what a freakin' great concert

oh man.....what can i say about such an amazing experience. it was
definitely one of the best concerts i've ever been too. you know when
you go to a concert if the band is truly crap or truly flippin' amazing
by the sort of environment they foster by their music. the environment
was so great last night, people just stood there, almost in a reverent
silence, listening to one of the best bands there is today. it turned
out they were doing the concert as A Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra
and Tra-La-La Band, in which they add vocals to the songs; mostly by
Efrim, but at times all 7 of them got into it.

Efrim had a lot of political musings to share with us between songs,
while the violins were tuning and such. at one point he posed the
question, "so what are we going to do in the next two years, after the
world falls apart and people run out of food"; which seemed quite
alarmist to me and a vast majority of the crowd. not many people
answered him the way he was looking for, so he spent a good 5 - 10
minutes on it, desiring a response from us, but not really getting one.
he basically thinks that the world is going to fall apart and a
mega-revolution is going to happen within the next two years..... quite
extreme view if you ask me. anyway, the closing song, well the song
they did when they came back for the encore, was so friggin' cool and
such a positive way to end the whole thing. the whole band, along with
the opening band, a strange, awkward group called Little Wings, came
out and started to play really sparse music. they then embarked on an
intricate round of verses. they started out all singing the same thing,
"hang on to each other". then it broke off into a couple more phrases
to make a wild, chaotic, beautiful refrain of hope and love. all in
all, it was such an unbelieveable musical experience and one i hope to
have again before i die.

A Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra

well, last night went really well, though i wasn't able to see any of it (i was stuck behind stage, working
the impressive video pojections). there were two professional actors that attend the Ascension and they
had a couple of their actor friends show up and they said it was really well done. everybody worked so
hard on it and i hope they feel satisfied with their performance.

anyway, on to more exciting news........ i am going to a concert tonight of one of the most innovative,
beautiful, emotional bands there is out there. that band is A Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, side band of Godspeed You
Black Emperor! (mainly Efrim and occasionally a couple others from the band). i'm so excited about
seeing them, i never really thought they ever toured, let alone outside of Canada/US. i was checking for
random concerts a few weeks ago and saw they were playing...... but it showed the closest concert was
in Bristol, a 2 hr./£45 train-ride away. needless to say i just pretty bummed that they weren't playing in
London. then the light shown through wednesday afternoon when KultureFlash (see thelink on the left)
updated their site (as they do every wed.) and i saw that they were playing in London tonight......
"awesome!" i thought. anyway, i cannot wait for this evening, i'm sure it'll be friggin' mind blowing.
Bens (Metz and Weddeking), i so wish you could go with me, maybe you guys could fly over this
afternoon. i'll let you guys know how it was.

finally......

at long last, Garden State is now out here in London and i will be seeing it tonight........for the 5th time.
yeah, i suppose that sounds both obsessive and rediculous, but...... well, i guess it is both obsessive
and rediculous. anyway, i anxious to be able to watch it with people who have never seen it and barely
have an idea of what its about, it'll be nice to be with people who have a fresh perspective on it.

wow.....just as i'm writing this (at the Glow Lounge, of course) a huge horse-led herse just went down
the road, followed by two or three, vanilla-colored Rolls Royce-type cars. what a way to be carried from
this life to the next, both sad and incredibly grand.

anyway, i can't wait to see Garden State again tonight. this sunday, we are having the Christmas Cafe
Style at Ascension, which is a
play entitled 'Home for Christmas?'. i am in charge of the lighting and the video element to the set,
which has been interesting getting together. it'll be cool to be a part of this, but i think i'll be glad when
its over and won't have to worry about it anymore; it should be cool though.

the last reference about Vaux.....i promise

i was just reading an article on Emerging Church writen by people who were involved in the creation of Vaux. one certain line really struck me, this is articulates the nature of the problem that people like myself have with the current church corporation, here it is:
"Christianity's not broken, it's articulation is."

thats so true, that is the problem right there. enough said

Vaux pictures

i just set up a new picture posting account on Flickr, so lets see if
this works. if it does....this is a picture of one of the projections
at Vaux.

one more thing.....

i was just reading a little article written by Kester Brewin (i link on my previous post) and i just wanted to share a couple little pieces of it with you:
"In the move from Old to New Testaments we see God re-emerging as a bottom-up, complex divinity, and the body of Christ as a distributed network of the Spirit."

"This is not a time for train-spotting culture and following twenty years later. It is time to be the train. To begin to model creative, emergent, complex communities of faith rooted in the urban experience to the rest of the world."


--->we are seeking to undertake an extremely difficult task by trying to rework what the church looks like/how it interacts with its surroundings, may God give us guidance and sobriety while we try to develop this new thing.

so, i went to Vaux last night....

as the title above implies (or explicitly states) i went to Vaux last night. i must say i was passively excited about going, passively 'cause i didn't want to seem like a nerd jumpin up and down. i must say it was quite surreal being there, participating in Vaux after having imagined what it would be like for so long. to give a little history: i have been fascinated with this and, in general, the whole alt.worship/emerging church scene in London since i very first found out that there were people creating worship spaces that allowed people to use their creativity, whatever that may be, to worship our creative/creator God. i have been incredibly interested in this whole scene for over a year and to actually be able to be present at one of their services/events was sooooo amazing..... thank you so much God for allowing me to do this.

