I’m a film fanatic. I could watch a movie everyday–actually, multiple movies in a day if I had time. Why? Because I’m an entertainment junkie? Well, sometimes. Mostly, the reason for me is that a film is the most powerful story medium ever invented. Whenever I think of my favorite stories, I realize most of them were told through movies I have seen.

I dreamed of being one of these types of storytellers when I was a boy. I wanted to be a filmmaker. Nearly twenty years later, I still do.

It’s difficult to get people’s attention these days. We live in a culture of overstimulization, busyness, and, ironically, boredom. You’ve got to be a pretty amazing storyteller to get someone to listen to you. Even Jesus had problems–which is why I don’t feel alone in my quest to be a storyteller.

I’ve realized something pretty powerful though: My life is the greatest story I could ever tell. With that in mind, I realize a story is nothing without compelling characters. Am I a compelling character? Am I one that people think of and admire (or at least laugh–sometimes life is a comedy)? That’s why our most recent series at Crash, “The Character Gap” has had a great impact on me. In fact, every series challenges me to re-evaluate my life and the story it’s telling.

So what’s your favorite movie? If you’re not a fan of the cinema (God forbid), what’s your favorite story at least?…

Now that you’ve thought about it, is your life as exciting, moving, compelling, inspiring, etc. as your favorite story? Hopefully, it is. But even if it’s not, don’t worry–your story’s not over yet! That’s right, it’s like the last Lord of the Rings movie–just because it fades to black every five minutes doesn’t mean it’s over!

One day your life will fade to black with some measure of permanancy…but even death is only part of the story for a believer in Jesus Christ. In Him, your story becomes everlasting.

So how’s your story? If the plot is convoluted or characters cliche or you simply find the main character too confusing without any sense of direction, I have an idea: consult the Author. He’s the best storyteller I know, and He’s always helping me edit my story.

As people we are constantly and beautifully poised on the brink of destruction.
I think this might be my favorite part of my humanity.
I am constantly at risk, constantly in conflict, ready at any moment to plunge head long into the abyss. But I don’t; rather, my perfect balance is found in a creator and savior who knows only love for me.

It has been said that prayer is best suited for the helpless.
If this be so then lucky am I, for if left to my own devices I would surely plunge deeply and wholly into the darkness at the bottom of the cliff. I live in a world I cannot control, in a society that spins so quickly around its own axis that losing grip seems inevitable.

But I am saved in a grace that proves the immeasurable glory of God. I am thankful, indebted almost, for my lack of safety; for out of it blooms a creativity and beauty otherwise unknown. For what can be greater than to stand on the edge looking down at all that is below, in a moment of poignant clarity, realizing what was traversed to get there? Such are the moments when art is born, such are the moments when faith is known.

“Always two there are, Master and Apprentice” –Yoda

At Crash we have a unique set of standards for recognizing talented individuals for the band. Not everyone is a professional, not everyone is necessarily the best at what they do in town, but we look at the leadership potential of everyone there and capitalize on the training, support, and innovation we can offer each other for the betterment of all involved.

So for me, Brian Musick is a stunning of example of this process. Two years ago he came to me for guitar lessons. Immediately, we had a great friendship as we love a lot of the same things, music/guitar among other things, and I could see quite from this start he would be a guitarist who, if properly trained, could eventually hold his own in the band without much guidance from me.

For Crash, September 20th, 2009, David Ellis (Worship Leader) and Daniel Ortega (Lead Guitarist) were both out of town. This meant we needed to both have me, along with Rocky, Jamie and Laura; lead out vocally for the worship service, but that also, Brian would need to fill the Lead Guitarist shoes. Everyone did fantastic!

As I reflect back on the night, I’m encouraged by the fact that everyone has been benefitting from this philosophy. Rocky, Laura, Jaime and I are making great strides as worship leaders and Brian is making great strides in his playing ability. I’m thankful that we are about bringing up leadership and not transplanting them in from other ministries.

Cheers,

Robert Payne

“Sacred and Secular”

I’ve been dwelling a lot on the sacred and the secular. So, essentially, the sacred are things (and we’ll use the Christian sense here) that are devoted to God. They are the people, places, time, energy, etc. that we devote to God and focusing on him. The secular is essentially everything else. Some of us simply refer to this gap as private and public. There is clearly a gap in my life and in the world around me, but the question I have is, should there be? I mean, should I have the right to delegate which pieces of my life God gets to be in or not? The short answer: no.

So, what’s the deal? We’ve been talking in Crash about the character gap and to me this has been wed to my contemplation of the sacred and secular. There is no sacred and secular. Everything belongs to God and this is where I struggle because I like to feel like I have control over where I can put God. And I guess to some extent I do have control; rather God lets me and that’s where the problems begin.

