An ode to the 49ers

Last Saturday, when Beth was here, we headed out with some friends to McGreevy’s to watch the 49ers take on the Saints. I have become a full on 49er cynic over the past decade, so I had no hopes of a victory…just wishing for a good game. My non-expert opinion about the 49ers on January 14th was that they were a nice story with some good players, a great defense, a coach who was leading them in the right direction, but a likely inflated 13-3 record. No way they beat a “real” team with a “real” quarterback like the Saints and Drew Brees.

But they won and they won in epic fashion and suddenly I was swept into full on nostalgia mode.

Here’s the deal: I love baseball. If I could only take one professional sport with me to a deserted island I would take baseball. But the thing I’ve realized with the 49ers here recently is how deeply the niners (and football) are ingrained in my sporting memory. I don’t know that I enjoy sports as much as I do today without the 49ers.

The first sporting event that I really remember in great detail is the 49ers-Bengals super bowl with “the drive” (49ers won 20-16 on a last second Montana to Taylor touchdown pass). I literally remember almost everything about that game.

I also remember in great detail the next season (89/90), when the Niners dominated professional football and capped the year off with a 55-10 pounding of the Broncos in the Super Bowl.

And I remember the next season as well (90/91)…I remember going to the Monday night game that pitted the 10-1 49ers vs. the 10-1 NY Giants. I remember being freezing cold and the Niners winning a brutal 7-3 slugfest. That game was huge because it gave the 49ers the inside track to home field advantage for the playoffs.

And I remember the rematch in the NFC Championship game when the Giants won 15-13 on five field goals. In 8 quarters the Giants never scored a touchdown against the 49ers that season. I remember watching that last second field goal go through the uprights and thinking it was a mistake. In my 10-year-old world, the 49ers DID NOT lose. It couldn’t be real.

That game was the first time I had ever felt utterly devastated after a loss. I was too young to remember the SF Giants meltdown against the Cardinals in 1987 NLCS. And while losing the 1989 World Series to the A’s was a bummer, that whole experience was defined by the Loma-Prieta earthquake. Even as a nine-year old I knew bigger and more important things were going on. Plus the 49ers were well on their way to winning another Super Bowl.

That 1990 team, the team that certainly could have/should have become the only team to win 3 straight super bowls, was my first genuine sports heartbreak. It prepared me thoroughly for what the Giants would do to me over the next 20 years. And it tought me to cherish championships because they do not come every year, even though it felt that way as 10-year-old 49er fan.

Furthermore, the Niners were a family tradition. My grandfather loved them , my dad loved them, his brothers loved them. Stories were told of trecks to old Kezar Stadium. We watched plenty of games at my grandparents house back in the day. Those are some of my most vivid extended family memories.

The 49ers played on Sunday and we had a lot to do on Sunday as a pastor’s family, so there was something beautiful about listening to the first couple of drives on the radio on the way home from church and then the fam crashing in the family room around the TV to cheer on the team that would win almost every week.

So, watching Alex Smith lead the team to a last-minute victory, watching Candlestick Park explode with euphoria…those images unlocked some deep memories and powerful waves of nostalgia.

But here’s the other thing I’ve learned. I’m a baseball guy. I’m bummed the Niners lost on Sunday and won’t be going for their 6th Super Bowl in my life time. I’m kind of relieved though…I live in Boston. I’d have to hear about this thing from the Patriots perspective for two weeks. That might have been unbearable.

Nothing feels as bad as when the Giants lose in the playoffs…when the baseball season is over. And nothing in my sports watching life has been as satisfying as when the Giants won the World Series.

Love the Niners, yeah, but man, I really love baseball!

Spring Break (Flash Forward)

It’s official: everyone is back and the spring semester is on. UMASS-Boston starts today, BU’s first official gathering is tomorrow night, leadership community is going down on Friday, and yesterday we had the first of 3 Spring Break prep meetings. Excited for the trip this year (two trips actually) and for the ways it is connected to a place (Joplin, MO) that supports us and cares about what we do in Boston. It’ll be great to serve folks there.

Snow and Sisters…

Last week my sister, Beth, was in town…this week Stacey, Amy’s sister, is here and here for good. Super exciting to have family in town on a permanent basis. We celebrated this new reality by going to Angela’s, because Angela’s!

And now today it is snowing…as in our first real snow fall of the year. We’ve had a couple of flirtings with snow but this one is the real deal. I guess it is finally winter.

Last, but not least, go Niners!

