Issue17_NovDec05-web

LOVEDRUG JOHNNY CASH BLINDSIDE DAVID CROWDER BAND KANYE WEST LOST’S EVANGELINE LILLY | CHRISTMAS BUYING GUIDE | 9 THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU HIT 30 | PRAYER

GOD. LIFE. PROGRESSIVE CULTURE.

RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM

CAMERON CROWE ON HIS FATHER, FAITH AND FILM

STAYING TRUE TO HIS CHURCH ROOTS?

JOHN LEGEND DEALING WITH DIVORCE A FRONTLINES LOOK AT A SOLVABLE CRISIS WHAT’S HOLDING YOU BACK?

TAKING SPIRITUAL INVENTORY

DAVID GRAY CHRISTIANS AT A PORN SHOW HURRICANE KATRINA RELIEF EFFORTS

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GOD. LIFE. PROGRESSIVE CULTURE. RELEVANT magazine November/ December 2005, Issue 17 Check out daily news and features at RELEVANTmagazine.com Cameron Strang Publisher and CEO cameron@relevantmediagroup.com

EDITORIAL Cara Davis Editorial Director cara@relevantmediagroup.com

Tia Stauffer Associate Editor tia@relevantmediagroup.com

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Editorial Interns: Rebecca Mercurio, Omote Ekwotafia, Jonathan P. Walton Contributing Writers: Andy Argyrakis, Jack Arnold, Jason Boyett, Aaron Brummet, Winn Collier, Cameron Conant, Kent Curry, Kirsten Douglas, John Fischer, Stephanie Gehring, Jocelyn Green, Craig Gross, Catherine Guiles, Aly Hawkins, Mike Hogan, Jeremy Hunt, Matt Ingle, Dallas Jenkins, David Kenney, Kyle Lake, Mandy Langston, Jena Lee, Jen Maness, Kristen McCarty, Brett McCracken, David McCorkle, Monica Monzingo, Chris Neiger, Holly E. Ordway, Andrea Papadopoulos, Brenda Plonis, Kimi Raspa, Ben Reed, Constance Rhodes, Mark Steele, Jarrett Stevens, Rachel Stevens, Chris Troutman, Shellie R. Warren, Carla J. Whitley, Lauren Winner, Brad Witty, Jeffrey Worthen

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Suzanne Ford Marketing Coordinator suzanne@relevantmediagroup.com Jesse Carey Marketing Coordinator jesse@relevantmediagroup.com Jason Boyett Outside Thinking jason@relevantmediagroup.com

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Design Intern: Ryan Skjervem Contributing Photographers: Jeremy Cowart, Azuree Norman Contributing Designer: Joshua Smith

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RELEVANT Issue 17 Nov/Dec 2005 (ISSN: 63696) is published bimonthly for $12 per year by Relevant Media Group, Inc., 100 South Lake Destiny Drive, Suite 200, Orlando, FL 32810. Periodicals postage pending at Orlando, FL, and additional mailing offices.

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5463

Life.

The signs are everywhere. Music. Film.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

18 20 22 24 40 42 48 50 52 54 66 68 72

56

CONTRIBUTORS LETTERS FIRST WORD

COVER STORY

AFRICA

Told through the pen and camera of two people who have walked the roads of Africa, this story will change your perspective of this continent. Seeing the people up close will take you on a journey that will hopefully translate into action.

SLICES REVOLUTION: HURRICANE KATRINA DEEPER WALK: WORSHIP KILLING OUR IDOLS LOVEDRUG SAME OLD SPONTANEITY DEBUNKING CHRISTMAS MYTHS TIME FOR A NEW REVOLUTION NINE THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE 30 BLINDSIDE

LOVEDRUG: Who says white men can’t jump?

80 82 84 88 92 94

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS PRAYER DEFINED JOHN LEGEND CHRISTIANS AT A PORN SHOW BAD CAREER MOVE SPOTLIGHTS Tristan Prettyman, The Dears, Denison Witmer, Ester Drang, The Redwalls

74 16

toc_issue17.indd 012

CAMERON CROWE He’s the man behind Elizabethtown, Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. Crowe steps away from the limelight to talk about his father, his films and his thoughts on faith.

100

MUSIC REVIEWS: KANYE WEST Death Cab for Cutie, Rosie Thomas, David Crowder Band, David Gray

104

SIXTEEN ALBUMS YOU SHOULD KNOW

108 112

BOOK REVIEWS LAST WORD

TABLE OF CONTENTS

9/28/05 7:04:13 PM

“The immediacy is part of what makes this memoir work. It will no doubt speak to other divorced Christians, especially Gen-Xers.”

—Publishers Weekly

AVAILABLE NOW

AT BOOKSTORES EVERYWHERE OR SAVE 20% AT RELEVANTSTORE.COM

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JEREMY COWART NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

has the ability to

capture on camera what can seldom be put into words.

His photos of Africa (p. 56-64) describe a continent and people with breathtaking images. When he’s not traveling the globe, Cowart can be seen taking photos of musicians (Mat Kearney, G-Unit, Coldplay), weddings and landscapes.

Want to see for yourself? Check out his pictures on www.flickr.com/photos/jeremycowart.

KYLE LAKE

is the pastor of University Baptist

CAMERON CONANT wishes he were

Church in Waco, Texas. UBC is a 10-year-old community

Bono. He spends the rest of his time working, running, writing

seeking to thrive in today’s emerging post-Christian culture.

and rooting for the Detroit Pistons. A native of Michigan, he

Lake graduated from Truett Theological Seminary and

now lives in Franklin, Tenn., where he works in publishing.

drops some of his knowledge on prayer (p. 82). He and his

His favorite book is Crime and Punishment; his favorite

wife, Jen, met in college and have three children—a girl

movie is Casablanca. His first book, With or Without You

and twin boys. He’s written two books: Understanding

(Relevant Books), deals with divorce in your 20s. He writes

God’s Will and (re)Understanding Prayer (Relevant Books).

about his personal experience this issue (p. 80).

CONSTANCE

RHODES

tackles

JARRETT STEVENS is the teaching pastor

holiday eating this issue (p. 30). A sought-out speaker

at Axis, which is the twentysomething ministry at Willow

and author of several books on eating disorders and self-

Creek Community Church in Illinois. His obvious love for

image, her desire is to help people “open up their futures

Chicago made him the perfect host for “The Scene” (p. 36),

to be filled with the joy and happiness that come from

where he gives the scoop on Chi-town. Besides his great

fulfilling the purpose God has for each of our lives.” Rhodes

love for the Chicago White Sox, Jurassic 5 and chili dogs,

lives in Franklin, Tenn., with her husband and two sons.

Stevens is quite normal. However, he would disagree with

www.findingbalance.com

that assessment.

FEATURING THE SINGLE “IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE”

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GOD GOD IS. CHURCH EVOLVES. CHURCH EVOLVES.

The Creative Church Conference and Ed Young give you an uncensored look at the The Creative Church Conference and Ed Young give you an uncensored look at the raw materials needed to lead a growing church. Step inside. See the volunteers, raw materials needed to lead a growing church. Step inside. See the volunteers, talk to the staff, and listen to the real life experiences of four trend-setting pastors talk to the staff, and listen to the real life experiences of four trend-setting pastors who have seen God-sized dreams come true. who have seen God-sized dreams come true.

ED YOUNG – Senior Pastor, Fellowship Church ED YOUNG – Senior Pastor, Fellowship Church with special guests: with special guests:

BILL HYBELS BILL HYBELS BISHOP T.D. JAKES BISHOP T.D. JAKES ERWIN MCMANUS ERWIN MCMANUS C3 – Creative Church Conference C3 – Creative Fellowship Church –Church Grapevine,Conference Texas Fellowship Church – Grapevine, Texas January 26–27, 2006 January 26–27, 2006 800-230-8860 – FellowshipConnection.com 800-230-8860 – FellowshipConnection.com

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

COMMENTS. CONCERNS. SMART REMARKS. Send your love and hate mail to feedback@relevantmagazine.com.

In your last cover story, you considered Kanye West one of the people who impressed you because of his song “Jesus Walks.” Indeed that’s a good song and brings back some spiritual content to popular music; however, I wonder if that’s a good thing? I appreciate when artists show their spiritual side through their songs, and I believe that Kanye West did so with honest heart. But by doing so he has set a new standard for pop culture, and it says that in order to get your song popular, you must throw the word “Jesus” in there. I am just afraid that the name of Jesus will become a “Jesus is my homeboy” type of [slogan on a] shirt, and it will be used over and over again in the market, losing its meaning and radiant glory.

—DANIEL FARIA

I was using this web surfing application and put “Christian” as one of my interest categories. Every website it’s brought up that was Christian-related was just crap—emotive, judgmental, closed-minded crap. Since the creation of this magazine, I actually thought there was a big change in the Christian worldview. Oops, guess I was mistaken. So, this is just another thank-you note to you guys from another devoted fan.

just a natural overflow of the RELEVANT worldview. Which is one problem if you’re a chemical engineer, but an entirely different problem when you’re a journalist, because now you’re accountable for perpetuating the white-guys-doing-great-things story.

