you Northern people. Think of it as Ruth's Chris (Your favorite expensive Steak Rest.) to a Hoss's, Ponderosa, Shady Maple, etc. I have been doing a good bit of research, reading, pursuing what the body of Christ looks like, how its supposed to function and live, I believe in a simple process that reflects Christ's Ministry here on earth and the start of the church in Acts. Here is a link to the pastors blog that I got this from:

http://www.stevenfurtick.com/elevation/be-ruth's-chris-not-golden-corral/


I'm currently composing a rough draft of Elevation Church's best practices for early stage church growth. We're going to hammer out the dents and consolidate them at our staff advance (it's an advance, not a retreat…retreating is for sissies) in July.
In the meantime, I'll post a few for mass consumption.

Here's one:
Be Ruth's Chris, not Golden Corral.

Ruth's Chris serves the best steaks in town, for my money. I prefer the filet w/ extra butter, served on a sizzling plate capable of burning your hand to the bone.
Of course, they serve other things, but what are they known for? Steaks. Good steaks. Some of the best steaks. Expensive steaks.
I go there when I want to eat a great steak with my wife in a perfectly engineered environment. And when I want to drop some serious coin.

I must admit, Golden Corral is another one of my favorite restaurants. Quite the contrast, I know.
I go to Golden Corral when I want a little bit of everything. None of it is particularly great, but you can eat almost anything you want. And you can eat as much as you want.

Most churches are more like Golden Corral than Ruth's Chris, don't you think?
A little bit of everything. A program for everybody. Every night of the week. All you can eat. None of it is very excellent, but boy, the menu (church calendar) is robust!

Elevation's philosophy:
Don't try to do a little bit of everything.
Give everything you've got to a few things.
Make the best steaks in town. Steaks so good that people wouldn't dream of haggling about the price, or suggesting that they should be allowed to go back for free seconds.

Develop a worship service so impactful with music so powerful and preaching so anointed and creativity so inspiring and greeters so helpful that people will come from miles around. Make it sizzle.
Focus like a laser on reaching people far from God through preaching the Gospel and enabling Christ centered worship.
And send the buffet Christians to the restaurant down the road.

Been following this guy for a short time now. Don't think he is a Christian, but has some great aspect on business and customer service. There has been a few articles that could relate to church and just about anything in life, specifically personal. Seth Godin is the name. Here is his latest blog entry:

It turns out that it's a lot easier to peel a banana if you start from the 'wrong' end.
You don't even have to use your teeth.
Here's the thing: I know this. I've tried it. It's true.
I still peel a banana the hard way. It feels like the right thing to do.
Selling change is much harder than you think.

From: http://elevationchurch.org/eaccess/?p=41 - Been following the Pastor's blog for some time and they just launched a site to share with other church's there learning process of how they got things started. I think this stuff applies to new church as well as church's that have been around for a while. Good stuff.

Every organization will rise or fall based upon a few basic foundational
principles. As I reflected upon the short history of our church there were
several essential elements that surfaced. The following reflect the bedrock
principles that framed not only our organizational structure, but also
shaped our philosophy of ministry.
1. Build a powerful team. Without it the church won't make it or will
only make it so far. Most church starts lose 50% or more of the original
core group within a few years. We've lost 0% to date.
2. The team needs to be made up of people who will complement the lead
pastor, not compete with him. They must understand their gifts and see
themselves as coming alongside the lead pastor to help implement his vision,
not create their own. Without the culture of submission, unity can be
extremely difficult at best and impossible at worst.
3. Start with a vision of where you want to go. Structure it from day one
like you want it to be at day 1001. It will feel weird but you have to know where you are going.
4. Remain faithful to the church you are at as you are starting something
new. The quickest way to remove God's hand of blessing is to bring about
seeds of disunity where you coming from. Continue to honor God and tithe to
that church as long as you are there.
5. Pray and fast like mad.
6. Have a simple strategy for ministry. We do two things at Elevation
Church: worship experiences and small groups. That's it, that's all we do.
Now we do those two things for children, middle schoolers, high schoolers
and adults. If we attempted to do more than that we would end up doing a
bunch of average things and nothing with excellence. So figure out what you
are called to do and do them with excellence. And as people come along and
think it would be great to start a ministry to "left handed transvestites"
you will be able to say "that doesn't fit our vision". We have that
conversation almost daily. People come to Elevation with personal passions
and fall in love with the church and think, "Elevation needs to start doing
what I'm passionate about". You gotta know what is a "yes" and a "no"
before you'll be asked. Remain true to that vision no matter how big of a
check that person wants to write.
7. Be a sponge; learn from everyone but "own it". Don't be like North
Point or Willow Creek. Burrow their principles and develop your own
practices. Because if you don't own "it", you'll never die for "it" or
fully embrace "it".
8. There is a difference between "respecting" the pastor and "honoring"
the pastor. Developing an environment of honoring the pastor as the man of
God is essential to the advancement of the vision. Honoring a pastor cannot
come out of a culture where he is everyone's friend or buddy; he must be
seen as "God's prophet and priest".
Larry Brey - Assimilation Pastor

These are not my words. What does this mean for me? What does this mean for you? What does this mean for our church or your church?

"I want a passion. I want something to throw myself into. I don't want to have a platform before I can do ministry. I want that fire that Jeremiah speaks of. I want to sear people with my life. I want a ministry that consumes my every thought and action. I want to know the infinite joy of serving my Creator. I want to serve with an unyielding fury. I want to love the Father with such reckless abandon that it borders on insanity. I want to find out what it's like to live unselfishly. I want to know what it means to love unselfishly. I want to know and love the people I piously give money to so I can assuage my guilt. I want to experience the love Christ has for his pauper population. I want to awaken the "sleeping giant" of the American church. I want to, for once, be proud of the generosity and activism of my church. I want my church to be humbled by how their brothers with nothing sacrifice family, job, and wealth for the same God. Mostly, I just want my church to feel His passion for the lost sheep of this world.

