It’s funny, whenever someone comes to visit Fellowship to speak or to play music or share their ministry with us, they always say the same thing, “You have an incredibly neat church,” or “you have a cool kind of vibe going on here”.  Of course, “neat”, in this context does not necessarily mean clean and “cool” has nothing to do with the pastor, but what they are doing is complimenting the community of people that make up Fellowship Church.

And when it comes to loving people.  First class, that’s what I think.

Jon Acuff, writer of “Stuff Christians like”,  as he spoke yesterday – Yeah, pretty much treated like royalty. (He, by the way is an amazing guy – and truly hilarious)

And The Wrecking, The Black Raspberries, and Steve Patton – I heard quotes all day from them like the ones mentioned above, plus others like, “We’ve never been treated like this” and “You all know how to treat people”, and of course the “It’s a sin if that woman (the lady who hosted the band’s dinner last night) doesn’t have her own restaurant.”

So basically, we know how to treat people.

Today I’m praying that we would also become a church and I would become a pastor who would treat one another as well as we treat strangers.  Sometimes, that’s easier, ya know?  Treating strangers well.  And familiarity can breed contempt and all that.  Like the teenage son who treats his mom like dirt, then goes out and treats his friends like royalty, as if they had something to do with him becoming who he is today.

So the last few weeks have been about bringing in “cool” people and treating them like royalty.  The next few weeks?

Causing the ones who we see each week in life groups and every Sunday in church to say,

“Wow, this sure is a neat church.”

Its been a crazy few weeks.  About two months ago a famous musician/blogger confirmed to do a benefit concert for Fellowship Church, which was great considering we needed to raise some money for Phase 1 of our new building project.  Unfortunately, with 2 and a half weeks to go, the headliner cancelled and I was up a creek without a paddle.  Metaphysically, of course.

For whatever reason, I allowed the loss of the headliner to bring up a whole bunch of other negative things that were going on in my life, nothing harrowing mind you, but enough to make me plunge into a negative mindset for about 3 days.  I called friends, emailed famous people, and after 3 days of working hard to find another headliner, I got nothin’.  On Thursday night I met with our lead team at the FC and canceled the concert scheduled for 2 weeks and 3 days away.

Then Friday morning hit.

And a beautiful day landscaped Central New England.  Not that it needed to be beautiful for what was about to happen, but it helped.  I received a call from a band I had contacted earlier in the week about headlining the concert, and after some chatting back and forth, and a bit of negotiation, “The Wrecking” was our new headlining band!

So this Sunday, June 13th, from 6-9, our church will be hosting an amazing concert that I know kids from 5 to 65 will enjoy  (And possibly even older)!  The Wrecking will be headlining along with an excellent set from the Black Raspberries, honestly one of my favorite up and coming bands.  And we’ll be opening up with some sweet hip hop from The Czar, Steve Patton and Aima.  This has turned out to be an excellent concert and I can’t wait!

We’ll even be having dinner from 5-6 out in the cafe for those who are interested in some pizzas and other such goodies. Tickets are $15 in advance (Either online or at Sunday mornings @ Fellowship) or $20 at the door.

You can buy your Ticket to this great concert here!

Or you can just say hello to me here.

Today I shamelessly name drop and beg you to listen to the band that is about to be huge before they are huge.

The Undeserving is a group of guys from Fremont, Ohio, a place I have often wrote about on this blog, and they are about to go viral on us in the music world.  They have a new song “something to hope for” that is going to be used for the ABC show “Find my family” and a new album that will be released in 2010, produced by some of the big names in the music biz (oh yeah, cool people use words like “biz”).

This band has some really great tunes, and the lead singer really stands out to me to be a first class guy, though on Facebook we tend to debate who the best team in the NFL is, I really appreciate his songwriting and music expertise. (coincidentally I am losing this argument at the moment as the Steelers blow chunks all of a sudden)

So I’m requesting your support of this up and coming band, and pray they will be used to be a light in the world in which we live.

Because they deserve it.

Tour Recap Video

The Undeserving

Okay a brief respite from the relational posts I’ve been throwing at you to fill you in on a sweet concert I attended last night.

When I lived in Atlanta in the late 90′s, a band came out with a song I loved called “All for you”.  It went something like this:
Hard to say what it is I see in you,
wonder if I’ll always be with you,
words can’t say it, I can’t do
enough to prove it’s all for you

So I began to listen to this band and really liked their stuff.  Their name was Sister Hazel, named after a nun who ran a rescue mission in their hometown of Jacksonville, Fl. in the 70′s and 80′s.

When I moved to Massachusetts, they received much less airtime, and I only followed them a bit here and there, but eventually as I came into the new world of the internet, my interest climbed again as they began to use the internet for promotion, taking their music completely independent of the evil empires of big company  music.  For years I’ve been trying to see them here in NE though, but they only make it up here once every 2 to 3 years.  The consequence of this is that usually I have something planned on the night they come.

Last August, on my birthday, Tom and Tina bought me Sister Hazel tickets for the show at the Paradise on October 21.  that was yesterday.  And the show was completely off the charts.  The crew that was with Carie and I had a blast rockin to the smooth rock sounds of Ken Block and the boys.

