I lead a missional community of faith in Santa Cruz, CA.
I am a husband, dad, musician, speaker, performer, community catalyst and dreamer.
Welcome to the conversation.
LOST starts again tonight.
Unfortunately, we don’t have cable.
So we’ll be watching it online tomorrow.
As a side note, you may have thought that LOST was a real original idea that J.J. Abrams birthed. Apparently not. Check out the black and white lost footage (pun sorta intended…but I recognize it was lame).
Yesterday I shared some notes from a session with Earl Creps on reaching cultural creatives as a church. If you missed that, feel free to scroll down and check it out.
One of the things the Earl mentioned that stuck out to me was their desire to contribute to the community they are a part of. There’s a concern I have heard from some artists regarding the church. The general issue is that we tend to fail at celebrating art for the sake of beauty and only really celebrate art to the degree that it illustrates the points that we want to make in our services.
It is an easy trap to fall into, and one that I definitely am guilty of. As I would get so wrapped up in planning out Sundays experience, artist became simply a means to communicate our message that Sunday. This is very valuable, but if it the only focus I think this subtly says to artists that their personal expression is valid only as long as it is used for our purposes.
Often the church tries to figure out how we can reach "creatives" rather than inviting creatives onboard to build, create, lead, and challenge the way we think. When I first started in ministry, I thought much more like a creative type myself. But then I learned in the church world how things are "supposed" to be done and began focusing so much more on the programs rather than my love of art and beauty. Now I consistently need to unlearn some of the things that have been reinforced in me in order to be the person that God really wants me to be and reach the communities he’s equipped me to reach.
So how do we as a church become a place for creatives, allowing them to feel like valued contributing members without it having to be in the confines of how we want to use it? When I was at Recreate, one of the presenters talked about hosting a film festival for our community. Part of me, most of me, loves that idea. But another part of me has had trouble wrapping my head around the usefulness. Where is the redemptive value? Are we sharing the greater story with them somehow? Are we inviting them to church to fill the seats the next Sunday? Perhaps it should be enough that we value just encouraging and celebrating creativity, and there is no other hidden agenda or motives. Now that gets me more excited. Just not sure if that one will sell to a board or your average church leadership. 
So my questions for you today, what do you think…
Does the church value art in and of itself?
What can we do to value art and artists beyond our own agendas?
How have you (or have you) seen this done effectively?
So, as I mentioned before, I’m currently out in Sacramento for our annual District Council. Truth is, it’s mostly a bunch of business meeting…not that exciting. On top of that, the truth is, the Assemblies is kinda a new world to Rachel and I, a new culture, so we don’t always feel like we fit in. But the opportunity to get away with our lead pastor and his wife and spend some quality time with them is well worth the time and the trip.
In order to make it feel a little more useful, they throw in a couple of ministry related seminars as well. I was able to attend two today. First one, not so impressed. Second one, different story. I was kinda stoked to see that Earl Creps was doing several of the breakouts. I’ve always enjoyed Earls insights in blog posts as well as his visit to CLC, and I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say in this particular gathering. It didn’t disappoint. (And Earl, I’m not just saying that cause I know your Google hunter thing will flag this and you will read this blog. I mean it! )
The session was on "Reaching Cultural Creatives." It really got some ideas and thoughts bouncing around in my dome. So, allow me to unpack my notes here, and ask you a few questions over the next three days on your thoughts. This is conversation time, so don’t be shy!
Most of his thoughts and material were birthed from a book called Cities and the Creative Class by Richard Florida, an urban planter. A book I think I’m gonna have to read now. Here were the main ideas about creatives and how it applied to the church.
Most of America can be split into three categories of the labor pool:
- Creative Class – approx. 39 million. These are the people who are creating the future we will all live. This is the guy who will create the "box" that comes after the iPod. Whether they come to know Christ or not, these are the people who will be creating the culture.
- Engineering Sector – approx. 34 millions. These are the people who will build the box that the creative creates.
- Service sector workers – approx. 56 million. This is the majority of the labor force. These are the people who will then service that box that comes after the iPod.
Different communities have different population densities of these classes if you will.
Naturally, there are things that attract creatives to the places that they gather in highest numbers.
Primarily, these people are looking for:
- Talent – they are talented and want to be around other talented people like them.
- Technology – how do things get done? Desire for convenience.
- Tolerance – let me do what I want as long as no one else is being hurt.
As far as places to go, our churches included, they are looking for:
- Quality of an experience.
- First level of your truth is the level of your tolerance.
- Want to be somewhere with other creatives.
- Want to have the opportunity to validate who they are and what their contribution is.
Finally, here are the traits to an "event" that would attract the creative:
- Casual – I can come however I want to.
- Convenient
- Inclusive
- Participatory
- Can develop a support network very quickly – may be able to attend next in four meetings or something, so need to connect quickly.
- Prefer coffee shops over sports stadiums – and usually the locally owned, free trade. "down with the man" coffee shop, not Starbucks.
So ultimately, to reach the cultural creative, it is not about building something new, better, and different. Figure out the barriers to them being with you and tear those barriers down.
