This month’s free song is not really a new song. Its been a full year now since I released Into Danger/Out of Rescue, and “Church or a Brothel” was the first song on the album. So to commerate the 1 year anniversary, I’m putting up the first demo version of the song. It is quite a different version of the song, and I’m pretty fond of it. I hope you enjoy it too. For a free download of this song and more free music, visit The Writer’s Closet.
“Church or a Brothel” is one of those songs that came out of nowhere. Several years ago I sat down one day just to play music as a sort of release. I’ve been in ministry for over ten years, and I had one of those days when I felt like no one got it anymore. I felt like the church had become a source of entertainment and social mobility instead of a place of refuge and spiritual mobility. And as a church worker I honestly didn’t feel much different than a prostitute – expected to do whatever the customer wants as long as he pays me at the end of the day. I saw so much need around our community and in our world, but so little desire within the church to do anything about it. My frustration overwhelmed me, so I just started singing. This is the song that came out.
Not long after sending this demo to Jason Harwell, my good friend and president of Rebuilt Records, he said we should record an EP. So we did. We felt like there was more message to the project than the songs were offering, so I wrote a collection of essays. We put them together and it became Danger/Rescue. Then came the big question – what am I going to do with this thing?
The song was just the beginning. It was a small shift in my perspective. Am I doing ministry because it is what I’m passionate about? Or am I doing ministry for what I get out of it? What does real ministry look like without the personal reward? What does ministry look like when instead of paying, it costs you? I began realizing that this song was not as much for the church as it was for me. It was/is God speaking to me, asking me, “What are you willing to do to bring change to this world? How far are you willing to go?” So about this time last year I resigned from my full time career and began traveling around, singing my songs, telling my story, and asking the question – What’s it take for some change?
Now here I am a year later, and I can honestly say I have no regrets. It has been a great year with a lot of new faces and a lot of lessons learned. I feel less like a prostitute and more like a minister. It has not been easy. There were so many times that I doubted, so many times I felt like I made a huge mistake, and so many times I felt like I just was not good enough. But it never really was about doing it right as much as it was about doing it. God has come through 100% each and every time, and He was proved that all things are possible with God. My faith has grown, and more importantly I feel like I’ve helped others’ faith grow. I feel like change has occurred, is occurring, and will continue. What more could I ask for?
Thanks to everyone who has supported my family and the Rebuilt family over the past year. You have made this adventure possible, and you have been a true agent of change in this world. Thank you!
Filed under: life
Merry Christmas from The Writer’s Closet! You can download a Christmas tune called “Prepare the Way” at The Writer’s Closetor on MySpace. Here’s the blog…
“Tomorrow.”
I heard the word, but it just didn’t compute.
“Tomorrow.” He said it again.
I guess my face showed that my brain was not processing, so I added an “Uh-huh,” to my blank stare. I could not remember what the word meant. We had been waiting for so long, preparing for so long. I felt like the day would never come and now he says it again.
“Tomorrow.”
At this point I just started repeating whatever the person in front of me said.
“Tomorrow.” “Tomorrow”
Sometimes I would add different anunciations, making it a question or an exclamation.
“Tomorrow.” “Tomorrow?” “Tomorrow!!!”
No matter how many times we said it, I just could not compute.
This is what it feels like to become a parent. The moment I’m describing is the day my very pregnant wife and I went to the doctor for a “check-up” and found out that our first child would indeed be born the next morning. For all the months, money, and energy we had spent preparing for this moment, I still did not feel ready. Of all the books I read, none prepared me for the temporary memory lapse that my vocabulary suffered and the bouts of temporary insanity I would undergo over the next 24 hours (I went home and vacuumed the house 3 times. I couldn’t stop cleaning).
We read. We cleaned. We painted. We prayed. We prepared.
But the closer and closer we actually came to “tomorrow” the more and more unprepared I felt.
