James is the worship leader at The Summit in Irvine, California. He is passionate about seeing lives changed through a worship response to an all deserving God.
I would say that I’m going to make a New Year’s resolution to post more, but anyone who’s breathing knows that New Year’s resolutions don’t extend beyond January 2nd. Something to do with the Space/Time Continuum that makes all New Year’s resolutions expire, along with any remnant of will power, at 11:59pm on the second day of the year. Or something like that.
But speaking of things that are absolutely shocking, I am horrified to report that there is a lack of plastic knives in the world. I’m being serious. There aren’t enough.
Some may call us lazy, but I call it efficient. You see, Rhonda and I lead busy lives. Well, Rhonda leads a busy life; I tend to procrastinate a lot and do things that make me look busy, like walking fast with a clipboard in my hands and a stressed look on my face, and such like. But nevertheless, there never seems to be quite enough time in the day to accomplish all the things that absolutely must be accomplished, such as playing video games on the XBox, practicing guitar, blogging, viewing endless pictures of aircraft at airliners.net, and washing silverware.
That last one tends to be the one that suffers.
It’s not that we’re unclean. We don’t live in squalor. There are no rats or cockroaches in our house. No, it’s just that we both hate washing knives and forks and spoons. They’re so fiddly and finicky and especially if you’ve had mashed potatoes or eggs, they are a pain to get clean.
Well last year, I made a flippant suggestion that turned in to a serious idea. Upon being frustrated with the empty utensil drawer in the kitchen, I said “we should get a stock pile of disposable knives and forks, so we can just use it and throw it away.” The next day we went to Costco and bought a big box of plastic knives, forks, and spoons (and before you get all green on me, they’re made from recycled materials and I don’t believe global warming is a “problem” made by man).
Glory be. We would get home from work, cook up some dinner, and bust out the fake cutlery. We’d eat, wash our plates, and throw the plastic utensils away. The sink was empty most of the time.
That was until we appeared to run out of plastic knives. I couldn’t understand how we’d run out so quickly, but put it down to the ‘one-time’ use that accompanies knives, such as buttering bread or cutting a sandwich. I was happy with that reason and resigned myself to combination place settings of a plastic fork and a stainless steel knife.
We replenished the plastic stock when it ran out, and this time I was more conscientious of my knife usage. For example, if I buttered my toast, rather than throwing the knife away, I’d give it a quick rinse and keep it for later use (don’t ask me why I couldn’t do this with regular knives because you’ll just make me go cross-eyed). And then two days ago, my wife piped up from the kitchen, “We’re out of plastic knives again…”
I couldn’t understand it. We’d run out of knives quicker this time than we did last time. How is this possible?
And then I read the ‘contents’ section of the box the picnicware came in. Get this: 180 forks, 120 spoon, 60 knives.
Three times as many forks as knives. Now where in the world can that logic apply? In what scenario would someone need a fork three times more than they would need a knife? More alarmingly, how on earth can spoons outrank knives in the prepack volume stakes? It just makes no sense.
I went to the grocery store to buy just a pack of knives. What did I see? Only forks and spoons are sold separately. Knives, apparently, are cast aside like some lowly bowery bum that nobody wants anything to do with. It’s just not right. It’s discriminatory to perfectly good and equal knives. It’s knivist.
The only conclusion I can draw is that there must be a shortage of plastic knives in the world. It’s the only logical explanation, and it also explains why the Spork was invented: in order to free up plastics for knife-making, the spoon and the fork were forced together to create the spork. It’s all just Tab clear now.
And don’t even get me started on paper plates or Styrofoam cups…
We know you’ve just been all excited since last Christmas for your next REVEAL Christmas Special. Wait no longer, dear friends. It’s here.
In the 2007 Christmas Special, Christian and I…
- Discuss the censorship of Christmas Songs…
- Worry about pastoral inconsistencies…
- Hear a message from from some of Santa’s own worship leaders…
- Are told that REVEAL is better than the Worship Central Podcast and the Ragamuffin Soulcast…
- Provide no Christmas Monkey News…
I like your Christ. I don’t like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.
