This weekend, we were singing at Wal-Mart in the nearby town of Newark, NY. I happen to be friends with the GM of that store, and he sets us up in the front of the store to sing Christmas tunes for a couple hours on a busy holiday Saturday. This was our second straight year.

Last year we discovered that Wal-Mart has some pretty strict rules regarding other organizations or groups coming in and promoting themselves in any way. We thought then that we might perhaps make some sales with a small little display right near us… holiday shoppers who liked the music could get a CD. Seemed good. But, if you want to sell something at or even near Wal-Mart, you must go through their central office in Bentonville, AR, and they will put the product in EVERY store. (Which was not going to happen for our happy little CD.)

So, we asked if we could just put up a little poster that told people who we were, and showed that we have CDs, and then gave our web address. Nope. That was no good either. At one store, they let us post the sign, but placed a big strip of paper over our CDs! (They’re serious!) 🙂

But this season, it was just a fun time, so we decided to do it again, even with nothing for us to gain. Wal-Mart was not paying us, we couldn’t sell any CDs, we can’t even tell anyone we have CDs!

So, there we are… two people sitting on stools with a guitar and a music stand… singing Christmas songs. Smiling, happy… and singing. We got lots of smiles. Kids loved to stop and watch. But the best part of the day was watching the several people who walked by with a bit of an inquisitive look on their faces trying to figure out why we were there. What did we want from them? Who were we representing?

Nothing! Nobody! We’re just singing! 🙂

But that’s not possible! We must want something????

Nope. 🙂

And that reminded me of a previous post where I was frustrated by people’s agendas. I was especially speaking of Christians, and their hidden agendas in forming relationships with people or in the public events that are planned with ulterior motives. But one of the comments was from an international friend of ours, who pointed out that having an agenda for everything was a very cultural, American thing. Boy was that evident at Wal-Mart on Saturday!!! Everyone expected we wanted somethingfrom them, or were promoting something… but… we weren’t!!! Crazy!

In the past, we have. We were either wanting to promote basic… so perhaps people would buy a CD, or we’d make a connection to do another concert. But not this time. Also, often, I will schedule events in order to make money that day, through sales or some sort of payment. But, not this time. There was no chance for that. And, perhaps most noble, in the past, I would consider the “agenda” for such a day having any opportunity to speak with people or sing to people about Jesus and how great he is. But, not this time. We really just went to sing, and put a smile on people’s faces! 🙂

That’s so hard to fathom I think in our culture. There are so many advertising schemes that come across as offering something for nothing, but there’s always a catch. There is always some sort of agenda. That’s just the way it is. So, when we appeared to not represent anyone, or be selling anything… it certainly brought some strange looks. But, many people got past the anomaly and just enjoyed the music and the smiles! Awesome.

Bonus of the day? One of the store managers thought it was so cool what we did, that he gave us a Wal-Mart gift card! Dude. That was cool. It’s just great to be freed of expectations, or, perhaps insert the word “Agendas”, and to just enjoy the moment… and everything else is bonus!

It was a great time at Wal-Mart, and I think God was continuing to show me the freedom of living life without an agenda.

Have you heard this hullabaloo? Until recently, I had no idea! We are so removed from that scene, that I had no idea people were so up in arms about many “churches” canceling their services for Christmas Day. I had a phone conversation with a worship leader from one “church” and then got an email from another pastor at a different “church”. Astounding.

Those churches that are choosing to forego gathering for worship on Christmas Sunday are exercising flawed judgment, MacArthur contends. “To me it is an indication of the superficiality, the shallowness, and the disinterest in really worshipping Christ — disinterest in truly exalting Him,” he says.

Despite widespread criticism, Pastor Jon Weese of Southland Christian Church in Kentucky has defended his church’s decision to cancel its December 25 services. In an AP report, he was quoted as saying that the Lord Jesus Himself was also criticized by people who “emphasized religion over relationship.”

It’s just incredible the centrality that the Sunday public service has in the lives of so many Christians. For many, it seems to be the most important piece of their relationship with God (if not, the entirety of their relationship with Him.)

Well, I find it fascinating. Just thought I’d pass it along.

Here’s the rest of the article at CrossWalk.com:

Crosswalk.com – Some Churches Taking Heat for Closing Doors Christmas Sunday

Have you ever noticed that there is a notion about God that he is somehow planning and controlling everything that happens, and so when bad stuff happens, that automatically necessitates that He is either evil, or just not there? I think I saw this on a movie or something recently (Or, perhaps it was real life? Everything feels like a blur of late…) but, anyway… someone was basing their conclusion on God’s existence on some bad thing he allowed in their life, or something they did not receive.

It’s the Santa Claus approach. Many kids go through the excitement of thinking that someone out there knows just what they want, and gives it to them when they ask, and then when it doesn’t happen… what else can they do but either question his goodness, or even scarier… his existence?

