…and the hits keep on coming

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: blogging, relevintage, web
• Date: Jun 18,2007

I’m not sure why, but the hits to this site have taken a serious bump this past week, up almost twice my normal number hits per day. I can’t verify this for sure, but I’m almost positive that yesterday was a new all-time high for hits: 553. Wow!

If you are visiting this site and haven’t said hello, please do so. And let me know how you found out about relevintage. And let me know what you like to hear about. I’ll try to keep that in mind as I write…

baker’s worship tricks

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: art, blogging, books, Christian season, church, emerging church, media, music, photography, planning, prayer, sacred space, technology, video, worship
• Date: May 27,2007

If you’re a worship leader and you haven’t heard of Jonny Baker, let me introduce you. Worship world meet Jonny. Jonny meet the worship world…

Baker is a London postmodern; author of Alternative Worship – a great resource for holiday planning btw; director of independent record label, Proost; a member of Grace, an emerging church/alternative worship community; works for CMS helping reimagine church and mission; coordinator of worship at Greenbelt Arts Festival; and blogger. Whew! I can’t even keep my to do’s organized…

I keep up with Baker via his blog. And though his blog modus operandi is well, very postmodern in its approach and thus for some, probably a bit ambiguous, his Worship Tricks are worth the price of admission alone.

Baker’s Worship Tricks are creative ideas, video loops, pieces of liturgy etc that Baker has stumbled across that have been used or could be used in worship. As a side note, I’ve always thought the words ‘tricks’ seemed weird, but in a English sort of way, I’m giving some rope.

Baker has just started his third installment of his Worship Tricks series. His previous two, Series 1 and Series 2, each contain 100 ‘tricks.’

Below is Baker’s kickoff to Series 3 of Worship Tricks. It is a beautiful confession:

When our thoughtless criticism stifles the creativity of others,

Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy

When we keep a tight hold on power and deny others the chance to participate.

Christ, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

When we prefer the safety of our holy huddle to the wideness of God’s world.

Christ, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

When we decline to take risks for fear that we might fail.

Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

But when we praise the gifts of others,

share the power that we are given,

engage with communities beyond the boundaries of our comfort,

and risk everything we have for the sake of others,

then, God rejoices in us.

Almighty God,

who forgives all who truly repent,

Have mercy uponus,

pardon and deliverusfrom all our sins,

confirm and strengthenusis all goodness,

and keepusin life eternal,

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

banner week

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: blogging, quotes of note, worship
• Date: May 4,2007

I don’t feel like I’m a braggart. But I just can’t help but boast about the week I’ve had here on relevintage. It has been the highlight of my short-lived blog ‘life’…

Within the week, two of my biggest heroes stopped by my blog – without any coercion :) – and commented on two separate posts.

This is the power of the blogosphere. Making the world and the distance between the pundit and the pupil smaller…

Read the rest of this entry »

relevintage turns 1

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: blogging, relevintage
• Date: Apr 12,2007

Happy birthday to me? Well sort’ve…

A year ago this month, I started this crazy thing called blogging by launching relevintage.com. Here were some of my first words on that fateful day:

Thank you for visiting Day One of the official launch relevintage. It is an honor that you have come!

It has been a hope of mine for some time now to enter the blogging world. I’ve been inspired to jump in the fray by reading various blogs over the last few years. Also, my brother-in-law Henry Imler has been encouraging me to blog for some time now. He also designed the template for relevintage. Thanks Henry!

Well, if you received the e-mail invite, you got a glimpse of what relevintage is going to be all about. On Day One, I would like to expound on the overall vision of this blog. Let’s dig in…

I have been immersed in local church ministry for some time now. It is a constant challenge to find fresh ways to minister to a diverse and relativistic culture, both inside and outside the four walls of our churches. But with the call to ministry comes a passion to minister and redeem that very culture. And whether we work in or outside of the church, we have that call! That is the vision behind relevintage!

And here we are and I can honestly say that is still the heart of this blog.

If you look at the category cloud, you know we have tackled all things church, culture, missiology, worship, and music with a dash of humor [usually via your favorite sarcastic sports journalist, Bill Simmons]. I also started a running series entitled The 7 in which I highlight posts from around the blogosphere from the previous week that speak to those ministering to ‘younger evangelicals.’

As of today, relevintage boasts of 177 posts and 161 comments, contained within 59 categories. And the granddaddy of them all: 17995 hits. Pretty cool!

One of my new year’s resolutions was to be a more frequent blogger and I’m proud of my prolific nature since then. My secret ambition is to try to spread the blog’s proverbial wings and reach 500 posts and 50,000 hits by this time next year. If you have any tips, pass them along!

