Light the Fire(works) Again

I’m writing this post left-handed after a slight fireworks mishap this morning.

Today was the last day of Shock and Awe Vacation Bible School, and I wanted to send the kids home feeling totally shell-shocked (in a good way). So I called up my cousin Tim, who is a truck driver, but also likes to play with fireworks as a hobby. Technically Tim has been legally banned from using fireworks, so I really just used him as a consultant.

Tim came down to the church this morning and rigged up 4,000 pounds of fireworks throughout the church sanctuary. In hindsight that may have been a bit overboard, but oh well. If you can’t run with the big dogs, get out of the kitchen.

At 9 A.M. the kids arrived and I started giving my lesson for the morning, which I had entitled “Building Your Own Ark: Fifteen Steps Toward Achieving Your Dreams”. Basically I was trying to communicate that, just as Noah built the ark, so each of us has to build the “ark” of our dreams. I’m pretty sure it hit the kids at a really deep level, maybe even at their subconscious.

Then, to conclude the morning, I had Thad the Worship Leader come up and play that old song, “Light the Fire Again”. That was when things got slightly out of control.

At first things were okay. When Thad sang, “Light the fire again…”, I set off twenty-two roman candles as a visual reinforcement of the lyrics. So far, so awesome.

When Thad sang, “I am here to buy gold refined in the fire…”, I lit a fuse that I thought was attached to a few bottle rockets. Turns out that Tim had actually set up 12 “Pinwheels of Doom”, which are basically balls of fire that spin in random, out of control patterns. Thanks a lot Tim, thanks a lot.

To make a long story short, the pulpit was set on fire. The only reason that the church is still standing is that I had the wherewithal to pick up the pulpit and throw it directly into the baptistry, thus saving the day. Unfortunately my right got burned pretty bad, and is now wrapped in gauze.

Overall I would say that VBS was a massive success. The kids loved it (except for Michael B., who apparently has some sort of “dunktank phobia“, whatever that means), and Ridge View Bible Church established itself as the home of Shock and Awe Vacation Bible School. I can’t wait until next year.

Now the only problem is that three of the coyotes escaped and are loose somewhere in the Ridge View community. I guess that’s just the cost of doing business.

Do you have any ideas for next year’s VBS?

–

Okay folks, let’s take it to the Tweets.

Can You Help A Brother Out?

The first rule of leadership is: If there’s an elephant in the room, shoot it.

So I’m going to shoot the elephant, so to say. I’m going to clear the air between me and my faithful readers.

First, there’s a lot of you out there who are reading this blog but not leaving any comments. What’s up with that? The thing that’s tough about being a solo vision caster is that I don’t have anyone to reinforce the awesomenity (pretty sure that’s a word) of my ideas and to give me new ideas. That’s where you come in. I need you to add fuel to the fire of my soul by leaving comments.

Second, have you subscribed to this blog? If not, why not? I offer you nuggets of profundity for free. It’s like hitting the lottery three times a week, except that this lottery is the lottery of wisdom. Enter the lottery of wisdom, my friends, and benefit from the overflow of my soul. You can subscribe by clicking here.

Finally, can you help me spread the word? I’m pretty sure that everyone you know would be happier and healthier if they read this blog. So tell them! Let’s take the word to the “Tweets”, if you know what I mean. If you have a blog, toss me a link or something. Let’s make the world a better place. Together. For the children.

Okay, that’s it. The elephant is officially dead.

Writing Worship Songs: See It, Sing It, Love It, Live It

If profoundness could be bottled and sold, I’d be a rich man.

Last night I got together with my worship leader Thad to try and help him out a bit. Now you need to understand a little bit about Thad. He’s a great guy, and I love him to death like a long lost brother, but he’s a little bit old fashioned.

He likes doing “classic” worship songs on Sundays, and by classic, I mean “old” and “not bleeding edge cool like me”. This past Sunday, for example, he did a song called “I Stand In Awe”, which I guess was probably a big hit back in the day, but this is 2K10. The guy who wrote that song was probably an awesome rocker in his time, but what’s he doing now? Probably driving a mini-van and watching Jeopardy.

Time for some new songs, Thad.

So last night I sat down with Thad and asked him one simple question: “Thad, have you ever heard of The Decemberists?” He hadn’t. This was worse than I thought. How could my worship leader not have heard of the awesomest band since “Toto”?

I tried a different approach. I may not play any instruments, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to rock. I would write a worship song for Thad. Thad grabbed his guitar and we sat down in his living room. I was about to bottle profundity.

“Okay Thad, start playing something awesome, maybe something in the key of R.”

