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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

In Tragedy, Look For The Helpers


It has been said that who ever tells the best story wins the culture.  It has been a while since I blogged and the purpose of my blog is usually to serve as future song writing inspiration.  However, today a friend and fellow band mate, shared a quote from the mother of Mr. Rogers.  So, instead of diving into the recent events in Connecticut, I thought I would look back at an event that took place ten months ago in our worship community. I chose this event because it is often too hard to see God's hand in the midst of tragedy. But given time, it becomes very clear.

I believe God is the creator of a wonderful tapestry.  He creates a mosaic made up of all the shattered and broken pieces of our lives.  When we see only the broken part, it is easy to feel discouraged.  But when lifted up by someone or something, we can often see the beginnings of that tapestry, that beautiful mosaic, a bigger work in progress.  It doesn’t justify the broken, the evil, the tragedy or the pain.  It does ensure these things don’t happen in vain.  It creates an opportunity to BE the church and through us, watch God take all these things and create something beautiful from them.

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world." - Mr. Fred Rogers 
This is my story of encountering “the church” and I don’t mean little c, as in a denomination or movement. I mean Big "C" as in the individual faces of the church.  The big "C", are those who simply love God and love people. By this creed, they serve. Some stories are powerful, but often times they can leave me feeling like I’m not good enough.  Stories that hint at “you might not be able to do what this person did, but you can do something.”  “You might not be able to go to Katrina Victims or Tsunami ravaged towns, or Haiti, but you can do something.”  Often my flesh hears...”You’ll never be as good as them. But sometimes just being you is all you need. Being you sometimes makes a situation better than you thought it could be, and better than you thought you could be.  Just being you, in service to someone in need, is the only thing God needs to begin that tapestry. 

For me, three weeks in 2012, was that time.  I led worship the weekend of February 26th. That was also the weekend of our new sound system installation. I had invited a bag pipe player to perform the Fray's new song "Be Still"  with me. That was Saturday night.  The next morning I led worship three more times, then headed out for my daughters soccer game. 
I was on my way when I got the call from a good friend of mine. He told me Mike's wife had been trying to get in touch with you.  I immediately called her.  She answered the phone screaming that Mike was dead. She was out of town at the time and it was clear she felt pretty out of control and helpless.  I was at the exit for their house when I made the call, so I pulled off the highway and headed to their home.  I called their daughter on the way and she answered the phone shouting “my daddy’s dead.” It was the worst series of phone calls one should ever hear. In that moment I knew my friend was gone.  Mike was his name, he played bass on our worship team and was a huge part of our volunteer community. He was the third worship team member that passed away over a 3 year period. Sadly, he would not be the last. Looking back, that was the moment I met the church.  The Big Church! 

I arrived at their house to find a police officer doing police business, taking statements, getting names of loved ones and getting timelines in order.  As soon as that was done, he began to counsel their daughters. Turns out, he used to be a youth pastor. 

Then there is Mike’s wife, who while in shock, was comforted by her employer. She found her a flight and someone to meet her at the airport when she arrived back home.  Mike's wife was terrified of flying, but she took great comfort when she got on the plane to take her seat and the woman next to her said "I don't know what you are going through, but I am praying for you." Mike's wife described the woman as a former Navy pilot who was now a doctor who just happened to sit next to her on the plane. That doctor engaged her in conversation, asked about her husband and explained every fearful sound that the plane was making. Mike's wife later said, this doctor was so kind, she even walked me off the plane all the way to my friends who were waiting for me at arriving flights and, gave me a hug when she left.  The two friends who came to pick her up at the airport, said no one was there with her. No one walked her off the plane and no one stayed with her while she walked toward arriving flights.  I believe that was truly an angel.

When the dust began to settle from the worst day in the life of this family it became apparent they had no life insurance, health insurance or real savings. A switch kinda flipped for me and I went into project and strategic planning mode. BC5. I built a web site and created a PayPal snippet. The percussionist who played with Mike, wrote a big story on his Facebook page about Mike and what this family was going to need.  The keyboard player hosted the website for us. People responded by asking where they could send the money.  

The website went live on a Monday night around 4:30PM.  Our goal was to raise enough money to cover Mike’s final expenses.  Once the site went live people started donating. A guitar player that played with Mike, reached out to a friend he knew owned a funeral home. The owner waived all of his usual fees and offered to conduct the funeral for us at what ever his cost was for a car, casket, and fees.  A close family friend who had recently helped them to go on a family vacation, donated a burial plot. The pictures from that family vacation would turn out to be priceless treasures of moments captured in time. The funeral home owner called in a favor with a flower shop to have the spray of flowers on top of the casket provided at a huge discount.

Monday night we had an idea of what we needed to pay for Mike’s final expenses.  Three other woman close to the family began providing meals by way of a website. People could register to bring a certain dish but also view what the family had already been provided.  

I received a call from a friend checking in about the website. While we were on the phone, donations were coming in at a rate of $100 per minute.  It was overwhelming. In four hours we had the entire funeral costs covered.  The Church wasn’t done yet.  In six hours we had enough to buy the plot next to Mike to give his wife some piece of mind or donate it back to the person who gave theirs.  

Two days into this we were all pretty wiped out.  Tuesday morning we awoke to find over $10,000.00 in the account and the money kept coming in.  We began to plan Mike’s final celebration with the family.  A few minutes of planning, then 20 minutes of story telling, memory sharing and tears.  Then a few more minutes of planning, praying and more tears.  That process repeated for hours and hours.