anyway, it was really friggin' great and i totally enjoyed it. the main area of the space was bordered by 4 white sheets, serving as make-shift projector screens. on each of the screens they had images, whether words/quotes or this really cool picture of London which slyly looped through the same shot at different times of day. they had typed up a liturgy for the eveing to lead our discussion/reflection, which was read by Kester Brewin, who is a really cool guy. all in all, it was a really inspiring/relaxing/reflective time spent with some really cool people. i will definitely be attending again, too bad its only once a month.



oh...about my trip to Brighton, it was really fun. it was a cool, overcast day, so when we went down to the beach (on the English Channel), the sea/sky line melted into one and you really couldn't tell where the Channel ended and the sky began.... really interesting. we had our chat (spoken of in the previous post) in a really cozy little pub. we discussed the wider questions of why we were there and talked a bit on what we would want to do and how it would look; we will talk more about that in subsequent discussions. it was really encouraging and just a lot of fun.

Brighton, here i come....

its a really chilled-out day today, just hanging out at the Glow Lounge. unfortunately, i have a slight, yet very annoying, headache. the kind that comes in slow, dull waves, then goes for a while. anyway, i get to go to Brighton tomorrow with some friends; i hear its a really great place, so i'm quite excited about it. the trip will be part pleasure/relaxation and part "business". the "business" aspect of it is actually a discussion that a group of us have been planning in which we will discuss our growing dissatisfaction with the current church structure/model and hopefully brainstorm some real ideas on how to try something different. ( i must say, i find it interesting that i always find myself with a group of people who have a common criticism of the church and desire to do something about it). so, we will all jump on a train tomorrow morning and head to the south coast and discuss with one another what God has been putting on our hearts. i wonder what will come about from it? i wonder what ideas/expectations the other people have of the outcome? all i know is that it'll be a great time of real discussion and sharing our hearts on the matter.


also, i forgot to recommend a movie i saw last friday night to you all:
I ♥ Huckabees ( i tried to make that a red heart, but it will only do black). it is one of the funniest, quirkiest, most interesting movies i've ever seen. the acting in it is incredibly well done, with Lilly Tomlin and Mark Wahlberg giving especially good performances. the humor in it is honest and in no way forced.....which, really, is the best kind. i must give a word of advice, though: do not try and figure the movie out while you are watching it, that will only serve to distract you; leave all that for after the movie. actually, the movie does a really good job at raising some questions, without really seeking to answer them for you, which is something that makes me respect the movie a lot. anyway, go and see it as soon as you can (i know its not out yet in Waterloo, so sorry all you Waterloo readers, you'll have to wait a while longer...hpefully it'll be out when i'm back).

unto me....

man...... last night was really cool/challenging/interesting/cold. Brian Mclaren spoke on the gospel and justice and i must say i felt incredibly convicted, both for my own self and for the American church as a whole. how do we not get, in a real way, that it is our duty as followers of Christ to take care of those who are unjustly treated; whether that be the poor and homeless, the refugee, the ethnic minority who has had one of their arms cut off by a member of the rebel insurgency that has invaded their land. Mclaren's core verse for the night was Micah 6:8... 'He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.' he put it to us like this: you are standing on the banks of the Niagara Falls and you see someone floating down the river toawrds impending death over the falls, you wade in and save them from falling to their death; thats mercy. you turn around after saving the person and there is another person in the river needing to be saved, and so on. the other side of that situation is to go up the river and find out who is throwing people into the river and stopping them; thats justice. i found it quite interesting, however, that he never really expounded on the justice side of things. how is justice served? how are people that are throwing others into the water brought to account? could the pursuit of justice lead to war? interesting, i think...... anyway, it really challenged me to become more socially minded/actioned; we are, as followers of Christ, required to. let me bring it home:

..And what does the Lord require of you American Christians? To fight against every kind of social/political/economic/cultural injustice and to really help those who are poor/on welfare/single mothers/widows/elderly and to walk humbly with your God.


so.... after hearing that inspiring talk about justice and acting mercifully to those who need our mercy, we walked back to Waterloo Station to go home. God, always the teacher and tester of our beliefs, handed us an opportunity to see if we really believed what we had just heard. just as we got to the station, we passed by a homeless women, sitting against the wall, all hudled up, trying to keep warm. we initially walked past her and into the station, leaving her behind. we stopped and Sam Jones and i looked at each other, seemingly realizing what we had done at the same time. so Dave, Sam, and i went back and talked to her and asked if there was anything we could do for her. very long story sort of short, we stood out in the cold night with her (and her boyfriend, Kevin, who later showed up) for nearly two hours trying to find a place for them to stay, waiting more than 35 minutes on the phone with an charity agency who help find people temporary lodging. we decided to take them to a bed and breakfast around the corner (don't be fooled by 'bed and breakfast', it wasn't a nice place) to get them a room for the night, but Kevin, it turns out, had stayed there before and started complaing to the guy about how the TV hadn't worked the last time he was there. so, the guy got really angry and said that he would not rent us a room for him......duh, if he would have just kept his mouth shut, he would have had a warm place to stay for the night; we were paying, i so wish he would have just accepted it and stayed there. so now, after nearly two hours waiting with them in the cold, trying to find a place for them, we didn't have any more options. so, feeling really sad there wasn't anything more we could do for them, we gave them some money so they could eat for a few days and left them to go back to their broken-down truck for the night. i'm sure there may have been more we could have done given the right amount of resources/time/ability, but i pray to God that we served them in a manner that would make Him proud. i pray we served/took care of Jesus the way we should have.