“There’s no such thing as the key of R.”

“Okay, whatever. Just play something. Give me a worship groove.” So he started playing something (a bit boring, I might add) and I began to mine the depths of my creative soul. Poetry began pouring out of my mouth.

“See it, sing it, love it, live it,” I sang. Over and over I repeated this phrase, each time with more emotion and passion. After a few minutes the song totally overcame me, and I climbed on to Thad’s coffee table and lifted my hands in the air, singing all the while.

Finally, after ten minutes, I stopped singing, looked at Thad and said, “See what I mean? That’s the kind of worship song we need.”

Of course Thad couldn’t see it right away. He said, “But what you just sang doesn’t even make sense!”

“That’s okay Thad. It may not make sense right away, but it touches the soul, and that’s what matters. You may not have understood it, but you certainly felt it reverberating deep within. Right?”

Thad continued to fight me, but I think he realized that it was a losing battle. I took Thad through a few more similar exercises, and by the end of the night I think he was beginning to come around.

It won’t be long before Ridge View is rocking. I can feel it.

The Kids Love Me!!!

Day one of Shock and Awe vacation Bible school was, in my opinion, a huge success.

A few highlights.

I had all the kids sitting in the sanctuary before VBS started. Earlier that morning I had secretly promised to pay a kid $15 bucks if he started chanting, “We want the bison, we want the bison, we want the bison!” Let me tell you, that kid totally earned his money. Within ten minutes he had those kids whipped into a sweaty, chanting frenzy. I think some of them might have even been crowd surfing.

At just the right moment, when the frenzy had reached its hysterical peak, I burst onto the stage riding bareback on one of the miniature bison. The kids absolutely flipped.

Now, there’s something that most people don’t tell you about bison: those animals do not like to be startled. Whoops, you could have told that to me beforehand, because when the kids started flipping out, so did the bison.

Fortunately, I’ve watched the show The Dog Whisperer a few times and know how to handle misbehaving animals. In less than two minutes I had that bison acting like a kitty cat. He had already demolished the drum set and pulpit by that point, but things could have been a lot worse.

I also gave a very inspirational speech to the kids called “Don’t Flee the Flood, Be the Flood”. I talked about how all of us have to deal with the floods of life. Sometimes these floods are bad grades. Sometimes they’re school bullies. Sometimes our floods also happen to be real floods, which is a double whammy.

But when life deals you floods, you’ve got two options. You can flee the flood and run in fear, or you can be the flood, and let it wash over you in a cleansing flow. (Is it possible to copyright an illustration?)

I really think the kids were inspired. One kid even came up and asked if he could touch the bison.

I’m just sowing seeds. One kid at a time.

–

Help me change the world. One tweet at a time.

When Braveheart Comes to Church

I think that it was either Teddy Roosevelt or Johnny Depp who said, “A story is worth a thousand pictures.” I’m living proof of that.

Up until this morning, I was still trying to connect with the people, to meet them at their level, to get inside their heads, and hearts, and souls. I wanted them to know, “Hey, I’m just a regularly guy. I’m not a rock star. I put on my pants one leg at a time, just like you.” I had tried a couple of different strategies, but just hadn’t had any luck so far.

Until today.

I was up in the pulpit, preaching my pastoral guts out, leaving everything on the playing field of the pulpit. I could sense that I was close to breaking through, but I needed a little something more. What I needed was a killer illustration.

I started mentally running through my list of 5-star sermon illustrations. The killer whale who intentionally beached himself in order to save an elderly woman? No, that wouldn’t work. The psychologist who solved everyone’s problems using nothing but a napkin and a crayon? No, not enough drama.

Then it hit me. Braveheart.

I would reenact the entire final scene of Braveheart. On stage. With me playing all the characters.

I seamlessly transitioned into the illustration by saying, “Speaking of being a busy bee, that reminds me of the movie Braveheart.” I then recreated the final twenty minutes of Braveheart right in front of the congregation. Completely from memory.

By the time I hit the final lines and screamed the word “freedom!”, I had everyone’s attention. Mrs. Felton was weeping (I think…her head was down so it was tough to tell). John Thomas was silent as a stone, probably under the weight of great emotion. Everyone was totally speechless.

Now, the illustration didn’t exactly tie into my sermon, which happened to be about diligence. But, I’m pretty sure everyone was really touched. And if I can reach out and touch someone, that makes it all worth it.

People say that George Whitfield was the greatest revival preacher in the history of the United States.

Move over Whitfield.

More Shock and Awe VBS

For the past three days I’ve been sitting in my office, racking my brains out, trying to come up with more ideas for vacation Bible school.

