I just loved this part of Joel's sermon from the weekend ...

I can somewhat relate to the point.

Absolutely no video from this weekend. Zero. Nada. Nil. Zip.

It seems the Lakewood website is going through a new iteration, in this case mirroring to Joel's site. Several links not working at present ... among them, the "Live Services" link.

The usual "hidden" link for the live service isn't picking up anything, also. No idea if that's an internal glitch or a sign that the delivery method is changing. We'll see soon enough, I suppose.

Irritating (I have no clue what happened at church this weekend ... anyone wanna fill me in), but hopefully it's only a one-week thing. Looks like a good weekend to catch up on other services that I'm behind on listening/watching.

MONDAY UPDATE: Well, well ... the previous Lakewood website is back up and Joel's site now has a blog up, shared by Joel & Victoria. No idea what this means for Victoria's blog that she's had up for a while now.

The good news: picked up the new Chris Tomlin CD a few days early and already loving some of the new tunes.

The bad news: no recording of Saturday to clip from. Clayton Ring got some nice attention by Marcos that I'd love to see him repeat on Sunday even though he said he wouldn't (here's hoping he was just joking).

Back to the good news: Yeah, another great Clayton Ring performance of a great Chris Tomlin song.

Even more good news: Marcos preaching. Yeah, we had a blast. You've probably got an idea of what to look forward to in the way of Sunday Video now.

UPDATE: Well, here's what happens when it's a lovely holiday weekend. I sleep in a bit too much (first Sunday service) and hit snooze for a little more (second service). The result? No video of Clayton's performance of "God of This City." It's a shame, too. Clayton was awesome.

Joel & Victoria's first weekend appearance after the trial that's been in the news this past week ...

The whole praise and worship segment of service seemed to have an incredible vibe in the context of all this, too. Then again, maybe I just think that because "I'm Still Standing" had some incredible noisemaking by Michael Hodge going on.

For as long as I've been doing these little video snippets, I've focused on the praise and worship aspects for the most part. And for good reason: it tends to be an overlooked element of the service. It's something you don't see on the 30-minute television production and yet it's as vital a part of service as any other.

But for a few weeks, I want to at least try and somehow put a focus on someone who seemingly has enough of a focus on him: Joel Osteen. That'd be the guy you do see on the 30-minute version of events ... and on the cover of books and magazines and a whole lot more.

In this clip, there's the end of Stephen & Da'Dra leading "How Great Is Our God." What makes Joel's mid-service prayers at least slightly more powerful than they might otherwise be is the way they're wrapped around the entire praise & worship service. You literally don't lose a beat segueing into the prayer.

Fear not to the band & choir ... the special from this weekend is over at the video site. It was a nice homage to Israel Houghton on the eve of his performance Sunday night at the Grammy Awards. And if anyone wants to pick up that song, here it is.

Or ... "What I Learned from Mary Kay"

I now know what it's like to feel like the proverbial frog in a pot of slow-boiling water. That is, what it's like to gradually feel trapped and by the time you've come to the conclusion, it's too late.

I head out from the early MVP meeting we had before service, stake out a good spot with emphasis on a quick sprint to the 4th floor after service. Translation: I'm close to the aisle. If you've done this at a movie theater or other venue, you know to expect to get up a bit to let people through. I figure I can deal with a bit of that. Maybe not a lot, but some.

Then the women arrived.

Not all at once, but pretty close. It was a group of 10 at a time, as best I can tell. They filled up a half-row here, a full row there. Nothing really jumped out at me immediately. But I didn't really have the time to observe as I had to get up to let people through on what seemed like a minute-by-minute basis. I feel like I should have abs of steel thanks to the number of crunches I was doing.

The routine was simple: 10 women come in, spot their seats ... and then leave in ones and twos, returning shortly thereafter. In some cases, they repeat this routine. I apparently did this once at a football game when me & my sister were bored. We heard about it all the way home from mom & dad, who had to deal with the aggrieved parties sitting in front of them.