At the end of another long day of counseling with the family, I walked out of my office on Wednesday flat out exhausted. My phone rang.  It was the spouse of a member of our worship team.  She asked how I was doing.  I was honest.  I said "I’ve hit a wall and I need help." I asked her to send reinforcements.  That night at my house the church showed up again.  A singer and elementary school teacher on the team, typed up the notes from the family. She created an obituary and crafted a draft to give to a graphic designer who offered to design the program for free.  A friend and former co-worker who happens to be an admin guru sat in my home office scanning bags of high resolution photos for Mike’s slide show.  Another friend and small business owner made a spreadsheet of everything that was rolling around in my head and others that were providing services to the family.  My wife was on itunes buying all the songs that the family wanted for the playlist behind the photos.  Several hours later we were done and I was able to think about the worship set for the funeral. I was amazed at how people simply served in the areas that they were naturally gifted in that night.  Even in the midst of that we were able to comfort each other.

The hospitality director of our church scheduled a story telling time at a house.  We all gathered and told the funny stories we remembered from knowing Mike.  It officially started the healing process. 

This is where God really began to show Himself to me.  During worship at the funeral where I use my iPad as a music stand.  Donations kept popping up over my chord charts  while we were singing.  We were still getting donations alerts from PayPal.

After the funeral, I came home and started a letter writing campaign to over 30 car manufacturers,  car dealerships and small businesses.  I believed that God was going to gift them a brand new car.  Mike and his family had been driving a 1998 minivan with 216,000 miles on it.  It was on its 3rd or 4th transmission, no A/C and you had to put the key in or put a screwdriver in the ignition and then hit it with a wooden mallet, that they kept in their car, just to get it to start.

During the grieving process, Mike’s wife started wearing all of his clothes and covering them with his Cologne. This is where another member of the Big Church steps in. Another friend of the worship community, designed and hand made three survivor bands.  He made them just for Mike's wife and their two daughters. They could spray his cologne on it and wear it on their wrists. Just to make help with the healing process.  

Three days later after paying for all the funeral expenses we had $6,900.00 left over, another $11,000.00 in new donations in the PayPal account and $1,700.00 in a local bank Memorial fund.  We made all these plans to leave all this money for the family because someone was going to gift them a car.  We just claimed it.

Three weeks went by and nothing but declines, and condolence phone calls telling me there was nothing these dealers could do. Their house had plumbing problems, a 26 year old hot water tank and a bathroom that had to be gutted.  

Friends of the family had given Mike their word that they would help him get that bathroom fixed. Big C stepped up again and they began that remodel.  A plumber donated and installed a new hot water tank. Friends and relatives came out to help clean out the garage and a local contractor from the church called in some friends that gave us great discounts on a brand new garage door and gutters.  A Habitat for Humanity coordinator came and installed all new outdoor lighting since they had hardly any working exterior lights and it just wasn’t safe.

Still no car.  That’s when I started questioning God.  I wrote Ellen and Oprah and I thought for sure someone would come through. God had another plan, once again it would fall to the responsibility of the Big C, those who love God and love people and most importantly serve them.  

I kind of got upset with God and said, “I believed you would gift them a car....what’s up?”

God replied, “I did, the money is in the bank.”  Like every conversation I have with God it went something like this...”No God, you don’t understand, we want to leave the cash for the family. We need a free car gifted to them.”  God replied again, “ I did, the money is in the bank.” After a pause I began feeling like God was reshaping my perspective on this. I called a fellow pastor who was managing the donations with me and doing some free financial counseling with the family. I told him what I felt I heard God say. His reply was... ”No Charlie, you don’t understand, we want to leave the cash for the family, we need a free car gifted to them.”
Then God said in the only way that I tend to hear him; “ you asked for funeral costs, and you got em." "And you got enough to buy the space for his wife next to him.”  You asked for a new car, and you got it." "You have enough money to pay cash for one and still have $6000.00 left over to spend fixing up the house.”  

At the end of the day, we decided to say, "Church, job well done."

Later that week, on what would have been their 16th Wedding Anniversary, a bunch of us arrived at the car dealership and waited for Mike's wife to arrive. When Mike’s wife arrived, she was able to manage a hint of a smile. A friend who attended the church worked out a great deal at the dealership where he worked. We wrote a check for her first brand new car that day.  Then we all climbed in it and took pictures. She drove off with no loan, and tears in her eyes. As she explains, Mike use to always go to Jungle Jim's and on the way back, they would stop off at that exact dealership and look at new cars.  Mike would always say, “someday, someday I’ll get you a brand new car so you won’t ever have to worry about transportation or breaking down again.”

That evening she brought her new car home. She parked it in her garage with a new door and keyless entry pad. She walked into a safe, well lit house, after a day of volunteering at church. She had a working bathroom and hot water.

God began weaving into that tapestry in the moments after Mike passed away.  Two years earlier I mentioned that we lost another team member who had left our community to take a church nearby, then suddenly passed away. Here are some other strands of God's tapestry. The car salesman at the dealership was the guest pastor who filled in at that church while they grieved the loss of their pastor and looked to find a replacement.