Today I had to clean my balcony. I’m a little OCD about my environment and I have these nasty pigeons that keep pooping on my balcony. So today, with what little time I had, I HAD to clean it. As I’m cleaning the disgusting mess I’m thinking all kinds of mean and threatening thoughts towards these annoying birds and developing schemes that I can punish them to keep them from making such a mess again. And then suddenly a thought comes to me: where is God? Surely he’s here with me while I’m cleaning up the poop from the creatures he created and surely these are not the kinds of thoughts he would want me to have. What’s more, my life lately has been a lot like my balcony. I’ve been taking the gifts and the things God has given me and I’ve been making a mess of it. I’ve been angry and resentful for so long and slowly God is cleaning the crap out of my life. It’s slow because I keep resisting letting him in with the big and small things. When I do let him in, that’s when the difference happens. Sometimes it’s good things and sometimes it’s challenging things, but I’ll take the good and the bad because I’d rather be doing what God wants me to than trying to make it on my own. It’s amazing what you’ll see God do when you’re open to it.

Looking as we have at Joseph and Daniel and Deborah, I realize, I’m nowhere near where I need to be. God uses the people and the places he puts us to define and refine us. It means I have to give up control. This is a lesson I keep learning.

(YES, we got Maxie to blog, and don’t worry there is so much more of this to come. -Scott)

“The Unintended”

Most of history is the history of the unintended. This key principle has guided my professional teaching and research by forcing me to ask the important questions about the people, events and movements of the past rather than presupposing the answers. It compels me to continually move beyond description to analysis, from “this is what happened” to “how did these many complex cultural forces and issues influence and shape this moment in history?”

This historical principle has a corollary. The corollary is that vision often can and does emerge out the convergence of several unintended consequences. Not only does life happen to us while we are making plans but vision can happen in the same way. The question is are we open to our life as it happens and willing to embrace the vision that emerges unplanned and unexpected?

We are about to launch a new website, maxieburch.net. In the normal sense of the word, I did not plan this website nor was it part of any vision I had for my life, but it does accurately reflect my heart and my vocational passion in a way I could not have imagined. I am a teacher, historian, theologian, hang out with young adults, mentor kind of guy. I love teaching history and historical theology, but I really love the fact that teaching creates a platform for me to be a part of students’ lives. Being a teacher has provided me with the privilege and joy of being a part of a community of extremely gracious, gifted and creative people.

At its core, my vision was to spend my life using teaching as a way to dialogue with the world about the things that truly mattered to me. The problem was that I had unintentionally limited that vision by deciding how big that world could be and what it would look like. For me that world was located within the institutional structure of a college, university or seminary where I felt confident, secure and prepared to make a vital contribution to the mission of Christian higher education. Good news, I got what I wanted. Bad news, I lost it all in a matter of hours one day. So what? God turned the death of my limited vision into an unintended opportunity for an expanded vision. This website will allow me to serve and connect with an ever growing community of gracious, gifted and creative people in a classroom with no walls. This website will allow me to do what my limited plans would have prevented, to dialogue with a larger world by creating opportunities for history and theology to become a resource for conversation and a catalyst for change.

Sometimes our plans and our world are not big enough to accommodate God’s vision for our lives. Most of history is the history of the unintended. God uses the unintended as the raw material for crafting vision.

Last night, we wrapped up our first series of Fall 2009, entitled, The Character Gap.

I spoke from 1 Kings 11 and 12 about King Rehoboam and the powerful decision he made to listen to his peers over the advisors of his father, Solomon – a decision whose effects are still being felt today.

You can check out the podcast here starting tomorrow or just subscribe to it in the iTunes store by searching for “Crash at North Phoenix.”

Some soundbites…

-There are many of us who know that feeling – waking up with a “deep sadness”, knowing that we are not living the life we were created to live.
-”So do you want to get in shape or do you just like talking about it?” (from one of my favorite stories while Dani and I were dating
-“We externalize everything. It is so much easier to deal with the external world, to spend our time manipulating material, institutions, and people, instead of dealing with our own souls…it (the outer world) is a cakewalk compared the labyrinth of our inner lives.” -Parker Palmer
Big Idea: The voice I listen to shape my character and influence the trajectory of our lives.
-You can’t not listen to those voices. You can choose to not put stock in them or take them seriously. But you do hear them.
-Your decisions do affect the lives of other people. It may be two people…or it may be two hundred people.
-In our age of conspicuous consumerism, it has now become hip to be “changing the world.” But so many of us ignore the change that needs to happen within us as well.
-Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone wants to change the world, but no one wants to change himself.”
-”What do you do when you realize that you are the most powerful person in the room? You use/leverage your influence for those have none.” -Andy Stanley, opening talk at Catalyst 2007

Join us next week as we begin our new series, The Elephants Among Us: Mending the Gaps Between Us.

Today we begin a new feature here on the blog. Thursday video blogs.
The first in this series is regarding humility and arrogance.
-Savage