A little dry without the delivery, but you get the idea. I found myself nodding a lot as Earl spoke and really resonating with the feelings and worldview of the "cultural creative."
So here’s my question for today (assuming you’ve managed to carve out the time to read this long). It is actually quite elementary and almost backs up to before the talk.
I wonder, does the church, as a whole, really see a high value in reaching this creative class?
What are the benefits to it?
Obviously, if the church wants to be creating culture, I think it is crucial. And we give a lot of lip service to believing that. But as I read through that stuff, our natural Christian sub-culture of today probably doesn’t really jive with the desires of the typical creative. There are lots of barriers to break down.
Does the Church at large really buy into this idea of reaching this group?
Or, more importantly, how many of our churches are willing to pay the cost it will take and make the changes that will be needed to tear down those barriers?
What do you think? What are the reasons to even go there? Are we there? How are you seeing it happen? Or not happen?
This post is a contribution to Water Cooler Wednesday. Stop on by and contribute yourself!
Got to District Council (fancy name for a bunch of business meetings) at Capital Christian Center in Sacramento yesterday.
As usual, there were issues with my pre-registration. Not sure why that always happens to me.
After a bit of waiting, they finally got my name tag printed up.
Printed my name and stuck it on a tag.
Here’s what it says:
The lady at the counter bestowed ordination upon me.
See, I knew getting ordained in the A.G. would be a piece of cake!
I love that now, when I don’t blog for a few days, my friends who see me regularly, even the ones in my Life Group, come to me and say, "Bobby, you haven’t blogged for a while…is everything ok?" LOL. It’s all good. Sorry for slackin y’all. Here’s a quick update on the past week.
Saturday: Building a play structure. The play group and other kids ministry functions use the play structure in out back yard. It was old. Falling apart. Splinters. Scary. Jane bought a new one for the church. I got to put it together. They basically give you the wood, hardware, instructions, and a DVD and say, "Here, you are now playing the part of a general contractor. Have fun!" 9am-9pm. Me, Ed, Josh, and my wife all day. plus George, Alan, and Elias during the day. Got to step 16 of 35.
Sunday: Sick. Pretty much sucked. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say I spent more time in the bathroom than onstage. God got me through worship in an amazing way though! Yeah God! Slept some. Slight fever.
Had our volunteer appreciation Luau that afternoon. Felt well enough to make it work. Here’s a few pics. I’ll put up more soon at the CLC blog. (Yeah…we’re gonna give that another go.)
Monday: Play structure…again. Rachel and I, all day. but we got it done! And I’ve never seen Caleb more excited!! Rachel got some video of that. Hopefully that will come later. I got video of the whole building process. Maybe I’ll get something up. Here’s the final product:
Come over and play with us sometime!
Tuesday: Staff meeting. Work. Life Group. Nothing exciting.
Wednesday: Yup. Another day of working. Worship practice. After practice felt introspective. Went to Starbucks right before they closed. Got my coffee and spent some time at the beach and the pier thinking, praying, chillin. It was good. Then went to Lulu’s to work on a video project.
Thursday: Sick. Rachel‘s turn. She was bad. Throwing up all morning. In bed all day. So work didn’t happen cause I was Mr. Mom. Had lunch with some great Life Group leaders from our church. Took Caleb to childcare at 24 hour fitness for Spin class. He loved it. Ryan met James and I for Spin class too. We got our butts kicked…it was great!
Friday: Video chat with Ed and a youth pastor candidate. Pretty encouraging meeting. We’ll see where it all goes. If you know any youth pastors without a job, in case this doesn’t work out, feel free to send em our way! And Rich‘s, of course. Tried to catch up on work the rest of the day. Spent the night working on that video. Late.
Saturday: That’s today. Sitting at the church for a day of training our sound peeps. A few parties to go to tonight and a lot of work to still do on that video that needs to get done tonight. Somethings gonna have to give. I guarantee you it won’t be the video. Slideshow for a wedding. Don’t wanna turn anyone into a Bridezilla. Just kidding!
There you have it. busy week. Tomorrow we’re off to District Council in Sac-town. Should have some time in boring meetings to blog when I’m not making jokes or acting like I’m in Jr. High. Hopefully there will be a couple good seminars to go with all the meetings.
How was your week?
Have a great weekend!!
This is Josh Robertson.
Well, that’s him several years ago.
He’s now our interim youth pastor.
He’s a horrible blogger.
He’s also a student at Bethany University.
That means to stay here for the summer, he needs a home.
He really isn’t that scary.
The long hair, armband tattoo , and shirtless bulging biceps are just a facade.
Do you have a room for rent?
Are you aware of a cheap place to stay in Santa Cruz for the summer?
Please help Josh out.
Comment or email.
Oh yeah…he’s also one of the three people that did this.
He fessed up, so he’s sort of safe.
Should have posted this a while back. But tonight, I am going to a Giants game with my friend James. In honor of that, thought I’d share this Santa Cruz moment with you.
