Wayward Son

Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo. I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.

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Why I Have Become a Moderate, or Apolitical, or Both

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Categories: politics? oh puh-leeze.

It’s been a long while since I posted anything of a political nature on this here blog–and with good reason. Looking back at some of my more “expressive” posts from the last election year (please don’t), those posts came out of a deep concern for the direction of the country, and from a distinct conservative standpoint. But after all the dust settled and I thought back, I realized that they also reflected a loss of perspective, and to be honest, I didn’t really like what I was reflecting when I wrote those posts.

This is a preview of Why I Have Become a Moderate, or Apolitical, or Both. Read the full post (1385 words, estimated 5:32 mins reading time)

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Everybody Wants to Rule the World

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Categories: food for thought, General

Aaaand there’s another popular song title hijacked. 🙂

Okay, I know I said I wasn’t going to write a post about Chick-Fil-A (insinuated is more what I did)–and technically, this post isn’t about Chick-Fil-A, so I’m (sort of) keeping my word. Or my insinuation. Whatever.

But now that the uproar has died down a little bit, I feel like that whole ordeal showed us something about humanity in general–something that if we’re serious about living what we say we believe, and practicing what we preach, we should not overlook:

This is a preview of Everybody Wants to Rule the World. Read the full post (1346 words, estimated 5:23 mins reading time)

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A Changing Sense of Mission (part 2)

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Categories: changing mindsets

So this morning, I was all like, do I write a post about chicken sandwiches, or do I try and finish this two-part blog post I started a few weeks ago that got interrupted? When I saw that Matt over at The Church of No People wrote a pretty cool one about chicken–and considering that Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sunday, anyhow, so there’s nothing you can do about it today–I had my answer. 🙂

Besides–perhaps getting back to a discussion about mission is the best response I could give to the Great Fast Food Chicken Sandwich National Controversy: a way to re-focus on the important stuff.  (Oops, maybe that statement was too chicken-sandwich-post oriented. Sorry.)

This is a preview of A Changing Sense of Mission (part 2). Read the full post (1496 words, estimated 5:59 mins reading time)

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Beauty From the Mess

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Categories: General

Given the sleep-deprived ranting of my previous post, I felt a follow-up was in order. 🙂

If you read that post and were praying–thank you. I realize that complaining about troubles on a film shoot might seem a bit trivial, but it was of great importance to us because we feel like this film could really help to launch The Director’s career–so we had a lot of emotion invested in it. That being said, beauty came from the mess, and I’d like to share a little about that with you.

This is a preview of Beauty From the Mess. Read the full post (964 words, estimated 3:51 mins reading time)

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Best of Times, Worst of Times

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Categories: How I am

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

When Charles Dickens wrote those words, I wonder if he had any idea how many times they would be repeated by people who related to them at one time or another.

Last night was one of those best/worst times for us.

It seems like every time The Director makes a film, the whole family gets involved. Last night around 2:30 am, we finished up “Day 2” of a 5-day shooting schedule for a short film, and we really believe this one has the potential to compete in film festivals around the country. I’m currently running on 3 hours of sleep, with my next best chance for a good night’s rest being sometime on Tuesday. (So this is the caffeine talking.)

This is a preview of Best of Times, Worst of Times. Read the full post (796 words, estimated 3:11 mins reading time)

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Atrocities and the Nagging Question

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Categories: General, Rantings

Considering the recent events that have unfolded here in Colorado, I am going to interrupt my current two-part series on “A Changing Sense of Mission.” I promise I’ll finish that thought within the next couple of weeks, but for now I have some more pressing thoughts to process.

I woke up Friday morning in fairly good spirits, despite being a bit tired and loopy from the busy-ness of the past couple of weeks. I got on Facebook to find a friend from back in Tulsa posting, “Praying for the people in Aurora, CO.” I scrolled down and found several other messages like this. What happened in Aurora last night? I wondered.

This is a preview of Atrocities and the Nagging Question. Read the full post (1792 words, estimated 7:10 mins reading time)

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A Changing Sense of Mission (part 1)

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Categories: changing mindsets, General, missional

My friend Kathy recently posted about why the word “missional” bothers her. One of several reasons she cited was: “It feels pretty cruddy to be someone’s mission.”

True dat.

The other reasons she gives are pretty valid, too, but this one really resonated with me because since my journey of deconstruction from institutional Christianity began, I’ve found myself on the radar of some well-meaning Christians, as well, and felt like I had become part of their personal “mission” as they tried subtly (or so they thought) to steer me back to the fold. (Assuming, of course, that I’d actually left said fold.) I’m saying I know what it’s like to be targeted in that way, and Kathy’s right–it feels pretty cruddy.

This is a preview of A Changing Sense of Mission (part 1). Read the full post (766 words, estimated 3:04 mins reading time)

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My Friend Chuck

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Categories: food for thought, lifetime heroes

Today, I’d like to tell you the story of my friend Chuck.

I first met Chuck at college in Tulsa, when I signed up to go on a summer music ministry trip overseas. There were sixteen of us on our team: ten vocalists, four in the rhythm section, our team leader (preacher) and the sound guy. Chuck was one of the vocalists, and I led the rhythm section from the keyboard.

This is a preview of My Friend Chuck. Read the full post (1640 words, estimated 6:34 mins reading time)

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Is Salvation a Done Deal?

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Categories: theological questions

A quick caveat to start this post: it’s about theology. If you prefer not to go there, you can skip this post and wait for the next.

This post was inspired by my blogger friend Linda, who recently posted about the differences in theology between the Orthodox and Protestant views of atonement (or as she puts it, the eastern and western views). I began to leave this as a comment on her blog, but realized it was sort of a tangent on a different point she was making, which was that today’s evangelical view tends to overemphasize our alienation from God, rather than His plan of reconciliation (which overall I agree with). I also thought the tangent itself might warrant its own discussion–so I decided to create a post about it here.

This is a preview of Is Salvation a Done Deal?. Read the full post (1416 words, estimated 5:40 mins reading time)
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