Left Behind: The Song!

I am organizing a party for the day after the rapture. Well, the day after the supposed May 21st rapture. In the honor of a better end times theology, and the fact that God doesn't want to leave anybody behind we are throwing a party in Salem, Ma. There is also a Facebook page you can join to be a part of the Left Behind: The Party! There are already a few parties around the US now, so we needed a theme song. Well here it is. Words follow below.



Left Behind: The Song
by phil wyman

Uncle Elmer had a truck
and it was my sin
lusted for his F-150
and that sick lift kit
Uncle Elmer was a preacher
mean as could be
told me 'bout the rapture
and the plagues that I would see
But now he's in a box
six-feet deep
but his pickup in my name
is a sign that God loves me

Left Behind, Left Behind
Uncle Elmer is not with us
but now his truck is mine
Left Behind, Left Behind
he could't take it with him
so now his truck is mine

Voltaire told a story*
'bout a battle on the town
sounded like the last days
when few would be around
They surrounded the city
to starve them out
the soldiers were all dying
cause the food was running out
So, the doctor hatched a plan
to save the day
chopped of the ladies' right buttocks
and all had rump filet

Left Behind, Left Behind
she sacrificed her right cheek
now we call her Left Behind
Left Behind, Left Behind
not sure I'll like the menu
when it comes to the end times

I went to a church
where the preacher did tell us
of that day when we would fly away
to be with Jesus
He said it was comin'
any day
and the church secretary
prophesied as we all prayed
May twenty-first
God will take us all away
but the preacher and the secretary
disappeared that day


Left Behind, Left Behind
the church and the pastor's wife
they were left behind
Left Behind, Left Behind
now we know that God is not the one
who left us all behind

Left Behind, Left Behind
It's your judgments and not God's
that left us all behind
Left Behind, Left BehindI just might throw a party
if I get Left Behind!

* Found in Voltaire's Candide

and I am throwing a party. Yo can find it Facebook, or you can join the community and start your own party! Left Behind: The Party!

Pics from Salem, MA - 2 days before October

 

 It's almost Halloween in Salem, MA.  In fact, it really starts in 2 days.  October 1st is the unofficial, but everybody knows it is, beginning of Halloween in our town.  Here are a few shots on this Thursday afternoon in downtown Salem near our church.

Furious! I was in a movie and didn't know it!

I wasn't really furious.  I was more surprised.  I received a call from Drew, the pastor at the North Shore Bridge Church in Beverly, MA.  He called to tell about a movie they were showing at their church last Friday night.  It was 3pm and he apologized for not contacting me earlier.  I wasn't sure why he apologized, until he asked me if I would like to come and say a few words before the film began at 7pm.

I wasn't sure what the film was about, but the name "Furious Love" sounded familiar to me.

Then Drew mentioned my part in the film.  (Sound of the screeching needle across the vinyl record inserted here)  What?!  I'm in the film?

Then I remembered that about 18 months ago some guys came into to Salem filming events, and did an interview with me about stuff God is doing in Salem.  I was nervous about the interview, because the things we do in Salem are definitely outside the box, and our stance to befriend and love Witches and the various Neo-Pagans living here has been misunderstood and/or demonized a few times too many.  Even if it has not been demonized it has been re-communicated in typical, and often aggressive sounding warlike Evangelical/Pentecostal terminology.

I am not sure which is worse: to be demonized or defined by someone whose language offends our friends.

I went home and watched the trailer.  Now I was really nervous.  This was looking like a crazy, demon busting film.  I was sure I was going to be typecast as an aggressive Witch Hunter.  Oh boy, just what I need living in Salem, MA!

I arrived at The Bridge Church just before the movie began.  Drew talked with John Harding (my good buddy in the crime of overtly and openly loving people in Salem) and I, and asked us to share for a few minutes before the film began.

John talked about the outreach which their church performs with us in Salem, and then I followed up and suggested that the title Furious Love challenged us to consider love as the weapon of our warfare, and turned our conceptions of treating people different than ourselves upside down.  I was hoping the film might have that kind of theme attached to it, but I was really just grasping for straws, and was quite nervous about the way I would be cast.