I thought of another analogy today. It reminds me of lab rats. There is the scientist who has a plan for everything the rats are to do. He carefully arranges circumstances so that they do what he is coaxing them to do. If the comply, they get a treat. If they do not choose correctly, either the treat is withheld, or there is some sort of consequence applied. Good rat, good scientist. Bad rat, bad scientist.

Isn’t that how we sometimes view God? He is arranging all of the circumstances in our lives so that we do what he wants, and if we perform, all will go well, and we’ll be rewarded with a treat (a “blessing”), while when we choose poorly, we fear his wrath. (The Scripture, “God disciplines those he loves.” has been used to bolster this thinking.) But the story we call the prodigal son perhaps shows the fallacy of such thinking. The son who had not strayed from what his father had taught him was upset when the bad kid got the big party. He felt he deserved it, since he had done all the right things. And likewise, his brother did not deserve it, since he had chosen to be stupid with his life, and disregard everything their dad had taught them. He felt like his dad should be Santa. “He’s makin’ a list… checkin’ it twice… Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice…” Naughty – no blessings. Nice – blessings! Isn’t that how it should work???

There’s so much wrong with this, I think I just realized I can’t actually cover it all in this blog. First, what exactly is a “blessing”? Is it a spiritual treat from God for performing well? Is it something that makes our life more comfortable? I don’t think so. There are many instances in scripture where suffering is considered a blessing. I think this term is far greater than the candy we have come to understand it as. But then, does it make sense that God would treat us as lab rats? Aren’t there examples, even from Jesus short life, where bad things happen, and they are not caused by God, nor are they punishment. Jesus said, “Were the 19 who died when that tower crashed on them greater sinners than anyone else who didn’t die?”, implying the answer was no. The Bible also reminds us that God lets the rain (a good thing) fall on the good and the bad. God does not reward performance, as we perceive it.

Now, there are definitely times when God chooses to “bless” someone (in the sense we would think of it) because of a choice they made. God often smiled on people who would make a stand based on a deep trust they had in him. (Think of all the miracles in Scripture… Daniel in the fiery furnace, or David killing Goliath are a couple that comes to mind…) But had they not chosen to employ their deep trust in God, would he have punished them? Probably not.

Sometimes, through my life, I have thought of myself as a lab rat. When things are going well in my life, I figure I am pleasing my Father somehow. And, conversely, when things are going poorly – very obviously poorly, and for some considerable length of time – I begin to look introspectively at what I am likely doing wrong to elicit such a punitive response from my loving Father. “What sin in my life is causing this break in the flow of blessings?” I would wonder. So, I would try and think of anything and everything that I was doing or thinking that was not in line with what God commanded of me, and I would set out to correct that. With the full expectation that I would receive his blessings again as soon as I corrected whatever mysterious sin was keeping his back turned from me. What I discovered was, that never really worked. Sometimes, no matter how “clean” I could make myself, I still did not receive the blessing I was looking for – or worse, it almost seemed like God didn’t care at all. And still at other times, even when my heart was definitely not right in many ways, God would “bless me”. How do you make sense of that?

God says he is love. God does discipline those he loves, but the term discipline is far greater than our limited view (where the term more implies punishment.) If God chooses to arrange circumstances in our lives to correct us, it is not as the remote scientist who is merely interested in the correct results. Father, as I would for my children, wants the best possible outcome for us. His understanding of that is far greater than ours. Similarly, I understand the things I do to help my kids far more than they currently do. So, there is an underlying trust that if something seems to be God’s doing in our lives, it is not punitive in response to our immediate wrong choices, but usually, it is part of a much bigger picture God has for us, and always for our good.

Finally, it does seem funny to me that we feel this way about God, that he rewards good behavior and punishes poor behavior, and then many of us, when we actually receive those results, question his existence because of that. 🙂 He didn’t answer my prayer, so, he must not exist! That’s pretty funny.

We’ve been reading the story of Jesus arrival over the past week or so, and the beginning of that story deals with this issue a bit. There was a couple who had honored God in every way they knew how, and they just wanted a baby. All they wanted was for God to give them a child. So far, he hadn’t. Obviously, they struggled with these same thoughts. What are we doing wrong, that God will not bless us? Is all we have heard about God true, since he can’t even do this one thing for us? Well, finally, God (in his much bigger plan) was going to grant their wish. He even sent an angel to make it more official. Zechariah, the father-to-be, questions and even mocks the angel, perhaps a result of bitterness toward God that had built over so many years of unrewarded obedience? The angel rebuffs him, and Zech is not allowed to speak until his baby is born.