Mind you, I'm there early. So my goal is to soak up a little extra music and maybe get some reading done. I've hauled my massive Taylor Branch book that practically doubles as a dumbell to work out with. I'm sure that added to my agony as I kept having to get up to let people through. But suffice it to say ... no real reading done and precious little music appreciation.

At a few points, I'm debating locating another seat further back. But then I'd have to do to the lady sitting on the aisle seat what these other ladies have been doing to me for about an hour. Inertia won the day ... I stayed put.

What should have clued me in was that it seemed like everyone was there to snap pictures. With the touristy feel of the night and the notable lack of Y-chromosomes, it really felt like I was transported to Branson and plunked in the midst of a Tom Jones concert. If you don't fully grasp how uncomforting that is for me, you should really get to know me better.

Obviously, throughout all of this, I'm actually doing a decent job of maintaining my sanity and good cheer. I won't claim to have fully lost my joy for the evening, but it was a battle. Once the praise and worship started, I'm a little more cognizant of the fact that it feels like I'm in a crowd of spectators rather than participators. Again, discomfort city. For once, I want to find myself on the rowdiest row at Lakewood. Maybe that's my cue to go recruit a gaggle of punk rockers to get to church with me.

But as the service went on, the ladies loosened up and the place felt a bit more like home. A slightly more crowded home, but home nonetheless. One thing I do take from the night is that it places a renewed emphasis to try and take in a Friday night with the Celebrate Recovery band. I never know when I'm going to be packed in like a sardine at service. I never know how easy it is to just lose yourself in praise & worship, one song at a time, at service. But Friday nights are usually a safer bet: same great music, smaller venue, space to spread out, great atmosphere, lots of participators. Note to self, I may need to force myself out of the office early on Fridays.

As for Joel's sermon, I strongly recommend this one. Every once in a while, he just does a superb message that captures a lot of the meta-narratives of his ministry in a concise way. Definitely on par with this one, which I also rank rather highly.

Just to make my bias clear, I'm rooting for the Patriots in next week's Super Bowl. But Lawrence Tynes' game last week for the Giants was a great example by Joel in this past weekend's sermon on "Reaching Your Highest Potential."

Here's the New York Times' version of the story ...

Giants punter Jeff Feagles, who is also the team's holder on field-goal and extra-point attempts, has been around a lot of kickers in his 20 N.F.L. seasons. He knows that in the uncompromising world of pro football, they are ultimately judged by their failures. And, how they respond to them.

"Because everyone misses," Feagles said Monday. "Then what?"

Talk to kickers, at least the ones that last in the N.F.L., and they will tell you that they do not get rattled by missed kicks, they get angry.

"I saw some resolve in Lawrence's eyes to make this better, to make the next kick," Feagles said Monday of his teammate Lawrence Tynes, who missed two fourth-quarter field goals but converted the game-winner in overtime of Sunday's N.F.C. championship game in Green Bay. "Earlier in the year, I didn't always see that. I think a miss bothered him."

Earlier in the season, Tynes had missed enough field goals and extra points that Giants Coach Tom Coughlin was trying out other kickers. Look in Coughlin's eyes back then, and there was a resolve to find somebody, anybody who could get the ball between the uprights.

But with the score tied Sunday night at Lambeau Field, Coughlin and Tynes found themselves gazing at each other, with Coughlin trying to figure out what to do on fourth down at the Green Bay 29-yard line. On Monday, he conceded that he was not sure of his decision at first, so he looked for Tynes.

To Coughlin's surprise, he found Tynes not on the sideline but standing on the field, preparing for a 47-yard field-goal attempt. Tynes had not waited for Coughlin, or anyone else, to send him into the game. He just ran onto the field. And when Coughlin saw that, he knew what to do.

"I looked right at him, and when I saw him out there, it made a very strong impression," Coughlin said. "I knew he was feeling very confident. I was looking for a sign, and that was it."

