My parents were in town for about a week and a half, and we took advantage of their visit to make a pilgrimage to the Hollywood Bowl for the Gershwin festival. A few observations:
1. The conductor commented that, since Gershwin hadn't written enough music for orchestra to fill the programs for an entire five-night festival, the Phil had had to commission an arrangement of some of his work. So why didn't they have a four-night festival?
2A. The people behind us were very loud and rude.
2B. Ticketmaster (from whom I'm required to buy tickets, since I am not privileged to live within sight of the Hollywoodland sign) charges a service fee for selling me tickets. I've known that for awhile. What I'd never noticed before is that the more expensive the ticket is, the more Ticketmaster charges as a service fee. Hrmph.
2C. I would be more than happy to pay said fee if the lovely people of Ticketmaster would use their vast resources to pinpoint all of the loud and obnoxious people who order tickets and seat them in the same (bad) section.
3. Wayne Brady, of Whose Line? fame, holds his own surprisingly well onstage with opera stars.
Those of us who thought that Christianity was about giving up oneself and selfish pursuits for the glory of God were apparently wrong. At least according to the "Emergent church" movement, we have been. "Christianity has never been stagnant and has never been about uniformity. " But it should have something to do with Christ, who is not mentioned once in the story, and the glory of His Father, who is also not mentioned. No, I take that back. God is mentioned once: "I want to experience God. I'm interested in coming into an experience here." Hullo! Gimme some worship like NOW or I'm like going to get up and leave! I am so not getting the spritual vibe here.
Even the critics who are quoted talk about the Emergent movement as a "threat to historic Christianity", and worry that "for things to be Christian means that there are answers and there are limits to what those answers can be." I don't see a single mention of people losing focus on the center of Christianity--Christ--even among the critics. Since when did the deep questions of the Church revolve around how to be a Christian and how to experience Christianity instead of how to glorify God? Worship is not about having people sit on couches instead of pews or having "discussions" instead of sermons because it's not about the people who sit in the couch or pew. It's about God. I'm all in favor of constructive discussions about worship. Heck, I'm not even particularly opposed to using couches instead of pews. But shouldn't discussions about worship be focused on how to make worship less self-centered rather than more?
If you need me, I'll be sitting here listening for the rocks to cry out.