Longing for Home 02/03/2012
 
What is home?  As Frederick Buechner so eloquently describes in Secrets In The Dark, home is where Christ is.  He talks about longing and belonging - "to yearn for a long time for something that is long way off and something that we feel we belong to and that belongs to us." Buechner goes on to say that what he longs for is something in the past, a space in time when he was most at home.  

This brings up so many thoughts and feelings for me as I remember back to my childhood, my teenage years, and compare it to the present and to what has gone unsatisfied in me until now - a dream of a home that seems unattainable.  I've longed for home for so long and not been satisfied that I've given up the dream of my mansion on earth for the hope of an eternal peace and joy in heaven.  There just seems to be so much turmoil in life that I find myself yearning for silence.  There's so much work to be done in this life that you have to have the long view to stay the course.  Staying the course while enjoying the journey...two things that don't easily go together.

Home for me is the laughter of my children, the warm and soft touch of my wife, the smell of a freshly cooked meal.  It's putting my kids to bed, or watching them discover something new, or the relief of a crisp fall air.  It's an unexpected letter in the mail, or a call from an old friend out of the blue.  It's that song I return to over and over bringing the reminder of it's truth.

And yet, with all of these wonderful things in my life, I often feel homeless.  A sense of not belonging - especially around people.  In church, people are searching, longing for the same things: hope, home, family, place, purpose, meaning.  We come into community expecting to be entertained, moved, taught, fed, given to, to experience a deeper relationship with God.  But in the midst of all this activity we can easily feel exiled, without place.

I desire to get to a point where I'm not trying make things be more than what they are.  Church is not my home.  My job is not my home.  My house is even not my home.  Home is something much more mysterious and intangible than those things.  Home is beyond. It's not something that you or I will fully experience until we reach the other side of this life.  What keeps me moving forward, from giving up, is my hope in that eternal home in Christ Jesus.  And by faith, I take great comfort in this truth.

What is home for you?
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Lake Murray, SC
I'm really excited to include a song I've been leading in churches for a few months now called "Mighty River".  This song has essentially given me the inspiration for the Reservoir Tour which I'll be on indefinitely through 2012.  Anyway, I'll share a little bit about how this song came about and what it means to me.  I've included a rough demo and lyrics of the song for reference below. 

Behind the Song: Mighty River
Near where I live is a large reservoir called Lake Murray.  It covers approximately 50,000 acres of land, and has roughly 500 miles of shoreline.  It's not vast in the sense of one of the Great Lakes (I visited Lake Michigan this summer and they might as well have called the Sea of Michigan!).  But it is a large body of water fed by the Saluda River, damed off to power an hydroelectric plant that keeps my lights on.  I have no idea of it's volume, but it is large enough for the electric company to build a back-up dam in case the original dam were to break.  

Every time I drive over the dam and look out on the water I get a certain feeling.  It's the same feeling I get when I stand near the ocean, or when I walk by a river.  Peace.  

It's that same sense of peace the writer of Revelation conveys when he describes a certain river flowing from the throne of God.  John, the author of the Book of Revelation, describes a scene from heaven where a crystal river is flowing from the throne of God, quenching the saints who reside in God's eternal city.  He's describing the end of time as we know it.  No war, no death, no pain or tears.  A time of absolute peace.  

As I mediated on these last few chapters of Revelation I couldn't help but be reminded of those moments when all the worries of life fall away at the sight of an enormous body of water.   That God, like a reservoir, is beyond our description.  That He himself is our peace, our steady place and our reservoir of hope.  It's in His presence that we are restored, that we are made whole again.

This is what was stirring when I wrote "Mighty River".  It's written in the style of an old hymn, a simple verse-chorus arrangement.  I tried to write using as much imagery and poetic device as I could muster, searching for word pictures that you could see as you sing.  I'll break the song down and talk about each section as I go:

MIGHTY RIVER
VERSE 1
There is a beautiful river
Winding from Your heavenly throne
With peace and strength for the weary
Filling the saints with Your love

Verse 1 sets the stage with a description of the river in the Revelation passages.  This is important in creating a mood in a song from the outset: establish your setting.  The singer immediately knows where the song is and is given a sense of what the song is about: A river, symbolic of God's love, is a thirst-quenching source for God's people, the saints.  The verse is horizontal in nature. 

While the 1st VERSE is descriptive, telling you what the song is about and establishing setting, the CHORUS allows the singer/listener to enter into the song by singing to God, describing Him to Him. 

