All posts by mjfelker1980

Music

Best of 2006: The Albums

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In no particular order, here are the albums and artists that dominated my iPod this past year. The Grammys will be announced in about an hour. We’ll see if any of these get a nod.


We Shall Overcome: the Seeger Sessions
Bruce Springsteen

Right up front, let me say, this is not the Bob Seger Sessions. So if your looking for the Boss’ version of “Night Moves” you’re out of luck. No, these tracks compose a fitting and insightful tribute to Pete Seeger, folk singer and political activist from the last century. Springsteen brings a fresh and welcomed take on folk standards like Froggy Went a Courtin’ and The Eerie Canal. But where the album really hits the mark is in spirituals and social justice hymns like the incredible O Mary Don’t You Weep and We Shall Overcome.

Download: O Mary Don’t You Weep, Mrs. McGrath, Jesse James, Froggy Went a Courtin’


Love
The Beatles

This is an hour and 1/2 of Beatles music sewn together with love and care from the fifth Beatle and his son (George and Giles Martin). Some of these songs have never sounded so great. Every listen has brought something new to my ears. Well done. For the Beatles fan, this is as close to a new album as you’re going to get.

Forget Downloading– Do yourself a favor and purchase the 5.1 stereo mix on DVD


Till the Sun Turns Black
Ray LaMontagne

I first heard Ray LaMontagne on The First Kiss soundtrack. His gravel voice and subtle guitar work blew me away. Till the Sun Turns Black is the perfect meditaion album. The guitar gently weeps and the strings ebb and flow throughout the entire album. The music takes you to another place.

Download: Be Here Now, Barfly, till the Sun Turns Black


Grey’s Anatomy Vol. 2
Various

Grey’s is my guiltiest pleasure. I have seen every episode and I have watched all but 2 the night they were aired. I love it. Sure Meredith is the whiniest little girl on TV and, yeah, I wouldn’t want to be checked into Seattle Grace Hospital if I needed surgery but I love this show! One of my favorite things about the show is the great soundtrack that lays the emotional foundation of each week’s episode. This is a great example of the awesome music that keeps me coming back week after week.

Download: Chasing Cars (Acoustic), Monster Hospital, How We Operate, Grace
From the Season: New Day by Kate Havnevik


Live at Fenway // July 7-8, 2006
Dave Matthews Band

Another year, another live Dave album. However, this one is a little bit different. If you are a Dave fan you may very well know about the Live Trax series that is offered exclusivly at the Dave Matthews Band official website. Live at Fenway was supossed to be one of these online exclusives. Instead, RCA decided to pick it up and make it an official release. What I loved about this album was that it was hot off the tour. It was recorded back in early July and it featured some new songs and so great reinterpretations of old standards.

Download: Break Free, Sweet Caroline, Can’t Stop, Crush


Corinne Bailey Rae
Corinne Bailey Rae

This woman wins the award for Best Voice in the World 2006 and this is the smoothest album of the year. Corinne Bailey Rae jumped the pond this summer and arrive on our shores to help cool us off during those hot the summer months. I feel like the album is picking up steam. Over the last few month she has been featured on SNL, Leno, and Studio 60. Check her out.

Download: Live Session- EP (iTunes Exclusive)


Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam

A mere fifteen years after Ten, Pearl Jam return with the same intensity that helped the turn the music world onto flannel and teen malaise. A little older and a little wiser Eddie and the boys craft a musical soundscape that capture their outlook on the war and on life without pushing or shoving but forcing you to listen. This is Pearl Jam at their best.

Download: Inside Job, Army Reserve, Life Wasted, World Wide Suicide


Continuum
John Mayer

John Mayer has traded his fraternity angst for genuine rock ‘n roll roots. This album is incendiary. Every track feels hand crafted to perfection. There is even a Hendrix cover in there. The album’s not perfect but it is the best Mayer album yet and the most accessible. You don’t have to be a drunk sorority chick to get into it. Well…. maybe!

Download: Belief, Slow Dancing In A Burning Room, I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You)


American V: A Hundred Highways
Johnny Cash

This posthumous release could have been called Haunted Highways because the ghost of Cash lingers in every track. Producer Rick Rubin pulled out all the stops to make this a great album. As you listen, you can acctually hear how faint Cash’s baratone voice has become. Yet it comes across as strong as ever. There is a sense of finality infused into the album as a whole. A fitting last (?) chronicle to the legend of Johnny Cash.

Download: God’s Gonna Cut You Down, Further Up the Road, If You Could Read My Mind, I’m Free From the Chain Gang Now

Other Greats of 2006 (Updated)

Back to Beldlam by James Blunt
Both Sides of the Gun by Ben Harper
The Open Door by Evanescence
Kingdom Come by Jay-Z
Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Sam’s Town by the Killers
Once Again by John Legend
The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance

Book Review, Discipleship, Leadership, Ministry, Resources

The Emotionally Helthy Church Begins With… (Pt 2)

The Emotionally Helthy Church Begins With… Me.

