Bye Brad

For those of you who follow this sort of thing... Brad Avery (lead guitarist) for the band Third Day has left the band to pursue solo projects! According to certain threads the band has made it clear that they will not replace Brad rather continue as a quartet instead.

Epic March

Here we are again with another epic film coming out in March. Last year it was 300, this year it is 10,000 B.C. I am starting to look forward to movies in March more than I am the summer blockbusters!

Finding Rhythm

I've been thinking a lot about lately about rhythm. Not just pertaining to music but my own life of prayer as well. It's easy for me to become less prayerful when I am confined indoors than when I am able to be out of doors. I know that you might be thinking that it really should be the other way around but for me it isn't.

We are starting the fourth week of Lent and I feel like I am struggling more and more to make a sustaining prayer life. For me Lent is usually the time when I have a heightened sense of prayer and devotional time... but this year something is different. I haven't quite put my finger on it but it doesn't feel like abundant life... just an emptiness (yes I see the Christ connection to my emptiness see Phil 2:7-8).

I used to think (and tried) that my prayer life would be best modeled after a monastic prayer style and though that worked for a time (and still do get much meaning from it, when I do it) I am beginning to discover that my spiritual life tends to find it's own rhythm within my present life circumstances. I believe that my prayer life was much better when I was in pastoral ministry than it is now. The difference is that my style has adapted to my increasingly more natural (think nature, creation) influence.

I am learning that there is no one way to prayer and I must be respectful of my own temperament, rhythm and seasons as well as that of others.

Maybe I will begin to reclaim my sense of prayer and find my rhythm as the seasons change from dreary winter to hopeful spring.

1,457 days

It's been 4 years today since mom passed away.
This day is always a somber one.

Music!

I finally have some of my original songs posted up on my Myspace Artist page. I am nowhere near happy with the vocals however the music I think is quite good. I am planning to repost my songs with vocals that are more suitable to my range, that being a baritone and all. Still check the songs out and listen to them with the mindset that they are continually evolving.

The time has come

...many of you know that I am a musician and have been for nearly 20 years since I first picked up the guitar at age 9. After nearly a decade of writing songs, I now feel (with the encouragement of others) that my songs have matured and I am taking that crucial step into what may lie ahead for me as a musician.

I recently purchased a digital recorder and have been recording, mixing and mastering my own original songs into a digital demo and hope to start performing at some local venues here in Fort Wayne.

I have also created a MySpace Artist page that you can save to your bookmarks and check in from time to time. By all means leave me a comment or add me as your friend. I just created the page today, I do not have any songs up as of yet since I am in the midst of still learning how to use my new home studio. My hope is that I can have my first song or two up within the next week or so. I am still learning how to create MP3's from my digital recorder...

I wanted to share this with all of you knowing you'll support this path that I am choosing to explore.

Here's the info:

http://www.myspace.com/randallwestfall

The Worship Industry & Self Help

There has been some thoughtful conversation I've been taking part in at the APA Discussion blog. The central element was that of change but it also meandered into discussion on worship and I felt the need to post about what I've been experiencing lately in regards to worship. There is an interesting video on the Voice site that has Brian McLaren speaking of how he has a conflicted sense about how we use the word worship and how it has become an industry of prefabricated worship experiences. Part of my experience of late has also sprung forth from my reading of Edward Hays.

I have struggled to connect with a meaningful worship experience. I could chalk it up to my own contemplative nature in saying that if it isn't Taize then it won't work for me. But that is hardly the case. I am beginning to understand exactly what McLaren meant by a worship industry. When I was in college at the height of my "praise and worship" phase I was becoming such a clientele buying into their product. That was part of the reason I walked away from that style of music for the most part. Don't misunderstand me, I am interested and passionate about worship. Another issue I have is that the CEO's... I mean pastors... have used their 20-30 minutes of "speaching" to become more self help motivators with a Christian slant, which I am beginning to abhor.... i.e. financial well being messages, prosperity, how to have (fill in the blank).

I think you get what I'm saying. I know that this isn't the way it is in every congregation but for the life of me I can't help but to see it as the predominant structure. This is my struggle. I don't sense that there is a degree of authenticity in most settings.

The spiritual challenge of the twenty first century is to begin an exodus out of the God-dwelling space of churches to experience God inhabiting all spaces. - Edward Hays

This is where I am coming from. It's why my spirituality has become increasingly more nature oriented. Increasingly more biblical... not self-help motivational. Increasingly more contemplative.

Let's talk, cuz I won't be able to get all of this in one post nor would I want to because it has become sickening and feels less and less like abundant life.