Blue-light Special on Grace, isle 3.

First of all... Thanks to Karl of guitarforworship.com for giving me some love on his blog. (See the link on my blogroll to the right.) I have no idea how the guy who's blog I've been following for over a year found mine, but nonetheless I accept the gratitude.

Which brings me to today's topic (Uh oh): The word "accept" is very strange. We often talk about accepting gifts, compliments, etc., but is it really possible to not accept a gift? Well, yeah I guess it is. So, rather, does the rejection of a free gift make the gift non-existent? Of course not. So why do we do it so often? If someone give a child a toy and she doesn't like it, she'll throw it down and pretend to ignore it. But it's still there. It's still hers. The giver isn't going to take it back just because the child is, well, a child.

(On a side note--It's already the third paragraph of this blog entry and I've yet to bitch about Christians. I apologize for the delay. [Yay for "delay"! Ok Karl I hope you're reading this.] Hopefully paragraph 4 is soon enough for you. And by you, of course I mean me. Ok, back on track now.)

This idea of acceptance gets me thinking about the modern Christian idea of "accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior", or accepting him into your heart, or whatever. I've always secretly struggled with this notion, even though I can point to the time in my own life at age 9 that I participated in this blue-light-special ritual. "It's by grace you've been saved," they'll say, "so you better accept Christ so you can go to Heaven. Also--We have your credit-card information, right? Right. Ok, good. Where was I? Oh yeah--Bow your heads and say this prayer with me so that you can be saved by grace through faith."

If the word grace actually means gift, then one shouldn't have to actively accept it, because the act of accepting it becomes the price you pay for receiving it. In other words, saying "the prayer" becomes a good work through which grace is accepted. So really, it becomes "by grace through good works." And if good works are involved, it's not grace, it's payment. Which means it's something we've earned. Which means God owes us grace for being so awesome. Which He doesn't. Hence, the need for grace.

So if acceptance doesn't have anything to do with it, I'm starting to wonder if the Calvinists are on to something. Lucky for me, Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers some insight, noting the difference between "cheap grace" and "costly grace":

Grace as the data for our calculations means grace at the cheapest price, but grace as the answer to the sum means costly grace. It is terrifying to realize what use can be made of a genuine evangelical doctrine. ..."Justification by faith alone" is a misuse of the formula that leads to the complete destruction of its very essence.

When you think of grace as a way to justify an inability to stop sinning, you're left with cheap grace, the grace of the institutionalized post-Constantine Christianity. But when grace answers the question, "How?", i.e., "How can I go on?" or "How did I get into this mess?" or "How can this ever be made right?" or, to paraphrase Bono, "How can such a fucked up world ever be saved?", there true grace is found: Costly grace.

So I'm still left with this question regarding grace: If acceptance isn't a factor, then why do some people not have it? And quite obvious those people are--You know, bad people who murder and steal and rape and otherwise plunder Creation. And not to mention all the people that are perhaps not bad, but just have ignored Christ's call to follow Him--The people stuck in the daily grind, trying to achieve the so-called American Dream, at the expense of being the revolutionary human God intended them to be. And then there's... Oh, wait... The next person in line is... me. A mere 3 sentences down the line from "bad people"; a person who daily misses the mark when it comes to responding to Jesus' call to be the most human I can be: A disciple.

And that brings me back to grace--costly grace--the means wherein the mere opportunity to be a disciple is offered, and the notion of "being saved" becomes nothing more than a product of cheap grace. Faith doesn't help me become a disciple, I just have to do it. Then, obedience will lead me to faith, which will lead to more obedience, and so on, until the Word is as flesh.

But really... Will that time ever come?

(insert grace here)

--jesse

In-Ear Moniter Mixing: Tips and Techniques

After several years of using Aviom in-ear montering systems at Hillcrest, I've grown very fond of them and can hardly imagine ever going back to ear-blasting wedge-moniters again. My fellow worship-team members, however, have given me some mixed reviews about them, and I hope to address the most common complaints (namely, "I can't hear myself") here.

Compared to traditional "wedge" moniters (live speakers on the stage), in-ears have many advantages. First and foremost is the advantage in FOH (front-of-house) audio mixing quality. Without the "sonic pollution" of on-stage wedge moniters, the FOH engineer is able to portray an uncluttered audio mix. Before our in-ear days at Hillcrest, the excess noise being thrown around by a stage full of wedgies was resulting in the FOH mix being compromised by this excess noise.

Another advantage to in-ear monitering is the ability to control one's own moniter mix. Gone are the days of shouting back to the sound tech, "I need more guitar... More... More... No, more...". With the Aviom mixers on stage, each band member can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and not to mention do it in stereo.

The downside to all this flexibility is that it often leads to confusion. People want to hear themselves first and foremost, but if that's all you're hearing you're really missing out, and your performance may be suffering as well. The key to using in-ear moniters is getting a perfect mix. With wedge moniters, it's easy (and often necessary) to scrape by with a so-so mix. But in-ears are much less forgiving; however, when the right mix is achieved, they're worth the effort.