Another strand of that tapestry was a woman who worked at the car dealership.  She asked what was going on when she saw us all gathered around the sales table taking pictures. The salesmen told her hundreds of people from their community donated money, so they are buying a new car for her. The woman asked, “what type of church does that for someone?”  That sales clerk showed up at church the next weekend. It was a weekend where we were celebrating the fresh water wells in Nigera that our church helped to fund and build. That weekend we had more people of color than not on the stage.  We performed a song called "Wade In The Water"  Marcia Caulton (Mardy) as we called her performed that song like only she could. After the celebration a woman came up to Mardy, and said, "I don’t know how to tell you this, but my husband was delivered from Racism during worship this morning." Mardy was a singer on our team, she also sang at Mike's funeral, and she was at the dealership that morning when we piled into that new car for pictures.  Mardy passed away just a few months after Mike and the entire city must have shown up for her funeral.

So I close with this.  I live by the scripture, “Man makes his plans but the Lord guides his steps.”  While we were all making plans and acting in our strengths, God is weaving them into the lives of broken an hurting people and creating a beautiful mosaic. For our community we were good at pastoral care, organization, planning, counseling, fundraising, worship, wheeling and dealing, writing, buying, graphic design, networking, building, repairing, handyman, plumbing, electrical work, hospitality and social networking. God was using the skills of the community to tell a bigger story.

You see, if one person had donated a car, the glory and attention would have gone to Ellen, or Oprah, or a local auto dealership. Instead of the 262 individuals that donated. So now we all get weaved into that tapestry. Now the glory goes to God because His church the Big "C" showed up.

Now every donation from the $4.50 cent donations to the thousand dollar donations are weaved into this story.  People used whatever gift they had, no matter how small or large and offered it into this story. God took all the little things and the the big things and created a beautiful picture with it.   A picture that tells the story of Tragedy, Support, Love, Hope and eventually Healing.

I learned a valuable lesson those three weeks in 2012. Community is EVERYTHING! The words engraved in the side of our church building really have life changing meaning. 
That “SMALL THINGS DONE WITH GREAT LOVE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!”
No matter how small you think your contribution is, God will take it and make something magnificent out of it.

The body of Christ came alive for me in three weeks in 2012 and has not ceased to amaze me since.  I felt like I got to sit on God’s lap. He let me see things the way He sees them. I saw them from a higher perspective. It is truly a life changing experience to see the Body Of Christ, Be The Body Of Christ.

So in light of the CT. Tragedy, I hope in this story you will find comfort. For if we look at the helpers, we will see the hand of God.  And when we join hands with that, it is well with our souls.  

Thanks for taking the time to read this and this week Mike’s wife found new love and was married.  Sometimes God even puts sprinkles on top.  

Monday, October 8, 2012

17 Years In 60 Minutes


Luxottica Retail was featured on 60 Minutes tonight. After watching it, I felt like blogging.  Everyone wants to see the mighty fall these days.  Maybe it's simply our need to root for the little guy or the underdog.  Well I’m here to tell you we were the little guy once. 

I worked for LensCrafters and Luxottica for 17 years. I worked for LensCrafters when it was less than 250 stores and owned by US Shoe.  I remember the full page ad and hostile takeover from Luxottica Retail in the news paper. I worked in Virginia, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Pickerington Ohio, Columbus Ohio, Dallas Texas, and Cincinnati and Dayton.  I worked in every position that a store offered over those 17 years. I opened the 700th store at Tuttle Crossing in Columbus.  I worked in Licensed states and in unlicensed states. I was sent to Texas to help launch the Sunglass division, we were  going to name SunCrafters. As soon as my wife and I relocated to Texas, Luxottica bought Rayban, Revo, Killer Loop and Arnette. It was the sunglass division of B&L. There went all the plans for SunCrafters. Oh well, it wasn't the best name anyway, so it was all for the best. After Texas I accepted a position back to Cincinnati and worked in the corporate office. I was at LensCrafters when all of our merchandise changed and vendors stopped selling us frames because we were now owned by Luxottica Retail.  I remember when private optical stores all over the states stopped carrying Luxottica frames and shipped them back to Luxottica because they now owned their competition. This left Luxottica with no real retail sales market in the states expect LensCrafters. I remember when the MERGER with Sunglass Hut happened. I think I was leaving LensCrafters just as the purchase of Cole Vision happened. 

Cole of course owned Pearle Vision, Target Optical and Sears Optical to name a few.  I don’t remember a 60 minutes interview on the monopoly of eyewear leaders when Cole owned the market.  I was employed at Luxottica when Eyemed, the eyewear insurance division was created.  No 60 minutes interview was done when Eye Care Plan Of America dominated the optical insurance market and we couldn’t get in.  I have yet to see an 60 minutes story on the lens manufactures mark up. 

60 minutes made it sound like we bullied Sunglasshut into a buyout. We merged with Sunglass hut.  I thought it was a bad idea. Not because it wasn't great for the company, but because we were not ready to absorb their culture.  LensCrafters had a very unique culture. Its mission, vision and values were what seemed to drive decisions.  And those values resonated with the staff and found it's way to our customer base.  LensCrafters only had 700+ stores.  We were already running into departmental issues with RayBan stores and the launching of the Optiques. I helped develop best practices and policies during the purchase of Rayban because LensCrafters was now responsible for the warranty and customer satisfaction issues of all Rayban frames.  60 minutes made it sound like we pulled them all from all our vendors so we could raise the price and resell them.  That was a bit of a leap. When we bought Rayban their were so many knock off vendors.  I think for quality control we had to purge the market in order to make sure all Rayban eyewear moving forward was of Luxottica quality. That led Luxottica to build RayBan departments inside our LensCrafters stores.  