In Santa Cruz, everyone’s got a gimmick. Now, this may not be on par with The Pink Guy or the pink Santa, but while some friends were here back in September, we saw this guy surfing at Steamers:
He then went ahead and gave us a nice pose for the camera. Sliding into home. Something the Giants aren’t very familiar with – home plate.
Oh yeah. I’m a Padre fan. They’re playing the Cardinals tonight. Don’t care about the Cardinals, but the only time I feel like I should ever root for the Giants is if they’re playing the Dodgers. Not sure who I’ll pull for tonight, but it will be fun.
So, the other day I decided to check out Mogulus a little more. Pretty cool site. Seen both my friends Los and JVo use it in some pretty cool ways, watching ping pong grudge matches and sitting in on all church business meetings. It’s basically advertised as having your own TV channel online. You can have videos looping or even do live broadcasts.
So I figured, what the heck! So I now have a Mogulus channel. Check it out here.
Right now it is just a bunch of looping YouTube videos I’ve made. The live feed feature is pretty cool, but I was trying to figure out what I do that would actually be interesting enough for anyone to join me for it online. My first thought was a sort of new form of Worship Confessional I guess you could say. I’m wanting some excuse to just try throwing it up there, so maybe I’ll try setting it up during worship practice tonight. If you’re just chillin at home and wanna hear some music, see if we’re there! We usually start playing between 7:30 and 8, after taking some time to connect as a team.
I also thought it could be cool at some point to have a life group where people who weren’t sure what to expect by just going could see one first, and even interact through the chat feature.
What would you like to see a live broadcast of?
Anything sound interesting enough to watch live at Mogulus?
Get creative! Ideas?
So a while back I was inspired to make "a list" when reading post by Heather and Randy. Actually, I can remember being inspired to do this way back in 1999 while on tour with Young Americans. One of our directors, Merilee Webb, had mentioned making one at a workshop once. So I finally am getting around to it and thought I’d share it with all of you here.
So here it is. My list of things I want to accomplish before I kick the bucket! In absolutely no particular order:
Help lead my kid(s) to faith in Jesus
Go Hang-gliding
Get SCUBA certified
SCUBA off Hawaii
SCUBA off Australia
Visit all seven continents ([Visited-Not Yet]: North America, South America, Australia, Europe, Asia, Africa, Antarctica)
Climb Mt. Shasta
Finish a sprint triathlon
Finish an Olympic triathlon
Finish ½ Ironman triathlon
Learn to fly a plane or helicopter
Take a missions trip to Africa
Sing in a gospel choir
Take my wife on a cruise
Take my wife to New Zealand
Adopt a child
Climb half-dome
Plant a church (OK, have been a part, but I mean really lead the charge)
Produce an album of original music
Ride in a hot air balloon
I decided since I just made it, to not put on things I’ve already done just to check em off. That’s a lame cop out. Kind of a long list, but the way I see it, I’ve got somewhere in the vicinity of 72 years to fill. So you can bet that as I think of and see more things I wanna do, they will be added. It will get longer. And I know one or two of those things are totally unrealistic, but hey, one can dream, yeah? Might as well aim high!
So, there it is.
If you have any ideas how I can accomplish any of these sooner that later, lemme know!
If you have any you think I should add, lemme know!
And the best part…as I check em off I can share them with you here!
So how about you?
What are two or three things you want to do before you die?
I really want to know!
So, a couple of years ago for Christmas at Revolution we wanted to basically turn our meeting space into an incredibly immersive night sky including planets, galaxies and stars. How did we end up doing it? Over 8,000 Christmas twinkle lights taped to the walls behind a sheer black fabric that covered every wall in the building. Actually worked out pretty darn cool, but the work was pretty ridiculous.
Looking back, I wish we would have had these. I’m posting this as my first post joining in Creative Chaos at Ragamuffin Soul. I feel kinda lame because it isn’t something we have done or can speak super knowledgeably about, but I would imagine it could be helpful to many of us in the future.
A friend I made here in Santa Cruz through a company we’ve been using for stage stuff at our church, Legend Theatrical, recently started his own company. His name in Kenny Green (that’s right friends…Kenny G) and his business is Lumina. They sell and rent lasers. Kenny moved to Santa Cruz a few years ago to be a part of planting a church and I had a chance to sit down with him several weeks ago over coffee and hear more about how God led him into this business. It’s a pretty cool story. And the lasers sounded pretty sweet, too. Would have been way easier to just use those things to project thousands of stars around the room for the effect we wanted to create!
He sells and rents the lights for special events. Maybe one of these days we can work out the time to do a demo for something and I can let you know how it goes. In the meantime, if you’re ever doing anything similar, or want to really spruce up a youth room, outdoor architecture or whatever other creative use you can think of for lasers, check him out and let us know what you think! Tell him I sent you over and I’m sure he’ll hook ya up too! Right Kenny?!
Like I mentioned, this post is part of Creative Chaos at Ragamuffin Soul. Go by there every Thursday for all sorts of creative tips, tricks, secrets, and ideas. Happy blog surfing!
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