I have decided to celebrate this ‘momentous’ day by doing one of my favorite things:
1) Making
2) Lists
3) Of
4) My
5) Favorite
6) Things

Top 10 Blogger Inspirations

Alan Hirsch: The Forgotten Ways – helping me think missionally

David Fitch: The Great Giveaway – helping me think justly

Michael Spencer: internetmonk.com – helping me think profoundly

Shlog: Shaun Groves – helping me think authentically

Scott McKnight: Jesus Creed – helping me think progressively

Bob Roberts: The Global Trekker Blog – helping me think glocally

Dan Kimball: Vintage Faith – helping me think humbly

Mark Driscoll: theresurgence.com – helping me think boldly

Mark Devine: Devine Theology – helping me think conservatively

Bob Hyatt: bob.blog – helping me think pastorally

Top 5 Guilty Pleasures

Bill Simmons: ESPN Page 2 – helping me think sarcastically

Paul Lukas: Uni Watch – helping me think in way too much detail

Bob Lefsetz: Lefsetz Letter – helping me think honestly

Carlos Whitaker: Ragamuffin Soul – helping me…not think

Lost Easter Eggs – helping me think theoretically

Read the rest of this entry »

new look for relevintage.com

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: blogging, relevintage
• Date: Feb 12,2007

If you’ve been to the blog lately, you may have noticed it looks a little different. A little grittier and grungier. I think this echoes me a little more.

I’m getting a little more traffic these days, so I wanted to have a more authentic look.

Many kudos to my brother-in-law for ALL of his help in this endeavor. Henry, you are a gentleman and a scholar!

bringing wisdom to our words

• Author: Henry
• Filed under: blogging, books, community, quotes of note, the art of...
• Date: Jan 29,2007

Scott McKnight has been doing a brilliant series on Bennedetta Craveri’s book, The Age of Conversation.

IMHO, we don’t converse the way we should. Most of us talk to hear ourselves talk and/or fight for fight’s sake. Unacceptable.

Proverbs says, “Well-spoken words bring satisfaction; well-done work has its own reward” and “Rash language cuts and maims, but there is healing in the words of the wise.” (both passages from MSG)

Scott helps us on the journey to improve the way we talk to one another. Here is an example of his insight:

Let us say that a person wants to converse about world religions, about the presence of “silent Christians” in the Islamic world, about the issues surrounding eschatology in the New Testament, about how to “do church” in a postmodern context, about preaching in today’s world, about homosexuality, about the church and the poor, about the gospel and social justice, about marriage, about rearing children… any topic that matters and any topic about which a person has concerns and wonders what is the best way to think about. Bring into the mix a person who is young or a person who really has serious and good questions about traditions … and you create the only kind of conversation that really can a conversation. Something important, a couple of people, and a desire to learn from one another. But, often mutual exploration is not what happens.

May his words of wisdom bring wisdom to our words:

The Art of Conversation 1

The Art of Conversation 2

The Art of Conversation 3

Scott is inspiring me to do a series on a book that transformed the way I communicate in my marriage, parenting, ministry, etc. called Core Communication.

Though not inherently Christian, the themes of the book echo much of what the Bible says about communication. Stay tuned…

blogging, books, community, quotes of note, the art of…

1=many

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: blogging, technology, web
• Date: Jan 10,2007

If you read my year-end review of this blog on 12.31.06, you know I gave mad props to my brother-in-law, Henry, for getting me into this crazy sphere o’ blog. Thanks dude!

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention someone who has been influential from the very beginning as well.

During the time I spent in Nashville from ’00-’03, I had the privilege to, as a congregant, sit under the worship tutelage of Randy Elrod, then the worship pastor at People’s Church in Franklin, TN.

Randy was one of the most authentic, heart-on-your-sleeve lead-worshippers I had ever been around. It was a honor to be at that church during that time…

Not soon thereafter, my wife, son, and I headed back to Missouri and I stumbled upon Randy’s blog, Ethos. It was a revolutionary moment…

Back in April I launched this blog and Ethos was one of the must-haves on my blogroll. Randy was gracious enough to return the favor on his reciprocal blogroll [which isn't always the case in the 'sphere].

On Ethos on 12.21.06, Randy shared this:

My friend Theron [Hatch] approached me with the idea to make a blogroll composed of blogs and people I have inspired. He feels it will be a win-win for all of us….so, if I have influenced you to begin blogging, etc. please let me know HERE. This will give us all more links and as you know…links are POWER! in the blogosphere and in this “Googled” world. As we compile this blogroll, we will tell you how to include it on your blog.

I, of course, let Randy know of his influence on relevintage.com. And over the past few weeks, others have been letting Randy know of his inspiration. See here.

