Ben Pettit

So I want to do something way relaxing tomorrow. Any ideas?

Oh yeah.. pray that I pass Spanish.. not kidding.

I’ve got this great idea and I’m going through with it. I’m opening up a new blogging site soon. It will be a multi-user blog site, so I won’t be the only poster there. I will probably just RSS import feeds that speak about church and prayer from this site. I have several friends in the area who I believe would like to participate. If your interested in being a blogger on this new site please let me know @ ben.pettit@gmail.com.

The site is going to be centered around vision, the Christian church, and prayer. I believe that we have a good thing going with so many people blogging. I use google reader to keep up with all my RSS feeds, but I’d like to see some community built on the web especially for the upstate of SC. I can tell you this though, it will not be limited to just one job type. In other words it will not be a “worship leader” web site. It will be a website dedicated to the exploration and vision of the church.

As I talked about in an earlier post, we live in a very disconnected church community. My goal is to bring some of those people together. The site will be a place of discussion. So please keep that in mind as it launches in the next couple weeks. More later!

I’m still on version 2.1 and now 2.5 is out. I have mixed feelings about upgrading, as I’m not sure that all my plug-ins will work currently. I’m also implementing a new comment system later today that will allow you to comment without making an account. This is most likely the reason I haven’t received many comments lately.

The contemporary church is not for everyone but yes they do have a purpose. I’ve been involved with 4 contemporary churches in the past 5 years. I graduate in a week from today. I was thinking for so long that I wanted to work in a contemporary church. Here are my complaints and why I may not be working in one.

Every contemporary church is different in what they believe in terms of theology (You never know what your going to get).

Some contemporary churches believe tithing is an old testament thing. (Yeah… well they are dead wrong… read the bible for gosh sakes).

There is no association with other churches. No external support except from it’s families and people internally (A few churches may bind together, maybe).

The modern contemporary church is pushing to use a rock band and I play rock music… that fits right? My only problem is, aren’t we suppose to be worshiping the God of the universe? I mean why does it just have to be a rock band? What’s wrong with an orchestra? What’s wrong with pipe organ. I sat in UMC of Asheville, NC last Sunday and we worshiped with an organ postlude that made you want to strap on a gun and charge the gates of hell. Have we really brought ourselves to this point where all we do is listen to loud music and call it “praise and worship”? This is hard for me to say because YES I like loud overdriven guitar. I just am not completely convinced that every church needs to be doing this (your saying “duh” Ben, but yeah look at how many church plants think they need it).

In closing I will say this. Do church. Do it well. If you worship with a keyboard and organ every Sunday. Make it the best keyboard and organ sound you can. Make your transitions between worship elements flawless and seamless. Traditional is not bad. For you KJV churches, yes your a little crazy, but my Grandfather told me once that hearing the word read in KJV was just comforting to him.

Set goals. Cast vision. Run as hard as you can with what you got until you get somewhere. Don’t stand still, ever.

So often we put these fronts up around ourselves. We try to be someone were not. Maybe its to impress someone. Or maybe were so scared that if we our ourselves that someone may be critical of who we are. Because at that point it cuts into our in most being. It cuts us at the core of who we are. I think we’re so frightened of rejection that we cannot be ourselves. We pretend to like popular music because that’s what is popular. Its hard to be criticized when your into the normal. I’m a musician. I’m not normal. I like weird music. Most of all, I like things that are meaningful. I like things that are funny. Not the vulgar type of funny. More like the funny a child would make. I think of my twin nieces. Something just so adorable your just can’t help but to smile. You can’t help but love it.

I don’t know what the Lord has for me. But one thing I have learned in the past couple weeks is I will always aspire to be something greater than I am. Even if it doesn’t make me the most money. What do I really care? God already promised he would take care of everything I need. I can literally sit back and wait for him to move. Patiently wait. Sit back and enjoy the stillness. Enjoy peace. Enjoy Love.