Newsday offers up a few more details on Tynes' adversity, this time preceding the game itself. If you prefer some video of the game itself, here's NFL Film's treatment of it.

Joel starts off with a bit of info covered in the Early Show interview. But then goes on to tease his critics in the blogosphere. Someone might wanna tell Joel that not every blogger is critical of him, though ;-) ... I can think of at least one other blog written by a Lakewood member.

Still, a great sermon and a great display of how Joel takes something he's confronted with and makes it a teaching lesson for us all. If life were completely fair, I'd take all sorts of time to blog about how much I loved this sermon and enumerate every single way in which I do. But since work is kicking me right now, I'm probably going to have to suggest that you just pick up the CD or tape ... or wait a few weeks for the message to be on TV.

Wild hunch that you won't get this in Sunday's service. In the midst of watching Marcos deliver yet another powerful sermon, I had no shortage of options to show off various aspects that mere words fail to do justice. But as he closes out his message in true Marcos Witt fashion (ie - in song), I couldn't resist this moment to let shine. So watch as Marcos gives a music lesson to all of us.

There's more to show off on Monday. Consider this just a head start.

Right off the bat, I've got to hand it to our all-star ushers at Lakewood. I manage to get a few fellow travellers wanting to sit with me after Compass Class went a little over on time. I'm thinking this means I'll end up with less-than-stellar seating both due to needing three seats and little time left before service starts. I notice a familiar usher who's waving me up before I inform him how many seats I need - or so I thought. I was really thinking he just assumed I needed a onesie, but he was really putting all three of us on the second row, dead center. I immediately apologized to my friends for not having enough pull to get one row further up.

So, that aside, I've got two clips that sorta accent one another. The first (over at the left) is an excerpt of Marcos' sermon. The premise of the sermon was twofold: that we need to have a cause and that there's no greater cause than Jesus Christ. Coincidentally, if you want another tangent on this point, Gary Haugen was a guest speaker at Joel Hunter's Northland Church (Week 34: "Unfamiliar Passions of God") the week before and gives another great message along this line.

It struck me as a bit odd listening to this sermon from Marcos. Odd, because it was rather affirming of what I've been through over a long course of time. It wasn't the type of sermon that I found myself listening to taking away anything new, so to speak. But that's just me. And that's not to suggest that the sermon wasn't useful for me - far from it. I have at least a small collection of causes that are interwoven and have taken up about the bulk of the past decade. And touching on that N.T. Wright quote I pulled out earlier, I keep meditating on that last sentence in particular: The substance and structure of the different aspects of our world need to be interrogated in the light of the unique achievement of Jesus.

In other words: let everything you do expand the kingdom in some way. Make the kingdom a little more enjoyable while you're at it. If you don't see how what you do does that, keep looking. I don't claim to have my own life sorted out all that neatly in this regard ... but it's been something that's a constant work in progress. And it should be for all of us.

Since it's Labor Day, I thought I'd just combine the Monday Video and YouTube Tuesday posts into this one for the day. It didn't hurt that I found myself mentally adding the song below as a soundtrack to Marcos' sermon. It confounds me as to how this song is relatively obscure as far as Stryper tunes go. Obviously, it's got a great message: Keep the fire burning ... move on ... hold on ... never let go. A little headbanging toward the end of the tune doesn't hurt, either.

Stryper: Keep the Fire Burning
[Verse 1]
We've been through a lot together
We've seen what some will never see, you and me
Prayer after prayer's been answered
We can't go on without belief, can't you see?

[Chorus]
We just gotta be strong
Keep the fire burning
Gotta move on, keep our hearts from turning
Gotta hold on, onto what you're learning now
And never let go

[Verse 2]
Nothing can stop us now
We're growing stronger every day in every way
Spreading the word together
It doesn't matter what they say, no way!