All the angel said came true, and they finally had their baby. And he could speak. And the first things he said were some incredible things about God. Now, was the baby a blessing, and not speaking a punishment? Or, was that also a blessing? (Maybe his wife would know the answer to that one…) 🙂 We just have this funny view of what God SHOULD do in our lives. Perhaps we should let him govern the universe, eh?

So, while we sing about Santa, and ponder God’s interaction in our lives, just remember that he loves you. His motivation for any and all actions he takes in your life are only for your good. You’re not his lab rat. You can’t put good behavior in the machine and pop out blessings, nor can you predict that bad behavior will receive punitive actions.

Enjoy this day with your loving Father, and rest in the peace of his love for you. That is truly a blessing.

I have had a very hard time waking up in recent weeks. Even if I have a chance to get up early to get a jump on the day, I told Jen last night, it seems that my body will not allow me to do so. My head feels huge and heavy, as does my whole body actually. I don’t feel rested, so I will usually try to catch another 10 min of sleep or so and see if that helps. Often, it does not.

To what do I attribute this lethargy? Am I just lazy? Am I just getting old, and need more sleep?

I whittled it down to two things.

It’s either that I need more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night (which is what I have been getting for many nights over the past months now) or… it’s the 10 pounds of sugar products I consume each day. 🙂

Lots more seems to go wrong.

Last night, while trying to delete an Audio Book borrowed from the Library that I had loaded into iTunes for listening on the iPod… I deleted my entire iTunes library.

Over 4000 songs. 21 GB. In the trash.

Good thing is, that’s where they were. In my trash (you Windows people call it the “Recycle Bin”…)

So, with some creative use of the backup copy i have on the laptop, and those files that I imported back into iTunes (which took HOURS)… I was done recreating our iTunes library (and re-updating our iPod) by 3:30am.

Nice.

Just for fun, I added our Amazon wishlists to the side bar over there –> Click through if you’d like. It’s a fun idea I heard a podcaster use to allow people to donate to the website/show, that was more fun than just donating money…

(you don’t have to buy anything… but, it is Christmas…)

😉

Stay tuned… next week we might finally be able to breath again!

There’s a strange thing that seems to happen to us. Especially regarding our music. No matter how good the circumstances may seem, God always provides the same amount of money. The same amount of sales. Whether it’s 2 people or 2000. Whether our product advertisements reach hundreds or tens of thousands. It’s always the same.

A slow trickle, that’s just enough to keep us interested.

It’s really interesting, and has been brought to the forefront again by a scheme a friend of ours worked up just this week. Our friend, Jeff, runs the site StudyLight.org. It’s a great reference tool for Bible study and just life as a Christian in general. Good stuff.

So, often he will IM me and have me check certain features for him as a Mac user. Often, the sessions are somewhat frustrating as his code displays just fine on a Windows machine, but not correctly on my Mac. (I understand the frustration, just the other way around.) But, Jeff always solves it. He’s great.

This week, I guess he got tired of waiting for me to check it, cause he offered to give me thousands of dollars of advertisement space on his site in exchange for me buying him a Mac mini. 🙂 Haha. It’s still pretty funny. I told him, while a fine idea, in theory, we’d never sell enough to cover the cost of a mac mini. (they start at $499) He said he was offering more value than that, and if we only sold about 75 CDs, we’d break even. I maintained my position (based on my past experience with how God provides for us) that we would not sell even that many.

Jeff’s website gets 2 million hits per month. That’s a lot. And, they all might be interested in new Christmas music. So, he was up to the challenge.

He changed his offer to, 3 free banners, and a text link ad, and a tiered price scale. If we sell 100 CDs, we get him the standard mac mini. If we sell 120, the next one, and so on. We worked out a deal that is incredibly in our favor, and would theoretically (with such exposure) surely land him a Mac mini.

Still, I told him, that’s not how God has done it for us so far…

So today, with over 10,000 impressions (times that the ad has been displayed) and about 150 click-throughs to our page… and yet NO SALES… Jeff continues to improve the “chances”. He posted a message to the forum, letting over 18,000 people know that they could support StudyLight by simply buying a CD. So, now he is also endorsing the product to these 2 million hits per month. Seems good, right?

That just isn’t how God does things for us. 🙂

I told Jen today, Jeff is fighting God on this one. We’ll see who wins. 🙂

Here are some other fun examples of our amazing track record:

• We are featured on TheGodJourney.com. They use our music for their show intro, bumper music, and outro. They have talked about the music on a couple shows, and a link to our site is posted on their home page.

  SALES SO FAR: none that I know of…

• This week our song, Joy To The World was featured on The MacCast. Great endorsement of the song by the host, 11,000 plus listeners, links straight to our song in iTunes and our webpage.

  SALES SO FAR: Two.

