So It's Been a While.

Many apologies to my avid readers. In other words, sorry Mom. Sorry that I haven't been updating this blog very well. I just realized my last post was from November. Wow. A lot has happened since then. December was a really busy, but fun month. We have several benefit concerts/events that were really engaging and a couple Christmas parties as we were wrapping things up before our extended Christmas break. I was home for 17 days. It felt amazing. So much rest and relaxation. I got to spend a lot of time with my very loving and supportive family and I thank myself for that. I also enjoyed face time with Jay and Kelly and all my other brothers in the Dirty Half. As soon as we got back from break it was crunch time at the office. We booked, trained, and went on retreats for team bonding. Even the weekends were busy. Several of us musicians helped out a fellow roadie in LA with the entertainment duties at a wine tasting benefit he planned. It was nice though, it was in San Marino(about 10 minutes from my old apartment in Pasadena) and we got to go to some of my favorite spots in Old Town. The week before tour was absolutely crazy. We cleaned our house, said goodbye to my regional manager as he and his wife start a new non-profit, and celebrated birthdays. There were countless logistical and housecleaning duties to finish the week before launch. We also had a formal launch dinner/ceremony and multiple trainings. We enjoyed cocktails of 12-14 hour days at the office and sleep deprivation. Then the emotional launch came and we said goodbye to our roadie brothers and sisters and we all parted ways.

The road has treated me well so far. We spent a few days in Memphis and I got to hang out with my favorite contact, Maribeth. She is adorable. She's the little sister I never had and is her school's Schools For Schools president. Her family was so kind to us and really took us in. We had some incredible screenings and got to visit some of the high schools that raised so much money for S4S this year. I got to go to a Gibson guitar factory in downtown Memphis and considered stealing one of the showcase guitars. We also spent time at the National Civil Rights Museum and it was really powerful. It's unfathomable that our culture embraced segregation and legal inequality just a few decades ago.

I'm sitting in the house we are staying at in Nashville and I love this town. We saw some talented singer-songwriters at this bar tonight and enjoyed coffee at a Nashville staple, Fido's. I got some great finds at this used bookstore down the street. We met a youth pastor who loves IC and invited us to volunteer with Burmese refugee children through a ministry called "Golden Triangle" at her church. These kids were beautiful and I'll post pictures on my Facebook. It's getting late and we are spending all day tomorrow at Austin-Peay so I'll have to sign off, but I promise to post again soon. Miss you guys.

Buying a Church

If you can go church shopping can you presumably buy a church?  Lately I've been doing a lot of shopping.  Of churches that is.  I counted in my head last night and I've been to 7 churches in the 7 Sundays that I've lived in San Diego.  I'm guessing there were 3 weeks when I didn't go to church at all.  Last Sunday I went to 3 different congregations.  The first one was Crosspointe church.  The name was misleading though.  It should have been called Prophecy Prosperity Powerhouse.  For an hour the band and pastor would exchange the spotlight and make random disparaging comments about other denominations and movements within Christianity.  The most stereotypical Pentecostal church I've ever been to.  After said hour Chris and I left to go home.  At least the church was within walking distance.  On the way home we checked out a rec center by our house.  Who knows, maybe there is basketball court in there...

We were met by Russell, in his late twenties or early thirties wearing an oversized shirt and accessorized with a contemporary manbag.  He was quite friendly and eventually we got into talking about IC and a possible screening.  He was telling us about all the events this church has during the week and some great ways for us to get involved.  He also went on this spiel about how the church needs to forget about denominations and division and return to its roots. We politely asked what denomination his church was apart of.  International Church of Christ . Ok sounds legit enough to me.  When we leave Chris explains to me that he thinks that denomination was the same one his sister got involved with at college, which turned out to be extremely legalistic and considered a cult.  After Wikipedia enlightened us, we realized his spiel was a classic Restorationist argument.  Ok quick review here: First church, freaks.  Second church, cult.  And this is all happening during a very tumultuous time in my faith.  I am tempted to write the whole church thing off.