Achieving a perfect mix starts with the musician/singer. As with anything, if you're shy, unpracticed, or otherwise unprepared, no advice is going to save you. After that, its very important to get the right ear buds to fit your ears, and insert them so that they create a tight seal (you should hear your "head voice" when talking) and insert each bud into the corresponding ear (red=right, blue=left). Once you've got your buds in your ears and plugged into your mixer, you can start mixing.

First, here's a picture of our mixers and how they are labeled:






G=guitar and v= vocal. So, G2 is "Guitar #2," V2 is "Vocal #2," etc.

Here's a method I've found useful for getting a good mix:

1. Begin with the Master volume at about 1 o'clock, and the Treble/Bass controls and nominal level (12 o'clock).


2. Select your channel and bring its volume to about 50-75%.


3. Put all other instruments/vocals to roughly 50%, all "non-musical things" (pastor's mic, handheld mic, etc) to about 25%, and completely turn off all unused channels (to avoid excess noise).


4. Stereo panning is the key! Generally, you're going to want yourself in the center, along with bass and drums in the center because they're the rhythmic/chordal foundation of the music. Everything else--acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboard, voilin, other vocals, etc--should be panned incrementally and equally to either side to create a "stereo image" of the whole band. (See my example below.) What this does is keep all the sonic elements uncluttered in your head. Details below...


5. Raise/lower the various channels to your liking. Remember, it's better to subtract than to add. For example, if you can't hear yourself, try subtracting things you have too much of. If necessary, adjust the panning of the channels if one side of your head feels "heavier" than the other.


6. Save your mix. This is done by holding down both Recall and Group buttons, and pressing a channel number. Your mix can later be recalled by pressing Recall and then selecting the channel number you used previously. (Changes to your mix are not automatically saved; you must re-save it after making changes in order for those changes to be recalled later.) When saving your mix at rehearsal, you can call it up Sunday morning and spare yourself a BIG hassle.

What is panning? Panning simply refers to creating a stereo image (left/right). If everything is in the center, all the sonic elements are going to be competing for your brain's attention. For example, acoustic guitar and piano generally occupy the same frequency range, therefore your brain has a hard time distinguishing between them. But, when one of them is in your left ear, and the other in your right, they become distinct and clear. Also, you'll need less volume on each of their channels to hear them, freeing up "space" for other sonic elements.

Here's an example of a typical mix I might use when playing electric guitar. (I'm in channel 10, labeled G2.)

As you can see, I'm using almost no background vocals. I don't NEED them as a guitar player, so they just create sonic clutter for me. I'll usually pick one background vocal (in this case, V2) to give myself a little feeling for the songs' vocals, but the other 2 are very quiet and panned hard left/right. Keyboard and acoustic guitar (labeled "ben guitar") are partially and equally left and right, and lead vocal ("ben vocal") is a touch to one side--just enough to make it more clear. Crowd mics are hard left/right.

This brings me to one last point. As a worship team member you may have noticed in the last few weeks that there are now channels on the Aviom mixers labeled CL ("crowd left") and CR ("crowd right"). The channels correspond to the microphones we've set up on the stage facing the audience. These microphones do exactly what their name implies: Pick up the sound of our fellow worshipers in the congregation plus a little ambient noise. I've found this extremely helpful in overcoming the common isolation-anxiety associated with in-ear moniters. They allow us to hear the crowd's response and hear them singing and clapping along which enhances the experience greatly.

I hope this helps you get a better mix in your in-ear moniters. The better the mix, the less distracted you'll be, and the better leader/performer you'll be on stage.


--Jesse

Don't credit the music

Music gets way too much credit as a form of God-worship. I believe that music (and any other art, Christian or otherwise) is always worship, but worship can be many other things than music. So why do we do it so regularly? What is its value spiritually? Why is it that only in church we find ourselves singing with a bunch of strangers? It's quite queer, really.

Perhaps it is because music is always “just and good” (Psalm 33:5), even in the midst of imperfect singers and musicians. I think God created music as a sort of gift that allows humans to create something out of nothing. Think about it--songwriting is essentially creating something out of thin air--not from compiling other pre-existing parts and pieces (sans cookie-cutter pop music), but something that only exists because its wholeness exists.

When we get together and sing as a church, it is our time to worship God with each other. It's not "my time" to worship God. Rob Bell said something about the significance of submission in corporate worship--Submitting to each other (singing together) for the greater good of the wholeness of the song and its rhythms and melodies. What a great metaphor for the work of the people: The congregation is held in submission to each other by the song's melody, tempo, and key. And the band members are held accountable to the music by each having their own role in creating the music, and therefore "leading" (although I don't like that word).

If somebody deserts their role for the sake of glorifying themselves, the song (the good work) ceases to exist.

