Failure. Now there’s a word for this blog lately. Nothing except links since 5th December. There are reasons, but best not mentioned publicly. Even my pre-Christmas sermons are not here. In some cases, I wrote one and changed to an old one on the spur of the moment.
Anyhow, by way of dipping my toe gently back in the water, a couple at church gave us a beautiful book for Christmas. Lion And Lamb: The Relentless Tenderness Of Jesus by Brennan Manning. I’ve been savouring chapter 4, ‘The Affluent Poor’. It’s the chapter that contains the words
we were created from the clay of the earth and the kiss of God’s mouth (p 55)
But it’s a passage three pages later that has stayed with me. Here goes:
Children have no past. They abandon themselves to the reality of the present moment. The one who is childlike is not surprised that he often stumbles. He picks himself up again without discouragement, each time more determined to get where he’s going.
I saw that in action last week. As compensation for not having a summer holiday this year due to our August move, we took them to Lapland UK. Part of the experience was half an hour’s ice skating. I say ice skating, the surface was synthetic in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the event. Rebekah has ice skated once or twice before, with older friends. Mark – this was his first time. Usually he displays my cautious traits, but he went on the ice without hesitation. Five times he fell down. Five times he got up and continued, sometimes with the help of his sister.
They say that failure is not falling, failure is only when we do not get back up after falling. Brennan Manning is someone who knows about that. Despite his faith, he ended up an alcoholic. But God lifted him up and gave him a wonderful appreciation of grace and ‘the fierce love’ of Jesus.
In the summer of 2009, I felt like not getting up again. I was close to quitting the ministry, or at least coming out of it for a few years. I couldn’t say anything about it here on the blog, and I still wouldn’t go public about the causes. I’ll only say that moral failure wasn’t involved – just to prove that at heart I’m probably a Pharisee. It was other people, notably my Chair of District, who helped me to my feet again, and enabled me to find a more fruitful place.
Thank God for the people he uses to lift us up when we fall.
What was the first gig you ever attended? Mine was in 1976 at the Picketts Lock Centre in my native Edmonton. I was a brand new sixteen-year-old Christian, and the local churches were about to hold a mission with the evangelist Don Summers. In the run-up to the crusade, a concert was staged by a mainly American Christian band called Liberation Suite. Originally from Texas, they for a period of time lived out their faith in Troubles-torn Belfast. None of the money-and-luxury-grabbing lifestyle seen latter on the Contemporary Christian Music scene in some quarters for them. Here is later footage (1991) of them performing a medley of Irish Jig and Emerald Isle, their song about their heart for the people suffering in the Troubles:
They had another Irish connection. They had recruited Stephen Houston on keyboards, a Christian convert who had been playing in Irish prog-rock band Fruupp. Because of that, I had expected their music to be quite proggy. It turned out more like Chicago – not the sappy, sentimental Chicago post-If You Leave Me Now, but the brassy, earlier version.
The band had been recommended by a church youth club friend who had recently gone off to study at Surrey University in Guildford (only a few miles from where I am now). He had seen them perform there. In particular, Dave Goodwin raved about a song called Run Run Lucifer, and it became my favourite song by the band, too. Again, here’s a YouTube clip of the band performing that song (again, later – this is 1990):
Why write about this now? A few months ago, I discovered that LibSuite, as they were often known, had issued a Live In Europe CD that commemorated a gig they had played in 1976, the year I had seen them play. I ordered it from the only available source, CDBaby. However, after several weeks, they emailed me to say they could not supply it. I decided to contact the band via their website, to see whether there was any other way of obtaining it. To my great joy, drummer Randy Hill sent me a copy, and it arrived yesterday.
I’m not suggesting every LibSuite fan contacts Randy! But it was a lovely sign of a band that has always had a good heart.
Solomon Burke, the ‘king of rock and soul’, has died. The preacher who took seriously the command to go forth and multiply (he had 21 children and 90 grandchildren) died in Holland today.
Many others are posting videos of his famous songs ‘Everybody needs somebody to love’ (as covered in The Blues Brothers) or ‘Cry to me’. But here is the title track of his 2003 ‘comeback’ and award-winning CD ‘Don’t give up on me’. Note the ‘preacher’ style introduction to the song.
Interesting piece by Andrew Marr in the BBC Magazine: A New Journalism On The Horizon. If digital means the end of cinemas and bookshops as well as record shops, along with the catastrophe facing the newspaper industry, what shape will the future take?
Marr being a journalist with a history in newspapers (he edited The Independent in the 1990s), he has an interesting slant on Rupert Murdoch’s paywall approach. If traffic to The Times sites has fallen by 90% since its introduction, is it viable? But is free content viable, either? Marr suggests an alternative way. Just pay for the content you’re interested in, not the whole lot. Effectively, you don’t pay for the whole newspaper, given that you might want the sport section but not the showbiz coverage.