Today, I hope, some people saw something that is so rare in us: Christ.
The facility that The Summit meets at were holding a Christmas brunch this morning, so we couldn’t have church. Instead, and in fact I’m glad it worked out this way, we joined up with a couple of other churches and the Manna Food Bank and gave out toys and food to needy families in ‘Motel Alley’ (known more commonly as Beach Blvd in Anaheim/Buena Park).
I’ve done a couple of these events now, and every time I walk away feeling both incredibly blessed and thankful that God has given me the things in my life that I have, but also with a heavy heart because I live in the richest country in the world, and there are families of 8 who are having to cram in to a single motel room and have, literally, nothing. The smile that a box of groceries and some bags of onions, potatoes, oranges, and apples puts on some people’s faces would make you think they’d just won the lottery. In fact, while in the line for the bathroom, there was a young mother who’s two boys were showing each other the soccer balls they had just been given, and I got talking to them (since Im a massive soccer fan). It turns out that this was the very first year that they had ever gotten a gift for Christmas. It’s heartbreaking.
And I just can’t help but wonder if we, the church, the global ‘Church’, really get it. Jesus said that He came to serve and to give. It just seems to me that we spend too much time serving ourselves and giving within than serving and giving to those who really need it.
New podcast is up; season two, episode three. Christian and I dish out the turducken then talk about getting ready for Christmas. There’s also brief discussion about the mad dash to the middle, plus a Monkii News update. Check it out.
I’m not particularly a fan of Burger King’s Whopper. I’m more of a fan of In-n-Out’s ‘Double Double’. But this video is just intriguing. Is the hamburger really that engrained in American culture that people literally freak out when they are told that the Whopper has been discontinued?
Jeff Miller over at Consuming Worship invited me for an interview as part of his Worship Leader Wednesday series that he’s been doing.
Part 1 posted today. Check it out. In fact, check out the entire series. There are some really good ideas and thoughts shared by other worship leaders. Iron sharpens iron and all that.
Today is one of those rare Sundays that I have a little bit of free time before service starts, so I figured I’d take the time for just a moment to jot down some thoughts I had in the car on the way to church this morning.
I don’t have this experience in the car very often, but this morning on the way to church I had a real encounter with God. I was listening to the song “Scratch” by Kendall Payne, which seems to be an honest plea with God for a second chance…”I’d like to know if you’d be open to starting over from scratch/I’d like to know if you’d be open to giving me a second chance.” And it got my mind wondering about things I can’t possibly comprehend; mostly how on earth God can love me in spite of myself.
And as I was there bombing alonggoing 65mph max on the freeway, pondering on this incredible thought that God would give me something that isn’t just undeserved but something that I’ve actively rejected in the past, He just told me, like he’s told me many times in the past, that He loves me.
Of course, these kind of encounters bring me to tears and I had to pull over and compose myself before driving on, but I had to take another listen to that song. And there’s one line in particular that just describes where I’m at so well…
I’ve been counting on nothing,
But He keeps giving me His word,
And I’m tired of hearing myself speak.
Do you ever get weary? Do you ever get weak?
Who am I that God should love me? Doesn’t God get tired of my sinful nature? Doesn’t he get weary of loving me when I’ve made wrong decisions every day of my life? After all the things I’ve done and said and thought; the sin and the crud that has cluttered up my life, who am I that God should still love me? It’s something I don’t think I’ll ever understand. I’m not getting what I deserve. I get so tired trying to comprehend this, and today I realized that God doesn’t need me to understand it. He just wants me to accept it.
Isn’t that the most incredible aspect of God; that His grace and His mercy mean that He extends His love to us even in the darkest moment, and we don’t have to pretend to be someone else?
December 28th, 2007 by 
James 
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