Sunday| Magazine

Sunday| Magazine is a free online magazine designed to explore the creative process of churches on Sunday mornings all across the US. Each issue has about 12 short articles related to creativity, visual arts, worship, leadership, tech, and communication.

Sunday| is less about step-by-step instructions, and more about the philosophy of why we do things the way we do. It’s less concerned with which specific piece of tech you use to pull something off, and more interested in where our hearts are at as we integrate technology into worship. It’s a great resource to clear away the noise of the day to day, and refocus on the meaning of the gospel and how that impacts our ministry in every day ways.

You can subscribe to receive a monthly issue with in your e-mail, or download the iPad App which will download and store the issues automatically. Visit their website at http://www.sundaymag.tv/ for more information.

Rachel Woolard
VEF Director of Media

If I were to write another blog this morning, it would be the exact same as the last – word for word.

I hate it when history repeats itself… especially that kind of history, and especially less than two weeks later. Why can’t I learn from my mistakes?

I screwed up. I suck. And I’m sorry.

Sometimes in life, you just screw up. There’s no excuse for it, and there’s no getting around it. You make a huge mistake that changes everything, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to fix it because the damage is already done. Sure, you can apologize. Sure, you can try to make up for it. But really… it doesn’t change anything. You still suck.

So, today is one of those days for me. I don’t know how to fix the fact that sometimes I’m absent-minded, but to my head it doesn’t seem to matter if something is trivial or really *really* important. It can still get forgotten. Part of me wants to say that I can’t be blamed for certain synapses not firing in my brain at the correct time, but really even though it wasn’t at all intentional… it’s still wholly and completely my fault. I can express how mortified I am about the situation, but it doesn’t solve it. I could even promise to never let it happen again… but that would just be a lie because I can’t really promise that. It might happen again. I might be a complete and utter idiot some other time and do the exact same thing.

So how to I relieve this throbbing feeling in my chest? How can I prove just how sorry I am? Sitting, pouting, stressing, and writing about it on a blog certainly doesn’t make it any better, but doing anything other than that honestly feels …almost immoral. Like if I wallow and repent for long enough, maybe this guilty feeling with subside.

Unfortunately, that’s not how forgiveness works. And when it comes to people, there’s no formula I can try or dance I can do to automatically make it better. I just have to hope and pray that an individual will find it in their heart to forgive me, even if I violated their trust and fell short on a promise I made.

I made a mistake. And honestly it doesn’t matter what that mistake was. To some people it might be a big deal, and to others they might just brush it off. That’s not the point. The point is: I screwed up. I suck. And I’m sorry.

(And no, I’m not freaking pregnant)

.connecting the timelines.

I used to fancy myself a great writer. I knew it because my seventh grade teacher Mrs. Culbertson put a special note on a mandated journal entry I had written about a tree.

That same year we had a state-wide writing test in which students were graded on a scale of 1-4. I was one of two people in my seventh grade class to achieve the four. So, I cast aside my dreams of being a pop-music star or an astronaut and instead wholeheartedly started pursuing the written arts.

All the authors’ advice told me to read, read, read, and write, write, write. I had the reading part down. As a member of the eighth grade Battle of the Books team, I read 22 of the 25 books and was a top scorer in our competitions.

The writing, on the other hand, I had a harder time with. There were spurts, of course, where I would buy a new, fresh journal, and completely devote myself to filling its pages with wise, insightful thoughts and probing, life-altering questions.

Unfortunately, I usually made it to somewhere around page twenty and then my entries would falter, sputter, and eventually die out altogether. In my most successful journals, I might get a third of the way through before it was replaced by a new notebook with clean, crisp pages, which I would commit to fill with less juvenile wonderings and more mature and interesting topics.

This is the story of how I ended up with big plastic tubs full of papers, journals, and sketchbooks, now hiding away in my mother’s attic. And never once have I completed a journal. Inevitably, the closer I get to the end, the more reluctant I become to write in it.

Perhaps because there is too much finality involved and no more room for change or growth.

My goal, however, remains the same: to have enough good to say that it fills one book and spills out into another… and another… and another.

My written words are the best connection I have back to my past self… the naive child who wrote about a tree going through seasons of change for a seventh grade assignment, or the adolescent first discovering love, or the young adult just starting her career. They are the clearest picture I have of who I was and what I thought – clearer than any old photograph could hope to be. More than anything else, I write to connect my time line with my future self who I’m sure will want to remember who I was today.

Content that Keeps People Coming

Written for the VEF Blog:

While I realize that not everyone is aesthetically minded, there are basic concepts of marketing that any minister or ministry volunteer can utilize to communicate announcements and news more effectively. I’ll even do you preachers a favor and put it into a minister-friendly format, by having three distinct points… that all start with the letter “C”.