—TUCKER FITZGERALD Thank you for such an honest, insightful magazine. In a world that’s so polarized by politics and empty “religion,” you guys are like a breath of fresh air. Instead of taking sides, you go the third way, the Jesus way, reaching out to the culture in love and yet retaining a radically Christ-centered identity.

an absolute disgrace. Please reconsider your positive outlook on this public figure.

—JASON BURCHAM You’re right, lately he’s definitely come across as more crazy than we all originally thought.

Oh well, there goes our latest poster child.

Nominations for a new one, anyone? I hear Kirk Cameron is free.

I wanted to know if you had a high resolution image of the Last Word pictures. I would love to get a large file of those images so I could print out posters for my room here at college.

The artwork is beautiful!

—HOLLYE FAIN

—BETHANY MARROQUIN

—DAVID L.

Thank you for noticing that we aren’t emotive, judgmental, closed-minded crap. We’re a different kind of crap altogether.

First you have an interview where Common is asked questions he’s too afraid to answer (July/Aug. 2005) about the hip-hop culture and its compatibility with the Gospel, and now we have him promoting a group (PETA) that calls grandma a murderer for serving that golden bird to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family (Sept./Oct. 2005). If one desires to be a vegan, fine, but don’t call the rest of us murderers.

Because of copyrights, we can’t give away the images. However, we do plan on offering limited-edition posters of selected Last Words at RELEVANTstore.com this winter.

The latest cover story (“Visionaries,” Sept./ Oct. 2005) has me turning in my sleep with concern. I agree with many of your choices, but there are two that I am uncomfortable with, Jim Wallis and Kanye West. Why? Because they hate President Bush. I trust there is at least one politically conservative person in the office there at RELEVANT, and they must be uncomfortable when the dude in the next cubicle is writing an article about someone who has made a career of bashing the president. (If there are no conservatives at RELEVANT, well then you should pay your staff more!)

—JONATHAN SHRADAR

—MIKE MALLETTE I love your magazine. Do you have any more of the Highway to Heaven DVD sets that were mentioned in the May/June issue? I’d be interested in one.

—JUSTIN PLANK

—NATHAN RUSK

You’re right … they should pay their staff more.

This is request No. 4,832 for Highway to Heaven. If this many people had been watching it in 1989, maybe it wouldn’t have been canceled.

I’ve got to point out the gaping wound in your choice of 12 visionaries. White guys, anyone?

Your two choices for African-Americans were a rapper and pro athlete. I mean, obviously you didn’t get together and plot out an article with the intent of focusing on white guys, which leaves me with the impression it was

I love your magazine, but I hope you consider writing a negative article about Kanye West at some point. You have covered him numerous times in your magazine, but after his remarks on the concert for hurricane relief on NBC, I consider all his efforts to boost Christianity a joke. What he said during the show was

20

LETTERS

I appreciate the Revolution columns in each magazine. It is a great way to educate people on the social injustices of this world and ways to help. It also allows people to show their support to many organizations that they would never have known about without your magazine. Nothing is more important in this world right now than to show God’s love by our actions and help spread the Gospel through ministries such as the ones you spotlight each month. Thank you for everything you guys do. Your magazine truly is relevant.

Let me first say that I like your magazine.

But why is everybody so pretty (it must be in the water)? If I see one more pretty person or average person hiding it behind horn-rimmed glasses, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. It could be ugly.

—MARK MATHIS Have you been to the staff page on RELEVANTmagazine.com? We’re all quite hideous actually.

WE CAN’T FORGET

BY CAMERON STRANG

As I write this column, media coverage of Hurricane Katrina is starting to lessen. It’s inevitable that it would—there’s other news happening in the world—but the scary thing is that by leaving the media, it also leaves our awareness. But for the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are still in limbo, their need for help doesn’t end when the Fox News crew pulls away.

It’s a constant cycle. When was the last time you thought of the thousands who still haven’t recovered from the Indonesian tsunami? Or the millions dying in Africa? Or even the families of soldiers who have been killed in Iraq?

I’m not writing a guilt column here. I’m no different from anyone else. Life gets busy, and we forget. But that’s what scares me. I don’t want to forget.

Earlier this year I got an email from Peace Gospel Ministries (www.peacegospel.org), an incredible missions organization that works with native ministries in India. After the HOMELESS: Two Katrina Victims tsunami disaster, there were something like 2,000 relief organizations in the area. Sixty days later, there were three. Three. Thankfully, Peace Gospel was one of them—and they’re there for the long haul.

Jesus talked a lot about constantly caring for the poor and the hurting. In our comfortable American lives, it’s easy to write a check and then return to life as normal. But we need to be doing more. Maybe it’s not feasible for each of us to pick up and physically go to these places where people need help. But there’s something more that each of us can do than we currently are.

Why do we have Africa as our cover story this month? Wasn’t Africa the “hot topic” a year or two ago? That’s exactly the point. Now, more than ever, we can’t forget. Some good work is starting to happen over there, and we’re beginning to see positive change. In fact, our story was written and photographed by two twentysomethings there with Blood:Water Mission (www. bloodwatermission.org), a non-profit working to provide clean water and blood in villages.

Even though much is happening, so much more needs to be done. Not only in Africa, but here in America and anywhere people are hurting. Yes, it’s an overwhelming thought, but if we all do something, no matter how small, together it will make a huge difference. It’s time to put our words into action and do whatever’s necessary to be light in the darkness and bring hope to the hurting. The difference made will not only be seen now, but in eternity.

CAMERON STRANG, 29, is the president and founder of Relevant Media Group.

WELCOME, TNIV Earlier this fall, RELEVANT partnered with Zondervan to start using the TNIV Bible as the official translation of the magazine. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture references will now be in the TNIV, and coming soon there will be an interactive, searchable TNIV Bible in the God section at RELEVANTmagazine.com. You’ll also be able to buy cool limited-edition TNIV Bibles at RELEVANTstore.com. We’re excited about partnering with the TNIV—definitely check it out!

22

firstword.indd 022

THEY DON’T PLAY VIDEOS ON TV ANYMORE, SO WE’LL PLAY THEM ON YOUR COMPUTER I’ve got to start writing shorter headlines. As you’ll see on page 38, in October we launched RELEVANT.tv, our viewer-driven broadband music video channel.

Spinning the music you request 24 hours a day, RELEVANT.tv is completely unique in the world of music entertainment. (Name another station playing Keane and Common next to Anberlin and David Crowder.)

Since the beginning, we’ve been wanting to find a way to bring the music in the magazine Together at last to life. So, for the last eight months we’ve been quietly working on the plans for RELEVANT.tv. Just like a real video channel, we have VJs (we shoot every day right here in our offices), a video request page and the freshest music we can find. New videos debut every week, so definitely keep checking back.

You’ll be able to find RELEVANT.tv on the main page at RELEVANTmagazine.com.

And since this is a viewer-driven site, you can email us suggestions and requests at feedback@RELEVANT.tv.

THE RELEVANT PODCAST (How’s that for a shorter headline?) If you’ve visited the website at all recently, you’ve probably heard about the new RELEVANT Podcast. After launching it back in September, the crew and I record a new one every Monday in the office studio. We preview the best new music each week, talk about the news and what’s happening here at RELEVANT. Response has been really cool—the Podcast has been consistently in the Top 100 at iTunes since we launched. You should sign up—it’s free (meaning you’re sure to get your money’s worth).

FIRST WORD

10/5/05 2:32:56 PM

JOHNNY CASH • THE NEW ‘IT’ GIRL IS LOST

MEET THE MAN IN BLACK

JC LIVES!

More than 100 artists have covered Cash’s “I Walk the Line.”

Cash produced and co-wrote the film Gospel Road: A Story of Jesus, which is still being distributed by Billy Graham’s organization.

IT WAS JUST A MATTER OF TIME before the Man in Black would get his own biopic.

Joaquin Phoenix plays Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, a much-anticipated film following the musical legend from his childhood on an Arkansas cotton farm to his historic rise as a beloved and tormented artist, to his tempestuous relationship with soulmate June Carter (Reese Witherspoon). Phoenix and Witherspoon actually sing in the movie, and early screenings indicate they nail it. Phoenix’s stunning performance brings Cash back to life much like Jamie Foxx’s stunning portrayal of Ray Charles in Ray. And, of course, the Oscar buzz is already building. Walk the Line opens Nov. 18.

THE CASH BOX Spanning 47 years, Johnny Cash: The Legend (Sony) is the only box set we’ve seen that manages to truly capture the magnitude of his legendary career. The four-disc collector’s edition features a comprehensive biography inserted in the middle with stunning pictures.

Cash has had more hits on the pop charts than the likes of Michael Jackson, Elton John, Billy Joel, and Simon and Garfunkel.

Cash’s autobiography, Man in Black, was written in 1975 and has sold close to 1.5 million copies.

ONLINE BONUS: Can’t get enough Cash? Check out RELEVANTmagazine.com/issue17 to read a free chapter from The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash.

GORILLAZ GET REAL The Gorillaz will perform live—for real live—Nov. 1-5 at the Manchester’s Opera House in England. The event is to promote the first Manchester International Festival, which will take place in June and July 2007.

