Interactive Sermon

3 Chords & A Bunch of New Tunes

3 Chords returns from our month off--nine brand new tunes ready for the acoustic gig Saturday night and four more on the way for the full-tilt dates later in November.  All in all it was a very productive month for us.

We're back at Granite Town Tavern.  As they like to say: "Back by popular demand!"  We're not sure if it's really their popular demand or ours, because we love to gather there with our friends.  Saturday night October 31st, we're scheduled to play between 9pm and 12midnight.  As usual at Granite Town, we're going with an acoustic/unplugged/Storytellers feel.  And we've got new tunes and new stories to share!  Also, as usual at Granite Town, great food, great hosts, great staff and a great time!  Come on out.

What's on the set list?  Let me drop a few hints: songs from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s have all been added!  The new tunes span 1962 to 2009.  We've locked a couple of them together into a medley that is sure to shake the place up.  We're equal opportunity offenders--we added tunes from a skinny white woman and a heavy-set black man; a gay Brit and a straight Irishman; a living legend and a dead one; and a couple just to make you scratch your head in disbelief--we wouldn't be 3C without that.

Oh, and it's Halloween to boot.  Something tells me there may be some folks in costume.  We will be.  We're going as 3 Chords & A Cloud of Dust.  I have an idea!  Why don't you come dressed as friends of 3 Chords?  We are looking forward to seeing you Saturday night.

Granite Town Tavern is located at 4 Nashua Street, just off the Milford Oval across from the library.

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Social Media Woes

Just about the time I get the social media monster under control, Facebook goes and changes things on me.  Again.  I've seen more than a fair share of my "friends" complaining about the latest changes to the news feed and wall functions.  But wait! 

These changes may actually work for the better!

Here's a link to a site that explains how you can use these new changes to your advantage.  After a bit of playing around, I'm sold.  I've concluded that this Facebook change helps.  Give this link a look: http://thefacebookinsider.com/2009/10/how-to-set-your-facebook-news-feed-and-wall-settings/ and you may just be on your way to agreeing with me.

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When It Doesn't Make Sense

Our circle of friends and our family have been rocked by a tragedy.  There is this entire set of questions in the face of tragedy that we won't have answers to this side of heaven. Why?  How?  At the same time, we wrestle with a question to which we will experience the answer: What now?  Now will be here.  Now is here.  Now isn't going away.

Please pray for a family that are friends of ours--very dear friends of my children.  Please pray also for my girls.  Please pray for the community of families at the dance studio where my girls dance.  Many, many questions today--most of which cannot be answered... and one that we will all have to experience the answer together. 

What's On My Mind?

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.  No, really.

Family Gathering ~ I'm looking forward to gathering with my family this coming weekend for my niece Jenna's wedding. The clan is gathering from near and far.  Central Florida will never be the same.  It's always a welcome respite for me when I gather with my mom and siblings, nieces and nephews--everyone should be as fortunate as I am.  I'm very honored to be officiating the ceremony. 

My Beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers ~ Yep, they're on my mind.  I'm loving the irony of these next few weeks.  We're a thoroughly consistent 0-6 at the moment.  The NFL schedule makers have the Bucs traveling to England this coming Sunday to play a "home game" against the New England Patriots--they who just laid a 59-0 beating on the Tennessee Titans, you recall.  So, do you think the Bucs stand a chance?  Me either.  Look at the bright side: We get to stink up a whole new continent!  Here's the funny part:  We come home, presuming we'll be 0-7... get a bye week... and then play a game on November 8th in our "throw-back" jerseys!  You remember, Bucco Bruce and the popsicle orange uniforms!  Remember?  The winking pirate?  They of the 1976 Buccaneers, who were... wait for it... 0-14 on the season!

3 Chords & A Bunch 'O New Tunes ~ The boys and I are up to eight new tunes with two weeks of work still to go.  We may sneak in a few more.  Look out Southern NH!  Here's another hint: one tune we added tonight was a big hit from 1962.  That narrows it down, eh?  You'll hear it for the first time at Granite Town Tavern at month's end.  You coming? 

Psalms ~ They have a way of coming alive within your experiences.  This past month I have spent much time meditating on the first ten Psalms.  They have fed my soul.  I know that some folks have a real love for them while others struggle with the poetic nature of the Psalms--all I can say is that God speaks comfort to me through their honesty and artistry.  Whether it is the assurances of God's sovereignty and the Savior's triumph in the first couple, or the pleas for God to show up amidst the distress of His people in the next few, or the very eloquent prayers crying out to God for mercy, justice and deliverance--they come to life in the midst of our experiences.  Grab your bible.  Turn to someplace near the middle--find the Psalms.  Read.  Pray.  Enjoy.