More from The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero:

Our churches are in trouble, says Scazzero. They are filled with people who are

  • unsure how to biblically integrate anger, sadness, and other emotions
  • defensive, incapable of revealing their weaknesses
  • threatened by or intolerant of different viewpoints
  • zealous about ministering at church but blind to their spouses’ loneliness at home
  • so involved in “serving” that they fail to take care of themselves
  • prone to withdraw from conflict rather than resolve it

In Chapter 4 Scazzero provides the reader with a spiritual/emotional maturity inventory questionaire. The inventory is broken into 2 parts. Part A includes questions that help the reader work through general formation and discipleship issues. Part B looks at the emotional componants of discipleship and is broken into sub-sections (For section titles see chapter breakdown below).

While I scored fairly well on each componant, I was able to see gaping holes where a higher maturity level will help me become a better disciple of Christ and a more healthy leader in the church. I do not want to become just another statistic of a burnt out minister who takes those around me down as I flame out. I don’t want my peers to experience this either. We are the body of Christ. Let’s change the statistics.

The rest of the book is brokendown into chapters that corespond with the 6 emotional componants of discipleship from Part B of the Spiritual/Emotional Maturity Inventory:

  • Look Beneath the Surface
  • Break the Power of the Past
  • Live in Brokenness and Vulnerability
  • Accept the Gift of Limits
  • Embrace Grieving and Loss
  • Make Incarnation Your Model for Loving Well
Book Review, Discipleship, Leadership, Ministry

The Emotionally Health Church Pt 1

Something is desperately wrong with most churches today. Many sincere followers of Christ who are passionate for God and his work are unaware of the crucial link between emotional health and spiritual maturity. They present themselves as spiritually mature but are stuck at a level of immaturity that current models of discipleship have not addressed. Discipleship that really transforms a church must integrate emotional health with spiritual maturity. The Emotionally Healthy Church, winner of the Gold Medallion Book Award, offers a strategy for discipleship that accomplishes healthy living and actually changes lives.

Scazzero argues that it is impossible for someone to be emotionally immature and be spiritually mature. One must become competent in both the interior world (what goes on inside of us) and the exterior world (people and experiences that go on around us).

To do this we mustn’t place the spiritual dimensions of our lives over and above the other aspects of our lives that are just as critical to our being. Throughout history we have separated our spiritual lives from our physical, social, intellectual, and emotional lives. Scazzero argues that this view come more from Plato than from Christ Jesus.

We have separated the spiritual for so long that we in the church are perfectly okay with:

  • Someone who is a dynamic, gifted speaker in the pulpit and an unloving spouse and father at home
  • A church leader or elder and be “unteachable, insecure, and defensive”
  • Competent in scripture and still be full of anger or lost in depression
  • A minister who says yes to any and everyone but no to your family
  • Cooperative on the surface and Passive-aggressive on your delivery

Sadly we find these things acceptable in church. As Scazzero puts it, when someone is dealing with something this serious we often just “pray and hope for the best.”

“To truly love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength requires that we know not only god but also our interior- the nature of our own heart, soul, and mind. Understanding that world of feelings, thoughts, desire, and hopes with all its richness and complexity is hard work. It also takes time- lots of it.” (55)

Music, Useless Data

Number of Times Played in iTunes

U2– 3,528
David Crowder Band– 960
Coldplay– 759
Passion (Worship Artists include David Crowder, Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Charlie Hall, etc.)– 712
Dave Matthews Band– 450
Third Day– 386
Matisyahu– 340
Johnny Cash– 289
David Gray– 270
The Beatles– 263

Recorded at 3:50pm CST November 30, 2006

I would have thought that Johnny was closer to the top. I would be lying if I said that I was surprised that U2 topped the list but I was blown away at the number 3,528. That is over 3 and 1/2 more times than the David Crowder Band at number 2. I am too predictable.

Church of Christ, Ministry, The Word, Theology

Adventures in The Christian Calendar

As a good member of a Resoration brotherhood, I have never celebrated the Chistian year. The reason always given to me for this fact was becuse we don’t see Peter or Paul or Barnabus or John celebrating the Christian year in the New Testament. It wasn’t until a few years ago that it occured to me that a good half of first century New Testament Christians (the Jewish half including the men I mentioned above) were busy celebrating the Jewish calendar. Imagine that.

This year I intend to celebrate the Christian calendar which begin this Sunday.

To assist me on this journey I will be reading through Robert Webber’s Ancient-Future Time. I already read through A-FT back in 2004 but I am now working through the text at a Berean pace so as to fully understand each of the cycles that I will experience throughout the year.

I will also be using the daily readings found in the lectionary Book of Common Worship: Daily Prayer to guide me each day.

I am extremely excited about having my daily devotional walk me through the entire year in a new yet well worn path. I look forward to blogging my way through this experience.

Anyone out there want to join me? Drop me an email at

kickingatthedarkness (at) gmail (dot) com