--Jesse

Drops like stars

A quick note... I'm about to leave for Minneapolis to catch Rob Bell's "Drops Like Stars" tour in support of his new book. Being one of my favorite speakers/authors/pastors/persons, this will surely inspire a new blog entry in the coming days (hopefully).

Also, I'm taking the motorcycle which tends to exacerbate the spirtual element of the obiquitous roadtrip experience. But now I'm just creating expectations, so I better shut up.

Oh I almost forgot... Better do a quick checklist of post-modern-emergent-church-function sterotypes:

• Flannel shirt: Check.
• Nerdy glasses: Check.
• Coffee cup glued to hand: Check.
• Permission granted to self to be the first to scream "hell yes" instead of "amen" during the seminar because I need to show everyone that I'm sooo beyond modernity: Check.
• Preference of Macs to PC's: Check.

Splendid. I'm good to go.

--Jesse

You wanna know what really grinds my gears? When people use the word "ironic" when they really mean "highly coincidental".

Yeah, that really grinds my gears.

Back to you, Tom.

--Jesse

Windows

In response to my previous post ("Jesus is a Liar...", see below), I'd like to take a page from Brian McLaren's book "A New Kind of Christian". (Yes, that's the crazy one about how evolution is not a curse-word.) Also, Richie may or may not have pointed this out for me. But I swear, I read the book before he pointed it out. Anyway...

McLaren alliterates theology to windows. When you look out the window of, say, a hospital, you can see the sky, and you can see it going on infinitely. But you're still not seeing the whole sky. You can go to somebody else's room and look out their window to see another part of the sky, but you're still not seeing the whole thing. Then you can leave the hospital alltogether, look straight up on a cloudless night, and it's better, but still futile.

So once again, the key to Universe boiles down to mystery. Mmm, I LOVE not understanding things.

--Jesse

Jesus is a liar! No, wait... I mean... that came out wrong.

I came across this story today, which is a very Eastern Orthodox view of Jesus which I feel my Westen upbringing has missed. In summary, it goes something like this:

A long time ago, there was a king who ruled over a great kingdom, with many cities. The king was a good king, granting his people the freedom they deserved. But eventually, some people in one of the distant cities began to take advantage of their freedom by rebelling and doing whatever they wanted, eventually breeding a lifestyle of violence, hatred, murder, rape, slavery, and fear. The king thought to himself, "What should I do? If I take my army and conquer the city by force, the people will fight against me, and I'll have to kill so many of them, and the rest will only submit through fear or intimidation, which will make them hate me and all I stand for even more. How does that help them--to be either dead or imprisoned or secretly seething with rage? But if I leave them alone, they'll destroy each other, and it breaks my heart to think of the pain they're causing and experiencing."

So the king did something unexpected: He left his castle and his royalty, dressed in grubby clothes, and lived among the people of this rebelling city incognito. He pitched a cardboard box by a dumpster and lived there, making a living fixing broken pottery and furniture. He exemplified kindness and goodness and respectfullness and fairness so much so that people began to notice him, eventually became infatuated with him. People gathered around him, followed him, and when the subject of the rebellion came up, he told them that their king had a better way to live for them, a way which he exemplified and taught. People started growing in their confidence in him, eventually mimicing his worldview in their own lives.

Their movement grew, and eventually spread to enough people that they wanted to express regret for their mistakes, but were ashamed to go to the king and apologize for fear of the king destroying them. Then the king-in-disguise revealed himself as the king he really was, and in doing so accomplished through a subtle presence what never could have been accmplished through brute force.

He welcomed them back into his kingdom.

My initial thought after reading this was, "Wow, this really helps me understand the whole Jesus thing in a way I never have before." I felt like my mind was wrapped around the Trinity just a little more tightly: Jesus always has existed; God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit really are one, yet really are seperate; etc.

Then, just as I was starting to feel good about myself for understanding something that all my seminary-student friends love to tell me about, another much more Jesse-esque thought creeped in: "Holy crap... God is a big fat liar."

Did God really have to pretend to be a human to save the world? Did he trick us all into falling for him? Is Jesus just a pretty disguise used by God to fool us into thinking we can be saved? Is God a politician and Jesus his lobbyist?

Hmmm... Once again, I find myself going back to my black-and-white worldview. Maybe a different way of looking at it is this: Rather than God's becoming a human a form of manipulation, it's a form of humility--bringing himself down to my mere human level. God knows that I (albeit with much prodding) can relate with a human--I can't, however, find very much in common with the creater of the cosmos, even though that creator obviously wants to relate with me. So in a weird way, God HAS to "lie" to the world, for the world's own good, with the divine precognition that we have the capacity to realize that it isn't a lie at all--it's His ultimate, divine form of humility and vulnerablity.

Ok, this is the part of my writing process where I start to lose my train of thought, so I'm just going to hit "publish" now and wrap it up later. But in the meantime feel free to post comments as I work through my unquenchable cynisism of everything--Including (appearently) God.

--Jesse