CLEAR…
When you have a lot going on in your church, sometimes it’s hard to fit all of the events into a Sunday morning bulletin or on your website. How do you keep it organized so your average congregant can find the information that applies to them specifically?

Pick TWO fonts.
Let’s use a basic church bulletin as an example. Some churches try to separate different messages by using different font for every announcement. This usually just ends up making your bulletin look jumbled and disorganized. For now, just choose two fonts (you can move up to three if you’re feeling really confident in your design capabilities). Use the bolder, more graphic font as your header, and use the simple, easy to read font below. Then, repeat that same pattern again… and again. This will make your church bulletin more streamline. People will clearly know when one announcement stops and the next one begins. If you have a youth event, go ahead and spring for that third font, but only use it as the header – keep the details of the event in the same basic font you were using before.

Fonts can be a very valuable tool when coming up with an “image” for a certain event, but don’t over complicate it. If you can’t read the text at arms length, try something different. (I personally recommend DaFont.com – they have thousands of free, downloadable fonts for you to play around with).

Contrast, NOT Complimentary.
Now, on to colors. Purple and orange are called “complimentary” colors because they are on opposite sides of the color wheel (Blue and orange, purple and yellow are the other complementary pairings). However, that does not automatically mean they should be used side by side in your images. Especially when it comes to worship slides, if you pick a green grassy background, it is best NOT to use a bright red font over it. Although the colors are about as different as they can get, they clash and can make a screen very difficult to read.

Typically, when it comes to projected images, a darker, muted background and a very light text works best. This allows the words (aka, your message) to pop off of the screen. I typically default to white.

CONSISTENT…
You must set a standard of consistent change before you expect people to check back for updates. If your website has lain dormant for the past year, don’t expect people to immediately start checking it every week for the sermon podcasts you’ve started putting so much effort into.

Set a goal for yourself to write in your blog once a week, have the sermons up by Monday afternoon, or to try this “Twitter” phenomena at least twice a week. Once you start being truly consistent, so will the people you’re trying to reach. If they KNOW that the website is the best place to get an updated calendar of events, then that is where they will check first, instead of e-mailing or calling you. If they still don’t get it, point them back to the website, telling them to make sure they check there first next time.

It may take a little time, but the results will be worth it in the long run. The key is that you have to set the standard  of consistent change before people are willing to change their habits.

CONTENT…
In today’s face-paced world of Facebook and Twitter, it may seem like people are throwing around ideas and information faster than you can keep up. The sad truth is, however, most of the information filling your “News Feed” has absolutely no practical application for your life. Why should I care whether Susie just brushed her teeth? Why did Steven broadcast to the world that he is eating soup? The reality is that while they may be communicating a lot of clear, consistent information, the content is irrelevant.

Don’t fall victim to this trap. Just because you’re trying to be consistent, doesn’t mean that you have to have new information on your website every day, or even every week. Highlight what is truly important, and people will come back looking for more.

However, no news is not good news for your church! People want to know what your church is doing for their community on a regular basis. So, be active in seeking out stories of change and hope in your congregation. Do an article on the single mom who found Christ and was baptized last week. Publish how much money was raised at last nights’ Missions bake sale, and where that money is going to go. Write about things that matter to the Kingdom. And if you don’t have any real content to write about… go out and do something worth noting.

.the great balance.

Years ago on a short term missions trip to downtown Chicago, I remember talking to my youth minister, Dwayne Curry, about how incredibly exhausted he was. As a husband, a father, a minister, a counselor, a preacher, a volunteer coordinator, a worship leader, an events planner… he was just tired. For that week, he had used his paid vacation to go with us on our missions trip, rather than to spend time with his family. He was hoping that through that time of service that his energy and his faith would be restored and that when he returned, he would be a better husband, father, minister, counselor, preacher, etc.

Now, I love “Mr. Dwayne” with all of my heart, but that is one thing I never quite understood. Until now.

Last year I spent my summer in Portland, Oregon, working under Lucas Rouggly at Red Sea Church. Lucas is a great teacher, and I’m an avid learner/listener, so we got along quite famously. Lucas used to talk all the time about a “holistic gospel” – the kind of good news that pervades every aspect of your life. He told me that when he realized this included ministry, he saw that when he spent time with his wife, he was really ministering to her. When he played with his daughter Addie, he was ministering to her. When he invited people to his house to watch Arrested Development, he was ministering to them. Once he realized that every aspect of his life was ministry, it was easier for him to leave the office early one afternoon to go on a walk with his family, and it was easier to sit down next to a stranger to talk about God and politics when he “should” be clocking hours in front of his computer.