The musicians behind Gorillaz’ hit second album, Demon Days, will perform the entire CD across five consecutive nights. Confirmed

24

SLICES

guests at press time include Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder, U.K. hip-hop artist Roots Manuva and Blur frontman and Gorillaz cocreator Damon Albarn. In addition, a live holographic tour of the Gorillaz team created by animation house Passion Pictures is in the works for 2007. Musicians will mix with elements of the Gorillaz videos.

MISC. AROUND He’s ba-ack. Former Creed frontman Scott Stapp is planning to release his solo debut, The Great Divide, on Nov. 22. At press time, he was still holding out hope for a collaboration with Jamie Foxx. Yeah, we see that going well ...

Texas Tech basketball coach Bobby Knight is set to be the star of a new ESPN reality series, appropriately called Knight School.

The series will follow Knight for six episodes as 16 basketball players compete for one walk-on spot on his Texas Tech team ...

The new trend in colleges: offering more video game-related courses in response to the digital media industry’s need for skilled workers.

Apparently, playing Halo 2 all day does have its benefits ...

LOST AND FOUND EVANGELINE LILLY’S UNEXPECTED CAREER PATH

As one of the main stars on the Emmy-winning drama series Lost (a RELEVANT staff favorite), Evangeline Lilly, 26, has been making headlines for the past year.

But did you know the British Columbia native actually fell into acting by chance?

She originally had plans to go to college and be a missionary.

In college, Lilly founded and led a world development and human rights committee on her campus. It was during this time that an agent for Ford Models discovered her in her hometown and offered her a modeling gig. Lilly initially refused, but after a change of heart began working on commercials in order to pay off her school expenses. Little came of it though, so she pursued work as a missionary and human rights activist in the Philippines until a friend encouraged her to give acting another try. “I hated it,” she told the UK’s Daily Mirror. “I was ready to give up until a friend accused me of being afraid of success.”

She proved that friend wrong when producer J.J. Abrams offered her the role of Kate Austin on the ABC breakout drama. From the mission fields of the Philippines to the lush rain forests of Hawaii—where the series is filmed—it looks like Lilly’s found her calling on Lost.

Some rumors have sprouted that Tom Cruise is attempting to lead Oprah away from her Southern Baptist roots to become a Scientologist. In response, Oprah’s close friend Gayle King told columnist Liz Smith: “Believe me, Liz, Oprah is not aware that Tom is besieging her to give up Christianity for Scientology. Not a word of truth to this one” ...

THE BIBLE IN 100 MINUTES A retired Anglican priest and British publisher have created the 100-Minute Bible, a collection of 50 400-word chunks of a condensed Bible. Each section takes about two minutes to read. “It’s for the man in the street,” publisher Len Budd says. “If he’s able to answer a pub quiz question about the Bible afterward, then good. If he goes on to read the whole thing, even better.

And if someone comes to faith as a result of it, even better still.”

Writer and former priest Michael Hinton says he used all the modern English versions and his knowledge of ancient Greek to revise the Scriptures. Hinton says his work “sacrifices poetry for clarity.”

U2’s Fall Tour Gets More Heavy Hitters Kanye West, Arcade Fire, Patti Smith and Damian Marley have joined the ever-growing list of supporting acts for U2’s American tour this fall, joining previously slotted acts Keane and Dashboard Confessional, according to U2’s spokesperson. Marley opens for the band Oct. 16–Nov. 9; Smith will warm up crowds on the Nov. 21–22 gigs; Arcade Fire is slated for three Canadian dates, Nov. 25, 26 and 28; and West will wrap up the trek, opening from Dec. 14 to the final gig on the 19th in Portland, Ore.

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ASLAN IS SO HOT RIGHT NOW • CORPORATIONS BAD, THE CORPORATION GOOD! • CAMERONS

MISC. It’s that time of year when Fortune magazine makes you feel poor. Topping the magazine’s rich list is Bill Gates (no surprise there), followed

by Warren Buffet, Paul Allen, Michael Dell and a bunch of Waltons. No, not as in Jon-Boy Walton, Waltons as in WalMart Waltons. It’s OK, we were confused for a minute too ...

SNEAK PEEK AT ‘NARNIA’ Watching the trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, something seems oddly familiar. If we didn’t already know that the movie was based on C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece, we might think that the filmmakers were just recycling from other movies.

ASLAN

vs.

MUFASA

Granted, Aslan has a deep spiritual metaphor going for him. EDGE: Aslan

NARNIA SNOW vs.

POLAR EXPRESS SNOW

Ashton Kutcher, 27, and Demi Moore, 42, reportedly took their two-year romance to the next level by getting married in late September in front of 100 friends and family. You know, just because it’s legal now doesn’t mean it’s not creepy ...

Space Adventures, an Arlington, Va.-based company, is offering two passengers a ride to the moon and back for $100 million each. The trip could take place as early as 2008, and according to the firm, they have identified more than 1,000 people with both the financial resources and the interest to consider making the trip ...

‘THE CORPORATION’ ON DVD

BY LAUREN WINNER

I am not a huge movie fan, but I have been on a documentary kick lately. My fave—the DVD I want to buy for everyone I know—is The Corporation. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting to learn so much from the film—I already knew a little something about the history of corporations in America—how in 1886, the Supreme Court granted the legal status of “person” (in 14th Amendment terms ...) to corporations, and since then we’ve been whisking along on a trajectory that culminates in the corporation being the most powerful institution in our society, even more important than the nation-state ... Well, the documentary was just amazing, and I learned a ton. I also developed a new case of Hero Worship—the object of my attentions is Ray Anderson, who is interviewed on The Corporation. He’s the CEO of Interface, the world’s largest manufacturer of rugs, and he very movingly, forcefully, convincingly describes his conversion to—well, to a sense that he is responsible to something other than greed and profit. His conversion to sustainability. The documentary is also worth the price of admission for the spotlight on Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, two Fox news reporters who were fired after they refused to back down on a story about the dangers of rBGH, a synthetic hormone used in dairy production across the United States. I could go on and on. The film is great, soup to nuts.

And I think you ought to see it.

LAUREN WINNER is the author of Girl Meets God.

OUR FAVORITE TV & MOVIE WEBSITES Sure, one has a train, but it’s pretty much the same CGI snow. EDGE: Tie

SUSAN vs. ROBIN HOOD

(MEN IN TIGHTS)

The resemblance is uncanny. EDGE: Robin Hood

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Cameron Crowe, Cameron Strang and Cameron Conant are already in the issue.

Now the magazine is complete.

1. INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE http://imdb.com

6. TV GUIDE http://tvguide.com

2. ROTTEN TOMATOES http://rottentomatoes.com

7. TELEVISION WITHOUT PITY http://televisionwithoutpity.com

3. DOWNLOAD.COM VIDEOS http://video.download.com

8. COMING SOON http://comingsoon.net

4. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY ONLINE http://ew.com

9. VARIETY http://variety.com

5. ET ONLINE http://et.tv.yahoo.com

10. E ONLINE http://eonline.com

TATTOOED DRUM MAKER • THE GURU TELLS YOU WHAT’S UP

THE RELEVANT GURU Dear RELEVANT Guru, My boss never seems to acknowledge my presence. My ideas are never good enough, and he is always listening to my coworkers instead of me. I’ve complimented his ugly ties, baked him cookies, washed his car, walked his dog and picked up his dry cleaning. I even coached his son’s Little League baseball team (we went 10-5 and got second in the league tournament). I’ve done everything except his taxes. How do I get him to notice my talent?

Sincerely, Disgruntled Apprentice

Q&A WITH TIM GIBSON HOW DID YOU START TRUTH CUSTOM DRUMS? I was in a band with Geoff (current co-owner/ founder) when he was starting his business.

I didn’t have any stock in the company or anything like that, but I could get into shows and meet bands because I have tattoos and piercings. So I did that, and I helped them build. Later on, one of the partners decided that he wanted to become a police officer, and he offered up his half of the company.

HOW DO BANDS HEAR ABOUT TCD? It’s purely word of mouth. We’re really good buddies with our bands; they’re a bunch of great guys. All the drummers are just a group of close friends now. And they tell people, “Check these guys out, check out the drums.”

WHAT IS YOUR DREAM JOB? If I weren’t working at Truth Custom, I would be in a band playing music or already finished with school and in my profession as a teacher. I’m getting my teaching credentials

for probably either a history or math teacher for high school. Am I going to be using it? Not likely, the business is going well. It’s just a sense of accomplishment for me.

HOW DOES YOUR FAITH MERGE IN YOUR LINE OF BUSINESS? We believe that God gave us a talent, and we try to exemplify that through our work. We are a Christian company because we feel God gave us a gift of something with our hands.

We can make drums. We can make a quality product, so we’re just acknowledging that in the company.

HOW DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU SHARE CHRIST IN THE ROLE THAT YOU HAVE? We have personal relationships with all of our drummers, and sometimes they ask us about our religion. We try to be more of an example.

My partner and I, we’re not the people that are in our churches able to give the sermons and things like that, but we think maybe we can help out in another way.

WE HAD TO ASK ... What’s Your Dream Job?

ERICA, 22: Social work to help children.

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J.P., 20: Medical missionary because of my heart for the hurt in other countries.

NATHAN, 20: To be in a rock ’n’ roll band because of my passion for music.

TIFFANY, 23: A hair and wardrobe stylist for TV, movies, magazines and fashion shows.