Sunglass Hut had over 1700 stores.  Their employee turnover was off the scale, and their internal theft issues were, well let's just say they were outside the norm. I can remember the boxes of Oakley Frames that were left in the back hallways of malls because there was no space on the retail floor to log the product into inventory.  It was easy to see how and why $300 pairs of sunglasses could come up missing. Not to mention those sunglasses cost that much long before Luxottica got involved. Luxottica did not have the manpower to run their stores and ours at the same time.  So yes we merged, and by default we diluted much of our culture of LensCrafters in the process.  The company size tripled overnight, and overnight it began to change.  

Looking back, I believe we earned the right to take over the optical industry.  The reason was, we out educated the competition. I was a part of educating Frame Stylist to becoming Apprentice opticians and later Licensed Opticians.  We would stay after hours when the mall closed and train each other.  We would take national board exams even when the states we worked in didn’t require them, and the company was not offering us any more money if we passed.  That was our culture.  Or at least it was for the stores that I managed. We wanted to be the best. As a company, our sales people became professionals very quickly, our opticians became some of the best optical problem solvers in the business.  Even when the lens manufactures would suggest measurements, we had the real life experience of measuring, manufacturing and fitting patients and because we were at their local mall, we could keep them adjusted, cleaned and in perfect working condition as many times as they wanted to come in. Great ideas found their way up the the highest levels of the company.  I know this because I developed the first remake reduction training and best practices program while at a store in Youngstown Ohio. Later my remake reduction plan became a company wide Remake Prevention initiative, eliminating  many of the reasons eyewear had to be remade.  Our managers were operating stores with profits between one and four million dollars a year.  That type of volume rivaled what our competition's regional managers were responsible for.  Our store managers were managing sales staffs of 10-20 associates and had to cross-train with independent doctors of optometry and the manufacturing sides of our stores. Our customers, were being educated. The only other people doing that type of educating  at the time were private opticians that had their own practices. Maybe an ophthalmologist hired them to run the glasses side of their store while they did exams in the back.  

LensCrafters spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building labs in our stores so that each individual store could manufacture eyewear on sight. You all remember the phrase. “In about an hour.” Because we could do that, very few other optical retailers could match the volume of eyewear our stores were handling. As LensCrafters grew, I believe their customers got smarter and spoiled.  They wanted to know the difference between polarized, Mirrored or Anti-Reflective lenses.  We taught them the difference between glass, CR-39 plastic and Polycarbonate lenses.  We discussed optical center, chromatic aberration, prisms, UV A,B and C, multi-focal lenses and even our manufacturing processes were discussed.  We shared everything with our customers.  As a manager, I personally invited Optometrists and Ophthalmologists to tour my labs. Some of them graduated med school having never actually seen a pair of glasses being made.  Once the doctors could see the attention and care we put into their patients eyewear, they felt even more comfortable sending them to us. The best part about it was, doctors for the first time had face to face relationships with the people measuring and fitting, their patients eyewear. In return, our opticians shared that relationship. Those relationships made taking care of our patients and customers even easier. Not to mention that we also provided a unique relationship between doctors and labs making their eyewear.  A relationship that empowered them. Doctors were no longer at the mercy of wholesale labs. 
When someone shopped at a LensCrafters store they would encounter extremely knowledgeable people working side by side with management, sales, exam, and manufacturing teams.  Most other retailers were still sending their eyewear out to central labs to be made.  60 minutes tried to make us look like the bully on the monopoly playground of the eyewear industry. I have to disagree.  We earned every dollar. We passed every State and National board to earn the right to call ourselves opticians.  We were the best and we knew it. It wasn't just a title on a our coat.  It was a learned set of skills with the education to back it up. Luckily we had owners who had a vested interest in our success.  Unlike some large companies today, Luxottica needed us and we needed them.  Until Luxottica, we were just one division of US Shoe that was testing one hour eyeglasses in Florence KY.

LensCrafters needed owners that focused solely on eyewear and not shoes and clothes and oh yeah, that new one hour eyeglass test store. Cole, which owned Pearle, Sears and Target optical kept shorter hours, lower staff, less selection and only Pearle stores had in house full surfacing and finishing labs. Our opticians saw more eyewear in a weekend than many of our competitors saw in a month.  When you are adjusting hundreds of pairs of glasses each day, you get really good at it.  When you are making hundreds of RX's each day you become and expert.  And when you are helping thousands of people a month select frames and lenses, you became their trusted fashion expert.  It is said that it takes 10,000 hours of doing something to become great at it.  I think LensCrafters staff simply reached the 10,000 hours mark faster than most staff did. The better our opticians got, the more our customers trusted us and the more frustrating it was for them to go to our competition, only to find at times, they were more educated than the staff.  

So I guess all I can say is welcome to capitalism. With success comes the need to not only achieve, but surpass previous goals.  With that blessing comes the curse. As the company gets bigger, the focus moves more to sales. Machines begin replacing some of the labor and critical double and triple check systems. 