Can you imagine being Mary and Joseph? Not only were they were going to have a baby, but they had so many other issues. They are unwed. She is a teenager. Its not his child. They have to make a long trip in the last trimester. Oh yeah… and their baby is going to grow up and become the Messiah. How do you prepare for that?
I was a wreck going into the birth. I couldn’t remember anything from any book. I didn’t understand anything that was going on around me. The vocabulary memory thing happened again, only 10 times worse. At one point I wanted to tell the doctor to just put the baby back in and we’d just stay pregnant.
It would be easier to just live in a perpetual state of preparing.
But there was no escaping it. That’s the thing about babies… they are eventually born. And now the doctor was handing my son to me. I would hold him for the first time. No more preparing. This was the moment. And as soon as we touched, something happened…
I surrendered. I gave up. I gave up trying to prepare to be a dad, and I just started being a dad. I didn’t need any books or any words or any time. All I needed was to hold him and let him hold me.
I’m sure Mary and Joseph discovered the same thing. You don’t have to figure everything out beforehand. You don’t have to have all the answers. All you have to do is love this child and let this child love you.
I hope this Christmas season you discover the joy of surrendering to Christ, of simply holding onto Him and letting Him hold you, of loving Him and letting Him love you.
A thankful heart prepares the way of the Lord.
Filed under: Uncategorized
The latest installment of The Writer’s Closet is finally up. It’s a new song called “Come to the Cross.” As always it is totally free to download. You can listen to it and all of the other songs at The Writer’s Closet. Now here’s a blog to give you the backdrop to the song…
The cross is offensive.
I’m speaking of course of the cross on which Jesus died. It is offensive in every way. Simply from a non-christian and non-spiritual perspective it is a torture device of death in the cruelest form. But even from a Christian perspective it has become offensive.
You may disagree and not think the cross to be offensive, but if that is the case I ask you to do a little experiment. The next time you find yourself in a situation in which you are surrounded by unbelievers or even in a group of strangers, just try to bring up the cross in casual conversation. Does that make you hesitate a little? Would you expect to be responded to with criticism or ridicule or worse yet… confusion? Would that make you anxious in anyway? Of course it would. The cross is offensive.
As a musician who is a Christian (but not necessarily a “christian musician”), I find the cross offensive. I often fear that if I speak of it to much or rather sing of it too much, it will turn people off. So many people have already made up their minds as to what a “christian” is and I don’t want to be seen in that stereotype. But if I mention the cross, I have no choice. So often I find it easier to keep quiet. Often we all find it easier to keep quiet.
We, the devout in faith, the firm believers of Jesus, would rather keep quiet about the cross. In the name of being found relevant, in the name of ministry, in the desire to win people to Jesus we would rather keep quiet about the cross. It could offend someone.
The cross is offensive.
Yet, when we come to the cross we find the cornerstone of our faith, the key ingredient to our spiritual healing and restoration. On the cross all that is wrong is made right, the old is made new. Second chances are born. Grace is delivered. Mercy is poured out. Without the cross we are utterly hopeless and forever condemned to a life of hell. Without the cross, we are hopeless.
Perhpas we find the cross so offensive because we cannot explain it. It seems overly simple. We are separated from the Holy God because of our dreadful sin – sin we willingly live in each day. Even if we wanted to do better, we’ll never be good enough on our own. So Jesus died on the cross, and now we can be made right with God. Jesus died on the cross and I can have salvation and abundant life and healing. We’re talking about total life transformation here – shouldn’t it be more complicated than that?
We fear speaking up about the cross because someone may ask us, “So how does it work.” Our answer, “It just does,” is not exactly a strong argument on any level. But that is the truth, and that is what makes it so offensive. One reason the church has so much trouble reaching the lost is because in our desire to share the amazing truth of the cross we have felt the need to make it more impressive, more complicated, more astounding. In short, we have felt the need to defend the cross – to explain away its offensiveness. But we have only made it more offensive.
Jesus never asked for us to defend Him… or to understand Him… or to explain Him. He only asks us to bring others to Him. Let Him do the explaining. Let Him do the healing. Let Him do the saving.