• Last Christmas, we did a show for 6000 to 10000 people in a sports arena, where the theme was Christmas, and we had a brand new Christmas CD, lots of help selling them, AND we played Christmas music LIVE for 45 min of EVERY HOUR that weekend, and played our CD when we weren’t actually playing live, and they piped the sound through the arena’s sound system! Great set up!

  SALES SO FAR: About 50 CDs (including all four of our CDs.)

• I have been advertising our CD again to the basic mailing list, just to remind them we have that. About 300 addresses or so. Messages sent about once a week during December.

  SALES SO FAR: 2 CDs.

• StudyLight.org features our CD with free giant banners, text link, forum post and an email sent to almost 20,000 addresses. AND, for a reduced price! (Only $11.95).

  SALES SO FAR: None.

OK. I am sure you get the point.

And at concerts it’s the same! Whether 10 or 100 people show up, we sell between 2 and 7 CDs. 🙂 It’s just too funny! (Sometimes it’s not funny at the moment… but as I type this… it’s funny.)

I’ll have to let you know what happens with the studylight thing by the end of our month of advertising. I hope I can tell you about huge orders, paying for some great Apple equipment for my friend Jeff… but I am not counting on that. Based on our experiences so far, for whatever reason, it seems like God would like us to stay at this level of income. 🙂

We’ll keep you updated.

Till then, if you’d like to help Jeff out, you can. And get yourself some cheaper Christmas music: basicmm.com/studylight.

(of course, you can get our CD for full price at our e-store or, you can download it at iTunes also, if you are so inclined. The full price option helps us out more… if you’re into that sort of thing.) 🙂

(I am not certain why I wrote those last two paragraphs, in light of the rest of this post…) 🙂

I was thinking today (as I have been on occasion for a while now) about what it is I would really like to do with my life (at least, currently).

I have many abilities, and interests… and I do enjoy what I do these days with my time, and for income purposes. (And some not for income) 🙂 I love the creative part of what I do with the web and graphic design. I love working with computers and programming languages (HTML). And, as far as the music goes, I do enoy singing and playing, especially with my wife by my side. And the kids are growing up quite musical as well. 🙂 I even love the Buffalo Bills show we do weekly. It’s great!

I have always wanted to own and operate a restaurant. A nice family establishment, with a regular clientele. I would get to be with people, and cook. Two things I love to do.

I would love to somehow have a business where I could hook people up with some great stuff from Apple computer. I have a website, but that’s just a portal for Amazon. Not the same. So far, I am not very motivated to pursue that one, but I know I would enjoy it.

But mostly, I have always wanted to write. And specifically about stuff that matters. I pursued sports journalism for a time in my freshman/sophomore years of college… but, that was not the subject matter that captured my heart. I love sports, but… not enough to spend my life writing about them.

So, this blog has happened. And my book. But so far, those have not been even close to something that could support me. So, I continue to write, almost as though I can’t not write.

But it might be even more than writing. See, this morning, as I was contemplating the various facets of my life in the shower (as I am wont to do) I realized that I also love just conversing with people on the deeper things of life. Listening to, and adding thoughts as necessary to conversations with friends, or even people I don’t know that well yet.

That’s when I thought that perhaps what I really am, or want to be, is a philosopher. I love to think deeply on life (again, I almost can’t not do it) and I love to converse about that whether in person or in print with others who are interested.

So, perhaps I should be (or already am?) a philosopher.

Anyone know how much that pays? 🙂

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I think I may have written this before, but it bears saying again after yesterday’s blog about Agendas. I sure don’t like games. People who try to manipulate others by their words or actions…. that really bothers me. I just want straight up, honest relating to each other.

We play games at work. With our co-workers, and especially with our bosses. We play games in dating relationships. We play games at school. We play games “at church”. We are constantly playing little games to manipulate our relationships with others to work in our favor.

What it comes down to, I think, is that we are not content in ourselves. We are not secure enough in who we are, that we must constantly create and present a persona that is “more acceptable” to the people we do life with. We try to meet the expectations that we expect are expected of us. It’s such a crazy loop to which we all (myself included) fall victim.

All we need to do is be real. We’re all in the same boat. On the same sea. Just tryin’ to get from here to there. (Lyrics from a song I wrote…) But it’s true. We don’t have to pretend to be something we’re “supposed to be”. Just be you. You are great the way God made you to be. Your flaws are weaknesses in you that allow more room for His greatness. Let him fill it, and know that you are not the only flawed person on the planet. I am. You are. We are.

I despise the agendas we have for the people in our lives because it’s another form of game playing. It’s focused on us, and our perceived needs (or even, what we perceive others to need) instead of honest relationships with people. It’s hiding behind a “purpose” because perhaps we’re uncomfortable being completely raw and open, and available. It’s not easy, but I keep thinking that the fruit from such a lifestyle is so much sweeter.

We don’t need to play games with each other. Just be who you are. Period.