By shrinking the human element, LensCrafters actually levels their own playing field for their competition. Our staff was so highly recruited that we trained some of the best managers and staff for our competition. Our managers were offered crazy amounts of money to go to Pearle or WalMart or Costco and teach their staff.  We had a no return policy so if you left LensCrafters you could never come back. The edge our stores once had on the competition was weakened through the thinning of retail staffing, LensCrafters may no longer have that super skilled work force from back in the day. The one on one job shadowing days of the apprentice under their wing of a licensed optician is long gone. They may have lost the skills of the older opticians and lab technicians.  The business model may have changed, and along with that the ideal retail associate changed, and so did the ideal manager.  

It's approaching a decade since I've been employed there. Many of my friends still work there.  Though it may be a shadow of the company it was when we were figuring out how to take over the industry, it is still my place of choice. 
I’m hoping for continued success, as my pension will be paid out from them.  Luxottica never saw itself as a medical retailer.  LensCrafters associates did however. In a capitalistic society, it seems resistance is futile.  As LensCrafters moves from being a medical retail establishment to being a fashion retail establishment, LensCrafters may have lost a step.  Its problem solving edge may not be what it used to be.  Some sales people may have lost the art of a quality adjustment.  Some stores removed their labs so the organic cross training that used to take place is gone.  

So I say again, welcome to capitalism.  Someone will enter the optical retailing market and figure out a way to do it online as well as Amazon.com. Then huge retail stores will either adapt or die.  The ophthalmic eyewear customer is much better off with Luxottica than without it. Just look at a few old family photos if you don't believe me. Buying up all their competition has brought back to the Luxottica family, all the opticians and managers they lost to their previous competitors over the years. Being the worlds largest optical retailer was earned through the blood sweat and tears of a lot of great people who still remain my friends.  

In addition to the Luxottica monopoly, you get OneSight. OneSight is the missional outreach arm of the company. It self funds missions to deliver used eyewear to parts of the world that don't have access to them. Parents see their children clearly for the first time.  Or the elderly return to reading the books of their faith.  I know this well too.  I wrote the song that the organization when it was called "Gift Of Sight." One sight does free school eye exams and evaluations for students every year.  They even have mobile stores complete with labs on tour buses that drive around the country making new eyewear for needy children in partnership with non-profits.  

You see, you can root for the mighty to fall, or you can blame the big giant monopoly. Or you can embrace the fact that with great resources comes great responsibility and the accountability to deploy them to serve others. I have to applaud both Luxottica and LensCrafters, they started out as the little guy, the underdog that we all rooted for. 


Thursday, August 30, 2012

Push Pin Vision


I wanted to share a vision with you.  I got it in Ridgecrest last year and some of you may have heard it but since I just shared it at the GLR meeting I thought I would post it.

A while back during worship at the retreat, I found myself getting frustrated.  I was unclear and in some ways still am about Roots worship.  Was it simply a diverse expression of worship in our movement, or what is where worship was going as a movement.  While I absolutely love John, Ryan, David and Chris, I was feeling really out of place. I was wondering if there was a place for me in worship in the Vineyard.  I knew it wasn’t a worship heart thing because I drop right into worship when these guys lead. 
I just know I’m at the polar opposite spectrum musically.  I was conflicted and getting angry with God.  So rather than stand there and not engage, I stepped out of the room and asked God to deal with me on this.  And man he did.  He immediately showed me a picture of a map of the United States and right in the middle of it was a beating heart.  If you have ever seen a map with push pins in it where people have vacationed it looked kind of like that.  There was a red string that came out of the heart and attached to each of the red push pins.  These push pins where in Yakima Washington, New Orleans, Anaheim, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Boston, Columbus, Texas.  At least those were the one I could make out at the time.  Every time the heart in the center of the map would beat, those strings would pulse on their way to the pins.  While looking at this map I felt God say, “You should be honored to be in a movement that has the ability to translate the heart of worship into so many languages.”  I stood there silent.  All of the sudden, I saw the diverse expressions of worship from my friends who lived in these areas become interpreters that were translating for their communities.  That is when I heard myself in my vision say....”wait a minute, I don’t have to be the next anything.”  “All I have to be is me, and I get a push pin.”  As soon as I said that a red pin dropped on the map in Cincinnati.  

I left that retreat no longer frustrated or angry or confused but feeling like a dialect of a language that has not yet been translated for my community.  I left that retreat feeling refreshed and clean and ready to write.  I came home and was able to write for my congregation and for the one person hurting.  I was able to enjoy the diversity of expression and know that there was not an ounce of competition in me.  I wasn’t trying to be the next anything.  I didn’t have to be.  All I had to do is translate the heart of worship for my community and my congregation.  On 8/12/11 I attended the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.  During a time of reflection we were given a piece of clay and were instructed to ask God to tell us the one thing we could do.  I heard “Sing The Story”  I wrote it on the clay and keep it on my desk here at work.  I know without that vision at the retreat, that I would not have been able to hear that from God without attaching my view of the worlds economy to it.  I would have corrupted and tainted the call and cheated my congregation and myself.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Facebook: The Peanut Gallery For The Passive Aggressive