Here are a few more pictures from the event: (my cameras not the greatest)

To sum up the concert and Sister Hazel is to say that going to one and listening to them is just about a good time.  The music, the band jam, the incredible 3 -5 minute guitar and bass duet in the middle of the set, the laid-back approach they present throughout the evening, bantering back and forth as if to say, “Yeah, you’ve been invited to our back yard, so we’re gonna play a bit.  While we’re doing this, go ahead and grab a few dogs from the grill, an ice cold one in the cooler, and enjoy.  To put it this way, I was the only Sister Hazel fan in the crew of 6 that came to the concert in our group.  It wasn’t that they didn’t like their music, but once they went independent, everyone kind of thought they disappeared.  And when we left we were all Sister hazel fans.  So thanks Tom and Tina.

And Thank you Sister Hazel

Set List for the concert (by memory):

Happy (with a “The Who” opener)
Change your mind
Release
It’s a beautiful thing
Come around
Your winter
Ghost in the crowd
Your mistake
3-5 minute guitar and bass duet
Swan Dive
Better way
Life got in the way
Walls and Cannonballs
Take a bow
All for You
Mandolin Moon
Encore
Champagne High
Shame

For my birthday last Saturday, a few people were generous enough to give me itunes gift cards, so I had the thrill of going music shopping.   I love music shopping, but rarely get a chance to do it these days.  The first step in any of my musical treasure hunts is to think about the good music recommendations of music lovers I respect in the blogging world or friends who have shared with me new music they are listening to, then I comb the itunes, amazonmp3, and Paste websites for music that speaks to me, and by the time I’m finished Iusually have some good songs, and in some rare cases, some good albums (don’t you know that nobody buys albums anymore?).  So in light of all that, here is some of the music I’ve purchased electronically thanks to yours truly turning 34 last Saturday:

Sister Hazel (album) – Release
The Boxer rebellion (MP3) – Soviets
Lady Sovereign(mp3) – Jigsaw
Skillet (mp3) – Monster
Skillet (mp3) – Hero
Third Eye Blind (mp3) – Bonfire
Making April (mp3) – So bad
Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Album) – It’s Blitz
Toby Mac (mp3) – City on our knees

And I still have credit left!  Anything else I should buy?

Here’s the newest top 10 items in my i tunes for the last month:  There’s some good music out there!

10.  Chance by Ken Block
9.  Resurrect me by Jon Foreman
8.  Weapons by Jars of Clay
7.  Just wanna say by Israel Houghton
6.  Funny how it is by Dave Matthews Band
5.  Easier to Lie by Aqualung
4.  Fly from the inside by Shinedown
3.  Rise by Robbie Seay Band
2.  In the Hands of God by Newsboys
1.  Viva la Gloria! by Green Day

Your #1?

How does a phenomena that reaches the many reach one heart?

A song that becomes popular resonates with me so strongly that I can feel the pain or joy of that song?

A movie that thousands, hundreds of thousands and in some cases, millions of people will see brings me to tears and laughter like it was about me?

A book or series of books that hang onto the bestsellers lists makes me want an 7th sequel when it stops at the 7th book.

It’s simple really.  The reason a phenomena reaches out and affected me after it’s touched the many is because it has affected  me.  And I am more alike with someone who lives in Orange County, or the boroughs of Louisiana, or downtown Tokyo than sometimes we’d care to admit.  There’s not a lot, but there are some things that speak to us universally.  Why?

Because that’s how God made us.

If you want to make your mark (in any area), you can do in two ways:

You can do it like Matchbox twenty did it.  Put out a first  album where every song hits the charts, and you become the talk of the town – the “it” person – for a while.  The risk you run, however, is that you will never be able to make an album like that again.  So expectations fall quickly, and you constantly are trying to get back to the point you were at once.

Or you can do it like the Foo Fighters.  I never actively buy their cd’s,(mp3′s) or listen to their music.  But this last week I heard at least a half dozen of their songs on the radio, including this morning driving to the gym, and when I heard it, I whispered to myself…

When did the Foo Fighters become my favorite band?

So I’m listening to Ken Blocks solo cd project “Drift” today (ken Block is the lead singer of Sister Hazel, a band I’ve loved since their first hit release in 1997 – “All for you”), and I come upon this song called “Chances” I wanted to share with you.  Here’s the 2nd verse and chorus:

“I can’t believe I called it love before you,
To think I even thought I could ignore you.
I had no idea I’d disappear for fear,
Those days were cold and I almost faded away.
But you changed the way I breathed, a rearrange of needs,
To the world you might be one, but to me you are the world, and…

Chance, what are the chances,
That you’d look down from the sky and choose me to be your own
Chance, what are the chances,
That you would sacrifice your wings to become flesh and bone for me.”

Amazing stuff, really.  I loved the song, and it hit home as a kind of praise song.  Whether it was written to be or not means very little to me, because it made me think of the one who sacrificed himself for you and me about 2,000 years ago.

But for those of you who don’t care about any of that, don’t worry, Ken Block still brings his “Sister Hazel type” lyrics when he pronounces in the next song, “You and me” – “The best part of you and me is (wait for it)…

me.”

I’m going to try something new today. I’d like to join me today for the Fellowship 15! If you like music, you’ll like it. If you find this post by 4:15 pm today (3/31/09), check out the link here.