Dear Apprentice, The easiest way to get attention is to become the office eccentric. The key here is to exhibit quirky behaviors rather than annoying ones. For instance, quirkiness means singing retro Huey Lewis favorites in the bathroom, as opposed to busting out 50 Cent cuts in the hallway. Quirky: Quoting Better Off Dead. Annoying: Quoting Napoleon Dynamite. Quirky: Ballet moves in the parking lot.

Annoying: Breakdancing on the conference table.

Granted, it’s a fine line ...

Still, upping your quirkiness quotient may not be enough. This boss of yours seems like an extreme case. Brown-nosing is rarely effective for this brand of creep, as god-like treatment has come to be expected. This calls for a less unorthodox approach: backbone. On occasion, the mighty and powerful enjoy being challenged. It shows spunk.

Stupidity, too, but also: spunk. So next time you find yourself in an important situation, adamantly disagree with your boss. Shake your head with raging, exaggerated intensity. Spit. Breathe fire.

Wag your finger. Give a sassy head tilt. Throw in a “how ya like them apples?” and you’re golden.

There’s a chance he’ll admire your courage, and you’ll be high-fiving your coworkers on the way to your new executive suite. Most likely, though, you’ll get canned. Like a sardine. But you will have cemented your legendary status in the office. Nobody goes off on the boss without getting noticed. And as you quietly leave, your box of stolen legal pads and stickie-notes under your arm, you will thank heaven that, despite being unemployed, you have at least retained your passion. And darn it—that’s just about all any of us can hope for in this crazy, mixed-up world. That, and quesa-dilluhs.

The RELEVANT Guru

MY CHURCH IS BIGGER THAN YOURS • DON’T GET FATTER THIS CHRISTMAS • CONTEST WINNER

MISC.

The new Lakewood Church/Compaq Center

MAKE ROOM FOR CHURCH Normal church venues are so last year. Well, they are if you happen to have more than 10,000 members. The newest trend among megachurches is to make empty arenas their new sanctuaries, such as Faithful Central in Inglewood, Calif., which moved its congregation to the Great Western Forum, where the Lakers used to play. Most recently, televangelist and best-selling author Joel Osteen moved his Lakewood Church to the former home of the Houston Rockets, the Compaq Center. After a $95 million renovation, the church now seats more than 16,000 people and boasts 30,000 members, making it the largest church in the United States. Next, they’re planning on buying the Gulf of Mexico to use as their baptism pool ...

The Fugees reunion is officially under way.

The legendary outfit that includes Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras has been in the studio recording for the last couple of months. Their new album will reportedly release Dec. 27. At press time, the album was still untitled ...

Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis will release her solo debut in January, titled Rabbit Fur Coat. The album will be issued

by Team Love, the label run by Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes.

Lewis’ solo debut will feature guest artists including Death Cab for Cutie vocalist Ben Gibbard and Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine ...

And the Winner Is ...

Remember the summer activity contest in our July/Aug. issue? If you were able to complete all 10 of the activities listed—ranging from hosting a movie marathon to volunteering at a local nursing home to attending a baseball game—and sent us a photo of you holding a RELEVANT at each, then you were entered to win a Portable Sony PlayStation and other prizes. Surprisingly, we received a lot of completed entries, which lets us know that you people have way too much time on your hands.

This year’s winner, who was randomly selected, is Gordie Hannan from Ontario, Canada. Here are some of his pictures ...

MAKING GOOD CHOICES DURING THE HOLIDAZE

BY CONSTANCE RHODES

Holidays are definitely a challenge when it comes to watching our weight. But with proper planning, this season doesn’t have to push you into a larger clothing size. Some quick tips ...

1.

“Budget” for treats. My favorite financial guy Dave Ramsey loves to pound into people’s brains the importance of budgeting money because, without a plan, overspending occurs. The same principle can be used with food. Our bodies only need a certain number of calories each day—a number that is different for each of us. When we “overspend” our calories, we gain weight. So, if you’re headed to a party, plan ahead how much you think you can “afford” when it comes to treats. This way you can enjoy great holiday food without having that post-holiday freak-out.

2.

Think before you drink. You’re likely going to have the opportunity to imbibe in a few alcoholic drinks (eggnog, anyone?) around the holidays. Be wise about this—drinking too much can lead to “loose lips,” and I’m not just talking about last year’s embarrassing karaoke moment. If you want to avoid holiday binges, limiting or even avoiding alcohol is a smart move.

3.

Remember, balance equals respect. Anytime you wonder whether you “should” or “shouldn’t,” go for balance. That is, don’t be obsessive and don’t be careless. Instead, aim for the middle—RESPECT. Because there’s more to life (and Christmas) than worrying about food.

Runners-up (who each won a killer RELEVANT prize pack) were Michele Durfee, Beth Kardyjaka, Karen Stepko, Corey Shields, Elizabeth Young, Marina Aldrich, Patrick and Charlotte Dungan, Melissa Estep and Velma Dailey.

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CONSTANCE RHODES is the founder and executive director of FindingBalance. com and the author of Life Inside the Thin Cage (Shaw).

Double Double Feature.

Feature.

Double Feature.

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THIS YEAR, MAKE IT LOOK LIKE YOU PUT SOME THOUGHT INTO IT

BOSS/COWORKERS

FRIENDS

KIDS

The Cubes Cubicle Playset

Smartwrap Stereo Earphone Cord Manager

Sock Monkey Slippers

www.thinkgeek.com

$ 13

www.uncommongoods.com

www.sumajin.com

$ 15

Nothing has inspired invention like the iPod, and this is one of the best iAccessories around: a cord manager for those tangle-crazy earbuds. Comes in a bevy of fun colors.

Seriously, anything with “monkey” in the name? Perfect for kids. These slippers are made from plush, comfy, high-quality sock material and fit children from 12 months to 2 years. But who cares about the details?

Admit it: We had you at “monkey slippers.”

GIRLFRIEND

MOM

Photo Mobile

Felt Flower

SISTER

www.shopexit9.com

www.supermaggie.com

www.fly-bird.net

Frames piling up? Here’s a fresh way to display favorite pictures and other paper treasures without the clutter.

Plus: no more dusting!

Super-cute and squeezable, you can’t go wrong with a wee little felt flower for T-shirts, handbags, jackets and more. Available in a variety of colors.

Object of lust for coffee tables: eight fun and funny “Hello My Name Is” paper coasters packed in a funky tin box.

BOYFRIEND

DAD

BROTHER

Duck, Duck, Goose T-Shirt

Crossword Puzzle Baseball

Star Wars Darth Vader Kubrick

www.randomshirts.com

www.uncommongoods.com

www.ningyoushi.com

There’s nothing cooler than a quizzical tee, and this fun royal blue shirt kills. It’s got vintage yellow print that reads “duck, duck, goose”—plus illustrations of the birds in question.

Broaden your dad’s knowledge of the national pastime with questions about ballpark slang, star players and famous teams. And display it on a cool little turf base.

If a LEGO guy and a Playmobile figure reproduced, you’d get something like a Medicom Kubrick. This one, kickin’ it in full Vader attire, is beyond cool. Characters from other series are also available.

What’s more fun than the drudgery of corporate life?

A teeny-tiny toy version of it! This playset for adults is complete with a 2.75-inch posable plastic figure and all the fundamentals of Cubicleville: walls, desk, chair, file cabinet, phone and computer.

$ 14

$ 10

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$5

$ 20

$ 20

Hello Coasters

$4

$ 10

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AVAILABLE AT BOOKSTORES EVERYWHERE OR SAVE 20% AT RELEVANTSTORE.COM

DON’T FUDGE YOUR BUDGET • HOW DOES YOUR SALARY STACK UP?

MANAGE YOUR MONEY Want to be a “spending wisely” trendsetter in the office? Here are five sure-fire ways to cut costs and be on the cutting edge:

PACK A LUNCH Forget boring PB&J. Think wraps (easy to make ahead of time) or burritos or use plastic reusable containers to hold anything from a salad to an entree set aside from an earlier dinner, reheatable in the microwave. Add in a piece of fruit, a cup of yogurt or a few cookies to make a complete meal.

BE A SAVINGS TRENDSETTER

BY HOLLY E. ORDWAY

Ever had the experience of resolving to cut back on sweets, only to encounter a big box of doughnuts at the office on Monday morning? You know that sinking feeling—“Oh, no. There goes my diet!” So, too, with spending money.

You’ve resolved to cut back on your expenses so you can save some money or pay off your credit card. But at the office, your coworkers are talking about going to a concert next weekend or their cool new cell phones, and you think, “Oh, I want that, too!” Later, you all go out for lunch as usual, and you swing by Starbucks for a latte on the way back. And your friend in the neighboring cubicle just bought a great new outfit, so you decide to swing by the mall and do a little shopping yourself on the way home. And before you know it, you’re wondering if you can make it to the next payday.

It’s tough to reform your spending habits when you’re surrounded by people who are blowing cash like crazy. But let me tell you a little secret. Most of those big spenders are living paycheck to paycheck, and it’s stressful. They’d love to break out of the negative spending cycle, but they don’t dare to be the first to be different.

That’s where you come in. Set a new trend: spending wisely!

HOLLY E. ORDWAY is a writer and educator, teaching English at a Southern California college. She’s the creator of www.spendingwisely.com and was profiled by CNN this year as an “extreme saver.”