Carson City Tires ~ A few years ago there was a nasty vibration in the front end of one of our cars.  I knew I needed to replace a couple of tires and figured I needed an alignment.  A friend recommended Carson City.  I took it to them and gave permission to change the tires and do the alignment.  The alignment on this vehicle would be a costly one.  When I returned, I was pleasantly surprised that they replaced the tires, but did not do the alignment--it wasn't needed.  The vibration turned out to have been the bad tires.  Alignment was fine.  It hit me: these guys could have charged me for the alignment and I'd have never questioned it.  The fact that they didn't won me over as a customer.  I've done business with them ever since.  Well, today... I need a couple of tires on another vehicle.  I have a schedule conflict that really makes it so I have to have those tires on my car before 8AM tomorrow.  Problem is, the tires I need are in Boston and couldn't be here until noon tomorrow.  I was struggling to make other arrangements.  Steve at Carson City overheard my predicament.  He worked it out to send someone to get the tires tonight, so they can mount them for me at 7AM tomorrow.  My point: There are some good guys out there who still "do" honesty, integrity and customer service.  It's a joy when you find them!  If you're in Southern New Hampshire and you need tires, I know the place to send you.

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Faces

...the new #shortstorytweet

Why would anyone undertake writing a short story 140 characters at a time?  Why not?  It is a Twitter world. 

FACES is an unfolding story.  It will be created in those 140 characters daily.  In other words, it's not a complete story that I have broken into short segments to tweet.  What you read today is as far as the story has gone... today.  The story will evolve.  I hope.  I've started with a man.  He has a face.  We'll see where it takes us.

I am going to attempt to add at least one 140 character tweet per day to the story.  Some days I might do more.  Perhaps one day I'll add a few, and on another day I'll not post--law of averages, you'll see about one addition a day.  You can follow along in one of three ways.  You can sign up for Twitter and FOLLOW ME!  (See how self serving an author wannabe I am?)  If you do that you'll receive the tweets.  Or, if you can search Twitter hashtags using #shortstorytweet and keep up to date.  Or, finally, you could simply go to the #shortstorytweet page of my writing site here.  It is there, by the way, where I will continue to compile all the 140 character segments, so that people can read it all sequentially should you miss a tweet along the way.

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Take Me Back

My sister Diann produced this 'take me back' keepsake.  You can see that I was angry, I referred to my mom as Mother.  I'm guessing this note is from 1978 and that means that I was eleven.  As best I recall, the setting concerned two movies.  One was the debut of Jaws II in theatres, which my sister Diann had offered to take me to see.  The other, I believe, was the television movie Kiss Meets the Phantom.  I'm guessing that Mom... uh... Mother, had agreed to let me go with Diann, but there was some confusion about the timing of these events and concern for my being up late two nights in a row.  It couldn't have been that my attitude had anything to do with it.  Mom... uh... Mother was just being irrational.  Look at the evidence--she got teed off and yelled!  She determined I had a big mouth, for cryin' out loud!

Check out my spelling as an eleven year old.  Crued?  How about all the exclamation points?  "...never gonna to talk to her again!! NEVER!!"

I called on Diann to reason with Mom... uh... Mother.  I was the only sixth grader in the whole world going to bed at 9PM.  Imagine that!  Then I bust out a moral argument--in case you missed it, it went like this: I'm so embarrassed about this bedtime thing that I'm forced to lie.  Lying is bad.  So, as the argument goes, Mother needs to relax my bedtime... or she's forcing me into moral abandon.

Finally, check my use of big words.  Underprivileged?  How about that?  So I spelled it wrong, but I busted out the big vocabulary for this note.  It was that important.  Crucial! 

Here's the fun part: I have a drawer full of these notes--that my girls have written to Shari and me.  Mom's teed off.  Dad's unreasonable.  We're underprivileged (only my kids spell it correctly, I'm raising them to be brats of higher literacy).  Chips off the old block, they are!  I can't wait to bust these notes out on them in thirty years.