We cannot understand it fully. We’ll never be able to explain it with any expertise. All we can do is accept it: Jesus died on the cross and that makes everything right.
Offensive, but true.
Filed under: Uncategorized
It is the morning after thanksgiving and I am still suffering from a triptopan hangover. One of my favorite parts of the holidays is the slower pace of life – just sitting around, doing nothing particularly important, relaxing, laughing. Its a good time to “waste” time. Here’s a little help for you to “waste” time. As a nerd myself, I found this video to be extremely entertaining. Hope you enjoy – you’ll enjoy it even more with a nerd friend. Happy Thanksgiving!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: christmas, david herndon, decorations, halloween, holidays, rebuilt records, ron paul, target, thanksgiving
Well, it’s holiday season and I feel a little cheated. It seems like in August I started seeing Halloween decorations popping up at stores and on front porches around town. It wasn’t long before I couldn’t walk through Target without being a little creeped out (Target went a little overboard with some of their Halloween accessories, such as the motion activated life-size zombie on aisle 4). There were certain commercials I couldn’t watch either because I’m pretty much a pansy when it comes to the “horror” industry – I’ve never understood the entertainment in watching the gory stuff. Do we really need 18 Saw movies?
I’m not a huge fan of Halloween, but I love fall and especially love Thanksgiving. So as October wound down, I started getting excited about Thanksgiving. I always prefer a positive themed holiday as oppossed to one centered around fear. But like I said, I feel cheated. It seems like commercial America just decided to skip Thanksgiving this year. All of the stores went from Halloween decorations to Christmas decorations. The seasonal aisles went from rubber masks and bags of candy to tinsel and fake trees overnight. I haven’t even seen that Publix commercial with the two Pilgrim salt shakers. What’s the deal? What happened to Thanksgiving?
I think there is a spiritual parallel hear. In times of economic and government doubts, a lot of people are scared (like Halloween). Our nature in a time of fear is to immediately begin thinking of what will “fix” the situation, what will drive the fear away. Often we think of what we don’t have and what we want (like Christmas on the commercial level). So it makes sense that our culture has skipped Thanksgiving – we don’t feel like we have anything to be thankful for. We want the fear to end, and so we turn our attention to a season of wants and pleasant surprises, as oppossed to a season of disappointment and rather unpleasant surprises (I know, I really thought Ron Paul would pull it off this year – I don’t know what happened).
I believe we have it wrong though. I believe the only cure to fear is thankfulness. And, especially in America, we have so much to be thankful for. Even our “worst” is better than most countries’ best. So this season, I encourage you not to skip Thanksgiving. Spend a season being Thankful for what you have. You may just find the fear disappearing.
Filed under: God, religion, worship | Tags: church scandal, craig gross, david herndon, hillsong, porn, pornography, praise and worship, rebuilt records, ron jeremy, xxx, xxxchurch.com
As a Christian and as a musician, I try to stay in tune with Christian music. So you can imagine my sadness when I recently heard of a “scandal” in the praise and worship sector of the industry. I don’t want to use names and point anyone out. As you read this post you may realize you’ve heard of this “scandal” and know exactly who I am talking about. But I don’t want the people involved to be the focus of this blog. This focus is something far more important, as you will see.
It basically goes down like this. A very prominent group in worship music brought on a new worship leader with an amazing new worship song. It is a beautiful song of crying to God for freedom and healing. The new worship leader, the author of said song claimed to have cancer and said this song was written to ask God to heal him of his “disease.” He even performed the song on stage while hooked up to an oxygen tank once or twice. Of course this brought a lot of attention, the song took off and has been part of thousands of worship services since, and everyone was moved by this young man’s story: dying of cancer, yet still praising God.