FUNNY MONEY Before you can save money, you need to make money. Have you ever wondered how your salary measured up to others? Here are some salaries made public by New York magazine, ranging from CEOs to security guards.

TELEVISION David Letterman $31 million Host, The Late Show with David Letterman

MOVIES Johan Roldan $10,200 Ticket collector, City Cinemas Village East

Tina Fey $1.5 million Performer and head writer, Saturday Night Live

ART Aristotle Stathatos $21,159 Security guard, Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Andy Warhol $16,226,741 Deceased artist MUSIC Diddy $36 million Music mogul Tom Stewart $20,000 Tower Records clerk BOOKS Stephen Riggio $4,813,567 CEO and vice chairman, Barnes & Noble

Lisa Jong $12,896 Clerk, Barnes & Noble (32 hours a week at $7.75 per hour) SPORTS Paul Tagliabue $8 million Commissioner, National Football League Don Garber $250,000 Commissioner, Major League Soccer

BREW YOUR OWN JAVA At $4 a pop, bringing your own coffee instead of driving by the local Starbucks adds up fast ($80 or more saved per month!). You can grind your own coffee at your local supermarket and choose different flavors as the mood suits you.

CHANGE TRANSPORTATION Bicycling to work, even a few days per week, cuts down on your gasoline costs and helps get you in shape, too! Keep a change of clothes and a towel at work to refresh yourself when you get in. Or investigate carpooling (a chance to socialize, too).

BE THRIFT-STORE CHIC You’d be amazed at the bargains for top-quality clothes you can find at local thrift stores—both vintage and new styles. You can be the best dressed in the office on a shoestring, as long as you’re willing to spend some time browsing. You never know what you’ll find, which is half the fun.

SUGGEST CHEAP GET-TOGETHERS Suggest activities like a potluck instead of dining out or renting a movie instead of going to the theater.

Look for local free concerts and other fun community activities for a change of pace. Chances are, many of your friends will be glad to spend less on socializing.

GOVERNMENT Hillary Clinton $162,100 United States senator Michael Bloomberg $1 Mayor (official mayor’s salary: $195,000) RELIGION Edward Egan $18,000 Cardinal, Archdiocese of New York

NONPROFIT Mary Brosnahan Sullivan $152,893 Executive director, Coalition for the Homeless Lt. Col. Nestor Nuesch $22,000 Divisional commander, Salvation Army of Greater New York ONLINE BONUS: Check out the full list, including Media, Business, Law and more.

UNLOCK THE SECRETS OF NARNIA.

ass

ssd

Just in time for the major motion picture, here is a fascinating look at how C.S. Lewis’s beloved novels were inspired by the Gospels—and how they ass can help all people live a life of virtue and spiritual renewal. ssd Available in trade paperback Read an Excerpt Online at www.twbookmark.com Time Warner Book Group art: Shasti O'Leary

RELEVANT’S LOOK AT WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND THE WORLD

CHICAGO The Toast of Bucktown

WHERE THE LOCALS ARE Axis teaching pastor JARRETT STEVENS gives us the 411 on the hot spots and culture of Chicago. “It’s a city that takes deep pride in itself, and for good reason.

It’s got all of the history, activity and urban beauty of a big city while somehow existing in the cordial confines that is the Midwest.”

SCAVENGER HUNT

If you’re looking for locals, steer clear of Michigan Avenue and make your way over to Bucktown. The “Triangle” oozes urban hipness with countless clothing stores, thrift shops, bars and restaurants, and one of the coolest tattoo shops in the city.

For a view of Chicago ’80s style, check out all the spots director John Hughes used as backdrops for his films. Here’s just some of the places a Hughes’ fan needs to visit: Wrigley Field, John Hancock Building, Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook (John Hughes’ alma mater).

TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

We’re sport lovers, but don’t pretend to empathize with our Cubs, White Sox or Bears. Just keep comments to yourself, please. However, go see them play if you want to meet die-hard sport lovers.

Do go on an architecture tour, and stop by Garrett’s for some fresh cheese and carmel corn.

For the cultural esoterics, go visit the Art Institute (pictured), which is free on Tuesdays. By the way, do not leave Chi-town without eating a true deep-dish pizza ... the original Uno.

WHERE TO WORSHIP

When in the city on a Sunday, you have to head down to the Southside to Salem Baptist Church (sbcoc.org), “the greatest church in the world,” as their website humbly attests.

It’s how Chicago “does” church!

Or check out River City Church in Logan Square. This multi-ethnic young church has its roots deep in the community and meets in the historic Congress Theater (rivercity.cc).

Or, take a trip out of the city and come hang with us at Axis, a gathering of twentysomethings that meets on Sunday nights at 6 p.m. at Willow Creek in South Barrington (35 minutes outside of town). It’s well worth the trip (generationaxis.com)!

A service at Axis

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WHERE TO HANG OUT For a breakfast that may change your life, head over to Ann Sathers. They serve cinnamon rolls the size of your head. For entertainment, make sure to catch a show at the Goodman (above) or Steppenwolf Theater. It’s where many great shows and actors emerge from. And for laughs, go to Second City and catch some sketch comedy (stay late for the improv show). For all you aspiring hip-hop DJs, head over to Dusty Groove records, one of the only places you’ll fi nd that original 12-inch of “Eric B for President” you’ve been searching for on eBay.

GET ‘STREET WISE’

To get the most comprehensive map of downtown Chicago, the three-page pamphlet StreetWise may be your best friend in the windy city.

Have a city you’d like to nominate for THE SCENE? Hit up editorial@RELEVANTmagazine.com.

RELEVANT.TV • VIEWER TOP TEN • RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM PRAYER REQUESTS

I WANT MY RELEVANT.TV

MISC. VIEWER

TOP TEN

In October, we launched the newest (and coolest) feature of RELEVANTmagazine.com: RELEVANT.tv.

Featuring around-the-clock music videos, RELEVANT.tv is the only station playing the music you see in RELEVANT magazine— everything from Keane to Norma Jean to Common. You can tune into the station anywhere you can get a broadband Internet connection, but remember, just because you’re staring at your computer screen at work doesn’t mean you’re actually “working.”

1. Copeland “Pin Your Wings” 2. Mae “Suspension” 3. M83 “Don’t Save Us from the Flames” 4. Kings of Leon “The Bucket” 5. Norma Jean “Bayonetwork” 6. Common “The Corner” 7. Anberlin “A Day Late” 8. Keane “Somewhere Only We Know” 9. Relient K “Be My Escape” 10. Mos Def “Ghetto Rock” To request your favorite videos, go to RELEVANTmagazine.com/TV.

Wal-Mart is reportedly considering the acquisition of Tommy Hilfiger clothing for its stores to draw more upscale shoppers and better compete against Target. The Hilfiger line has been in trouble since the late ’90s when many department stores dropped the brand’s men’s collection ...

Wireless music-video programming for cell phones has arrived thanks to Warner Music Group and a licensing deal with MTV, which will create and distribute videos with Warner artists (Green Day, Sean Paul and Twista) for phones and wireless gadgets. Other content will include short programs from MTV and VH1. The service will be available either by subscription or on a video-on-demand basis ...

RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM

We Ask Stupid Questions, You Take the Time to Answer

MY FAVORITE FASTFOOD RESTAURANT IS: Chick-fil-A Wendy’s Taco Bell McDonald’s Burger King

38.36% 23.29% 22.22% 8.12% 8.01%

Total Votes: 936

WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST TURN-OFF? Moochers Bad breath Incessant talkers Poor eating manners

62.65% 17.39% 14.23% 5.73%

Total votes: 1,553

FROM THE RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM

PRAYER ROOM

HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU CHECK YOUR EMAIL EACH DAY?

WWW.RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM/PRAYER.PHP I struggle with Internet porn and have hurt my girlfriend who I love dearly very badly because of it.

Please pray that we will both, as well as all of the many others who are under the attack of this, be able to make it through. —DALLAS Please pray! I have fought pornography most of my life. I give it up for months at a time but I can’t shake it. I hate it and hate myself for giving in also. I am a fighter and will win. Please pray! —CHRISTOPHER I’ve been feeling desperately lonely and frustrated this week. So much of my life feels like God slamming doors in my face, and my friends just haven’t been there for me. Pray that I would continue to learn to trust. —TIFFANY

Please pray for the families of the 40,000 children who died of hunger today; and for the ones whose children will die tomorrow. —JEREMY I just moved to a new city and I hate it.

I am completely miserable. I need some serious prayer on what to do. —LAYLA Please pray for the people of Sunrise Baptist Church in London, Ontario. We feel lost and confused, lack unity and vision, leadership, money, members, etc.

Please pray that God’s will would be done in each person’s life. —ANONYMOUS

GET INVOLVED To post prayer requests and praise reports, simply check out the God section at RELEVANTmagazine. com. Also, don’t forget about the thousands posting daily on the RELEVANT message boards, not to mention the daily news and features. Make RELEVANTmagazine.com your new home page!

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SLICES: DOT COM

More than 10 At most 10 Twice Once

36.70% 31.61% 23.29% 8.40%

Total votes: 2,237

On Sept. 28 a Texas grand jury charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post ...