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Sermons You've Never Heard pt. 6

You've heard the silly slogan "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche."  Or perhaps you've seen the variation from Promise Keeper's: "Real Men Sing Real Loud!"  But have you heard the sermon 'Real Men Pee Standing Up?'  I didn't think so.  Here's another of those texts you haven't studied on Sunday mornings.

"And it came to pass, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all of the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinfolk nor of his friends." 1 Kings 16:11

Hey, and that's just one of six mentions of this posture for tinkling in the Bible.  You can check out 1 Samuel 25:22, 34, 1 Kings 14:10, 21:21, and 2 Kings 9:8 for the other five.

In each of these texts you should note this consistency: each refers to men within a family or community, and if you look it up in almost any other version besides a King James Version you'll note the word "males" is substituted.  So, in short order, it's legitimate to understand these texts as being about battle more than the posture from which people relieve themselves.

Still, the King James has it "pisseth against a wall."  You can imagine some King James-only nut having a field day with this, no?  Well, imagine no more.  Click here if you want to see the video.  Four minutes to clarify: real men don't sit when they pee!  He even goes so far as to use these verses to support his dislike for other pastors, the President of the United States, other world leaders, German citizens and publishers of any Bible version other than the KJV.  No kidding, this man wants to be clear, "You better know I'm going to pee standing up everywhere I go!"  Hope he has good aim if he comes to my house.  Wow.  Talk about hermeneutics-gone-wild.

What does the context of each appearance tell us?  In 1 Samuel, David is on his way to wipe out Nabal's family--specifically the men of his family for his wickedness. Read 1 Sam. 25:1-44 to understand the offense, David's anger, Abigail's plea, and the score finally being settled.  In 1 Kings 14 God speaks judgment against the house of Jeroboam.  In chapter 16 Zimri killed the males in the family of Baasha fulfilling the prophecy of Jehu.  And in 2 Kings 9 God speaks of judgment on Ahab's house like that that visited Jeroboam and Baasha's families earlier. 

You haven't heard a sermon on these verses (at least not a serious one, allowing that some of you have just watched the YouTube message I linked above) because there isn't anything to preach here.  You could hear those verses in passing, though, realizing the sermon would be about God's justice and judgment--not about proper bathroom usage.

What do you think?  Talk amongst yourselves--I need to visit the restroom.  (Note: This sign hangs above a urinal in one of the juke joints near Asheville, NC where I hope to one day book 3 Chords to play.  We play all the finer establishments!)

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Many Splendored

This morning I ran across a prompt: Try writing a poem about a word.  The prompt even included a short list of words from which to choose.  Okay.  I'm game. So, here goes...

Splendid!  What a splendid word; many splendored in its faces.
In sarcasm it mocks or sighs; identified by accompanying abrasives.
Of wonder it's spoken innocence; the common, fascination replaces.
As a simile for magnificence; something adorned with beauty and graces.
Vocabulary in context, style, voice and tone; interpretation put through its paces.
Splendid!  Whatever do you mean? You must read between the lines for traces.

So there it is--another poem.  Apologies!  You see, they shouldn't list these challenges in writing magazines and websites.

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A 3C Update

One week down and three to go.  Four new tunes down and eight to go.  Moving right along! 

Last night we added cover tunes by a big black man, a skinny white woman, a gay Brit and a song that is sure to offend feminists.  As you can see, 3C continues to be a rock-n-roll diversity trend-setter.

Don't forget to check the dates section of our website as we've added a handful of fall dates with a few more to come. 

Thanks for your prayer and support.  We'll see you on October 31st.

www.3chordsband.com

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Sermon~Cast

One of the new features over at the church site www.ccnh.org is a Sermon~Cast channel.  We began producing podcasts of Sunday morning messages in September of this year.  Do you remember the days of cassettes and CDs?  (Actually, you can still request a CD, but that's another matter for another blog post.)

The beauty of the podcasts is their availability to you.  You can simply play them right there at the site in a player, or you can download the file for later, or you can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another audio file service.  Subscribing basically means you don't have to go find the podcast--the podcast will come find you! 

Although it is our sound guys who are doing the actual recording, I've been enjoying uploading the podcasts.  It's allowed me to venture into some of the archives of Christ's Church Worship Band recordings and grab up a song clip or two to add to the audio file.  What a blessing to listen to the amazing assortment of musicians and music that fills our sanctuary when we gather to worship. 

If you haven't checked out the Sermon~Cast channel, what are you waiting for?  Give it a visit.  Click here.  Enjoy.  Tell others. 

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