[Chorus]
We just gotta be strong
Keep the fire burning
Gotta move on, keep our hearts from turning
Gotta hold on, onto what you're learning now
And never let go

A few links of reference from Marcos' sermon this weekend ...
» Larry Walters (aka "Lawnchair Larry")

Various petitions & movements mentioned ...
» I Hate Mimes
» Mariah Carey Doll
» Bring Back OJ's Cereal
» Slower Traffic Keep Right
» Heinz Ketchup Unification

I'm ok with the anti-mime group ... I think they've got a point. Is there anything more annoying to run into on the avenue as I shop for my baguettes? Apologies to those readers related - however remotely - to Marcel Marceau.

I couldn't resist commenting on this small bit of Marcos' sermon from Saturday (and today if you're reading this in time):

In short, no ... I don't have anything else to do. Well, almost. I still manage to make it to work on time, get to church a few times a week and maintain some minor semblance of a social life.

And in fairness, this little, tiny clip doesn't do justice to the humor Marcos wrapped this point in. But somewhere in the midst of a wonderful sermon, I just feel compelled to offer a counterpoint that suggests that not all blogging is created equal. And I'm sure Marcos gets that. Believe me, I've seen my share of blogs that make me think some people need to really take the art of finding a new hobby much more seriously. I'm sure my reaction was something close to Marcos' point in the video.

I've charted my own course with this blog at the outset. The mission has gotten a few minor alterations, but the purpose remains well within the calling that Marcos preached about last night.

As it happens, I was a little proud of myself when I saw how well the video I wanted to post this past Tuesday dovetailed with Pastor Joel's message. I might have a semi-decent second act when I post something tomorrow. What with it being a holiday and all, I figure I'll combine the Video Monday/YouTube Tuesday concept a bit. Trust me, it'll be good.

UPDATE: This may come as a surprise to Marcos' anti-blog 'crusade' (kidding!).

As promised, some musical notes from this weekend's service. The first song here was too beautiful to not include, but I also didn't want to only show something that excluded the rest of New Breed. It was a pleasure to finally see them live. They'd done one other Lakewood show last year that I missed.

Both of these tunes are coming up on the new CD out in September. The first song, I don't have a title for. Be sure to check out some great guitar work by Israel there that often gets drowned out in the mix of Lakewood's more traditional service. The second, we've sung the heck out of at Lakewood. Sing along and enjoy ...

SIDENOTE: Oh, and one point I certainly wouldn't want to pass up since we're talking about the New Breed band ... be sure to look for Dakri Brown back on the Lakewood stage. Dang if it wasn't great to see him once again.

What to say about Israel Houghton ministering to us this weekend? If you missed it, you missed a treat. I'll have a musical clip later in the day, but here's a small sample of Pastor Israel talking about Sister Sandpaper.

Wonder who's minding the shop while most of the band is over in Europe? Well, the kids only hit the stage for one song, but what the heck - they deserve a little video love, too:

Be sure to notice Tommy Peters back on guitar for the weekend. That was a nice surprise. Tommy's work stands out in the mix and there were easily a few moments where it was nice to hear just a simple distorted riff mixed in with a few songs.

Oh, and the kids rocked, too. Hats off to Michael Woelfel for making what I believe is his debut. I've been too swamped to even look up the song title, so I'll let Dominique ride to the rescue with that detail.

A nice little update from Joel & Victoria with a video clip taken before their final stop in Birmingham. I decided to leave this clip mixed in with Marcos Witt kicking off the sermon on Sunday. I've said it once, I'll say it again ... words don't do the man justice. Just watch for yourself and you'll see what I mean:

Just to commemorate the unique day, why not blog?

I'd have loved to comment more about Marcos' sermon on Wednesday, but when I got back home, I discovered something unique. It seems the recording I'd gotten of the webcast had all the video, but none of the sound. Weird.

But I did find it interesting that Marcos' own musical history shared something I'd witnessed elsewhere. Namely, that of critics of his music. In Marcos' case, there's t he comic irony of him having his hair too long on his first album. The only slightly more serious concerns about the music being too fast as well as the drums & bass being too heavy remind me of the criticisms I once heard of another form of Christian music that came onto the scene in the 80s.