WORST ACTIVITY TO BE CAUGHT DOING AT A RED LIGHT: Picking your nose 69.87% Doing the robot 11.10% Taking a nap 10.67% Pigging out on 8.36% burger and fries Total votes: 4,198

The heart and mind of the man who created the land of Narnia.

For more than three generations, C. S. Lewis’s magical Chronicles of Narnia have enchanted millions of readers. Soon, the epic film will make fans of millions more.

Beneath the deceptively simple surface of Lewis’s beloved masterpiece lies a profound and transforming spiritual vision drawn from its creator’s Christian faith.

Into the Wardrobe will reveal to you the remarkable life of the brilliant, fascinating man behind Narnia.

www.josseybass.com

TAKE ACTION AND DO SOMETHING

TAKE ACTION Make a donation by check or credit card to a major charity.

HELPING VICTIMS OF KATRINA

Check out www.charitynavigator. org for financial evaluations of major charities.

Pray for those affected by this national disaster.

Get involved hands-on by going with a group to the areas hit by Katrina.

Be wary of giving money to telemarketers who claim to be hurricane charities. Many are scams.

DIG DEEPER Matthew 25:34-46 James 2:15-17 Isaiah 54:11 Galatians 6:2 Matthew 5:45

DID YOU KNOW?

BY RACHEL STEVENS Assumed to be an in-and-out affair, our visit to drop off relief supplies was significantly changed by walking in the wrong door. As soon as our steps fell onto the tiles of the Austin Convention Center (ACC), we were not at home anymore. And even though beds were lined from wall to wall in every direction, no one was at home in this place. The look of loss was in every eye as they watched us pass, and the fear of losing hope was contagious as they told us their stories.

Standing at 6 feet 4 inches, Malcolm Perry, 18, escaped from the waters later than most.

Parents passed him their children to hold above the waters that were beating against his chest.

With arms raised high, Perry strived to keep the water from stealing the lives of the ones he held. Bodies floated by while he and his mother fought onward toward boats, shelter and family.

Widowed, Celeste Jackson arrived at the ACC with her older daughter and two grandchildren. Separated from her mother and her youngest daughter, the pain of missing family was more than evident. I knew I could never understand the pain and hopelessness that was so tempting for Celeste to embrace. Her story was filled with destruction I have never seen, but the sense of devastation came not from the words, but from the heart and tears of her story. Seeing Celeste shattered because of what waters and wind took from her would stir a passion within anyone.

Mark Loeffler, representative of the American Red Cross, expressed that passion dwindling is his biggest fear for this disaster relief. “People need to know that this is going to be a long recovery process,” Loeffler says. “I want to encourage people to volunteer after the TV cameras have turned off.”

The passions we experience on this earth are generally fleeting. Emotion fills us to the brim, and something within us bursts with drive. But soon enough, something inevitably distracts us from what was once the most compelling power we have access to: our passion.

It is easy to find yourself filled with love for the victims of Hurricane Katrina when you flip the channel or step into their world by accident. However, let’s not allow our zeal to diminish with the fading popularity of the coverage of Katrina. Poverty should be an everlasting passion we so brokenly embrace day after day.

“VOLUNTEER AFTER THE TV CAMERAS HAVE TURNED OFF.” —MARK LOEFFLER

FOR MORE INFORMATION, check out www.RELEVANTmagazine.com/therevolution.

40

SLICES: REVOLUTION

Marking the first time that the U.S. government has made large-scale payments to religious groups for helping to cope with a domestic natural disaster, FEMA said it would use taxpayer money to reimburse churches and other religious organizations that have provided relief in the form of shelter, food and supplies to survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

RESOURCES www.americares.org www.brfoodbank.org www.brothersbrother.org www.mercycorps.org

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING “Slowly, gradually, we will recover; we will survive; we will rebuild.”

—Kathleen Blanco, governor of Louisiana

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CONTEMPLATIONS FOR THE SOUL

PETER PAN AND THE ART OF BOWLING

BY WINN COLLIER

Who would have thought that Peter Pan would have something to tell us about worship? In Finding Neverland, the wonderful cinematic portrayal of the friendship J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan’s creator) fostered with four fatherless boys, a poignant scene develops near the end.

One of the younger boys, Peter (yes, there is a connection), had taken his father’s death and his mother’s subsequent terminal illness the hardest. At his mother’s funeral, he ran away into the park so he could hide his emotions and attempt to cope. He resisted any person’s claim on his trust, and his safety, he believed, rested fully on his shoulders. For Peter, his mother’s death confirmed his darkest dread: he was in charge of his well-being.

As Barrie approached Peter sitting alone on a remote park bench, Peter struggled to push his short legs to the ground so he could launch from the bench and run farther away. But Barrie’s voice, firm and direct, halted his efforts. “Peter, sit down,” he said. The words were short and straightforward. Yet there was something in Barrie’s eyes, something in his heart—something in the way he was stepping into Peter’s chaos—that was life-giving. Barrie’s stance told Peter he was not alone, he was not in charge of his own safety. Barrie was stronger than Peter, and Barrie was here to help. But first, Peter would need to sit down. And he did.

Worship is the act of sitting down, or to use Scripture’s more precise verbiage: to bow (Psalm 22:29). Worship is an acknowledgment that we are not the strongest, we are not in charge. Worship is grounded in the humble knowledge that we cannot provide all we need. We are desperate. We are helpless. We need this God who intervenes, who

speaks firmly and directly, telling us when to sit down. We need a God we bow before, a God we sense we must obey.

Jesus says it this way: “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15, TNIV). To equate worship with love, at least the culturally influenced, emotionally gooey sort is familiar. To equate worship with obedience, however, is a bit more unfamiliar. Worship has long been code for an emotive high or some particular brand of some supposedly spiritempowered gathering. Worship has not as often been equated with refusing to lie, caring for the poor, loving your kids and saying “no” when propositioned for a Saturday night hook-up.

Yet Jesus suggests that obedience to His words is more important than raising hands to His songs. Perhaps it is time to reclaim the psalmist’s imagery PSALM 5 of bowing as a way to think PSALM 22 about Jesus’ call to obey. To JOHN 14 bow is to be humbled. To bow is to acknowledge the place ONLINE BONUS: and authority of another. To Dig deeper into worship with another story, more resources and a study guide. bow is to worship.

WORSHIP IS GROUNDED IN THE KNOWLEDGE WE CANNOT PROVIDE ALL WE NEED.

DIG DEEPER

WINN COLLIER is a husband and dad. And he’s always loved the story of Peter Pan.

REMEMBERING WORSHIP

BY STEPHANIE GEHRING

If you don’t like singing, it is a relief to hear that worship should be more than just Sunday church. Yet if you’ve tried, you may have discovered that whole-life worship is not that easy. Rivers and oceans and beautiful sunsets remind you to worship; traffic jams don’t.

God often instructed the Israelites to remember to worship. “Be careful,” Moses exhorted, “and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live.” (Deuteronomy 4:9, TNIV) One thing is right about Sunday mornings: they are on purpose. We need a way of worshipping that carries us through the deserts and between mere glimpses of hope, that keeps us ready to receive God. When Jesus said that the pure in heart are blessed because they will see God, it is not just about

42

DEEPER WALK

heaven. It is also about seeing God now: we with dark, crooked hearts do not often recognize God’s face.

The story has continued. Christ has come, and has promised to write His law on our hearts. But He will not force Himself on us; the things we have seen can still slip from our hearts. We worship when we bare our hearts in order to receive the words of life, when we hold still to be reminded whose we are, to be reminded of our part in the story of all things.

Worship is a living thing; it needs bones, a structure, to stay alive. It is the church that is intended to strengthen and support us in the hard work of baring our hearts to God. The church is more than Sunday mornings, too; we are part of it, along with millions, past and present. We are meant to be reminded, and also to remind. We are to worship.

RESOURCES CHRIST, BAPTISM AND THE LORD’S SUPPER LEONARD J. VANDER ZEE [IVP] Insightful, informed and well-reasoned, Vander Zee offers a reflective treatise on the theology and purpose of the sacraments for the contemporary Church.

WORSHIP BY THE BOOK D.A. CARSON, EDITOR [ZONDERVAN] This book truly is a conversation. The question “What is biblical worship?” gets the ball rolling, and four pastors and theologians provide their answers. The varying perspectives offer food for much thought.

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KILLING OUR IDOLS UNCOVERING THE THINGS THAT HOLD US BACK

BY BREN DA PLON IS

I’M PRETTY MUCH A SUCKER for bookstores of any type. But a little more than a year ago, I wanted to run right back out of a Christian one. Sure there were books, but in one corner sat trinkets galore—rosary beads, all kinds of Jesus figures, crosses and other “symbols” of the Christian faith.

I don’t have anything against crosses—in fact, I own about four different cross pendant necklaces, all collected from various countries. I think the pile of trinkets in the corner simply reminded me of a story from West Africa. One of the village leaders in a land filled with voodoo, when asked if he knew who Jesus was, produced a plastic doll and introduced “Jesus” as just another of his tribal gods.

Back then, most of us on the trip laughed about it and declared that it was time to bring

48

KILLING OUR IDOLS

the real Gospel to that village. I think I even wrote a story about the “plastic Jesus.”