I heard that the young man eventually confessed that he in fact did not have cancer. That was the last I heard of the “scandal” until last week, when I was able to talk with a friend who was close to the situation. It turns out the young man really did not have cancer, but he was suffering from a disease. His affliction will not be found in any medicine journal, but it is a deadly foe. The song was indeed sincerely written from a heart desperate for healing. The young man’s affliction? Pornography.
This young man had become addicted to pornography, yet he was so ashamed to admit it and he so feared being rejected by his church that he thought it would be better to fake cancer in order to share his song and his struggle. I find the true story even more moving than the cancer story. It makes me appreciate the song even more. Unfortunately the Church (and I mean that on a global scale) sees it as quite the opposite. The Church would rather this young man be really dying of cancer than have to deal with the issue of pornography. And to me, that is the real scandal. I mean, we can’t have some porn addict leading us in worship. Or can we?
Why is the Church so afraid to deal with this issue? Thousands upon thousands of men (and women) struggle with pornography. Many are leaders in the church – from Sunday School teachers all the way up to the Senior Pastors. Yet the Church would rather not deal with it. The minute someone stands up and says, “I have an addiction to pornography,” the Church lights their torches and sharpens their pitchforks. Sure, a pastor may offer some private counseling, but would rather keep it “hush, hush” instead of seeking the help of the entire Body. It is not the most popular idea to hold a bake sale to raise money to get Joe the Porn Addict the treatment he needs for healing. It is much easier to be compassionate for a person who is dying of cancer.
Its no wonder this young man felt compelled to lie. I have no doubt that if he were honest from the beginning and confessed that this amazing song was written by a porn addict, instead of a cancer patient, we would never hear one note of this song. In fact, many churches have pulled this song from their song list now that the truth has come out. Even now, the Church, instead of reaching out with an arm of love and mercy, is throwing this young man to the lions.
There is something fundamentally wrong when the one Organization that should be attacking the issue of Pornography the strongest, runs and hides from it. Is this the way of Christ? What do you think God values more: the young man who is strong enough to confess his sin as shameful as it is, or the Church, who for the sake of “purity,” pretends porn does not exist? Is the Church afraid we might lose some credibility in the world if we admit that Christians watch porn too? I believe the Church would be so much more effective in the world if we would own up to problems like porn instead of trying to hide it in the closet among pediphile priests, thieving ushers, and drunken pastors. We don’t leave much room for the redeeming power of Christ when we try to pretend sin doesn’t exist among us.
It makes me thankful that there are groups like Craig Gross and XXXchurch.com. They hold events like Porn and Pancakes in order to minister to men with porn addictions. They attend porn conventions in order to share the light of Christ with this misguided industry. They raise money for porn actresses so they can escape this slave-like career and start a new life. They hold public debates with porn directors like Ron Jeremy. Even now they are trying to plant the first church ever on the Las Vegas strip – the motherland of porn. And yet so many “Christian” organizations denounce them.
Wake up, Church! Keeping your nose stuck in a bible and quietly wishing this issue will disappear ain’t gonna cut it. If we want anything to change, we’re have to get honest, we have to talk about it, and we have to take action. We should be doing everything we can to help this young man and the thousands of others who have fallen into porn addiction. We should offer refuge in the form of specific counseling and support groups. We should educate in the form of bible studies and small groups. We should speak about it from the pulpit. We should acknowledge the problem and teach what God’s word says about the issue.
Paul teaches us that God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but rather a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. Shame on us when our biggest fear is that we may actually have a sinner in the church. Shame on us when, instead of actually exercising Christ’s character in love and compassion, we would rather just talk about it. A church ruled by fear – now that’s a scandal.
Filed under: God, life | Tags: david herndon, faith, of all things, rebuilt records
The newest installment of The Writer’s Closet is up. It’s a song called “Of All The Things.” As always it is available for free download, so stop by for a listen.
Faith is a curious thing. As one church billboard recently read, “Faith is taking God at His word.” That’s the trouble for me – taking God on His word… believing that what God says is true.
