Christian Musicians Summit

I’ll be heading to the Christian Musicians Summit at Overlake Christian Church in Redmond, Washington, on November 13-14.  CMS is a two-day conference for lead worshipers, musicians, technicians, pastors, songwriters, and indie artists to improve their skill and inspire their talent.

I will be speaking at two workshops, which will be presented on the Saturday of the event.  Synopses of these workshops are below.  For more information and to view a promotional video, slam it here.

Art and Faith

Ask any worship leader, ‘what is your theology of worship?’ and you can probably discuss it for hours. But ask him or her, ‘What is your theology of the arts?’ and you might get a blank stare.  Manuel Luz practically discusses the crucial necessity of understanding the convergence of art and faith, the nature of creativity, and the relationship between the artist (musician, painter, dancer, actor, etc.) and God.

Art and the Church

More and more churches are using the arts (music, drama, visual arts, film, etc.) in cutting-edge ways. But are your churches grounded in a biblical understanding of the arts? In this workshop, Manuel Luz gives a fresh and practical perspective on how the church can disciple and unleash the artists in your church, to express themselves more fully in and outside your church walls.

Made in His Image.

Our oldest son is turning 21 years old today.  And in honor of this very auspicious day, I am reprinting a chapter to a book I wrote a number of years ago.  Hope you enjoy it.

“Hee.  Hee.  Hee.  Hoo.  Hoo.  Hoo.”  That was the sound my wife was making.  My grown wife.  She lay on the floor, rubbing her belly with her fingertips, leaning back against me like I was her own personal bean bag.  Intent and composed, she continued her mantra. “Hee.  Hee.  Hee.”

I took a look around the room.  There were half a dozen other young adult couples making panting sounds around me—all future mommies and daddies—concentrating so diligently on a task that would ordinarily be as easy as, say, breathing.  “Hoo.  Hoo.  Hoo.”

My thoughts flashed for a moment to my work at the office.  To a song I was writing.  To the football game last weekend.  To the honey-do list my wife had made me.  Paint the nursery. Assemble the crib.  Figure out how to afford all of this.

But this was our second child.  We already had a fourteen month old son who had just begun to walk.  Eric was baby-cute yet boy-handsome.  Small yet feisty.  There was a fire in his eyes and a zest for life in his no-held-back laugh.  Nothing like when he was first born.  When he was born, he was small and fragile and desperately holding on to life.  He had arrived unexpectedly, ten weeks early and only three pounds, six ounces.  My thoughts flashed back to those weeks and months visiting him at the University of California Davis Medical Center, watching and caressing him through armholes in his incubator, the small rectangular transparent box that was his universe, praying for God to do a miracle in his life.  The thought compelled me to say still another quick prayer to God that he would help this baby in Debbie’s womb reach full term.

Fourteen months ago.  I remembered getting the call at work.  Debbie was crying.  Her water had broken and she was being rushed by ambulance to the hospital.  I remember it was one of those busy, hectic work days, but there was nothing in my whole world except her and the baby.  I remember taking a shortcut through a back door in a conference room to get to my car in the parking lot, and jumping over a chair at the conference table before slamming the door behind me.  And as I raced out into the parking lot, it occurred to me that I had just run straight through the middle of a meeting.  A dozen people were sitting around the table I had just jumped over.

I remember being in the car, praying and speeding.  Praying to God that everything would be okay.  Speeding because I felt that it wouldn’t.  And as I arrived at the hospital, I was told that they were already preparing Debbie for surgery.

Then there was the wait.  The long wait.  I think hospitals are filled with two types of people: sick people and people who wait.  I counted the tiles.  I paced the aisles.  I looked at a nine year old copy of Golf Digest.  And then the word to go up to natal ICU.  Debbie was still asleep, recovering from surgery, but I was allowed to see the baby.  I was told to scrub down like the doctors on TV, and put on a green paper gown and a white mask that felt uncomfortable around my ears.  Then I was ushered into the baby ward.  It was a sight I was not expecting.  Pitifully tiny one and two and three pound babies lay in little Plexiglas incubators, circled around the room like wagons in a wagon train.  Wires and tubes and electronic gauges ran everywhere.  Bright lights through shadows on the shiny tile floor.  I looked around the room, expecting the worst.

And then I saw him.  The most beautiful sight I had ever seen.  He was so small, so delicate, so perfectly formed. Ten little fingers and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten little toes.  Little fingernails the size of a lower case o.  A little nose that perfectly fit his little face.  His tiny chest rose and fell, rose and fell, filling with life-giving oxygen, seemingly uncomfortable at the new sensation.  Then suddenly, a little, faint cry that called…right at me.

And it was in that moment that I knew.  I knew the joy that God must have, to be able to create something so complex, so wonderful, so awe-inspiring, as a tiny little baby.  Made of flesh and blood.  Made of hopes and dreams.  Made in the very image of God Himself.

It was a holy moment.  Me and the baby and God.  And the choir of angels I could almost hear singing.  And in that holy moment, I felt the reality of the Spirit of God.  I praised Him.  I thanked Him.  I worshiped Him.  It was like the spiritual world was somehow more real to me in that moment than at almost any other time in my life.  Like a window had been suddenly opened and I could feel the breeze of eternity on me.