I talked to Janis Elton, the woman in charge of VBS, and to be honest, I was frightened by what she told me. She informed me that the kids would be playing dodge ball, eating goldfish snacks, and doing Noah’s Ark crafts. Since when did I become the pastor of Boring Church USA?

I was like, “Janis, that’s great and all, but this isn’t your grandma’s vacation Bible school.” She looked slightly offended and said that she didn’t understand. So I patiently explained to her that VBS was going to be a bit different this year, a bit more extreme, a bit more like the X-Games. She said that she would wait for me to give her some different ideas.

So here I am, in my office, running on Red Bull, a whole lot of heart, and the soundtrack to “Chariots of Fire”. And you know what? I’ve got it. An idea that will be talked about for years, maybe decades. I don’t think I’m off base to say that this will be talked about in church history textbooks 100 years from now under the subject of “World Changing Ideas”.

Interested? Heck yes you are.

Next Monday, at the opening session of VBS, I will unveil the Noah’s Ark Flood Simulation Tank.

Here’s how it will work. The baptismal will be filled to the brim with ice cold saltwater. Sitting above the baptismal will be a contraption that allows a person to be suspended by their feet. Each child will be locked into the contraption by their feet and then slowly lowered, head first, into the freezing saltwater. They’ll stay submerged in the saltwater for approximately thirty seconds.

This simple, yet profound device, will allow each child to experience, first hand, what it would be like to be swept away in a flood.

Now, I realize that some of the kids could be a little bit scared. But a little bit of fear never hurt anybody. Like the time my parents accidentally left me at a carnival. I was scared, but I also learned a lot of valuable lessons that day. Like never gorge on peppermint patties immediately before riding the Tilt-a-Whirl.

I like to think of fear as a seasoning. Too much and you ruin the meal. Too little and everything tastes like sludge.

You might want to write that last sentence down.

Shock and Awe Vacation Bible School

A lot of times people will say to me, “Brad, tell me your secret of leadership. How do you achieve such spectacular results?” Every time I get asked that question I do the same thing. I ask them for a $20 bill. I then take a marker out of my pocket and write two words on the bill:

SHOCK   AWE

Then I stuff the bill into their hand and say, “That my friend, is more valuable than gold.”

Shock and awe pretty much describes my pastoral M.O. (latin for “mode opportunity” I think)

And that includes vacation Bible school, which starts next week.

I’ve got some big plans for the kids of Ridge View. I want this to be a week that they remember for the rest of their lives, and that they tell their grandchildren about. In 50 years, I want people to be saying, “Remember vacation Bible school 2010, when Pastor Brad absolutely blew our minds with the revolutionary stuff he was doing at VBS?”

So here’s what I’m thinking: live animal menagerie.

The theme this year is Noah’s Ark. Now most churches would spend their week building paper mache animals, eating gummy treats, and singing about the “arky arky”. Not Ridge View. We don’t play around here. I just called my buddy Ty, who owns a big game hunting park in Ohio, and reserved 18 live animals for VBS. Next Monday a truck is going to arrive at the church with:

• 3 white tailed deer

• 2 leopards

• 1 miniature bison (I didn’t even know such a thing existed!!!)

• 5 coyotes

• 1 American alligator

• 2 albino rhinos

• 3 box jellyfish

• 1 small whale (or porpoise?)

The kids are going to walk in the church and be like, “What, what? Did I just step into a flux capacitor and get transported back to Bible times?”

There will be shock, and there will be awe.

Now, I haven’t exactly figured out where we’ll keep all these animals, but I’m working on that. I think we can keep the box jellyfish in the baptistry (temporarily!), but I’m honestly not sure what to do with the coyotes. From what I hear, those bad boys can leave quite a mess.

Oh well, if you lead they will follow. Follow on church, follow on.

My Zip Line Got Stuck

Man, whoever said, “Don’t despise the beginning of small days,” knew what he was talking about. Things didn’t go quite as planned on Sunday.

I woke up Sunday morning absolutely ready to “rawk” (punk band talk for “rock”). I got to the church early and finally got to meet the worship leader, Thad. Thad is a really nice guy, and said that he had some things planned out for the morning. A few hymns, a few praise choruses, that kind of stuff.

I said to Thad, “Thad, that all sounds great, but I need to ask you a question. Are you ready to raise the praise?” Thad seemed a little baffled by my terminology (what are they teaching in worship school these days?), so I had to explain to him my vision for the morning.

I asked him if he could start worship by playing the intro to “Where the Streets Have No Name”. He said he didn’t think he could do it. Strike one.

