Danny ChaiI told myself I wouldn’t update until I’m done with my 2 projects, but my program takes forever to run and I don’t have anything to do in between runs. Anyway, I don’t have time to write much.
So I assumed everyone thought the band entry was boring because Allie said it was boring. After I wrote my last entry, a surprising number of people e-mailed me to tell me they thought it was interesting. So obviously there’s something wrong with Allie, not me.
It has come to my attention that FiCS worship team refers to themselves as “woteam.” It is indeed a sad day. You probably don’t know this, but for whatever lame reason I’ve always fought against anagramization in FiCS. I’ve never called FiCS “fix,” only “eff-eye-see-ess.” I don’t know why. And I never called worship team “woteam.” That was an IV term, you see, and one of those terms bandied about in IV frosh year that bothered me, along with “paradigm shift,” and “DTR.” I’m not saying it’s unique to IV, just that’s where I was exposed to it. To this day, I’ve never used the terms “woteam,” “paradigm shift,” or “DTR” in seriousness. A sad sad day.
Which reminds me, I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with the term worship team. There are various terms you can use – worship team, praise team, praise band. Worship band? I haven’t heard that one. Anyway, praise band, I just don’t like. I can’t really explicate why, it just doesn’t jive with me. Just the term band.
So the choices really are “praise team” and “worship team.” Personally, I think it should be called “praise team.” Because, I mean, that’s what they’re in charge of, right? Praise times. I don’t like “worship team” because you can get into the fallacy that “worship” means just that time when you’re singing, possibly dancing, and (at Vineyard) imitating barnyard animals.
You know what I’m saying? The idea that “worship” means just the singing part of the service. I’m not saying a lot of people think this, but it’s out there. Like I read articles where people pretty much use the term “worship” for just this particular activity, the singing and stuff, whereas, as we all know, this is just one particular part of worship. Hymns, corporate prayer, the hearing of the word, communion, etc. are all part of the activity “worship.” When you label something a “worship” team, I think people can get the misconception that “worship” is whatever that team does, no more no less, and this is a fallacy.
My guess as to why people call it “worship teams” rather than “praise teams” is the idea that praise time should be more than praise; it’s not just a preparation for something, but at it’s best should truly be worship. Thus, if you label it “worship team,” you remind the team, and the people, that the activity they’re doing should truly be worship, nothing less.
But I don’t know, I think the former happens more nowadays. People equate “worship” with just singing, and that shouldn’t be. So personally, I like “praise team” better. Plus, with “praise team” there’s no opportunity for that lame shortening thing. What are you gonna call it? Prateam? Pream?
Walter Lee once made fun of the whole Stanford shortening thing. It was pretty funny. He kept calling the bookstore the “BoSto.” I don’t know, it amused me.
What Eric means by this only happens every 400 years is this. I’m sure most of you know this, but some don’t so here goes. Every 4 years is a leap year, you add an extra day. Except, every 100 years (1700, 1800, 1900, etc) even though the year number is divisible by 4, it’s not a leap year. Except, every 400 years (1600, 2000, etc.) it is a leap year even though the year is divisible by 100. It actually goes one more level, but I forgot how that works.
So a day like Tuesday was rare, because it was a leap year although the year was divisible by 100. That only happens every 400 years.
Speaking of which, I think there is no question that Eric Yang is better than me at Trivial Pursuit. I’ve only played with him 1.5 times, that one time being during FiCS, when the guys were so into it we were standing on the chairs and yelling, and the girls were all nicely in their seats being quiet. I think we played at a ski trip once also, but I don’t remember exactly. But I do remember being impressed. I’m always impressed when people know stuff I don’t in Trivial Pursuit, and Eric was doing it repeatedly.
And, the kicker is, he was doing it across the board in different fields. You know, a lot of people have specialties of knowledge, like sports, or literature, or pop culture, whatever. I’m better than most Trivial Pursuiters, because I’m pretty good at all subjects. But Eric is also, and better to boot.