Christian heavy metal, of course, had a rich diversity of critics. If it wasn't the hairstyles (too feminine), or the volume level (much, much too loud), there were even wilder tangents to tackle. I found the oddest from Jimmy Swaggart (pre-fall from grace). Swaggart, to those who will recall, was/is actually a talented musician, and is related to Jerry Lee Lewis & Mickey Gilley. While Swaggart touched on a wide array of criticisms of the band Stryper, in particular, the one criticism that I was most astounded to hear was that the use of minor chords and scales reflected a particularly satanic influence. That's it ... the use of minor scales. Who knew that even if the most well-intentioned musician (according to Swaggart) missed a note, he'd have hell to pay for it? Feel free to check out the Wikipedia entry on Stryper for more on the Swaggart critiques.

And just to make sure it doesn't go unstated, there's a "new" Stryper CD out today. "The Roxx Regime Demos" is a collection of demo recordings the band recorded to get a record deal back in the early 80s (under their original name of Roxx Regime). The band has long used the "777" symbol as sort of a beatdown on the more satanic "666." It would have been unfortunate to see the date 7-7-7 pass without a Stryper album of some sort.

Needless to say, my own favored genre of Christian music took a few poundings from many of the same type of critics that Marcos seems to have experienced. Small world, I suppose.

We're once again blessed to have Marcos filling in for the touring Joel Osteen this weekend. With a little luck, the sound will return to the webcast. I'm tempted to pick up a CD of Wednesday's sermon and synch it up with the video. If nothing else, it'd make a good experiment on my part.

Marcos also plugged another treat coming up on the calendar: Israel Houghton preaching next weekend. Mark your calendars now for that one. No idea what to expect, but I doubt Israel will disappoint. The Wednesday inbetween then and now will have another night of praise & worship with Steve & DaDra. Those nights are always one's worth looking forward to.

For now, though, 7-7-07 sounds like a great day to head to church ... which is exactly what I think I'll do.

It's a good weekend to take in a little extra at Lakewood. For one, it's the final weekend Joel's preaching before heading overseas. The touring version will be in the UK for the next couple of weeks & we'll be treated to Marcos Witt and Israel Houghton preaching on weekends during that time.

Beyond that, Carrie Hodge graces the stage once again. I don't think I'm the only one suggesting she outdoes herself with a great rendition of Michael W. Smith's "Healing Rain." But last night was good all the way around and I just love those praise & worship moments where there's something to take from just about every song, every musician, every singer and every moment.

It also helps that I need to be at church for something else between services. Good timing, that.

I'll have loads more to blog about with regard to John Maxwell's sermon this weekend, but for now a few brief takes:

» If there's any chance you see this before the last service Maxwell preaches, by all means drag yourself to Lakewood and savor the opportunity. This practically qualified as a Christmas present (in June, no less!) by Pastor Joel to the entire congregation. I can't say enough good things about the entire night, but obviously, I'll give it a shot sometime tomorrow.

» No sooner do I review all my book-purchasing options over this past week than I get confronted with that foul demon, temptation. And of all places: at church. In conjunction with Maxwell's performance, there was a pretty nice offer on Maxwell's books.

So I spent what had to be the most conflicted time I've ever had in Lakewood's bookstore. After many tortured minutes of rationalizing any number of last-moment alterations, I'm proud to say I stuck to my gameplan & grabbed Eugene Peterson's "Eat This Book."

The remaining Maxwell works that lured me on this day will still be available at some point afterward. And I'm sure if I dig and scour the internet hard enough, I can get a good deal on them then, too. Nice try, Maxwell!

Now, if Greg Boyd ever preaches at Lakewood, I may as well just tell the boss to make my paycheck out to Lakewood.

» Speaking of Greg Boyd ... there's yet more book news on my favorite "MP3 Pastor."