Little Eric lay asleep, exhausted from his fight for life.  An intravenous tube protruding from the top of his head.  Wires attached to every part of his body.  An electronic sensor taped to his tummy to regulate his body temperature.  And the image of God imprinted upon every part of him.  I loved him instantly.  I simply could not help it.  There was nothing he did to earn that love.  There was nothing he needed to do, except be that which he already was—my son.  My love for him ran freely, effortlessly, like water flowing downstream.

I realized something that day in a very deep and unexpected way.  I realized that God loves us in that way.  Not that we could do anything to deserve His love. Nor do we have to earn it.  He gives His love freely simply because we are His children.  Perfect love flowing freely to those who belong to Him.  Perfect love flowing downstream.

We were made in His image.  Formed with a love that is unconditional.  Given the ability to choose and decide the trajectories of our own lives.  And then God waits.  Waits for us to choose Him.

I don’t know why He did it that way.  He could have made us obedient beings, programmed to obey him, programmed to love Him.  Like robots incapable of sin, incapable of choice, incapable of voluntary love.  Or he could have made us like the animals, driven simply by inbred instincts which would give us a predisposition to love Him, like a loyal golden retriever.

But He didn’t. From the moment we were born, we were given a choice, to follow Him and enter into an intimate loving relationship with the Living God, or to reject Him and live a life eventually and eternally separated from Him.  And between the conception and the choice, He waits.  Just like I did.  Staring through the glass of the incubator, watching his little body struggle with this thing called life.  Waiting for the day when my son would be old enough and strong enough to love me back.

There is something about a love that is freely given that He must cherish very much.  Like the spontaneous hug or the unsolicited “I love you’s” from my sons or my daughters.  I think that it is a very special God indeed who would cherish us in that way.

The sound of my wife breathing awoke me from my daydream.  “Hee.  Hee.  Hee.  Hoo.  Hoo.  Honey, can you get me a drink of water?”  I could never understand how a pregnant woman with a bladder the size of a kiwi could drink so much water.  But it is always best to keep those kinds of thoughts to yourself.

“Sure, honey,” I replied.  “Anything you say.”

Celebrating Faithfulness

My church is going to celebrate our 25th anniversary this week. This is a big deal for us, for a lot of reasons.

Our senior pastor is also our founding pastor, so he and his wife have been with us the entire time.  I have been at the church for 21 of those years, and on staff full-time at this church for over 16 of those years.  In fact, we have quite a number of people that have been on staff for more than a decade.  This in an age where turnover in ministry is high (e.g., the two largest churches in my area have each experienced worship pastor turnover twice in the past five years), and people treat “shopping” for a church the way one chooses a health club.

Second, we’ve gone through a lot in the last 25 years.  We’ve had our celebrations, births, weddings, funerals, baptisms, Christmas and Easter events, retreats and advances.  We have met at a storefront, a high school, afternoons at another church, in portable buildings, and finally our own performing arts facility which we built with largely volunteer staff.  There are hundreds of people to whom I have given my heart—in ministry and in life—for a season and for eternity.  There are decades of memories wrapped up in this celebration, from special private moments with one or two people to countless moments in public congregational intimacy through worship and other artistic expressions.  There have been large numbers of people (numbers known only to God) who have committed their lives to Christ.  And I have laughed so hard and so long, that I’ve gone to bed with a sore belly.

Things weren’t always fun and games.  There was a pastoral indiscretion (a.k.a., affair).  There was an embezzlement by a volunteer, and a major church-rocking deception by another.  There was a period where my wife and I felt called to ministry away from this church to minister in sometimes sunny Vancouver, British Columbia.  And there was our church-defining refocus away from the attractional church model (in our case, seeker-targeted) toward a spiritual formation model (a.k.a., how to grow your church to less than half its size).

It was nineteen years ago that I left my high-paying job as an aerospace engineer to join a small group of people with a vision to make a difference in the world.  Since that time, I’ve had the privilege of being able to share art and ministry with hundreds—maybe thousands—of actors, dancers, musicians, producers, technical artists, poets, painters, graphic artists, recording engineers, writers, photographers, vocalists, artisans, visionaries.  And one thing is certain: God has been constantly and unwaveringly faithful to us through it all.

And here is the thing.  We have forgotten how important faithfulness is to God.  I really believe we have this wrong understanding of what “success” is in ministry.  We have a tendency to define success by size or scope, attendance or budget, how cool the music is or how well we perform.  But I believe that at the end of the day—and at the end of our lives—our true “success” will be measured more by our fidelity.  To continue to do what God has called us to do regardless of the circumstances.  To continue to love those whom God has called us to love regardless of their lovability.  To respond in increasing faith to God’s faithfulness to us.

Fidelity—to be faithful to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support—may be a more true metric of success in God’s economy.  And honestly, it is in the living out of fidelity that depth of meaning is found.  In ministry.  In marriage.  In family.  And in life.

This weekend will be a celebration of God’s faithfulness.  I will be linking arms with people that I have known for a season, a year, a decade, a lifetime.  And we’re going to laugh and cry and worship and remember.

From a church standpoint, there’s no better blessing.