I asked him if he could imitate the intro by using his mouth to sound like an electric guitar. Nope. Strike two.

Now at this point, most guys would probably have given up and shut down the entire service, but not me. There’s a well known saying in leadership: “When life deals you lemons, the tough get going.” So I buckled down and put my thinking cap on. That’s when it hit me.

Youtube. I would start the service out with a clip of U2 on Youtube, then the band would kick in.

Well, let’s just say that it kind of worked. The church doesn’t have a video projector, so I had to stand on the stage and hold my laptop into a microphone. But I do think that it really fired people up. You could just see it on their faces.

Then it was time for my sermon. This is where things got just a little bit dicey. I had a zip line rigged from the balcony to the podium and I was planning on flying in with a grand entrance. Just one slight problem. My zip line harness got stuck and I ended up being suspended thirty feet above the congregation for the entire service.

At first I was like, uh oh Brad, this wasn’t part of the plan! But then I was like, Brad, this is just another lemon. Take it and run with it. So I did. I preached my entire sermon while hanging from the zip line. And you know what? I totally rocked it. It was just like when people would preach from a boat in the Bible. Except this was a zip line.

So anyhooo, that was how it all went down. Overall, I think the church got a solid taste of my leadership. Bold. Brash. Not afraid to make a few mistakes and bloody a few noses.

I’m already thinking about next week. Does anyone happen to own a stuffed bison?

Rocking U2 On My First Sunday

This Sunday is my first official Sunday as Lead Vision Caster of Ridge View Church. I’m pretty much jazzed out of my cardigan. Honestly, I got like two hours of sleep last night. Maybe it was because I drank a venti triple shot espresso at 10 pm. Maybe it was because I was so fired up.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about the service, and I have a pretty good idea of what it will look like. Here’s what I’m thinking.

People are going to walk into the sanctuary and it’s going to be pitch black. Suddenly, a beam of light will split the darkness, shining directly onto the worship leader (who I haven’t met yet, but I think his name is Thad). Thad will be playing an electric guitar, and will start playing a guitar lick that sounds like the opening from “Where the Streets Have No Name”.

People will look at each other and be like, “Are we at a U2 concert?”

Then without warning, the band will kick in, and they’ll actually be playing a Chris Tomlin song. At this point people will turn to each other with a knowing smile. They’re not at a U2 concert, this is church, baby!

The band will probably do four or five songs, including one that I’m working on called “Give Me Vision, Give Me Love”.

After that will be the announcements and offering. I haven’t talked to the ushers yet, but I think it would pretty awesome if they could all wear jeans, a white t-shirt, and a tie, almost like they were a rock band. Of course they’re not really a rock band, but it sure would be cool if people thought, Are those ushers, or are those rock stars?

Then will come my sermon. Because this is my first Sunday, I want to make an impression on the people. I want to inspire confidence in them. To motivate them. To give them hope where they never had hope. To lift their hearts to the heights.

So here’s what I’m thinking…zip line. I know it’s bold, but I’ve always said, “Be bold, be frank, and people will follow.” So I’m going to rig a zip line from the balcony down to the podium. I’ll have one of the elders formally introduce me to the church, then I’ll cut the lights.

“Jump” by Van Halen will start cranking on the sound system, smoke will start billowing onto the stage, and I’ll come zipping down to the podium. By that point I’ll have the congregation’s attention. They’ll be ready for my sermon, which I haven’t had time to put together yet because of all this pre-planning stuff. But it will come. It will come.

One last thing. I’m thinking about fireworks, but a little worried about the fire hazard.

Trying To Teach a Seal to Play Baseball

So remember how I said that the elder board didn’t love my mission statement? Here’s what happened.

Darren Reed, who is on the board of elders, said that he couldn’t even understand it. He said it was like something from the Oprah Winfrey show.

Really?Is it that difficult? I’m not even sure if I completely understand it, which is the beauty of it!

A mission statement (future leaders, write this down), is like a piece of art or a beautiful symphony. The more you study it, the more you get out of it. It’s not supposed to be hard and fast. You find your own meaning in a mission statement. You create your own mission out of the mission. (That’s an inspirational sentence if I ever wrote one).

I want each member of the church to bring their own meaning to the mission statement.

Tim Barry (another elder) didn’t like the fact that I used the word “authentic” twice. He said it felt “forced”.

I was like, “Dude, you can’t teach authenticity! Trying to teach authenticity is like trying to teach a seal to play baseball.” Tim said that analogy didn’t even make sense. I guess it wouldn’t Tim. I guess it wouldn’t.

Oh well. Looks like I’ll need to massage this statement a little more.