To me, that was the most beautiful thing about ministry that I’d ever heard. I didn’t realize at the time, however, what exactly that meant.

You see, when you work in ministry, there is no divide between your work life and your personal life. At least, there shouldn’t be. They are one in the same. The relationships you develop, the work that you do, the time that you spend, even when it’s not directly related to a church event, is active ministry. This is true for everyone, of course, but it starts to get tricky when you’re not exactly sure which parts of your (supposedly) everyday life that you’re actually getting paid for.

I’ve been feeling out this balance ever since I got to Richmond. As much as I honestly love putting myself out there to meet new people and help plan church functions and work to raise money for the VEF, I still have to actively retreat from the crowds and activity. As a pastor, if  you don’t, you might not only get burnt out on your job… you get burnt out on your entire life, and that is an extremely dangerous place to be.

You must see your quiet time and devotionals and prayer as ministry too, even if other people aren’t around to see it or be a part of it. In the long run, it’ll do you and them a much larger favor.

.when love doesn’t conquer all.

I’m unsettled. There is this constant tension in my life of being separated from people and places that I’ve grown to truly love. Each time I’ve moved to a new city, I’ve found a piece of true community that takes hold of my heart and doesn’t let go, so that when it comes time to move again there is always a piece of me left behind. A constant yearning to be back with those loved ones. I think it’s alright to feel that bittersweet tension of separation, because it hints that there is something else out there – maybe a time when all the people I love most won’t live scattered across the seemingly endless expanse of the earth.

It struck me in thinking about this that just because you love something, doesn’t mean you have a right to it. I think our world tries to convince us otherwise in a lot of cases. When it comes to love, the “true romantics” say anything goes. If you love something true enough and deep enough, you should be willing to sacrifice anything and everything for that love, no matter what the consequences may be. It doesn’t matter what people think or who else it might hurt in the process, because love justifies any extreme. I think it’s a lie. True love conquers all is another really popular one… and it seems like a nice thought.
Is it true though? No… no, it’s really not.

The fact of the matter is that love… well, true love doesn’t work that way. When you truly love something, sometimes it means giving them the freedom to be elsewhere, to do other things, to not love you in return. That is the true nature of love. And in a lot of cases, that really sucks.

It doesn’t matter how strongly I love someone or how much I might sacrifice to be with them – if they aren’t willing to be with me, it just doesn’t happen. And it doesn’t matter how strongly Christ loves us or is willing to sacrifice for us  – if we aren’t willing to enter into a relationship with Him, we can’t be restored to Him.

Because the truth of the matter is that true love is out there… but sometimes it doesn’t conquer all. Sometimes it doesn’t redeem. Sometimes it simple cannot save. Because love (the real kind) doesn’t work that way.

So sometimes truly loving someone means that I don’t get my way. Sometimes it means there is a lot more pain or separation or tension than there is the satisfaction and completion and fulfillment of that love… but at least it’s true. At least it’s real. At least it’s pure. Doesn’t that justify true love more than my own feelings about it any day?

.corporate worship.

Anyone who has read up to this point should realize that my view of worship does not stop at the traditional box of a Sunday morning music service before the preacher stands up to talk. I believe the Bible teaches a much more all-encompassing view of worship – more of a lifestyle than an activity in and of itself.

Nonetheless, corporate worship in an undeniably important part of our Christian walk. It is one chance for many believers in Christ to set aside time to come together in order to worship God as the entire body of Christ. The time that we have together is special, unique, and offers many opportunities to worship in a way that one cannot individually.

The most expected and universal “form” of worship in this setting is, as I’m sure you know, joining together in song. Whether you use instruments or not, whether you use electric guitar or organ, whether your congregation can clap on beat or they can’t even carry a tune (let alone pull off some of those amazing hymnal harmonies) – regardless of all these factors, almost every church, traditional or atypical, comes together to sing together.

Take a moment to step back and take a look at what music is. In music theory we learned that music was essentially the organization of sound. It is taking the chaos of sound vibrations that naturally exist in the world and putting them in an order that makes sense to the human ear in terms of time and pitch. Maybe that makes things a bit too technical for some people, but to me that process just screams of God’s handiwork. It shows me what a blessing creating music is – that He would give us the ability to create reason out of nonsense and order out of disorder… in a way that moves us deeply and emotionally… it’s mind-blowing.

Problems in a corporate worship service most frequently arise when we come with expectations. Either expectations on how God will move, expectations about how we will feel, or (perhaps the most harmful) expectations that we place on other people. Those infamous “Worship Wars” begin when two groups of people disagree on their expectations of what worship should look or feel like. It can be as simple as when we expect people to know if it’s appropriate to sit, stand, kneel, or lift their hands. It can even be passing judgement on someone when they are not as much into a song as we are, or they aren’t singing along or expressing themselves in ways that we normally would.