Yesterday I surrendered.  I realized that Facebook or at least who I was exposed to on Facebook was toxic to my spiritual life.  I was angry, short tempered and basically over all pissed of.  Then I had to take the stage and talk to my worship team about the reality that we are losing another worship team member only five months after the death of another worship team member.  All the sudden perception and clarity punched through the anger and I realized I didn’t have to descend into this trap.  I was choosing to. I even got into a stupid conversation with a good friend over gun control. What a freakin’ waste of energy, time and relationships.
I was angry because my pastor and worship leader friends thought fighting over what eating a chicken sandwich meant, rose the level of national conversation.  I read the posts about how Gays felt attacked and how racism against blacks have been replaced by the mistreatment of gays in society.  I read how the church failed yesterday, and how Mike Huckabee rallied for a show of appreciation.  I read the posts from believers that said, we have lost our voice as the church to speak into these issues or even to be relevant to the gay population.  I clinched my fists as I read how gays have suffered like blacks did and more so because they have to hide their preference.
So now at the risk of being unfriended by most of you I would like to set the record straight.
Blacks were taken from their own country, captured and hunted like animals.  
They were chained up in the belly of massive cargo ships and dumped into the ocean if they did not survive the trip.
They were sold like property, forced into labor, raped, beaten and mutilated. 
They had their children sold out from under them 
They had their identify taken from them and were given new names that stole from them this heritage and history.
They built the country we now enjoy and were given nothing as compensation for it. 
They had to sacrifice themselves to prove themselves worthy to wear a military uniform and in some cases were killed by the men they were supposed to be fighting side by side with.
The government they helped build labeled them lazy, and deficient.
Government programs to take care of people in their old age kicked in after the life expectancy of Blacks had expired.
We were denied transportation, education opportunities and terrorized by organized agencies that in some cases were sworn to protect us from this exact type of terrorism.
We were denied the right to vote, own property or run for public office to change it.  
Our non violent protests were met with absolute violence including murder, animal attacks and lynchings.
The most sacred places blacks gathered on Sunday mornings were bombed. 
We were depicted in society and film as criminals and gang bangers.
Our contributions to history, film, music, science and culture were simply written out of history, and continue to be rewritten in history today even depicting a pilot in a recent 9/11 movie as white to the amazement of the African American family that lost their Dad and spouse on that day.  These were not isolated incidents. This was an oppression that spans generations and engulfed entire populations.
So with all do respect, please don’t compare the plight of gay rights in this country unless you can show me a 200 year generational history that encompasses an entire race of people that endured what is listed above. This country prospers because of those sacrifices.  That same country now allows individuals to earn and spend their money they way they see fit.  This includes Chick Fil-A and Apple computer.
Chick Fil-A sells fast food.  The president of the company doesn’t believe in same sex marriage.  All hell broke loose as a differing opinion was aired. All the sudden tolerance was no longer tolerable. 
I’m not going to get into the gay rights thing because the arguments, unlike the actual persecution is all to familiar.  When one of my friends would drop the N-Word, I would hear, “I’m not a racist, one of my best friends is black.”
So that narrative continued yesterday.  “I have a gay friend”  and now that somehow makes you an expert.  I get it, I get it all to well. Life does not play fair.  Did you really expect it to?
Here is the sad truth that was apparent to me yesterday and led me to the decision I made. When pastor’s blog sites have more fans than their church has members, something is wrong.  When attendance in church is dropping but friend requests are increasing exponentially, something is wrong.  When the preaching takes place in cyberspace at the expense of teaching in the pulpit, something is wrong.  When liberals in your church feel like they are on an island by themselves at the same time, conservatives in your church feel the same way, something is wrong.  When unity is something we talk about on the weekend but we spend the rest of the week in cyberspace being divisive, something is wrong.  
My Dad use to say: “Never argue with a fool, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience, every day of the week.” Facebook is becoming the peanut gallery for the passive aggressive, and if you let it, it will do the exact thing that my father warned against. It will drag you down and beat you with it.
So I leave you with this thought.  It has been reported that Apple Computer supports same sex marriage. It has also been reported that they financially support organizations that lobby for this.  Yet many of the pastors and worship pastors I know use Apple computers every day to write and record worship music and use apple technology to spread the message of Christ every day.  Spin that one around in your noodle for a while.  
Where was the outcry for tolerance yesterday?  I couldn’t find it.  Why?... Because the things no one will talk about face to face were all happening in the peanut gallery of the passive aggressive. 
I believe the gospel is the most important message for people this side of heaven.  However when we lower that message to the level of politics we splinter it into liberal, conservative, democrat, republican, oppressor, liberator, and an infinite amount of others.  At best we might as well hand out cognitive filters at the door because once you’ve vented on facebook, everything you say from the pulpit if then filtered.  Jesus had the ability to cut straight to the point, and if he offended you, you were free to challenge it.  However he always told you what you wanted to hear and what you needed to hear simultaneously.
As for me, I stayed up until 4:15AM changing Facebook settings and removing my friends posts from my news feeds.  This morning I woke up to what felt like victory.  I haven’t closed my mind or my heart to dissenting opinions, I actually welcome it.  I just refuse to do it on Facebook. If you want to discuss something with me and you actually know me, call me, we’ll meet face to face and have a healthy conversation.  As for Facebook, it is now a one way information stream for me.  If you have asked to follow me, you are welcome to, but no longer will I spend any part of my day, randomly being someone’s seagull friend.  I refuse to Fly By, Crap All Over People and Fly Away.  My last post on Facebook said:
“If you want to play the role of the match, you can’t be pissed off at the gasoline when it does what it is designed to do...and blows up in your face.”
Sincerely, Free at last!
Charlie Hines