I’m taking a (much needed) break from my work on "The Myth of the Blueprint" and my related insatiable obsession on ancient Greek philosophy. I’m going to spend the next few months working on a book for Zondervan on what I consider to be the revolutionary movement Jesus came to unleash in this world. (Hint: it doesn’t look much like the American Church). I think I’m going to entitle this book something like "Revolting Beauty: A Manifesto for Kingdom Revolutions." It’s a sequel (but really a prequel) to "The Myth of a Christian Nation." In this latter book I spelled out what the Kingdom is not (e.g. a religion or political party). In Revolting Beauty Zondervan wants me to flesh out what the Kingdom IS.

In a nutshell, I’ll argue that the Kingdom is a movement that revolts against the powers by being beautiful, refusing to participate in the ugliness of the world system. And the Kingdom is a movement that manifests a divine beauty that will, in significant respects, be revolting to those conditioned by the world’s system. In other worlds, the Kingdom always looks like Jesus, displaying the beauty of God’s love on the revoltingly ugly cross as he vanquishes the powers of evil that oppress this world.

ANYWAY, in preparation for this work I’ve been tapping into people who seem to have a similar vision of the Kingdom. The research I’ve done thus far is very encouraging. There REALLY IS a grass roots Kingdom movement sweeping our land – and the globe.

Undoubtedly the best book I’ve read so far is Shane Claiborne’s "The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical." I heartily recommend reading it.

I've run across Claiborne's book a few times. Flipped through it once. What I recall is that it certainly qualifies as radical, but also encouraging. I'll definitely have to take another look at it. Boyd's recommendations have been music to my ears since I've started paying attention to him, so I'm sure Claiborne will move up the fast track on my suddenly expanding reading list.

» Speaking of Boyd again ... he's got a new book out in two months: "The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition." I'm only reserving judgement on it due to the fact that I'm curious how much of it will read like Greg Boyd. Having listened to the guy on a weekly basis, read him, and watched TV interviews, there's a certain style and cadence that you get used to. I tend to love what Boyd describes as "thinking in paragraphs." Listen to him enough times and that makes sense. But what to some may sound like a disjointed, rambling style is music to some ears.

As a rule, I've already brought myself pretty close to concluding that I'll read pretty much anything of Boyd's and that gives me a long backstock to find time for ... somehow. But I'm not quite in an apologetics mood and that's a rather substantial part of Boyd's specialty. Color me conflicted on that one. For now.

» I'm well aware of some of the criticisms toward Eugene Peterson's interpretation of the Bible ("The Message") and that's created a reluctance on my part to dive into any of his material in the past. I'm over that for the most part, even as I stick with my NIV preferences firmly in tow.

But there's no denying Peterson's ability to make words dance. I'm only briefly into "Eat This Book" and there's already numerous highlights. I've yet to distill any standalone paragraphs (for those of us who think in paragraph form), but here's a few brief excerpts to help reflect what it is that led me so strongly toward this book:

Re: Karl Barth on how to properly dive into a book ...

Barth insists that we do not read this book and the subsequent writings that are shaped by it in order to find out how to get God into our lives, get him to participate in our lives. No. We open this book and find that page after page it takes us off guard, surprises us, and draws us into its reality, pulls us into participation with God on his terms.

Re: personal experience over the Bible as an authority for living ...

An interest in souls divorced from an interest in Scripture leaves us without a text that shapes these souls,. In the same way, an interest in Scripture divorced from an interest in souls leaves us without any material for the text to work on.

At a level of oddity, "Eat This Book" is simply a book about reading. At a level of normalcy, I refuse to undo that simplicity.

June just has an awful lot of exciting things going on at Lakewood. We kick it off in style with John Maxwell preaching this weekend. This promises to be a great weekend, so feel free to drag along friends & family along with. Good seats can still be had at the Saturday service at least.

Also leading off the month is a new book for the Compass Class on Saturdays: "S.H.A.P.E." by Erik Rees. The first chapter is available to preview here (PDF). I may have to cave in and add this to the reading list from my prior post.