In order to worship together properly as a community, we have to learn to empty ourselves of those expectations. The way that I worship God (even specifically in a music setting) cannot and should not be pushed upon any other person. It is in our diversity as created beings that we are able to come together in unity. If we were all the same, Christ would have nothing to unify.

.bruising my ego.

It is sad but true how tiny little mistakes can alter events in ways that will affect your life in very dramatic ways.

This morning I was in a car accident. Yes, I was at fault. You see, in Richmond, especially around the area that I work, there are a lot of cars that park on the streets. There are dozens of little stop signs tucked away, far back from a clear view of the road. This morning, about three blocks from the church, I stopped at one of these little stop signs, looked both ways, didn’t see anyone, and moved forward. Unfortunately, there was someone. A 25 year old girl named Stephanie from Mechanicsville, VA, ready and excited about a job interview lined up for this afternoon. Also, Stephanie was apparently in a bad car accident as a child and has since been mortified of the prospect of getting hit. I, unfortunately for both of us, stepped in at the perfect moment to fulfill one of her deepest fears. Awesome.

Now, as I wait on the insurance company to call me back to give me news about a rental car and whatever else in this mess I have to deal with (like the possibility of my poor little neon being totaled), I feel completely humbled. 

We start to get confident in our own abilities when things have been going our own way, don’t we? Like, after five years of at least not being the cause of any motor-vehicular accidents, I was starting to believe that yeah, I’m a pretty good driver. I don’t need to worry so much as I used to. I even forgot how it felt to be the reason why my mom’s car insurance went up, why my car was totaled, and how I possibly could have seriously hurt someone. 

Yeah, that feeling complete sucks. It sucks to know that you’re to blame for something very, very serious, and that if you had done one of a thousand little things differently, you wouldn’t be in this sorry spot. I am not physically hurt, (although my thumb has the tiniest, inexplicable cut on it) but my spirit is aching with regret and guilt and humility. Yes, it was an accident and accidents do happen… but I still feel angry at myself, like somehow this makes me a worse person as a whole, because I couldn’t keep it from happening.

Honestly, it’s gotten me thinking – I think the same principles can be applied for our spiritual lives. We start to feel pretty confident in the way things are going, like we can handle the day to day tasks of living on our own, and we forget the need to constantly be in prayer or looking into the Word. God basically knows what we were going to say, and we basically know what’s written there, so as long as we’re aware of that general knowledge, things should go pretty smoothly.

Until, of course, something unexpected happens. A family member dies, or a friend betrays us… and out of nowhere – BAM! Why wasn’t I ready for that? I know things like that are eventually going to happen, so why wasn’t I more on the look out for it? Now I feel distant to God and I’m too upset to know where to begin on getting back into a deep relationship with Him. 

So, a word to the wise: Be on guard. Safeguard your heart. Don’t slack up on your faith in a good season, because you never know when a bad season is going to ambush you. You’re going to have a lot of regrets and anger and guilt if something you weren’t ready for takes you by surprise and you could’ve been preparing for it all the while.

.general revelation and divine inspiration.

Last night we got together a group of 20-somethings to head out to enjoy a “cliche Richmond experience” (as Josh called it). We pulled on our swim gear, grabbed our towels, and headed down to Belle Isle to experience the in-city, river-side island and to count our hanging out as “fellowship time”. 

As we walked along the path upstream to find a good place to settle in amongst the rocks, the sun was just starting to set and it cast a metallic shimmer over the water, making it look like a molten, flowing pit of gold and silver. Melissa, a girl from the church I am just now beginning to know, mentioned how she wished she had her camera with her to try and capture the moment. Although I hadn’t brought my new camera on the off chance of it getting stolen or damaged while we rock hopped, I did have my pocket camera that has served me faithfully for so many years. I passed it off to Melissa and we both paused, taking a bit of time to try and immortalize the moment.

I believe that moments like this are the direct and natural expression of a heart formed in the image of God. There is something deep within us that not only respectfully recognizes the inexplicable beauty of creation, but innately and deeply desires to imitate or recreate it. Although we all recognize that our carbon copies cannot compare to the original masterpiece, we still continuously try… and try… and try again, regardless of how incomplete our very best manages to be. That is the foundation of the heart of an artist. There is an ingrained humility in the constant reminder of our own failures, and yet a steadfast hope that perhaps next time, through patience and perseverance, we will be a bit closer to the perfection we seek.

And isn’t that the Christian life, as well?

Melissa against the backdrop of the beautiful and serene James River.
See more photos at WorshipInBeauty.wordpress.com