Song # 10 Listening to Freddy Mercury by Emery

Really dig into this song and you can get so many meanings out of it. I love it. I learn something new every time I hear it.

The first thing I heard out of it was those super religious yet massively hypocritical "christians." I won't give them the honor of being capitalized or being outside of "" because I'm not sure you can call them Christians. These are the legalistic types. The ones who think they're better than the rest of us because they have all the answers (at least in their minds) and think that people with questions or concerns or who dare go against what their church teaches are all going to hell while their own lives are completely messed up. We've all met them at some point. We may go to church with them or school with them. Or we may even be friends with these types of people.

Or what about those people who are actual Christians but are or appear legalistic with it? They're out there. I'd bet my life that some of my friends fall into this category. These are the people that you talk to about faith or questions and they just tell you that you're wrong. They don't like the big hairy questions that many of us have. They get super upset if you criticize their church or their view. If you dare question what a particular church teaches they get up in arms and will fight you to the death to prove that they're right. I pose this question: Since when is a church made up of humans infallible? Since when did we give up our ability to seek for answers? 

I once told a friend of mine that the more I learn about the Bible the more questions I have and the more I want to seek out answers. This person responded like it was a sin to have more questions the more you learn. I left the discussion thinking, "So this person thinks that you should just be satisfied with what a pastor told you on Sunday? That's not enough. I have to dig deeper and figure it out myself." I was never one of those people that if you just told me something I believed you. I had to test it. Maybe it's why Science was one of my best subjects. You got to test these claims on your own.

The second thing I hear is the pushy evangelists. Listen to the beginning of the song several times. He seems to be him saying that he didn't expect talking about faith to be so personal. It's a personal thing as it should be. You have to have a personal relationship with someone to make a lasting difference. There are two main groups of evangelists(used loosely) on campus here. The one that I put in this category are the street preachers. One in particular set up a suitcase w/ bumper stickers on it and started yelling that everyone at the school is going to hell. I remember this particular guy because my roommate that year was just starting to open up to listening to the Bible and we were using The Chronicles of Narnia to discuss the parallels that it was C.S. Lewis' way to teach the Bible through a novel. How Aslan was Jesus and all that. Well when she ran into this guy she shut down and would not talk about it anymore. She would get upset with me from then on if a "Christian band" was playing on my computer even.

The song asks, "You're a Christian tell the sinner find repentance it's your last chance/ You believer, where's your patience/ Answer questions, put on faces/ What about God?"

What about patience? We have to be patient if we're going to evangelize to our friends. We also have to realize that we will not be the change maker. We can't change them, we can just be an agent through whom they can learn and someone they can rely on.

The third thing I hear is the line "We are all the same people with sinning hearts that make us equal." We're all sinners. None of us are better than anyone else. At the end we all are going to face the judgement and it won't be what we did or how many people we converted that will make us any better. What's one of the biggest reasons people are turned off by Christianity? Think about it. Christianity has got to be the easiest religion as far as what you have to do for salvation. NOTHING. You did nothing to be saved. You might say that you prayed a prayer. It wasn't the prayer that saved you. It was the place your heart was in, which you had no control over. In other religions you have to work. Take Islam for instance. You work and work and work and still it all depends on Allah as to whether someone would make it into paradise. They could theoretically live a perfect life and still not be good enough. We don't even have to worry about that. So what turns people off? It's the attitude that Christians appear to have that we're better than them. We all do it at times acting like we have our lives together when underneath it all it's a mess. Look at the lines about the people:

"Gary is getting drunk to forget Sarah/ Sarah is stealing money from her parents/ Aaron is lying straight to Jon/ About Megan and the things that went on/ Jessica is a gossip, Laura is a slut/ Derrick hits Bridget and Ben deals drugs/ Seth spends all his money gambling/ Joey stopped praying/ It's all the same thing/ We are all the same people/ With sinning hearts that make us equal."

No matter what we do, we're all equal because we're all fallen people.

I think the last line sums it up best: "It's not our job to make anyone believe." If it were up to us to make people believe we'd all be screwed. So just be glad it's not up to you to make people believe in God. 

Week # 10 Listening to Freddy Mercury by Emery

Every once in a while I think I'm lying.
Take it to the bank. I believe every word I say.
(This just isn't how, this just isn't how)
Then again this is when you start your prying.
(This just isn't how, this just isn't how)
But there's a thought it could be true.
But this just isn't how I imagined it would be.
With these random people just asking the most personal things.
And to think that somehow I could always come clean.
And you shake your head just like you know what I mean.