Nowadays, however, that story isn’t so funny anymore.

You see, those entrenched in a culture filled with other gods will often just accept Jesus into their slew of idols. They never renounce the other gods in their life—they simply believe in one more and carry on. It can be difficult to show a person that he or

she must let go of other gods and allow Jesus in as complete Lord.

While I was in Africa, I found it easy to actually see the idols in a country. In fact, I nearly ran over a few rock formation idols outside of village huts with a Land Rover. I often saw fetish necklaces and bracelets dangling from even the smallest of babies, and in every market corner, peddlers sold charms to ward off evil.

When I returned to the Western world, I soon saw how easy it was to also simply add Jesus to the list of gods we have in our own culture. We may not think of them as gods because, after all, we usually don’t have idols adorning our homes or a shrine to the unknown god in our backyard. Our gods are subtler. They come in the forms of distractions—busyness, materialism, selfishness and our own little kingdom building.

The Internet’s free encyclopedia “Wikipedia” defines idolatry as “a term used by many religions to describe the worship of a false deity, which is an affront to their understanding of divinity.” The TNIV Bible defines an idol as “anything that takes the place of God or steals our attention from Him—often things like our relationships, work or hobbies.”

Some things are easier to see than others—distractions like cell phones, laptops and an endless supply of retail shopping and entertainment can often take the place of God in our lives if we allow them to.

Our distractions may not even be material things, per se. It may be that obsession we have with football or food or even missions. With so many idols clamoring for our attention, we tend to miss out on the only One truly worthy of our worship.

For the last 10 years of my life, I have worked in both short- and long-term missions—paid and volunteer. All of the experiences had a profound effect on my life.

But at certain points within each of my ventures, my mission became my idol and not Jesus. What I did for the kingdom became more important than how I did it and for Whom—it didn’t seem to matter how I treated other people or whether I really worshipped God with all of my heart. I still worshipped something, but it wasn’t the right object or idea.

The apostle Paul discovered a group with a similar problem in Athens in Acts 17:22-23: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and that is what I am going to proclaim to you” (TNIV).

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal said that every person has a “God-shaped hole” in his or her life. Just as the Athenians loaded up on their unknown god, we too load up on whatever we think will fill that void: food, shopping, football, even church—anything really.

The Message Bible says rather clearly in Exodus 20:3, “No other gods, only me.” The Bible is fairly specific on how God doesn’t want anything to come before Him—whether it’s a physical object or a mental one. Author A.W. Tozer said, “An idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand.”

Sometimes these idols hidden in our mind can be far more dangerous than a few rock formations outside a tribal hut. Unless we do some serious housekeeping on a regular basis, all of our idols accumulate—either on a shelf or in our heart. We run toward the things that console us temporarily while Jesus is standing at the door, knocking and awaiting a permanent residence. How can we let God in to live a life fully with Him when there is a pile of clutter in the way?

Clearing out the idols within our own “house” is the first step. Sometimes this may actually be a physical cleaning. Sometimes there are things cluttering up our house or our mind that make it difficult for us to have a full relationship with God. These things may not be sinful in themselves, but if we begin to obsess over them and continue to distance ourselves from God,

then it is time for some housekeeping.

Packing for a recent trip brought this into perspective for me. I don’t travel unless I can carry all of my luggage myself—it’s a simple rule I made about 10 years ago when I tried to wind my way through a metro system devoid of any luggage carts while carrying two suitcases without wheels.

I still over-pack—and it seems to be symbolic of the way that idols creep back into my life—and how easily I carry them around.

How true it is with our personal idols.

People don’t actually see them because, like with my backpack, I hide my stuff inside. I pack well. But I still feel the burden.

I’m learning to clean out my bags as I get ready to travel—and to pack only what I need. Likewise, I’m learning to do a spiritual inventory of the stuff I carry around in my mind and my heart.

Paul had strong words concerning such a spiritual inventory for the church at Colosse: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5, TNIV).

If you feel distanced from God, have trouble worshipping Him with all of your heart or if you have trouble even hearing what He has to say, then chances are there is something standing in the way of your relationship. If you are willing to see those things blocking your relationship, He is willing to reveal and uncover what has been hidden in your life for years, even. Most of all, He’s willing to help put to death that idol—and to replace it with the life only He can give. 0

THERE IS SOMETHING STANDING IN THE WAY OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP.

BRENDA PLONIS is a 30-year-old freelance writer and traveler. She has spent the last decade of her life in 22 countries and is currently headed to a Youth With A Mission base in South Africa.

KILLING OUR IDOLS

49

EMBRACING THE INDIE-ROCK LIFESTYLE

BY KIMI RASPA

TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL: (L-R) Matthew Putman, Michael Shepard, David Owen and Adam Ladd 50

LOVEDRUG

SINCE LOVEDRUG’S DEBUT ALBUM, Pretend You’re Alive, released last summer, the band has encountered transitions familiar to any band in the infancy stages of its career, adjusting to a demanding touring schedule, living in close quarters, handling newfound media attention and, the hardest of all, dealing with the shifting of band members.

“It worked out well,” frontman Michael Shepard says of the transitional period. “We all have very unique personalities from one another. It’s not an original lineup where we were all best friends growing up together, and we decided to start this band, and there was this kinship.

It started more on a level of professionalism, playing music together, and then friendships developed along the way, which I think is a lot harder. For us particularly, it gets a little hard because our personalities are so strong by themselves. I don’t want to paint a negative picture about it. We approach our differences at a fairly healthy standpoint, and we’re definitely excited about the future.”

Which they should be. The band has grounds to boast with Pretend You’re Alive becoming the fastest-selling release in the history of their indie label, The Militia Group. Since their August collaboration with Juliana Theory, the band has chalked up more than 150 shows and has toured with Eisley, Mae, Copeland and even opened up for Robert Plant at the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Since 2003, they’ve traveled all over the country, each day consisting of long drives (each member takes a 200-mile shift), unloading equipment, sound checks, visiting local attractions (if time allows), setting up and running the merchandise table, and then performing.

“You’re in a band with three other guys, and you learn more about yourself in intense conditions, how to relate to people,” guitarist David Owen says. “You’re not making any money, and you’re always tired and hungry. You learn how to live beneath the means of a normal person’s life on a regular schedule.

I think it’s a really awesome challenge. I’ve really enjoyed it.”

Shepard, who dropped out of college to pursue music, similarly embraces the demanding lifestyle.

“You get to do what you love every day—which is play music, for us— and see how that affects people on a daily basis,” he says. “You’re in a different city every night, and you get up there and renew your passion and see how that affects people. I think that’s really the most positive thing about it.”

And in the blurred midst of new cities paired with venues of loyal fans and fresh ears, who do they think their music is reaching?

“Senior citizens,” Shepard says with a smile. “Sixty-plus, heterosexual males.” He laughs and continues, “I’ve been shocked at how broad the fan base is. We’ve played a show with Hanson before, and obviously their audience is incredibly young and almost entirely female, and we went over smashingly well with those kids. They freaked out! We sold out of everything we had at that show. I think for me that was one of the first times I realized our music is something bigger than I thought it could be because it’s reaching different types of people.”

Pretend You’re Alive has been noted for its allusion to spiritual themes. Musically, the band veers from a direct religious association (some of the members are Christian and some are not), yet they don’t ignore the presence of spiritual undertones.

“I don’t really want a listener of our music to link it with anything specifically,” Shepard says. “As far as lyrically and musically, when someone’s taking in a piece of music that we’ve

“YOU’RE NOT MAKING ANY MONEY, AND YOU’RE ALWAYS TIRED AND HUNGRY.” —DAVID OWEN

written, it’s important for them to take it personally and apply it to their own lives.

A lot of the songs are written in a fairy-tale sort of fashion lyrically, and a lot of the lyrics were originally short stories I had written that ended up as songs. I think there’s definitely something spiritual about it, but I’m not looking for that to stand out.”

Despite media speculation and the challenge of making a living within the confines of a van, Lovedrug’s musical agenda falls upon a simple collective focus that reaffirms one of the reasons they started pursuing music in the first place: performing.

“It’s ... elation,” Shepard says. “For me, it lifts me out of whatever I’m going through at the time. Being on the road is a very mundane experience. Your schedule is busy, but emotionally it’s very draining. The best part of every single day is those 45 minutes that we spend on stage where it seems we’re lifted out of the muck and placed on this podium of somewhat importance where people are listening to what you have to say. It’s like the glorious moment of the day. I think that’s the best part about it.”

“You feel like your purpose is being realized,” Owen adds. “It’s a good feeling.”

Between tours, the band takes advantage of writing and recording for their sophomore album, projected for late July 2006. “We put together some preliminary writing, and the band gets together later in the month and puts everything together like puzzle pieces,” Shepard says. “We’re trying to do something different than what’s going on right now in the so-called ‘music scene.’ We want to be more of an eclectic band where we’re encompassing a lot of different types of music and pushing it into one sound. I liken it to the idea of what Queen used to do. They had pieces of music that everyone could enjoy, and no one scrutinized them. That’s what we’re aspiring to be. I don’t think we’ve arrived yet, but it’s something we’re hoping to accomplish with our career.” 0

ONLINE BONUS: Fun facts about Lovedrug’s pre-rock star lives.