Sure, some promises are easy to believe in (or at least to want to believe in). I like to hear that God says He will not leave me or forsake me. I like to hear that God says He hears me when I pray and that He will answer me when I call. Some promises are more problematic. No one wants to hear that salvation depends on dying. In John 16:33 Jesus promises, “In this world you will have trouble.” Its hard to believe in (or even want to believe in) a promise that seems so negative.
I have prayed for God to heal people who were dying… and they still died. I’ve prayed for someone not to lose his job… and he still got fired. I’ve prayed give me important things, things my family and I need… and we never got it. I’ve prayed for God to free from temptation and sin… and yet I still fall. There is what God says. There is what I understand. And then there is what actually happens. All too often these three things are far different from each other.
It makes it hard to believe in God when things don’t work out the way I want or expect them to work out.
The second half of John 16:33 says, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.” God’s ultimate promise is that in the end He wins. Things may happen that are out of my control, but nothing is out of His control. He literally has the whole world in His hands. Sure, some of my prayers seem unanswered or even blatantly denied. Sure I have failure in my life. Sure I don’t have everything I want or need. But life keeps going. The world keeps spinning. It gives me fits, but God seems to be okay with it… so doesn’t that make everything okay?
One promise God has never made: Faith is easy. It’s just the opposite. Faith is difficult. Faith is uncomfortable. Faith is a struggle. I don’t know why I expect it to be anything different. It is hard to come to grips with the fact that God intends for us to struggle. I guess in the end it makes us stronger. Faith is just plain hard sometimes, yet I still keep believing.
Like I said, Faith is a curious thing.
Filed under: life | Tags: bowl-a-rama, david herndon, rebuilt records, road trip
This was my schedule last week: Brunswick, GA – Atlanta, GA – Memphis, TN – Atlanta, GA – Athens, GA – Brunswick, GA. We traveled almost 2,000 miles in 3 1/2 days. It was pure absurdity. The one saving factor was this – we were together.
When I say we, I am referring to my family. Often when I travel they do not get to come with me. That was not the case this time – they were with me in full force. We had everything we needed for a few days on the road. We had a cooler with drinks and snacks. We had games, books, and movies to kill time. We had suitcases full of clothes, the pack-n-play, the stroller. It was just like going on vacation except without the vacation. Many of you parents of toddlers probably think I’m crazy when you consider that we basically spent 27 hours in the car. There were definitely times I thought it was not such a good idea. Nap time was a struggle. Meal time was a challenge. Keeping a schedule is harder with 4 people as oppossed to 1. Eli, my 4 year old, did enjoy meeting the “nice police officer” in Nashville. I did not enjoy it as much. Like I said, this trip was pure absurdity. All the work and effort of going on vacation, but never arriving at a location in which to rest and relax. We would arrive, I would perform, we would sleep, we would leave. It was insane.
However, there was something so fulfilling about the experience. When we finally returned home, I felt like I had really accomplished something – not in a career or ministry context, but in my family. True, the trip was busy – but not at the cost of my family (as is usually the cost of busy-ness). We actually spent more time together, and as a result we now feel more connected. I can tell a difference in our normal day-to-day as a result of being crammed in a car for 27 hours.
I ended the trip was something equally absurd. As a fund-raiser for Rebuilt Records, I participated in a bowl-a-rama. Its like running a marathon, except instead of wearing track shoes you wear clown shoes, and instead of running, you throw a bowling ball – for 100 frames. My arm, and oddly – my left buttocks – still hurts. But it was neat time. A chance for the Rebuilt artists and families and supporters to come together. And though we are still physically aching, my soul feels good. Its like going on an absurd road trip with your family – you feel connected. Or rather – you remember that you are connected. It was so encouraging to see so many people who believe in what I believe in. It strengthens my faith in God and in His sovereignty to see this connectedness.
I drove 2,000 miles and bowled 100 frames, but it was so worth it to remember that I am a part of something bigger than myself. I hope you’ll do something today that reminds you of your connected-ness in God’s body.