If he is right, then while this might be the economic solution (cheap enough, but still creates revenue), is it not a further sign of digitalisation being the ally of consumerist individualism? The advent of personal MP3 players has made it harder to share an excitement about a new musical discovery than before. It is still possible, but it is slower and less easy to do so. Will this be the same with journalism?
Is Marr right? What do you think? Pete Phillips, if you’re reading, does CODEC have any thoughts on this?
I never thought I’d be using Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, as an illustration of the difference between talents and character, between the gifts and fruit of the Spirit. But the graduation speech at Princeton University shown above is certainly an example. He might seem a surprising choice, given this recent article about Amazon’s ruthless business methods and this one about the effect of their low download prices on musicians, though. Surely the difficult decisions that individuals have to make in favour of kindness need also to be made corporately.
Yet sin will always be a problem. This is where it becomes more than an issue of choice: it is about needing to co-operate with the renewing power of the Holy Spirit in all areas of life. And that is not an instant thing. It is acquired with practice, as Tom Wright argues in Virtue Reborn. Bit by bit, we train ourselves to behave and react differently, until holiness becomes more of a habit. It takes time to acquire Christlike habits. Perhaps that is why Paul refers to ‘the fruit of the Spirit’: fruit doesn’t just appear, it takes time to grow.
Bezos’ speech above is only short and cannot cover all bases in twelve minutes. A longer exposition might explore a relationship between gifts and character, such as using gifts with character. It might also take on the thought that although gifts are given, we still need to work on crafting them. But whatever the failings of Amazon as a company, his call at the end of his speech to students to make a difference in the world with kindness is a welcome one. It might not be what we expected from a billionaire entrepreneur, but it is a breath of fresh air.
As my regular reader knows, my family and I are about to leave this appointment and move to a new one. It’s that time of year for Methodists in the UK: we play Musical Manses. Hopefully, when the music stops, there’s a manse for us. (That’s facetious: the Church covenants to ensure that, when we covenant to leave our old lives behind to follow the ministerial call.)
From the minister’s perspective, it’s a mixed and emotionally strenuous time. You may have grown to love the area, as my family and I have done with Chelmsford, or you may have felt like a fish out of water. You may have developed a special bond with the churches you have served, or you may have been a square peg in a round hole. As you move, you hope and pray your spouse and children will settle in the new town, new house, new school and perhaps the new job. If they settle, you will.
From the congregation’s perspective, if the relationship with the minister has been good, then this season is like a mini-bereavement. The lack of an ‘interregnum’ in British Methodism inhibits the grieving process. If the relationship has not been good, then people need to guard their hearts, and also watch that they do not load too many excessive expectations on the new minister.
So for everyone going through that time at present, here are two songs. Firstly, for those who are sad to leave, here is Jimmy Ruffin and ‘Farewell is a lonely sound’:
Here’s some music for a Monday morning. Ardent Methodists will be surprised to see famed nineteenth century Cornish revival preacher Billy Bray get coverage in the world of contemporary music, but he has. The Devon folk singer Seth Lakeman, who has the ear of the rock fraternity, has recorded a song called ‘Preacher’s Ghost’ about Bray on his recent release ‘Hearts and Minds’. Lakeman explains in an interview how it was inspired by his grandfather, a Methodist preacher, handing him a book called ‘King’s Own Song’.
I’ve tried quick web searches for the lyrics without success, to see what Lakeman’s take on Bray’s story is. Instead, I’ll just have to post below one of the numerous cameraphone videos of Lakeman performing the song live that you can find on YouTube.
In the public interest, an MP3 search shows that play.com has this cheapest in the UK at 67p, should you like the track, although it won’t be released until next Monday.
When I was a young Christian, I wanted contemporary Christian music covered on Radio 1. When they covered the Greenbelt Festival, I was delighted. I wanted them to play Christian music, but I was embarrassed at the infamous attempt by Christians to get the band Heartbeat into the charts with their song ‘Tears From Heaven’. It was when well-known evangelical-charismatic preachers started saying it was the right thing to do that it was obvious something was wrong. It wasn’t their area of expertise, and one of the campaigners, Colin Urquhart, had one of his offspring in the band. I still wanted Christian music on ‘secular’ radio, but never understood just how much the BBC had to chase the coat tails of the commercial stations. Nor did I understand the irony of getting what was or should have been a counter-cultural message to have a mainline hearing.