You're a Christian tell the sinner
find repentance it's your last chance.
You believer, where's your patience?
Answer questions, put on faces.

(What about God?) To see if it's right or wrong
(What about God?) to listen to this song.
(What about God?) I don't want you too.
(What does it mean?) And see if you're okay
(What does it mean?) with all the words I say.
(For you, for me.) It can't be this way.
(All have fallen short)

Somehow, someone's more equal than others.
Depending on the words we choose to say.
A glance at her too long tonight.
But everything I am saying's right in your ears.

We are all the sisters and the brothers.
Until we find we don't believe the same, like...

Gary is getting drunk to forget Sarah.
Sarah is stealing money from her parents.
Aaron is lying straight to Jon.
About Megan and the things that went on.
Jessica is a gossip, Laura is a slut.
Derrick hits Bridget and Ben deals drugs.
Seth spends all his money gambling.
Joey stopped praying.

It's all the same.
We are all the same people.
With sinning hearts that make us equal.

Here is my hand, not words said desperately.
It's not our job to make anyone believe.

Song #9 Add to the Beauty by Sara Groves

This is another of those songs that I've used in a video for a church. This particular one was given to me to use for a week long mission trip to Chicago that the youth took. The video can be seen here.


My idea for this one is to discuss an experience I had on that Chicago mission trip. We went on this trip the summer after my senior year. It was the first time they had decided to do a mission trip, and I remember someone asking why we weren't taking the trip out of the country. The pastor setting it up simply said that every church in the area goes to places like Mexico to do a mission trip and often end up ignoring the people in their own country. That spring break we had done a missions opportunity for a weekend in our own city, and this time we would be going to Chicago. A good number of students signed up to go.


We were working with CSM(Christian Student Ministries) and stayed in the dorms of a really small college in the area. We were placed right in the middle of some of the poorer sections of Chicago and were given some rules as to what clothes we should not bring(no red or baby blue) because of the gangs. During the week we were working with kids at a summer school and one day we worked at a food packaging place where they receive crates of food, repackage the food, and then ship it all to shelters and food kitchens around the Chicago area. We also served food at a soup kitchen one night and were to talk to people there and learn about their lives after serving the food was complete.


But the story from that trip that I want to tell you comes from an experience that I will never forget. One night of the trip we were split up into groups of about 7-8 students and one adult leader. Each group leader was given $2 for each student in their group and told that the students could eat for the amount of money that they had. We were sent into different areas of Chicago where runaways would typically be spotted and told to act like runaways in asking questions about what we should do, where we could go for a place to sleep or a safe place if we were actual runaways (Chicago has a lot of runaways). My group got Union Station. We went and asked people our questions and completed our assignment as we were told. Upon finishing it we started discussing what we should do for dinner. There were 8 in our group, so we had $16 to spend to feed all of us together. On our way to find a place to eat we passed a woman who was sitting on the sidewalk asking for money or food to spare. That was when we all got an idea. We found a Walgreens, bought some bread, peanut butter, jelly, honey, and some chips; $16 worth. We went into a Panera and got cups of water as well as plastic utensils and napkins. Then we went back to the woman, asked her if we could sit down and offered her some of our food. We ate on the sidewalk with this homeless woman and listened to her life story. She loved animals and had wanted to be a veterinarian. Apparently when she was still quite young her family disappeared. She spent all of her time and money searching for them until she lost everything and was out on the streets. She moves around and begs just to be able to keep clean clothes on her back and goes to local shelters for a bed and a meal. All throughout her story I was listening but also paying attention to the people that walked past us. I started to notice that not only would these people not give her the time of day to listen to her or to help her out, but they would not even look at her. I tried looking some of the people in the eye as they walked by. The second I made eye contact (if I even could) they would dart their eyes away and speed up. Most of the people would walk on and not even glance towards us, and those that did venture a look didn't look at us but past us.


This got me to thinking about the parable about the Good Samaritan. Think about the people who walked past the injured man, a priest and a Levite. Both of these were considered leaders in the community. During that age it was considered that under the law a priest who touches a dead body would have had to go through a cleansing ritual in order to clean himself again and that both probably thought the man was dead. Some have said that the priest was considering this cleansing ritual. However, it is important to realize that both the priest and the Levite were traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho and so therefore would not have to be clean upon arriving at their destination and could have helped out. I think the part that sticks out more to me than even that they just walked by the man was that they "passed by on the other side" of the road. They didn't even want to get close or check that the man was dead or dying. They didn't want to be bothered by helping even if they could help. It was the Samaritan, the man who was considered a lesser human almost to the Jews that helped.