After lunch my roommate Ad suggested going to another local church called Journey Community Church.  Given that my faith began at a community church, this sounded pretty safe.  So I went.  As we walk up to the church a bunch of young people are walking towards their cars.  Instead of a formal service they were heading downtown to feed the homeless.  Ok this I can deal with.  So we went and had some good conversations and got to meet some pretty resilient people.  I was thinking that that experience redeemed the previous ones.  A couple days later I called Jay and we were talking about our general attitudes at churches now.  I feel like I've moved past criticizing everything a church does.  My thoughts would range from the bulletins to the band.  That really isn't important to me now.  And I almost appreciate that people have found God in all of that- however much I could care about it.  Then I started thinking about my former job at Christ Community and how focused I was on the little things, like the fonts we used for the slides or how we decided to arrange Christmas carols.  And I know those things are important but they're all secondary to what a church is all about.  I've been to so many hip churches who use incredible media and have professional musicians lead their worship time.  But I could care less about that.  Isn't it really about loving people and seeking justice in the world?  And if people at a church aren't concerned about those things then why would I want to become a part of that?  I realized that I really look for people who genuinely care about others.  I can set aside the theological, cultural, and social differences for now.

I then thought of an excerpt from Blue Like Jazz that Kelly read to me and Jay before I finished the book.  It all centered on what was really important about a church and her mission.  Don Miller brought up all these people who are so focused on aesthetics but neglect the heart of what it means to be a good person.  A good person.  How have we lost that?  And I realized that I understood this idea on an emotional level not just an intellectual one.  And a light went on.  And I started thinking about how the church can do this.  That there has to be another way out.  That there has to be something better than this.  Something that's worth shopping for.  And I just might buy it.

This Will Break Your Heart

So we have these staff meetings every other week and for the first 15-20 minutes we share inspiring stories that have happened recently. It's just a great reminder of why we do what we do. Lacey(our tour logistics coordinator) shared a story of a boy who found out about the movie earlier this year and starting hosting screenings. This is all from memory so I'm sure some of it is inaccurate but you get the point. The empowerment aspect to IC is essential to who we are as a company so it was expected. What wasn't so expected was that this guy would call everyday checking in with the office. Everyone is really busy at the office so it becomes a nuisance if someone is calling constantly. Anyway it became this ongoing joke about this guy in the office where people would guess when he would call. This past summer he had a screening and the sent the donations and merch money in as usual. But for some reason he was calling more than usual to check and see if we had posted the money. The office at the time was backed up and busy so the there was a delay. A few days later the boy's mother called Lacey's cell phone. Lacey expected the mom to be really angry with her and was nervous about answering the phone. She picked up and immediately the mom said she wasn't angry just that she needed to tell her the backstory as to why her son had been calling so much. A year ago this boy killed a father and his two daughters in a fluke car accident. It was just a freak accident, there was no alcohol or anything involved. The family had heard about this boy was doing for IC and this last screening was first time they met him. The boy said it was the first time since the accident where he felt like he could give something back. Where he had something to live for. Then Lacey said if this was the only thing that happened in the history of IC and all the work we had been doing from the start, that it would be worth it. It would be worth it because it changed this boy's life. For good.

Quick Update...

Last weekend we went up to a friend of a friend's house in Newport Beach. The house was gorgeous and the family had gone away for the weekend so we had the whole place to ourselves. There was a basketball court and hot tub in the back yard that we got plenty of use out of. Last Saturday night we went to a beach party with an amazing Thanksgiving meal. This house was on the beach and they had gas lamps to keep us warm. There was a Brazilian acoustic duo that was really good. Some of the guys went surfing and I got a wetsuit off of Craig's list for $25. It was such a needed break because only seven of us went. On the way back we went to the church Switchfoot is from. The pastor is the lead singer's dad. After a short but inspiring work week, I went up to LA to visit my friend Prentice for Thanksgiving. I got back last night and we went shopping this morning at 5am. Finally got a camera so there will be plenty of pictures to come. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Meet The Team

We just got our pictures team as a team. It's me, Anna Azarjew, Andrew Mittelstadt, and Jenn Welsch. Anna is our Schools For Schools intern and went on the last tour(in the fall). She is only one in this picture who isn't going on the spring tour. Andrew is from Wyoming and is 19. He went to Uganda when he was 17 and loves adventure. Jenn is from the DC area and she graduated this past year from Mary Washington in Virginia. More to come for sure. Happy belated Thanksgiving!