Film began:  Demon possessed people in Africa (I think it was Kenya) were flailing around and screaming.  This set the stage of a documentary travel film, which went to the "darkest places of the world" trying to find out if God was working in these dark places.

Within two or three other visits to "dark places" the movie makers arrived in Salem, MA during October.  Of course, they inaccurately identified Haunted Happenings (the month-long Halloween celebration) as a Witchcraft Festival.  It really is a combination of children's events, street vendors, theatrical presentations, museums retelling history of the 1692-1693 witch trials, and witchcraft shops peddling their wares and holding events.  Our church is more active than almost any other institution in town and so it can't exactly be called a Witchcraft Festival, but that's what most people seem to think it is.

Now in Salem the movie makers were trying to reach out to people by praying for them and healing their diseases.  They spoke of coming into Salem looking for a fight with the devil.  Oh boy, I was getting real nervous, because I knew this was the lead in to whatever interview cuts they took from me.

They showed an encounter praying for a lady with a knee problem.  She did not get healed and openly said that it felt exactly the same as before the prayer.  This was contrasted with another experience in another place in which a man on crutches was healed.  They remarked that nothing was working, and that their approach to looking to fight the devil head on was going nowhere....

"until..."

The scene panned in to our church with me sitting on a stool in front of the old vault which graces the meeting room. 

"...we met this man."

Uh-oh.  My part came in.  The cut they used had me sharing that it was far too frequent for people to be afraid of, and to demonize the Witches and Neo-Pagans in Salem.  Once we do this we disqualify ourselves from speaking on behalf of God.

The movie then pivoted upon this interview, and they went back out into the streets of Salem, and found themselves being able to interact positively with the visitors and locals on the streets.

This was truly the first time I have felt that an interview was understood fully, and effected the kind of response we are known for.  The theme of the movie moved from war to love - but love as the manner in which God fights for people.

It continued through other countries, and other events with some wonderful, and some sad stories.  It was far more beautiful in its shaky, hard edged documentary style than I could have expected. 

It touched me simply because I felt understood, and because it encompassed the message we live in Salem.  Hundreds of people every year learn from us, and the movie captured something we have been teaching for 11 years now.

So it gets a biased two thumbs up from me.  Watch it if you can.

Okay, here's the trailer that scared me, and made me wonder how I might be cast.

Evaluating Encouragement as it Happens - can you tell the difference between those who talk and those who know?

Not much to put down in the text of the post here, because the question is the post. During difficult seasons (I am experiencing my own right now) can you tell the difference between those who understand your struggle, and those who act as thought they understand? Does it make a difference in terms of how much it helps you make it through the tough times? Does a friend offering silence work better than a friend bringing many words when life is at it lowest?

Fortunately I have not had too much of this. My friends have been pretty amazing, and The Gathering is truly like family.

What do you think? What has your experience been?

Glossalalia (Tongues) My Tiny Miracle in Spanish

Tonight I had a weird, but wonderful experience. I spoke Spanish. Okay, I know that millions of people speak Spanish, but I do not. Well, I know a few words like "Mas leche por favor," "taco," and "via con Dios." Perhaps a hundred words of Spanish might be found in my vocabulary if I thought about it hard and long, but that's what happens when you've been to Mexico, and lived near the Mexican border most of your life.

Yet my experience speaking Spanish was unknown to me until after it happened, and it occurred in a spontaneous moment of worship during our Sunday evening service. As a group we spent sometime singing improvisationally to a worship song, simply creating words of praise from our hearts. I sang in tongues during this time, and when the song ended Carlos asked if I knew that I was worshiping in Spanish.

Cool. I have been praying each morning this week about receiving the gift of interpretation of tongues, and then added that I would also like to speak in languages of this earth which I have never learned. Is this the beginning to answering that prayer? I dunno.

Skepticism can be had on this issue, but all I know is that it was weird and cool, all at once, and I am thinking that God was doing something unique among the small group at church tonight.

For more on the experience see the post at our church blog.