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Worship, Just Worship


It’s been a week since my friend Mike died. He was 36. I think back to last Saturday night when I finished my last song on stage and Mike was working in the cafe, he immediately came out to tell me how much he liked the song and the bagpipe player we hired to play the song with me.  His wife Traci was out of town.  I asked how he was when she was out of town. The two of them were inseparable, in the truest sense of the word. We talked for a bit and then he stuck out his hand for that man to man grip, we did the cool guy hug thing I told him “love ya man”  and he said “love you to bro!”  That was it.  That would be my last encounter with my friend and fellow musician Mike Moore.  No warnings from heaven to tell me to make this last conversation really count.  No last glance back to catch a grin. Nothing. 
A week of fundraising, funeral planning, worship team counseling and set planning for his funeral and here I am in my basement trying to unpack my thoughts.  After the funeral I came home and wrote a letter to every business owner and car dealership I knew to try and get someone to give them a car.  When I hit the send button God whispered...”You’ve done all you can do, it’s ok to grieve.”  I burst into tears at my computer sobbing uncontrollably.  My family came in to see what was wrong. I think I scared them.
I kept thinking over and over in my head, did I know him enough.  Could I have been a better friend, pastor or worship leader to him.  I thought of all the days I was off on Monday and I knew he was out of work and I could have driven a few miles up the road and taken him to lunch, or had him come hang at my house just to pass some time.
He was at every Spaghetti Sundays, and he was content just to be there. He asked me for about 3 months straight when the next one would be, because he wanted to cook for it.  I am sooo thankful we had that last Spaghetti Sunday even though he dropped the entire pan of lasagna on my front porch.  Mike let the world think what they wanted of him but he always thought the best of us.  Mike had nothing of worldly possessions.  He loved being on the worship team.  He didn’t have a really good bass and owned no amp so he would turn down the music really low and lean over the bass to hear in order to learn the songs for the weekend.  Then he would come to church and play one of the basses we had hanging on our wall in our band room.  They belonged to Trentin and Charlie two members of or worship family that died 10 months apart just over the past two years. 
One Spaghetti Sundays a young woman came over with an amp and Fender P-Bass and just gave it to him.  He was elated.  He plugged it in and stood in my morning room just playing away.   
I’m not really sure how to handle his death.  The pastor in me kicked into gear to come along the family and help them through this.  The military brat and business man in me, immediately went into strategic planning mode, raising funds to cover funeral expenses since they had no life insurance.  The friend part of me just shut down no time for that yet.
I’m hurting right now pretty bad.  I’m not trying to take it out on my family but things are pretty tense around the house, we still have a worship team member fighting cancer, and another that has been in and out of the hospital all of last year.  So I’ll say again the only thing I know for sure.
Life is fragile, God is in control even when we don’t think so, and in His time he will pick up the shattered pieces of our life and tell a beautiful story with them.  Today, right now, the world is a more quiet place, a more lonely place, a more empty place, and a darker place.  The pain and aches of losing a friend can’t compare to what his family is going through so you ache twice, once for your loss and then magnify that by a bazillion and you grieve for the family.  
So in the morning, if we wake up, we put air in our lungs, and we plant our feet on the side of our bed, we shower in silence, and the songs on the radio either bring us to tears or are hollow beyond measure.  We go on!  I don’t know how but we do. And somehow the memory of Mike, and the legacy of servanthood that he leaves, takes root in our heart.  We create a bit more space for those we mostly tolerate because Mike loved them. We make more time for those conversations that we think we’ll have again, because the next one isn’t promised to us.  We give because we have way more than we need and our excess gives life to people.  We slow down and know that work can wait, it’s not going anywhere.  We take time to get to know the families of our worship team members, because it’s their sacrifice of time without their loved ones that allows us to do our jobs.  We create opportunities to do life outside of the stage, and we love each other with the love of God and walk through the darkest times with them so they can hang onto something when God seems far away. If you are a worship leader, I'm begging you to please consider what you are doing on stage.  People need the words that give life to them in their darkest hour.  Since you don't know if that darkest hour is about to be the following morning, like it was in Mike's family's case.  Be open to the Holy Spirit, leave time for silence if you have to.  But above all WORSHIP, don't perform, WORSHIP, just worship.
My heart is heavy and the tears keep coming, the words don’t come but I have to write. So I’ll just say this. I want to be more like Mike.....because Mike was so much like Jesus!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Black History Month