CHORUS
You are a mighty river
A reservoir for the thirsty soul
My God and my deliverer
You are the only one who makes me whole

Sometimes the most powerful truths we sing are the truths we sing about God to God.  What this chorus attempts is telling God what He already knows, that He is the ultimate source for our lives.  The chorus is vertical in nature because we begin singing directly to Him.  In doing so we are reminded that He's the one who makes us whole.

VERSE 2
There is a bountiful harvest
For the one who stays the course
With faith and steadfast devotion
A crown awaits for those whose hope endures

Now we shift to our hope in God.  We've sung about this mysterious river flowing from God, that He himself is the river, our source of strength and life.  Now we look forward to our eternal hope, reaffirming that since we have such a great hope, we need to stick it out, to finish the race.  Again, this is descriptive, stating what is and will come.  The chorus serves to bring us back to the big idea of the song, rooting us in the central truth.

VERSE 3 
When fear dims the light of my vision
When sin steals my will and resolve
Your mercy I will remember
That a river of Your blood ran down the cross

The final verse gets more personal.  These are truths I know all to well.  I'm afraid a lot. I sin a lot.  Sin and fear constantly battle for my will to trust and not be all about myself.   If I forget the work of the cross in my life then I slip deeper and deeper into things that numb me to the truth.  This verse is essentially the story of my faith journey from beginning to end.


So, if you're a songwriter or you just like the back story on how songs come about, thanks for sticking this out.  I'd love to hear your thoughts, for all two of you that are actually reading this :)

Mighty River

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Ever have one of those moments when you've maybe signed up for more than you bargained for and you say to yourself, "self, this may not go well".  But you take a deep breath and muster all of your courage.  You've committed to the moment.  You've committed and all eyes are on you.  There's no turning back.  You know, like that pivotal moment when the waiter returns to the table and asks if you're ready to order.  Are you ever really ready to order??? What, with all the choices printed on those giant, newspaper-sized menus they give you, how could you ever decide?!  But I digress. 

I'm finishing up a week on the road playing music and leading worship in various and diverse communities.  This past weekend I had the privilege of joining some pretty stout theologians at a missions conference in North Palm Beach.  I was invited come and lead worship for the conference and then do some music for their traditional Sunday services and then do a night that is more my style.  I didn't know what to expect but I like being put in situations where I have to adapt and find a way to help facilitate a genuine spiritual moment for people.  

The first night was a baptism of sorts.  You see, the church I've been involved with for the last few years has met in a school cafetorium, a coffee house and now a recently converted hardware store.  We play loud music.  We wear jeans.  We don't take ourselves too seriously. We're "laid back", man.  So, when I walked into a room with the vast majority of folks 20 to 30 years my senior (who were generally accustomed to a traditional style of music) I had one of those moments. 

Glup.

This may not go well.  Me with my acoustic guitar.  My presbyterian friends with their shirts tucked in. This could get awkward.  

But I had committed and reminded my self (yes, my inner dialogues are lengthy and often) that I like being in situations where I'm forced to adapt.  So, I pulled out the three hymns I knew the best and took the plunge.  

At first, it was awkward.  But, as trust was being built through songs written hundreds of years ago, we finally settled in.  

For the rest of the weekend I had to continually think about what would reach the audience in front of me.  I had to take what could have been disastrous and make memorable moments out of them.  There were so many excuses I could have made and copped out with the whole, "we're just so different that I don't care" routine that leads to forcing your way on others.  I could have done all original music and let the chips fall.  But my commitment was not to advancing my agenda, it was to serve the people in front of me.

Isn't that what we are all called to do?  To seek the benefit of the people around us first, even if it means sacrificing our own comfort?  To focus not on what makes us different but on what can bring us together?

By the end of the weekend I was able to have sung some of my own songs AND build bridges with my traditional friends in Palm Beach.  Of course, there were moments when my songs COMPLETELY flopped.  But I took some risks and got to experience yet again that the big "C" church is much bigger and brighter than I had given her credit for.  That I should never judge others based on my limited experiences.  

Do you have any "that moment when" moments that have shaped you?  Feel free to share...
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Allison Poorman performs "Pie Jesu" at H20 Orlando:

Yesterday I had the privilege of hanging with some of my friends in Orlando at a really great church called H20.  They hold worship services in the heart of downtown Orlando in a place that used to be a popular country-western bar called 8 Seconds. They're mission is to reach people who wouldn't otherwise go to church.  During my stay I got to see what diversity in a church service looks like....