Skip to my mid-thirties. I’m in my first appointment as a minister in the town of Hertford. A bunch of us are running youth worship events in the town, in church halls, a disused shop and eventually in the local night club, Zero. We call our event ‘One@Zero’. Some of our number have been going down to Littlehampton in Sussex to witness a youth worship event called ‘Cutting Edge’, led by what was called the Cutting Edge Band. That band morphed into Delirious? The teenagers at our event and we leaders followed them with interest and enthusiasm. When they started releasing singles in order to get into the charts, we all went and bought them. In fact, Hertford’s local independent record/CD shop, Tracks, used to supply a weekly Top 10 sales chart to the local newspaper. So we piled in there to buy them in the week of release. When ‘Deeper’
was released and made number 20 nationally, it was number one in the Hertford chart.
As they released more singles, we bought them. They had a few more to make the lower end of the Top 20, roughly comparable with other cult bands of the time. Nevertheless, the influential Chris Evans infamously refused to book them for his hit TV show TFI Friday, and Radio 1 still shunned them – something Q Magazine covered sympathetically at the time. It got to the point that the band called one of their albums ‘Audio Lessonover‘, an anagram of ‘Radio One Loves Us’. The singles eventually stopped, and they concentrated on their huge influence on the contemporary worship movement with evangelical-charismatic Christianity and beyond. I guess Christians shouldn’t have been surprised the band didn’t become the hoped-for darlings of the Smash Hits crowd. But you live and learn.
Because it’s happening again. Only in a different way, powered by social media. The principles of Clay Shirky‘s ‘Here Comes Everybody‘ are being applied by Christians. Facebook groups have sprung up, not orchestrated by Delirious? (who recently split up, anyway), but by fans. The first one I saw was called ‘Anyone up for getting a No. 1 for Delirious?‘ The founder, Steve Jeffery, describes his motives this way:
So some dude managed to get Rage Against The Machine to No.1 for Christmas. Is anyone out there up for doing the same thing for Delirious? If you are then join this group. You need to download the track between the 29th Mar & 3rd April, the track will be History Maker, will all need to buy it from iTunes (or other download outlet) in the same week.
Please only join if you are actually going to commit to spend 75p on iTunes to make this happen. Spread the word and join now! I think it would be a great gift from us fans back to the band if we can make this happen!
You can see the social media connections. This is a people movement, like those who couldn’t face another saccharine X-Factor winner having the Christmas number one, and who successfully gave Simon Cowell a bloody nose by supporting a Rage Against The Machine track.
The second group – with, at present, more followers – is called ‘Christian music topping the UK charts!‘ This too is motivated by the people power of social media, as they make clear:
Although this initiative has not derived from the band I have been in touch with their record company (Furious Records) and they are more than happy for this initiative to take place and are excited to see how it unfolds!
Those two campaigns are specific, and apparently time-limited to getting people downloading the track ‘History Maker’
during Holy Week, so that Delirious? get the number one slot on Easter Day (which may not be commercially significant in the music industry, but obviously is for Christians).
Christian music seems to be lacking from todays chart – yet there is some cracking stuff out there. We intend to try and push for at least one christian artist in the UK Top 40 every week for the next year. We’re not bothered about number one’s.
We want to inspire debate. To have DJ’s questioning why they are playing christian music. For people to talk to each other about their beliefs. To see churches swell with people who are curious. To say that we have a voice and that we are being marginalised. This could be an icebreaker to openly talk about your faith with someone else.
Approximately 5000 people buying the same track in a week will secure us a top 40 hit. Please help to spread the message of Jesus.
What can I do?
1. Press the “Become a Fan” button up top there.
2. Tell all of your Christian friends. (Click “Suggest to friends” to the left)
3. Post your ideas and suggestions in the forum (click the “Discussions” tab)
4. Support the single of the week
These are interesting reasons. Despite my background in remembering past failed campaigns, I don’t want to say anything cynical, especially since some of these campaigns are attracting young Christians and I don’t want to be negative in a way that damages their faith, or alternatively so puts their backs up they become obstinate. Instead, I would invite discussion around a number of themes.
Firstly, how are we going to engage in the proposed debate? It is a laudable approach, though – better the conversational approach in an Internet campaign, I think. Therefore the debate needs to be peaceable, not confrontational.
Secondly, let’s tease out the concern about Christians having a voice and the fear of being marginalised. That is an ongoing worry for many Christians, and is being heightened by the looming General Election in the UK. Will we be listened to? We have a right to be heard as members of a democracy. What we don’t have is any right to special status. Indeed, Jesus warned that only a few would take the ‘narrow way’, and the biblical images of exiles, of strangers in a strange land, are uncomfortable ones that we may have to embrace (without that in any way meaning that we should be silent). If the campaign becomes one about Christian rights, I think we can be sure there is a real sense in which we will not gain a hearing, because we will alienate people – just the opposite of what is desired.
Thirdly, if this is to be an icebreaker, let’s make sure our conversation is ‘seasoned with salt’.