Photo: Freedom taken by ” 
- Roy Rudolph DeCarva 1919 - 2009


I was asked recently by some young friends of mine if I thought Black History Month promoted racism or helped to eliminate it.  I posted the question on my Facebook page to let people give their thoughts before I responded.  
Let me first start by sharing a story of an encounter.  Many years ago, my friend said, "How do you get away with it?", referring to BET - Black Entertainment Television.  He went on to say, "we could never get away with White Entertainment Television."  While I empathized with the double standard, I told him he already had it, and it was called ABC, CBS and NBC.
This was the start of my answer to my two young friends. I told them, Black History Month was simply that, Black History Month.  Is racism a part of black history? Absolutely.  Is it part of Black History Month? Absolutely, but not because of the reasons you think.  Black History is not white guilt month, it is Black History Month.  When learning about what African Americans had to overcome to be considered equal, racism will certainly be a hurdle.  If that makes white people uncomfortable, truth sometimes hurts.  
This is part of the reason I started my daily Black History Post on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=630158264.  It is impossible to talk about African Americans within the American story without covering the topic of racism. Therefore it is impossible to avoid it when we discuss Black History Month.  Just because we talk about it doesn't mean we hinder or help it.  Actions speak louder than words.  So for me, Black History Month has been about doing some homework on African Americans and African American firsts in our Nation's History.  
In the media today, everything gets compared to the civil rights movement. Healthcare, gay marriage, pro-life, the mortgage crisis, even the occupy demonstrations. We are told there is the 99% and the 1%. Personally I believe there is no 99% or 1% we are all in it together and I have little sympathy for people who stand in line for hours to get their $299 smart phones so they can tweet pictures of how under privileged they are. I never saw any photos of lines outside the retail stores during the great depression unless there was a help wanted sign in the window. So are we really as bad off as we think, and how does this get linked to Black History Month.  Let’s shine some light on that perspective. Did you know 75% of people wear corrective lenses.  Where is the other 25% demanding they get eyewear or contacts. Did you know that 61% of wealthy people considered to be in the top 1% drive Toyota, Honda & Ford cars.  Where is the outcry for the little people to be able to drive a Camary or a Fusion?  Did you know that only 5% of the worlds population has flown on a plane. Oh the horror.  31.6% of Americans have no internet access!  It's like the stone age! I fear sharing this..., 98.2% of Americans do not own an Apple Computer,..Oh - Dear - God! Perhaps the one we never see marching in the streets, is because they lack the coordination to march, only 8% of Americans play a musical instrument.  Riot in the street over that one and demand an instrument and lessons. This is not a debate between the have’s and have not’s it is between the have’s and I want’s. And for the record it has nothing to do with Civil Rights. But for the sake of argument, I’ll indulge.
What about the woman who wrote the Harry Potter series, when she was a financially struggling mom. How about Steve Jobs and Woz in their parents garage working on a personal computer. Or Bill Gates when he dropped out of college. Even NASA Rocket Scientist - Homer Hickam, when his father was shoveling coal, and he was building model rockets.  Were these people in the 99% or the 1%? Or did they simply change their story?  
You see that type of language is dangerous.  It is beyond dangerous, it is apocalyptic throughout history. Think back on how blacks were made less then human during slavery. Think back to how the Jews were blamed for all that was wrong with Germany during Hitlers holocaust in WW2.  We saw it recently in the Ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia.  We are seeing it again in Syria and Egypt. And even still in our own country with regard to the discussion of illegal immigrants. All over the world, the sex trade is booming. Terrorist think others are less than human and should not be allowed to exist on the planet. History marches down this road repeatedly.  
The dangerous language of the Civil Rights movement was not that Blacks wanted to be in the same percentage or have the same possessions as whites.  It was that we believed God made us all equal, and He didn’t measure it by possessions.  
Pay attention, I'll say it again.  The dangerous language of the civil rights movement was that WE ARE ALL EQUAL. That is inflammatory speech when coming from a group of people you have deemed less than human. It wasn't our rights or lack of, it wasn't our money, or lack of, and it wasn't our employment or lack of that we were fighting for. We were fighting for the right to be free. Then and only then could we begin to write our American story. We had to be free.  
This is why it is so important to see yourself as part of the American story.  The whole story.  For me, Black History is the infusion of truth into the American Story.  It is how, where, why, and when African Americans changed the direction of this nation.  In order to fight racism, you have to change the paradigm.  Much of our history has been whitewashed.  Contributions made from African Americans were simply left out of history. This is why racism can be seen woven through Black History Month. There is no agenda, it is simply truth and in many cases an unpleasant one to admit. Without the ability to see a culture or a race as an integral part of our country, we devalue that race or culture and over time we lose that country. 
Black History month is more than the Mass 54th, the first combat colored regiment in the Civil War. It is beyond the Tuskegee Airmen, It is bigger than Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, and President Obama. It even goes beyond Whitney Houston being the first African American to be on the cover of Seventeen magazine or Doug Williams being the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl.  We’ve been sold the story, that success looks white in this country.  It has been said that whoever tells the best story wins the culture.  How do African Americans expect to impact current culture when the stories being told on television and in film still portray us as the criminals, the car jackers, the drug store gunmen, the unfaithful fathers and husbands, and the uneducated gangsters who control the drug trade with a secret language and hand gestures.  Black History Month for me is about telling the whole story of America so that over time all Americans will know that we played just as big a role in birthing this nation as any other race.  Despite the generational wealth that skipped blacks in the founding of our country, Black History month should be an inspiration. No matter what percent you think you are in, most of us will never again have to face the types of hardships and discrimination that early African Americans did. Against all odds, we were able to beat back the chains of slavery, oppression, poor education, violence, unemployment and acts of terrorism to become scientist, authors, inventors, musicians, athletes, actors, politicians, presidents, doctors, dancers, military generals, pilots and astronauts.
Until the names of Charles Drew, Garret Morgan, and Lewis Latimer show up in history books next to Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and Ben Franklin we will continue to shine light where there is darkness. Until we re-educate a generation of students that only read about blacks during the slavery chapter of their social studies and history books black history month will remain a tool.  When America sees how African Americans contributed equally to the great American Story, the world may begin to see true equality.  Once that happens then nothing can stop this country's ability to be what God intended.  I hope that answers the question.
“It doesn’t have to be pretty to be true, but if it’s true it’s beautiful. Truth is beautiful. And so my whole work is about what amounts to a reverence for life itself.” 
- Roy Rudolph DeCarva 1919 - 2009