Posts Tagged 'Music'

Church History in Four Minutes & Quaker Dance Party

It isn’t perfect, but it’s fun: This church produced the video below; the story is told here and here. HT: Liturgy NZ

And I discovered video below via Martin Kelley‘s Convergent Friends Ning network (Ning networks are awesome!); Jon Watts is a spoken word artist and multipreneur; his music reminds me of Eminem or maybe Aesop Rock, except that he’s a Quaker rapping about the Inner Light illuminating the world’s darkness. He’s also created a wicked-cool George Fox Friend Speaks My Mind t-shirt that could totally go head-to-head with the John Calvin Is My Homeboy shirt – if only he’d make it in sizes that men with more girth could wear. Anyway, this video is fun; many Christians will balk at its chorus line, but I think it’s great for continuing discussion about the tension Dallas Willard names in The Divine Conspiracy between traditional and progressive Christians, the former of whom worship Jesus for what he does, the latter of whom follow him for the example he sets. Taken as a koan, imagine this song as singing one half of this ‘battle rap’ and live into the tension. 🙂

Diana Butler Bass: Looking Into Christianity from a People’s Perspective

In case you missed this –Diana Butler Bass discusses her significant new release A People’s History of Christianity with Spencer Burke!

Get the HD quality video & show notes here.

PS: Do you Twitter? Let’s follow each other! I’m @zoecarnate

DJ Hapa – Preaching Remixed

Get the HD quality video & show notes here.

PS: Do you Twitter? Let’s follow each other! I’m @zoecarnate

The Mystery of Music – Don Chaffer

Have you heard the new Waterdeep album yet? It’s a-mazing.

Get the full-length HD quality video & show notes here.

PS: Do you Twitter? Let’s follow each other! I’m @zoecarnate

Derek Webb: What Matters More?

So here’s the uber-controversial (for contemporary Christian music anyway) new single from Derek Webb:

Here’s the explosive first stanza:

You say you always treat people like you like to be
I guess you love being hated for your sexuality
You love when people put words in your mouth
‘Bout what you believe, make you sound like a freak

What do you think?

Here’s some elsewhere on it, from Brian McLaren, Gospel Soundcheck, Michael Spencer, and Post-Restoration Perspectives, Denny Burk as well as a decidedly different take at Dustin Segers’s blog.

Here’s a trailer for the whole album, Stockholm Syndrome:

God Is Not A White Man

…I don’t know if you’ve heard this one or not; a gem from the Michael Gungor Band.

HT: Me pal Seth Irby

Unleashing Creativity – A Podcast with Teel Montague

PosterDo you get the Oozeletter? If not, you really should. Each month, you get a fresh serving of all that is Ooze-y around the globe.

This month, TheOOZE features a podcast interview of Teel Montague conducted by yours truly and Brittian Bullock. Here’s what Brittian has to say after our time with Teel:

Creativity, artistry, imagination, experiment have been powerful metaphors in my life lately. While I’ve always been one of those people who have been encouraged to pursue my passions by my family or others around me, I’ve also gone through phases in my life where my environment squelched all practical expression of creativity. I think of the 6 years I worked at UPS, crunching numbers, sifting through the mindless mundane, hearing corporate mantras. It’s not so surprising that those were the least experimental and most fundamentalist years of my life. In my present primary work at a local college, I’m surrounded by people who encourage expanding horizons and exploring new opportunities. I’m hardly surprised that a more generative season of life has set in.

Still, as one reader recently commented on my Church as Art, Community, and Transformation article, there are always those rare folks who can weather incredibly repressive external situations that should squelch creativity, but end up simply unleashing it. Those are the people who I admire at the end of the day.

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Mike Morrell and I had the opportunity to interview just such a hero recently for TheOOZE community — her name is Teel Montagque. Teel is an image creator (painter/drawer), musician, designer and inventor. She extends her craft to children that have emotional and behavioral disorders, and she’s a single mother of teenagers.

As she describes on the podcast, she’s gone through a divorce, ending a long-term marriage. She’s a business owner, trying to ride out a plummeting economy. Needless to say, she’s facing some incredibly stifling life circumstances. But somehow…somehow…it’s producing a deep sense of creativity and renewal. She’d never recorded an album before, but felt it was time. She took a collection of songs that had been rumbling around for decades, added some new ones that had emerged in the recent turmoil, and opened up her heart. She also invented a sleek protective skin for iPods called the Eye Ghost…she designed it, created some crazy space age material for it, and put it on the market. It’s doing very well in Atlanta, and now other markets. This is incredible to me!

So please – join Mike and I in conversation with this remarkable woman, and let your own creativity be stirred. It’s never too late to allow Spirit to channel something new in you. The only time we have is now.

DOWNLOAD THE PODCAST BY CLICKING HERE

ROM Upper-Body Workout – Homebrewed Christianity Edition!

So while I’m working through my legal options with playing music in the background of my ROM workout videos, some friends have come to my aid. Up this week is Tripp Fuller from Homebrewed Christianity, who recorded an awesome custom version of Bill Mallonee’s “Nothing Like a Train” just for your viewing pleasure! And if you want to hear Tripp’s MP3-quality rendition (without all the sweat and gears), check it out  right here.

Now, for the workout itself: Every day I do the ROM, it’s getting better and harder. Better, because (with the help of amazing ROM phone coaches like Tom, Britt & Angela) my form is getting better. Harder, because the more effort you put into the workout (enabled through better form), the more the centrifugal flywheel works you. The result is deeper breathing and stronger metabolism for the rest of the day – which is, I’m finding, how the ROM works.

Falling Forward – Sensual Jesus

Get it while it’s hot – you can say you heard it when

by Brittian Bullock

A Merry Sufjan Christmas, 2008

No, this isn’t new, alas – but a goodie.

Meantime, those wanting to get their 2008 Sufjan-esque fix should check out the Stevens-produced Welcome to the Welcome Wagon, a collection of “hymns, spirituals and ramshackle originals.” (As my friend Todd Fadel puts it) Find out more about the Welcome Wagon at Love Is Concrete.

PS: Song leader types, Todd can get you chord charts from this album for group singing!)


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  • Friend of Emergent Village

    My Writings: Varied and Sundry Pieces Online

    Illumination and Darkness: An Anne Rice Feature from Burnside Writer's Collective
    Shadows & Light: An Anne Rice Interview in MP3 format from Relevant Magazine
    God's Ultimate Passion: A Trinity of Frank Viola interview on Next Wave: Part I, Part II, Part III
    Review: Furious Pursuit by Tim King, from The Ooze
    Church Planting Chat from Next-Wave
    Review: Untold Story of the New Testament Church by Frank Viola, from Next-Wave

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