Fourthly, let’s think about what constitutes good Christian witness. It won’t simply be Christian music in the charts – and especially at a time when the charts are less and less important. It will be about the kind of people we are. We still – even more – need to earn the right to be heard. We all need to be ‘history makers’ by our loving involvement in the world, so that people care about what we say and sing about.
(For the next several days, I’m not going to be able to post any new topical material, nor shall I be able to interact with your comments. However, I am going to repost some old pieces that once appeared on my now defunct website at http://www.davefaulkner.co.uk. I hope you enjoy them.)
The curate from the Victor Meldrew School of Theology had turned down this funeral. Which was a good job. She never should have been asked. The daughter of the deceased was an occasional worshipper at one of the churches I served.
Like many people at the time, she wanted Celine Dion’s love theme from the film ‘Titanic’, ‘My heart will go on’, to be played at the service. It’s the sort of music that brings me out in a rash, but hey, it was her wish.
We were ready to begin. The congregation was seated in the crematorium chapel. I was outside with the pallbearers from the undertaker’s. I gave the nod to the crem attendant. He pressed ‘play’. Well, it was Celine Dion, it was ‘My heart will go on’ … but it was the dance remix.
As a thumping drumbeat massacred the gloopy song, one of the pallbearers turned to me and said, “So are we meant to take the coffin in at this pace?”
“No,” said one of his colleagues, “it isn’t a drum, it’s the deceased knocking on the coffin, trying to get out!”
It became one of the challenges of my ministry to maintain dignity and not burst into hysterics during the funeral.
The next day, the daughter phoned me to thank me for the service. I thought it prudent to ask her about the music.
“Did you notice the music at the beginning of the service?”
“No.”
“You didn’t notice that it was the dance version of ‘My heart will go on’?”
“No.”
“Only I just thought I should ask, in case any of your relatives were upset.”
“Nah – anyway, my mum was a bit of a goer, and she’d have loved it!”
Embarrassing moment over, I breathed a sigh of relief when I put down the phone.
Now I’ve seen a funeral or two in my time. I’ve made friends with the crem attendants. One says, “Don’t wear trousers with turn-ups, or you’ll bring your work home with you.”
I’ve seen inconsolable grief at the crem, and I can understand that. Without the hope I gain from the Resurrection of Jesus, I can see why Paul in the Bible said that people “grieve without hope”.
I’ve also seen overbearing, unnatural joy. I don’t mean the way Christians (with the hope of the Resurrection) can look forward, I mean a kind of forced joy that psychologically is a denial of bereavement’s true pain. Most grief is nothing to be guilty about, whatever our feelings tell us. It’s an expression of our love for the deceased, love we can no longer give them, because they are not with us.
Maybe then my offering is to say that the healthy thing – the Jesus thing – is the gift of grieving with hope.
A plague on the X-Factor, with its manufactured music and manufactured hype to get the Christmas Number One. (Not that any of these things are new.) So a campaign to usurp it, like the previous one to get Jeff Buckley‘s version of Leonard Cohen‘s ‘Hallelujah‘
up the charts, rather than Alexandra Burke‘s, is something I would welcome.
But more positively, it set me thinking about what would be on my personal Christmas playlist.
Sufjan Stevens‘ 5-EP collection ‘Songs For Christmas‘ contains so many gems. How about his version of ‘Come, thou fount of every blessing’?
For fun, you have to have Dylan. Yes, really: the old goat is laugh-a-minute. The recent ‘Must be Santa’ has to be in there:
Bruce Cockburn‘s ‘Christmas‘ CD from the 1990s was pretty stunning. ‘Joy to the world’ is but one of the gems – unfortunately, I don’t seem to be able to add the video into WordPress either directly or indirectly, so click here or possibly here to see it. Anyway, you won’t be surprised to find Cockburn in this list, since this blog’s name is inspired by him!
Back to the daft, and I have an irrational affection for ‘I Want An Alien For Christmas’ by the Fountains Of Wayne:
And for real Christmas kitsch, there’s nothing like a pseudo-Phil Spector sound, so over to Bruce Springsteen for ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’:
Or for the real thing, Darlene Love and ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’:
I mean, you just don’t need Mariah Carey, do you?
Of the mainstream big Christmas hits, there’s something I like about the guitar sound on Chris Rea‘s ‘Driving Home For Christmas’:
But where’s the Christian stuff? Randy Stonehill has written a couple. I can’t find a video online of ‘Christmas Song For All Year Round’, but someone has put pictures to the poignant ‘Christmas At Denny’s’:
For Christian cynicism about the commercial season, I can’t trace a video by Larry Norman himself of his song ‘Christmastime’, but here is Stonehill’s version, complete with the immortal lines
Christmastime is coming and the kids are getting greedy
They know it’s in the store because they’ve seen it on the TV
Well, that’s just some random stuff from me. What do you love at this time of year? What can’t you stand?
Big Circumstance 