I met DJ who was a homeless man that has been attending the church for 3 years and is actively involved in community.  I got to help lead worship with Erik who hales from Boston, (via Puerto Rico) and who played drums and percussion and did a spoken word/rap during the message.  Vince, who leads worship and is actively involved in his life group, works full-time as a federal prosecutor and lives downtown and graciously opened his home to me.  And then there is Allison, a stay-at-home mom who sang a classical piece "Pie Jesu" to open the service, accompanied by piano and cello!  Here's a clip of her beautiful voice!  The band I played with covered everything from rock and roll to a semi-country feeling song I wrote called "In The Arms".  And to close the service, Pedro led a song on acoustic guitar. 

In all, there were multiple genres of music represented by people from diverse backgrounds.  It was such a wonderful experience to see a small part of the "big C" church alive with beautiful artist expression, all resounding the love of God!  If you're in Orlando and are spiritually curious, H20 is a great place to meet other people on a spiritual journey! Who knows, your style of music might be represented any given Sunday!
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A couple of years ago I was experiencing a bad case of writers block, just having that empty feeling every time I tried to sit down and write.  In my search for some inspiration I came across a paperback version of a book by Lester Sumrall called The Names of God.  Someone had given it to me in college and I had never taken the time to read it until then.  

In His book, Sumrall digs out the meaning of the ancient Hebrew names for God.  This prompted me to search for a master list of sorts for the names and references for Jesus.  After compiling a list through various sources, I read and studied the names and meditated on all the word pictures these names invoke.  I was immediately fascinated and sat down with my guitar to sing through the names that jumped of the list for me.  What came out is a song about the central theme in of the scriptures: Jesus as savior.  To me every name for Jesus supports his ultimate atoning work in saving humanity from the chaos of sin and that only through him can we be reconciled to God.  

My favorite moment of the song is a bridge that came a couple of days later that grounds the song in John 14:6 where Jesus makes the bold claim the he alone is the way, the truth and the life.  Ever
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I've been fortunate to spend my life making music for people from all walks of life. Broken people.  Hungry people.  People trying to pursue grace in a very ungracious world.  People on the verge of greatness and people on the precipice of collapse. These all make up the beautiful mosaic that are the people of the Church.  

For a few thousand years now, groups of imperfect men and women, the young and old, have gathered on a regular basis to practice the communal experience of what we now call Church.  And one of the core practices holding these groups together has been singing.  Despite your denominational preference, singing has been a universal way the Church has expressed the mysterious truths of God, to God.  That we get to share it with each other, experiencing God's grace in community, is truly a gift.

But what makes this 'practice' so important to the life of the Church and to our own individual lives, whether we go to church or not? 

Because music moves.

An old acquaintance of mine once told me something that has stayed with me for a long time...he said that the heart can go places the mind cannot.  In other words, we don't think our way into love, we just love.  We don't hesitate to react to tragic circumstances, we just react.  We are hard-wired to feel.  And music makes us do just that, to feel beyond our intellectual ability to comprehend what we're feeling. That's why it's so hard to explain the love of a father for his child or the way a beautiful sunset can calm your soul.  And this is also why there are thousands of songs about love and hardly no songs about the science behind it...

In the Church, we get to sing about a God who, in the words of Francis Chan, cannot be exaggerated.  We get to remind ourselves the truth that God is love, that we can forgive and be forgiven.  And our songs serve as vehicles to the heart of God.  These songs have the ability to move us from knowledge about God to relationship with God.  And when we're moved, we change, hopefully to make the world a better place to live.

What songs have recently driven you to God's heart?  
What songs (from any genre) have moved you recently and why? 
Also, bonus points for naming songs that scientifically/intellectually explain love.  Go!
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I'm very excited to announce that I'll be going into the recording studio this Fall with acclaimed record producer Ed Cash!  (A little more on Mr. Cash here).  I met Ed about 10 years ago when he was on the second Bebo Norman record, 'Big Blue Sky'.  At that time we had talked about making an album together but as circumstances would have it the conversation never left the runway.  Until now.  

Since then, I've landed in many places, but my main job has been to serve as worship pastor of two great churches-Radius Church (Columbia, SC) and Radius Greenville (Greenville, SC).  During this season of serving I made a commitment to write songs for the "big C" Church.  In 2010 a friend and talented INO artist Laura Story picked up one of my songs, 'What A Savior' and released it to radio where it played on over 30 stations nationwide.  I've also recorded a couple of projects with my friend Kenny McWilliams at Archer Avenue Studio!  It's been exciting journey thus far, and with God's grace, it's only the beginning. 

At present I am writing songs for the new record and booking events and churches through the Fall and Spring of 2012.  I'll be announcing an official release date and other details about the new record in the coming weeks!  So stay tuned and thanks for your support!!! 

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