Daddy and Jamie Being Silly #1

Give An Idiot A Webcam And Watch The Fun

Currently So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore By Wayne Jacobsen, Dave Coleman see related

Life really can throw you for loop, can’t it? There are times when I sit down and look at where my life is and I wonder how I got here. I wonder who I am. I wonder why I am in the situation that I am in. Part of me suspects that there is some serious divine discipline at work. The Bible talks about being refined and purified through fire so I can accept my life for what it is right now. I just wonder how long the refining part lasts. Will I ever be ready for whatever it is that God has planned for me? Is there a certain level I have to reach before doors start to open again? There is a small voice in my head that whispers to me at night and it tells me that I’ve screwed up so badly that I will never get another chance. Sometimes I believe it.

I’m sitting here in the two bedroom mobile home that my father rents. We (my wife and three children) live here with him while we wait to see what is in store for us. I have resumes at least six different churches and one small Christian school but I am seriously starting to wonder if any of these leads will pan out. I have contacted at least fifteen other churches since February of this year and nothing has come up. I have applied for a few non-ministry jobs as well but they have all been dead ends as well. People at church and people I know from Bible college constantly tell me that they know God has something big planned for me and I should be patient. It’s easier said than done, but I am honestly trying.

Perhaps I am a high risk. I am 39 years old with a wife and three children. I have a college degree but very little “professional” experience in the ministry. I believe that many churches feel I am too old to be a youth minister and not experienced enough to be the senior minister. I would think that my life experiences and my years of volunteer church ministry experience would count for something, but apparently they don’t. I am coming off of three ministries that have ended prematurely. One of them ended because I just did not feel a connection with the people at the church and to be honest, I am not sorry that it ended. The next one ended when a vote to hire me took a turn south. I have some deep feelings about that one but I try to leave it in the past. Truthfully, that experience has somewhat soured me on the preaching ministry, even though I think that’s what I’ve been called to do. My last ministry ended when I decided that I could not work with the organization that was funding it. I loved what I was doing and I loved the people I was living with, I just could not deal with the people calling the shots. I chalk that one up to a lot of miscommunication, on both sides. I do believe leaving it was the right thing to do though, so I don’t regret it.

Where does that leave me? Well, right now I’m sitting in this trailer (sorry…mobile home) listening to Underoath and wondering whatever happened to my music career. That is supposed to be a joke. I did briefly flirt with the idea of giving music a shot but I decided that a wife and kids sounded much better. I don’t regret that one either. I have a lot of fun when I’m playing music and I do enjoy writing songs, but I just don’t have the drive it takes to be a professional musician. I never have had it and I never will.

I picked this Underoath CD up at the Salvation Army thrift store in Tarboro last week. I paid $1.99 for it. The crazy thing is that I almost paid $7.99 for it on iTunes about a week ago. If I hadn’t been saving my iTunes’ credits for the new Stryper album I would have bought it last week. Some of the kids at camp turned me on to them a few weeks ago. This album is called Lost In The Sound Of Separation and I really dig it. I consider it to be metal but I know that people like to debate and argue over labels. I don’t care what people label it, I know that I like it and I’m really impressed by the openly Christian lyrics. I also picked up another $1.99 CD. It’s called Vices and it’s from a band called Dead Poetic. It’s not quite as heavy as the Underoath but I’d still probably call it metal. I’m sure that kids call it something completely different. After all, I call the new Stryper metal too and it sounds NOTHING like either of these bands. I’m not griping though, my generation did the exact same thing when we were kids. I remember arguing that Led Zeppelin was not heavy metal no matter how many critics and historians said they invented it. Black Sabbath however, was a totally different story. I guess I’m rambling.

If I were going to attempt to play music outside of church I would want it to sound kind of like this Dead Poetic CD. It’s heavy (but not too heavy) and it’s accessible (but not too accessible). At times it reminds me of Linkin Park without the hip-hop/rap influences. It’s catchy but not as poppy as something like Daughtery. I guess it still has some street-cred since it’s on Tooth & Nail Records. Chino from The Deftones co-produces a couple of tracks too. I have seen the name in magazines but had never bothered to check them out. I figured that $1.99 was a safe price to pay. If it had really sucked I could re-donate it without losing much. I guess that I lucked up. There was another CD by a band called The Dizmas that I almost bought but I didn’t want to be greedy. I might go back and get that one later.

Let me go back to the new Stryper album. I actually bought it on CD after downloading the majority of it from iTunes. I typically wouldn’t do that but Stryper is one of my favorite bands ever and I would really like to see this album do well and help them out. It’s called Murder By Pride and it is the best thing they have done since To Hell With The Devil. It’s not a total retro sounding album but it does have the things that most Stryper fans want to hear. There are lots of twin guitar solos, lots of multi-layered backing vocals and some really nice ear-piercing screams. There are a couple of songs that could have been on older albums and there are a couple that sound very current. The cool thing is that the album sounds modern but maintains the trademark Stryper sound. I’ve only a heard a couple of fans (on message boards) complain that it just doesn’t sound like Stryper. Compared to their last album (Reborn) it is a return to form, but I can see how some might not like it. They could go and re-record Soldiers Under Command note-for-note and some people would still complain. You can’t please everybody.

Let me stop for a moment to say that I like Underoath better than Dead Poetic. In think they’re both pretty good but Underoath is a bit edgier and more original. I’m sure that there are other bands out there that sound just like Underoath but I’ve never really heard them. Dead Poetic almost reminds me of Mae and Further Seems Forever and several other bands whose names escape me right now. They’re good but nothing earth-shattering. Underoath really grabbed my attention. I will now have to explore the rest of their albums and perhaps some other bands that are similar in style.