Charlie Dean’s Blog

Heard from around the Dean house:

Jennifer (as I’m walking out the door): Goodbye hot man.

Madox: Goodbye hot man.

Jaxon:  Mommy, you’re hot.

And also:

Me: Madox are you a boy?

Madox: No.

Me: Are you a girl?

Madox: No.

Me: Do you like broccoli?

Madox: No.

Me: Do you like beer?

Madox: I LOVE MILK!

(2, going on 3, is a HILARIOUS age!)

I was meeting with someone today and he asked about how big our church is and if it was meeting our projections.  Truth is, the first answer I could give.  I know how many people attend, on average.  But the second question?  I have no idea.  I don’t know if it meets projections because we didn’t have projections, and I’ve tried, really hard, to not have expectations.

I won’t lie.  In my worst moments I love a full room of people on Sunday morning.  At my most insecure, it makes me feel good about myself.  (fyi: if a pastor says that he or she doesn’t really care about attendance, they are either a) lying, or b) waaaay more spiritual/confident/secure than I!)

I’ve been a pastor for almost 11 years now.  (I’m pretty sure that I started my first pastoral position on June 14, 1999.)  Numbers have always been a tricky thing.  But something has happened in me the last couple of years, leading Imago.  It’s really captured in this quotation that I came across a couple minutes ago:

God’s goal is not a perfect attendance record; it is a community of people who actually want to be in a community.” – J. Ortberg, The Me I Want to Be

I get super-excited when I hear people say things like “I’ve been gone a couple weeks, and I’ve missed the people of Imago,” or “I’ve always seen church as something I just ’show up’ to, but, for the first time, I get excited to come to church and be around these people.”  And I get encouraged when I hear of groups spontaneously gathering to hang out, serve the poor, or discuss a book together – not because we’ve created a program and asked for perfect attendance, but because they want to be a community that is changing the world.

Have you ever had that experience where you really like a song, or a movie or something, then you find out what it’s about and suddenly you like the song SOOO much more?  (And, generally, the people around you are like, “duh.”  And then you feel stupid, but still no less excited.)

I was a late-comer to the Jimmy Eat World party.  I knew that Dave liked them a lot, so I bought Chase This Light when it came out a couple years ago on a lark, and I was hooked!  Eventually, I went back and bought all their albums.  One of my favorite songs, just in terms of the sound of the song, is “A Praise Chorus,” off the Bleed American album.

And then, I recently came across some discussion of the song and about how the song is a love song about falling in love with rock n’ roll.  I now I think it might just be one of my favorite songs ever.  The first part of the song is about kind of being a wallflower… then finding a song to fall in love with.  The end of the song is a whole compilation of lines, lyrics and references to other songs.  I particularly love the reference to Motley Crue (“kick start my rock n’ roll heart”)!

Favorite line: “I want to always feel like part of this was mine.”  That line captures for me what listening to music is always about for me… finding something in the music and feeling like part of the lyric is my story, my poetry, my song.

Another favorite line:  “Crimson and Clover, over and over.”  “Crimson and Clover” was a hit in the 60’s by Tommy James and the Shondells.  I love this lyric because it’s all about how you find a song you love and you can just play it over and over.

Here are the lyrics from songmeaning.com, along with some commentary.

Here is a youtube link with the official video, if you just want to hear the song.

For a breakdown of the songs referenced or alluded to, here’s the wikipedia entry.