Just the way that people looked at us, or lack of looking at us, and their increased pace and determination not to stop and recognize the people eating on the sidewalk makes me think about that story. How often are we like the priest and the Levite? How often are we the Samaritan? Do we avert our eyes from the needy or make excuses like they did it to themselves, or do we go out of our way and help them?

Week #9 - Add to the Beauty by Sara Groves

Add to the Beauty
by Sara Groves


We come with beautiful secrets
We come with purposes written on our hearts, written on our souls
We come to every new morning
With possibilities only we can hold, that only we can hold

Redemption comes in strange place, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we are

And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside

Song #8 Name by Fireflight

I'm taking a break from my planned songs for the month to do this one because of an issue in my family right now. Yesterday my sister found out that the church school she works at will not be renewing her contract. This came as a huge shock as the kids love her and the parents of her students absolutely adore her. All she was told was that everything she was doing was great and excellent but her students were doing as well with writing as they had hoped. This isn't the full story though as none of the teachers are teaching writing as well as they hoped they would. This is becoming clearer as more information comes in that the writing thing is actually a cover-up for school politics. The headmaster wouldn't even look her in the eye today. He told her to take the day off and gather herself, but she went to work anyways(it was more professional). My parents believe that it has something to do with my mom as she and the headmaster disagreed awhile back about a situation at another school in the network. My mom's currently looking into other schools and helping network for my sister to find her a new job as well as suggesting some other things.


I'll admit that I'm sad for my sister, but at the same time I'm watching everyone else in my family just seem to take to their guns and get defensive without hearing much about pray for something better to come along. This is the view that I'm taking. Maybe it's because I'm not deadset on anything in my life, or maybe it's because I don't know enough about the situation(what I stated before is just what I've caught in conversations that they were having at dinner last night). I think it's all going to turn out better for my sister than she thinks.


Now what about this song "Name"? Listen to it once. I mean REALLY listen to it. The situations in it are very extreme situations. A 7 day old boy in the ICU who is probably not going to make it, and a man in the ICU who's in a coma and the doctors want to take off life support are extremes, but the message is the same no matter what the situation. God knows your name and will be there for you no matter what you're going through. Which brings me to something that I remember from 2007.

Week # 8 - Name by Fireflight

Name
by Fireflight
Seven days old in the ICU tonight
Little baby boy, they don't want to have to say goodbye
Your mother's on the phone, your father's in the hall
Praying "God save his life"

He sees you, He's near you
He knows your face
He knows your pain
He sees you, and He loves you
He knows your name
He knows your name

Song #7 Least of These by DecembeRadio

This week I'm focusing on "Least of These" by DecembeRadio. I was turned on to this song while volunteering for a church. It was my senior year of high school, and I was the student in charge of both the youth video team and the youth outreach team. As such, I went to every outreach event that the youth did and many times filmed the events and created short highlight videos. The youth had at least one outreach ministry event every month. On the second Saturday of every month another local church further in the city held workdays where they and other churches around the city and surrounding suburbs would join together at 8:00am and to get instructions and then go to various locations in the city to serve those in the community. These could range from helping fix people's cars and taking care of yardwork to playing with kids while their parents got away or cleaning houses for widows.

Week #7 Least of These by DecembeRadio

Least of These
by DecembeRadio      


Be love to me
Be hope to me

Cause I'm the least of these
I'm the least of these
Cause I'm the least of these
I'm the least of these
Be love, be love

Be grace to me
Be peace to me

Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs - Updated 2010

Song #6 Looking for Angels by Skillet

I'm going to start changing my style a little bit with these posts. I'm going to start with a verse that somehow I'm relating to the song(posted in the previous post) and working through the verse and relating the song. This way we can work through the Bible as well as the songs themselves.


Philippians 2:1-4 (NIV)
 ¹ Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

This will be the overarching verse for the month. I request that you do as I intend to do and make this a verse to memorize this month.

Week #6 Looking for Angels by Skillet

Song: Looking For Angels
Artist: Skillet          
Going through this life looking for Angels
People passing by, looking for Angels.

Walk this world alone try to stay on my feet

Sometimes crawl, fall, but I stand up cause I'm afraid to sleep
And open my eyes to a new day, with all new problems and all new pain
All the faces are filled with so much anger
Losing our dignity and hope from fear of danger
After all the wars, after settling the scores, at the break of dawn we will be deaf to the answers