Yesterday, Theron Hatch posted the current list of folks inspired by Randy and its astounding.

Here is Theron:

Randy Elrod (of Ethos) is an inspiration to me and countless others. I came up with the idea for a blogroll as a way to say thanks to Randy for sharing his vision of the importance of blogging. Randy began a mentoring group at Merridees in Franklin, TN long before I came to town. He welcomed me into the circle with guys like Mark Lee, Chad Jarnagin, Jeremy Thiessen, and several others. During the winter of 2004-2005, Randy got the blog bug from Mark Lee, a long time blogger. Since then, he’s encouraged many in our group who have since started our own blogs. And from Randy’s talks at seminars, conferences, and Peoples Church services, many of you have also been inspired to begin blogging.

I’ve reprinted the blogroll here. All I can say is wow! The power of one…

church, meet the digital age…

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: blogging, church, culture, emerging church, media, technology, video, web
• Date: Jan 10,2007

..digital age, meet the church.

Slowly but surely, technology is validating itself as one of the new ways that churches are engaging the postmodern. Emphasis slowly.

Here is a quote from a story on this subject from the Lower Hudson [NY] online newspaper:

Today, it’s fairly standard for houses of worship to have Web sites that give basic information about their services – when, where, what and the like.

However, the more technically savvy congregations are now blogging, uploading video messages or podcasting past sermons.

Leaders say the digital content is available for those who can’t make it to services, such as the homebound or, more likely, the busy, but it also serves as a safe and welcoming way for the spiritually shy to check them out.

You can read the entire article here:
Faith for the digital age: Congregations go high-tech to help deliver message

Mars Hill Church and Mark Driscoll are one of the churches leading this charge. In his most recent blog entry on Bible translations, Driscoll says this about ‘plugging in’”:

One of the great blessings and curses of our age is the Internet. For years the tech army at our church has been kind enough to post the audio files of my sermons online for free. More recently this has also included high-definition video of my sermons. The result has been a much broader sphere of influence and a corresponding broader sphere of criticism. In years past, it was not uncommon for a pastor to preach a sermon and then have it disappear forever. But in our age, what we preach can and will live on indefinitely in various media forms…

You can read the entire article here:
Pastoral Reflections on Bible Translations: Why We Preach From the English Standard Version.

relevintage’s 2007 blog of the year

• Author: Brad
• Filed under: blogging, relevintage, sports
• Date: Jan 8,2007

Yes, you read that right. The competition is over.

Even though we are only eight days into the new year, I am ready to name my blog of the year for 2007.

And though I love sarcasm like the next guy, this is no letter from Kamp Krusty. I am serious, the competition is over.

So, without any further adieu [or ado or adieux, depending on who you talk to] this year’s award goes to: Uni Watch.

I diverge. You see, there are three levels of sports fans.

Level #1: Those who are loyal to a couple of teams, catch most of their games, own a ‘loyalty’ t-shirt, and keep a Shout stick in their fanny pack for the occasional Hot Wings stain.

Level #2: Those who meet the aforementioned criteria in Level #1, but whose favorite part of the sports page are the statistics, are in 3-4 fantasy leagues in each major sport through the year, thus blurring their true loyalty to any team, and gets their serious news from ESPN’s Outside the Lines.

Level #3: Those who meet the aforementioned criteria in Level #1 and #2 and read Uni Watch.

[Of course there is a phantom Level #4 that exists only for Howie Scwab]

Uni Watch is the brainchild of Paul Lukas, frequent contributor to ESPN’s Page 2 [home of my favorite sports writer, Bill Simmons]

According to Lukas, Uni Watch is “a media project that deconstructs the finer points of sports uniforms in obsessive and excruciating detail. It has nothing to do with fashion — it’s about documenting and maintaining the visual history of sports design, and about minutiae fetishism as its own reward.”

Color me an obsessive uniform glutton…

He goes on to say, “…for those who understand the pleasures of detail obsession, programmatic classification systems, information overload, and sports history, you’ve come to the right place.”

And I’m glad I’m here…

Uni Watch debuted in May of 1999, as a column in the sports pages of The Village Voice. When the Voice sports section was eliminated in 2003, the column briefly moved to Slate.com. Then, in the summer of 2004, the column moved to ESPN.com, where it continues to run today. Uni Watch, designed to supplement the ESPN column, launched on May 17th, 2006.

Here are some examples of Uni Watch’s mastery:

No, Not Those Brownies

Red Alert, Red Menace, Red Hot, Etc.

Head Games

Division Series Roundup

Congrats on receiving relevintage’s coveted 2007 Blog of the Year! Not that you care…