Quote of the Week (from Moneyball)

I have numerous opinions about the film adaptation of the book Moneyball. I won’t bore you with that 5000 word treatise (check out the links tomorrow for an article that articulates my opinions well), but there is a gem of a line in the film and it goes like this:

“The first guy through the wall always gets bloody.”

If that isn’t leadership in 9 words…

It’s so much easier to be the second, third, or tenth person through the wall…you avoid the wounds, and the pain, and the blood.

But you never get to be the first one through the wall. And, more importantly, if you don’t break that wall down, there’s a chance no one goes through.

Go bust some walls down!

On Crowder (A Work of Gratitude)…

During the summer of 1999 I spent my Sunday nights driving over to Santa Cruz to attend a worship gathering called “Graceland”. I had just finished my freshmen year at Pacific. The second half of that year marked the beginning of serious involvement with campus ministry (through InterVarsity) and for the first time in my life, on my own, I was really wrestling with Scripture and Jesus, and what they had to say about my future.

I was beginning to grow in an awareness of a number of things including: the reality that I did not want to do dentistry. also, something was happening, kind of underneath the surface, in the church and in my generation.

I had no language or way to really quantify any of those feelings, but something was stirring and it involved a new way to think about and approach the church.

On one of those nights at Graceland (the predecessor to Vintage Faith Church, led by Dan Kimball and Josh Fox) a strange-looking, skinny dude from Texas stood up to lead worship. He and the band he brought with him played “church music” but this was not like anything I’d ever heard or seen before. It was loud, it was loose, it was improvisational, and, and here’s the kicker, it sounded like the music I liked to listen to.

In other words, here was a band that I might go to bar or a club to watch play songs about girls instead leading me into the worship of a God I was beginning to surrender my life to. As much as I admired Josh Fox’s ability to lead worship, this was completely unlike anything I had ever seen or experienced before.

The David Crowder Band has gone on to accomplish many great things in the last 12 years, they’ve grown to epic proportions and their influence has been tremendous. So, I feel like they are the one thing where I can say “I was there before…”.

DCB has been with me ever since. Their first album “All I Can Say” was copied on a tape and passed around our IV worship team…that album contained a song “Make a Joyful Noise/I WIll Not Be Silent” that became an anthem of sorts for our community.

Their first “major album”, “Can You Hear Us,” became the soundtrack to a senior year filled with difficulties: the death of friends, breakups, fires in the dorms, graduating and saying some of my first big goodbyes. “Our Love is Loud” became the new anthem. Shortly after the dorm fire, I think it was a week later, someone heard about a free concert he was doing in Livermore for a college group there. 5 of us hopped in a car and we were off. Best show ever. Crowder gave me a hug afterwards when I explained some of the stuff going on back on campus.

“Illumination” is, in many ways, one of the inspirations for this blog. Every time I listen to that album I think of my first summer at Mount Hermon, driving to and from Monte Vista, and going to the only Passion event I’ve ever attended. I went because my good friend, Steve Comer, was running lights for the show. Crowder and Giglio talked about raising money to do a free show in Boston. They really wanted to go there because they had a passion (pun intended) for college students and there were 250,000 students in Boston. This was the first time I had ever heard anything about this and I remember thinking: “I need to go there.”

“A Collision” is still the best album front to back of all time, in my opinion. Musically it is a thematic master piece, and theologically it is up there with any of the best books I’ve ever read (I mean, read this). From that point on, Crowder’s been operating at a different level, not only from other worship leaders, but from other musicians, period. I could go on and on about this album. Bottom line: it is incredible, it’s as close to perfect as an album can be.

“Remedy” became the soundtrack for Durango, and I wore that cd out driving to Albuquerque and back.

“Church Music” is a genius concept album, and Amy and I enjoyed singing our lungs out in a New York club on that tour.

Which brings us to the end. You can read more about “Give Us Rest” here and here…all I will say is it is the perfect ending to an amazing run.

Back to the beginning. The first time I saw Crowder, some things were stirring inside of me that I had no language for…years later I can explain it all, I can see the conversations and the books and the lectures and the conferences that have helped provide context for all the change that has taken place in me, in the church, in culture.

But back in 1999 I had no idea about any of that. I only knew something needed to change…both in me and how we communicated Good News to those around us. Crowder absolutely tapped in to that stirring in my soul and opened it up so something new could come in and take root. His music gave expression to that stirring.