My Heart Is Heavy...

Our schedule as roadies is pretty busy. We work the 9-5 shift Monday through Friday and have training sessions from 6-8pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This past Tuesday we watched a documentary called Wardance. The story centered around this school in northern Uganda called Patongo. More specifically the school is apart of the Acholi tribe. This tribe is the main people group affected by the civil war. This particular school is enrolled in the Ugandan primary school's music and dance competition. These kids all live in displacement camps but their passion for the arts cannot be suppressed. The movie's tagline is, "The war stole everything, except their music." You guys have to see this movie. It reminded me of the movie Murderball if you've ever seen that. I think it's only in select indie theaters but you never know where it might be playing.

This film broke my heart. Several scenes just crush you. There is a hopeful and redeeming end but the reality of their living situation and this endless war cannot be ignored. After the movie ended I just had to be alone and attempt to process this reminder of the way the world is. Just a brief look at the history books will tell you how slowly things change. We live in a culture where we long for the quick fix and the easy remedy. And I think that idea has been such a temptation to accept. And if I believe that fallacy then I immediately become angry with God. Very angry. How could he let this happen? How can the world be so drastically unfair? I often wonder how I would feel if I was born in northern Uganda, possibly without parents and living in a displacement camp while fighting to survive every day. And wondering if this war will ever end as I feel hope slipping through my fingers. It's just so easy to forget. It's so easy to focus on our own problems. You could realistically go your entire life not giving a damn about anyone else. And you would be culturally acceptable. And that depresses me.

A Weekend In the City

If you like Bloc Party you'll get the title. If not, you're out of the loop. There are some good tunes on their myspace. This past weekend was quite an adventure. On Friday I saw "Dan In Real Life", which I highly recommend. Jay told me to go see it. It's incredibly funny and simultaneously heartwarming. Saturday we ventured down to Tijuana. Oh Tijuana. Dollar Coronas and generic Viagra. Quite the experience. There were little children running up to us constantly trying to sell their chicklets. Remember chicklets? Well apparently they're all the rage south of the border. It was incredibly depressing. TJ is basically a huge slum. There is this bridge you cross to get from the touristy border marketplace into downtown. Under the bridge there seems to be a septic channel flowing steadily downhill. It smelled pleasant. Like a rotting body. You want to talk about economic discomfort and social injustice? Spend an afternoon in the drug trafficking capital of the world.

On the bright side Mexican Coke just might change your life and/or your anti-soda arrogance. It's delicious. It's made with cane sugar, which is far superior to high-fructose corn syrup. We went to this tiny little Spanish restaurant and enjoyed some tapas and sangria. We rode the trolley back home and went out to the Gaslamp district later that night. Gaslamp is amazing. Wine bars, cigar lounges, jazz clubs, coffee houses, and pretty much any nightlife you can think of is found here. Definitely the yuppie(is this an antiquated term?) hotspot. I witnessed a potential fight, which made my evening. We missed the last trolley home and were stuck downtown. So we made the best of it. We went to this swanky diner in the newly opened Hard Rock Hotel. Stuck it out until 3:30am and decided we needed to take a cab home. Keep in mind my bed time average hovers around 11 so this was tough. There were seven of us so we either had to take two cabs(roughly $70) or one van. We found a card to a ride service...but it was a really nice business card so we were worried about the compensation. The guy pulled up in a tricked out Surburban. We told him we made no money and worked for a non-profit and he cut us a deal. It was so nice to get into bed at 4:45am.

Sunday I ran some errands and we went to this hoe down at a church a half-hour north. Tried line dancing for the first time and watched the Colts embarrass themselves for the second week in a row. Pure joy. The church was called Existence. It was like Mosaic's little brother. If you want to check out their website just Google it. Pretty eventful but superficial I know. Next post we'll get into deeper topics. I had some thought-provoking conversations at Starbucks tonight. We'll get to it.

Good night for now. Love you guys.