I was talking to someone, I forget who, and I realized one of the reasons I like playing Casio for the kids at KCPC. You might not understand that quote from Chariots of Fire, where the guy says, “When I run, I feel His pleasure.” I’ve written in the past how when I play music, it’s the same thing.
The thing is, you always wonder, well at least I do, is it really a pure thing, or am I looking for the praises of man? If this makes any sense.
I love playing for the kids because I realize that none of them appreciate it at all. Like, I think they could care less. And so, week after week, I pull out these dope Casio parts and I just love it because, I mean, no one’s even listening, no one even cares. It’s just pure fun, and I don’t have to worry about me having ulterior motives.
Anyway, I bought an electric guitar on President’s Day. Went to Guitar Center with Henry and Jieun, since they know nothing about guitars or gear or bargaining. It was probably not a good idea. I did absolutely no research on guitars or price checking at all. I didn’t even know what I wanted at all. I just went because John got a card in the mail about some sale.
So basically I had to ask dumb questions, like, “I’m looking to buy an electric and an amp. I know absolutely nothing about electric guitars. I know absolutely nothing about amps. What do you think?” It was risky because they obviously could have taken advantage of my obvious ignorance.
By the way, I continue to be totally clueless about instruments and gear. I know nothing. I don’t know what makes a guitar good, acoustic or electric, I can’t hear the subtle variations in tone between good and bad guitars, unless it’s extreme; I don’t know about anything. I just play the darn things. But I digress.
I ended up getting a DeArmond M75 and some sort of Crate Amp because that’s what the store guy recommended. Anyway, I’m really pleased with my purchase. Honestly, the only thing I did know about was aesthetics, and this guitar looks pretty dope. It looks seriously cool. But when I got back I was up all night doing research on it (after the fact) and it turns out I bought a good guitar. Every review I found was pretty much a rave one, and everyone called it a best buy. It also turns out I got a good deal on it. So I was happy.
Henry also did a price check on the amp, comparing it to this online place that is consistently the lowest price on everything, and I got a good deal. So I was happy, because I found all this out after the fact.
Anyway, I get home and I’m all excited, and I mess around and realize, I have no idea how to play electric guitar. I know about 10 riffs for electric from various songs, and after that, I have nothing else to play. But I’m gonna learn. I’m stoked about it. It’s the first substantial guitar I’ve ever bought.
I realized something while doing my YAG Bible Study. I’m doing Life In The Spirit. It’s an OK study, not nearly as good as Experiencing God. But it has some good lessons. Foremost, it clears up misconceptions about the primary workings of the Spirit as presented in Scripture. It’s not about tongues and manifestations like that, although that’s definitely there, but it has other roles that are more important and more frequently mentioned. If you’re a Christian, the Spirit is working in you, and the study’s point so far has been to show how it’s been working, so that you don’t have to worry about not being Spirit-filled by some weirdo definition.
The strange thing is, I’ve been better about doing all the lessons for this study than Experiencing God, even if I have to do multiple lessons on Saturday, a frequent occurrence. And I wondered why.
And I realized what it is is that Experiencing God is just a really challenging study. I mean, it’s hard to just do it; pretty much it confronts you with the Bible and says believe it or not, but if you do, you need to change the way you live your life. It sounds dramatic, but that’s really what it is. It says, the Bible says this, and if that’s true, you need to do this.
What happened was, I was kind of scared to do the EG studies. It just challenges me a lot, and it’s not easy to keep going about doing the things you’re doing the same way when you’ve really been challenged, without just turning your entire spiritual life off, and that’s a hard, scary thing to do sometimes. So last year I kind of avoided it sometimes because I was scared in my heart of how challenging it might be.
But that’s how the truth is, right? The message of the Bible isn’t an easy one, you can’t just limit it to an easy 15 minutes each morning. I mean, it’s the truth, and it’s message is just challenging. It should be scary. I mean, to me, it kind of is. But, I mean, that’s a cool thing also.
Anyway, I miss EG, especially since I didn’t finish. It challenged me a lot in scary but good ways, and I think I need that. I’m not sure why I’m saying this. I guess I just recommend EG to all of you. It’s great.
Maybe we can all do it together over the web! It could be like the Hebrews study!