I want a life of discomfort. I want a life devoid of Ikea, Target and Wal-Mart. I want to know persecution. I want to see him in pain and suffering. I want to understand the joy of a monastic life of deprivation. I want to see a community that gives and gives and gives. I want to be a part of a community where complacency is treated the same way adultery is. I want to be a part of a community whose passion for Love is visible to a blind man, audible to a deaf man, gives words to the muted, and burns those who can't feel. I want a community that has no political, social or religious agenda. I want a community whose motive for love is Love. I want to live a life that looks like a revolution but inspires reformation.

What we need are men who will challenge the establishment. What we need are men who won't pull their punches. We need men whose leadership inspires vision and dreams of bigger and better things for our church. We need men whose love for God and adherence to his Word is their foremost thought. We need men whose tolerance is guided by God's Word and not by culture and its words. We need men governed by humility and grace. We need men who speak the truth with fire to ignite passion and burn away tradition. We need men who can wake up our church and its comfort-induced coma. We need men who at the cost of their pastorates, positions, and pride speak truth boldly and loudly. We need men who have been abused, used, and discarded by their Churches. We need men who were martyred by their church in the name of tradition and tolerance. Those men know the pain and sacrifice of speaking truth. We need a reformation of leadership in our Church. We need leadership that breaks us out of our ethnocentric faith. We need leaders whose budgets are so weighted on sending and supporting those that go, that the church lives "paycheck to paycheck". We need leaders who, in model of the ministry of Christ, get dirty with the homeless, prostitutes, prisoners and deviants of society. We need leaders who are never comfortable with the status quo. We need leaders whose words only serve as a reminder of their actions.

It's time for a change. It's time for the generation gap to be closed. It's time for the young and old to dream dreams and cast vision together. It's time to awaken the giant of the American church. It's time to stop allowing ourselves to medicate our guilt by paying lip service to the poor, tired, homeless, and degenerates. It's time to stop just throwing money at our brothers and sisters in China, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. It's time to go after governments that viscously beat and persecute our brothers and sisters. It's time to use our money and resources to aid our brothers and sisters who are battling day in and day out. It's time to use our political clout to free our brothers and sisters in chains.

We've consumed so much spiritual and cultural junk food that we have became morbidly obese and non-functional. It's time for some massive weight loss. Exercise and proper eating habits will help, but we need some drastic liposuction. We need to beat our body. We need to make the body work for us again. It's time for us to root out leaders who have accepted complacency and the status quo for the sake of job security.

It's time stop being lukewarm.
It's time for a change.
If it doesn't happen now, it won't at all."

Thank you, whoever wrote this.

Thanks for sharing this with me tonight Danny. Thanks for talking too. Not sure if you read this. But I do appreciate it. Thanks man.

Artist: Todd Agnew
Album: Reflection Of Something
Song: My Jesus

Which Jesus do you follow?
Which Jesus do you serve?
If Ephesians says to imitate Christ
Then why do you look so much like the world?

Cause my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the arrogant
So which one do you want to be?

Blessed are the poor in spirit
Or do we pray to be blessed with the wealth of this land
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness
Or do we ache for another taste of this world of shifting sand

Cause my Jesus bled and died for my sins
He spent His time with thieves and sluts and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the rich
So which one do you want to be?

Who is this that you follow
This picture of the American dream
If Jesus was here would you walk right by on the other side or fall down and worship at His holy feet

Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a clear complexion
Is how you see Him as He dies for Your sins
But the Word says He was battered and scarred
Or did you miss that part
Sometimes I doubt we'd recognize Him

Cause my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and the least of these
He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable
So which one do you want to be?

Cause my Jesus would never be accepted in my church
The blood and dirt on His feet would stain the carpet
But He reaches for the hurting and despised the proud
I think He'd prefer Beale St. to the stained glass crowd
And I know that He can hear me if I cry out loud

I want to be like my Jesus!
I want to be like my Jesus!

Not a posterchild for American prosperity, but like my Jesus
You see I'm tired of living for success and popularity
I want to be like my Jesus but I'm not sure what that means to be like You Jesus
Cause You said to live like You, love like You but then You died for me
Can I be like You Jesus?
I want to be like my Jesus

HOW MANY SONGS?
2026 songs, 8.5 Days, 8.55 GB (Note: This is just primarily iTunes download files and not my complete library - this includes message's from church/podcasts/and other misc files)

SORT BY SONG TITLE:
First = 'Till The Day I Die - Third Day - Wire
Last = Zero Ones - Derek Webb - Mockingbird

SORT BY TIME:
Longest = 13:58 The Jokes with Guitar - Demetri Martin - These are jokes
Shortest = 0:15 - Untitled - Stellar Kart - We Can't Stand Sitting Down

SORT BY ALBUM:
First = Goot - 158 - EP
Last = Various Artists - You can handle the tooth - Tooth & Nail

TOP FIVE MOST PLAYED SONGS:
1. Even When - Jeremy Camp - Restored - 78 plays
2. Never Alone - BarlowGirl - BarlowGirl - 73 plays
3. Lay Down My Pride - Jeremy Camp - Restored - 72 plays
4. My Girl's Ex-Boyfriend - Relient K - Mmhmm - 71 plays
5. Take You Back - Jeremy Camp - Restored - 70 plays


FIRST SONG THAT COMES UP ON SHUFFLE:
It's Not Home - Foolish Things - Let's Not Forget the Story - 25 plays

Search for "sex."
How many songs come up? - 4

Search for "death."
How many songs come up? - 1

Search for "love."
How many songs come up? - 64