We’ve been inextricably intertwined ever since. And while it’s sad to see them go (and even though I’m sure there’s still more to come in one form or another), I feel nothing but gratitude for these guys.

So, thank you DCB. Thank you for making great music (and it really is great music, not just great worship music), for building cathedrals we could step in to, for leading us in worship.

In the end their own lyrics express the genius of what they did so well:

And I’m trying to make you sing//From inside where you believe

Like it’s something that you need//Like it means everything

And I’m trying to make you feel//That this is for real, that life is happening

That it means everything//I’m just trying to make you sing

Updates Abound

Just sent my sister, Beth, off on a train to Virginia. She came out for a visit and to check out two Dietician programs at Beth Israel and Mount Auburn Hospitals. We rocked Boston hard…a free Harpoon tasting, a tour of the ICA, program check out day, Angela’s Cafe (Rino’s was closed this week), McGreevy’s with friends for the Niners game, REUNION, and some good chats around the dinner table. We are not so secretly rooting for her internship process to lead her out here!

Amy’s sister, Stacey, arrives on Thursday…a permanent move! We are excited to have some family move closer and, even more, we are excited for this new adventure for Stacey.

Boston University starts class tomorrow and UMASS-Boston gets it going next Monday. It’s go time! I am looking forward to many things this semester, but perhaps the thing I am looking forward to the most is the leadership development plan we are putting into action. In particular, Amy and I are prepping (see pic) to spend 10 weeks with 7 prospective leaders at BU reading this and talking about this and this. I CANNOT wait to get started!

Quote of the Week

Actually, two quotes…

As a staff we’ve been reading through Stephen Lutz‘s excellent book College Ministry in a Post-Christian Culture. I met Steve at the first Leadership Network Leadership Community for University Ministry last fall.

His book has been a great resource…it feels like Sojourn in a book. Among other things, he also provides some great material and reasoning behind the importance of campus ministry.

For example: “It may be an understatement to say that ‘perhaps the most important mission field in contemporary America is the college campus.’ [quoting David T. Olson, The American Church in Crisis] Higher Ed students make up nearly 7 percent of our national population (20.5 million undergraduate and graduate students according to 2006 census data). But because these people grow to be leaders in every sphere, the impact they have on the world far exceeds their numbers…College ministry is the most strategic mission field in the world today.”

Perhaps, he overstates the case, but I’m with him!

As important as Campus Ministry is, it can be overwhelming…how does a team of 7 staff and 25 student leaders reach 250,000 students (in Boston)? If you include our Providence team, how does 9 staff and 30 student leaders reach 350,000 students?

Seems daunting.

I’ve also been reading a biography of Herb Brooks, coach of the 1980 “Miracle” Ice Hockey team that won the gold medal. You might have heard of this before.

I find a lot of inspiration in that story, and here’s a quote from the book that sums up that inspiration perfectly:

“An imaginative tactic, when executed by a team totally committed to it, can upset a vastly superior opponent.”

Yes!

Ordinary Time

I had the privilege to speak at REUNION this past Sunday on Luke 9:28-50. A lot is going on in the text, but I stumbled across something new (to me) in the process of preparing.

In the Catholic Church (and other “high” church traditions that use a liturgical calendar), the season, or period of time, in between Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter is called:

Ordinary Time!

Which is awesome. Literally, this has some Latin root tied to the idea of counting a period of time, so it really refers to how many Sundays there are from Epiphany to Ash Wednesday.

It’s also grown to refer to a general down-swing in the Church Calendar. Advent and Lent are High (or Strong) seasons, and the time in between is Ordinary.

This is fascinating for a couple of reasons. First, there’s something to recognizing the natural rhythm of highs and lows in life and building that into the church calendar.

Second, as a “clergy” I respect the recognition that ministry in High seasons needs to be followed by a slower pace for a time (like summer is for Campus Ministers).

But I also think there’s a part of us that views High Seasons as better. We like the spectacular and the exciting but dread the mundane and the regular. Or, to use the Luke text as an example, we want to stay on the mountain and avoid the “real world” full of stubborn demons and quarrelsome people.

Now, check this out. Each season has a symbolic color…these can differ depending on traditions, but, the Catholic Church, for example, uses violet for Advent.

And it uses green for Ordinary Time.

Green which represents, rebirth, new life, even resurrection.

How awesome is that! Perhaps it’s the moments, the seasons, the periods of time that feel the most like drudgery, like a fight, that seem mundane and unspectacular that are the fertile ground for something new, for a resurrection.