KIMI RASPA lives in Annapolis, Md., and pays the bills as a photojournalist at a local magazine. She hopes to play the tambourine in a hip-hop band one day.

LOVEDRUG

51

A

BY MARK STEELE

t one point in my life, I was referred to as “spontaneous.” This was evidently because the things I did and said seemed like something the OTHER person would never plan ahead of time, like I would have to be a complete moron or hopped up on some sort of artificial stimulant to say and do what I inevitably said and did. But in truth, substantial and profound planning had indeed occurred.

This is true of most improvisation. Though many would like to believe that humor or ideas come “right off the top of one’s head,” the truth in the equation is that the improvisationalist is actually the most prepared person in the room. Improvisation is not the art of being unprepared. It is the art of being prepared for EVERYTHING. Every moment is a character study or an application of small factoids and observations because one never knows when said thing might just come in handy as an “off-the-cuff” remark.

The irony is that the intricate study of detail for the purpose of improvisation is actually quite obsessive—quite ritualistic. It is an odd thought that the actual steps toward fresh spontaneity come off quite habitual and rehearsed. The same old routine.

My 4-year-old, Charlie, has a sort of passion for redundancy. He is not the most snuggling of children, yet every evening without fail, he gives me 14 kisses. Fourteen. No lie. Every evening. And I am the only one to whom he does this. The exact ritual has this rhythm: He grabs my head.

KISS #1: left eyebrow KISS #2: right eyebrow KISS #3: left eye KISS #4: right eye He says, “You can open your eyes now.”

KISS #5: the top of my head: 3 o’clock position KISS #6: the top of my head: 9 o’clock position KISS #7: the top of my head: 6 o’clock position He stops to look at my face.

KISS #8: bridge of my nose KISS #9: the skin between my nose and upper lip KISS #10: the right corner of my mouth KISS #11: the left corner of my mouth KISS #12: the soul patch KISS #13: the chin KISS #14: the lips He then lets me kiss him back.

52

SPONTANEITY

Every night. Exactly the same. And here’s the amazing part: It isn’t just for the sake of memory. He loves it. Adores it, in fact. It is a special little thing that he knows will bring me closer to him for a lengthier amount of time than if I were to reach over and dictate the goodnight kiss myself. It is a ritual that, rather than making our relationship stale, makes it special. Worthy of a daily appointment.

If I were to apply Charlie’s method to my own expectations, I would assume that this regularity lessens the action—reducing its meaning.

But this is not what happens inside of Charlie as the number of kisses reaches just over a baker’s dozen. Charlie begins the nightly ritual as nothing more than an exercise. Just about the time he tells me I can open my eyes and stares into them, I can feel him savoring the experience. His mood changes, thanks in no small part to his methodology. Before you know it, his affection is not only real, but also a celebrated part of his day.

But for the love of God, rituals have all but disappeared in our lives.

At some point, we decided that true love must look different every day—that it must feel like improvisation. And this is where we have truly missed the point. Because in an act of ritual—of remembrance— it is not the rememberer who is being celebrated. It is the remembered.

In America, Memorial Day has become National Day of Barbecue—not because those who have died for our freedom don’t deserve our pause, but because we have made the day more about our pleasure than their honor.

When God said “Remember Me,” the intention was not for us to make up ways that were the most entertaining to do so. Obeying His assigned acts was actually part of the remembrance process. That, even though we did not understand why, we would take the time to understand. We would savor the experience that could so easily become rote. For better or for worse, God wanted us to embrace His rituals.

By forcing the sacred into modern spiritual improv, we are missing some of the most beautiful details. Some of the most touching reminders of God that allow us to linger.

Perhaps it is time to let the new be old again and welcome God’s perspective to practices in our daily walks: not prayers as memorized incantations, but rather observances and remembrances that pay our respects and, in the process, reveal ancient truths as fresh epiphany.

Who knows? We may just rediscover the very ritual that allows our joy to seem so improvised. F

MARK STEELE is the president and executive creative of Steelehouse Productions. He is the author of Flashbang: How I Got Over Myself (Relevant Books).

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CHRISTMAS

DEBUNKING CHRISTMAS

TARDY WISE MEN, SUPERBABIES AND OTHER SEASONAL INACCURACIES

BY JASON BOYETT

CHRISTMAS. It’s all about the good times: family and friends, candlelight services, stockings, mistletoe, rampant misinformation.

Few holidays are more tangled up in folktales, urban legends and outright unbiblical ideas than the one celebrating our Savior’s birth.

Not that we talk about it all that much.

Exposing the errors of the nativity scene or disputing the time-honored verses of Christmas carols is a good way to get a Yule log to the head. Nevertheless, here we uncover the truth about a few of our favorite myths.

JESUS WASN’T BORN ON DECEMBER 25.

According to biblical scholars, it’s unlikely that the Christ child arrived on the day we celebrate Christmas—or even during the winter season. For one thing, we’re told of shepherds “keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8). Decembers in Bethlehem are cold and regularly drop below freezing once it gets dark, which means most shepherds only “kept watch” in the field from April to October. In the winter, they sheltered their flocks and stayed inside.

And that census decreed by Caesar Augustus? It required travel, and no selfrespecting governing authority would ever schedule such a major undertaking during the winter months—when bad weather, muddy roads and angry citizens would foul things up. Nope, these usually took place in September or October, after the harvest season.

Celebrating Christ’s birth on Dec. 25 was popularized in the fourth century as a way to steal the limelight from the winter solstice and its link to pagan feasts celebrating the Roman sun god and the Persian god Mithras.

Most scholars think Jesus was born toward the end of September. And for those of you keeping score at home, it was probably the year 6 B.C., not 0 A.D.

THREE WISE MEN DIDN’T APPEAR AT CHRIST’S BIRTH. These guys are fixtures of the nativity scene.

They show up at the manger accompanied by camels, and are usually dressed all glittery and stuff because they were kings. Christian tradition has even named them: Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar. Funny, then, how none of this is in the Bible.

Matthew 2 tells us about the “wise men from the east.” Following the star and looking for the King of the Jews, they make it to Jerusalem, where they have a run-in with King Herod. Next stop is Bethlehem. There, they find Jesus—whom Matthew describes as a “young child,” not a baby—with his mother in a house. Yes, a house. Not a stable. No mention of a manger.

No indication there were three of them, either. That’s just an assumption we make because Matthew 2:11 details the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. But there could have been a dozen of these guys, for all we know. Nothing about camels or flowing capes or sparkly crowns. Nothing to indicate they were kings. In fact, most scholars figure they were astrologers. And since the passage specifies them meeting the “young child” in a house, many believe the Wise Men didn’t deliver the gifts immediately after the birth. It could have been a couple of years later.

So pretty much everything we think we know about the Wise Men comes from sources other than the Bible. Like Christmas carols. Speaking of which ...

THE SECOND VERSE OF ‘AWAY IN A MANGER’ IS A CROCK. The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes,/but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes ...

The traditional second verse of this favorite carol isn’t original to the song, which first appeared as a poem (containing what are now the first and third stanzas) in a Lutheran Sunday school book in 1885. Verse 2 was added in the early 1900s by Methodist minister John T. McFarland for a children’s program.

It implies that the baby Jesus didn’t cry when the cows, apparently peeved at the unorthodox use of valuable manger space, woke Him up with noisy moos. Yet a fairly important precept of Christianity is that Christ was fully human—and not some blissful, preternaturally calm superbaby. This means the little Lord Jesus acted like an infant. He spit up. He peed. He left a few, um, deposits in his swaddling clothes.

He cried like a baby.

PEOPLE WHO CALL IT ‘XMAS’ AREN’T TAKING THE CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS. Lots of Christians start feeling like martyrs when Christmas gets abbreviated, believing this is just another way for modern, secular society to dis our faith. Not exactly. The first letter in the Greek word for “Christ” is chi.

And in the Roman alphabet, chi is represented by this symbol: X. So guess what? Xmas is an entirely justifiable replacement for Christmas, and it goes back a long, long way. People who use it aren’t demeaning Christ. Instead, they’re (consciously or not) appropriating a usage that’s nearly as old as the faith itself.

We Xians shouldn’t get so upset about it. F ONLINE BONUS: More myths plus the best Christmas movies of all time.

JASON BOYETT and his brother re-enacted the Christmas story using a Playmobile Nativity Set last year. It was awesome.

CHRISTMAS

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M

y eyelids fight to stay open as I walk off the airplane, jet-lagged and glad that my legs still work after the 20-hour plane ride. I have my passport and custom forms in hand to present to the American who wants proof that I am bringing no arms, fruits or terrorists with me from my month in Africa.

“What were you doing in rural Africa?” asks the man from the Department of Agriculture.

“Our organization supports African communities,” I say, fumbling with fatigue. “We help provide clean water wells and work to fight AIDS in rural villages.”

“I need your shoes.”

“I’m sorry?” I ask, convinced that exhaustion has impaired my hearing.

“Ma’am, your shoes have been to some uncommon places. We need to disinfect them.”

I unbuckle my worn-out red Keenes which, 30 days before, were brand new and “perfect for Africa,” shoes that had walked me miles across a land so different than the one I had returned to. The man

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sprays my shoes and returns them. Too tired to put them on, I walk barefoot through the Detroit airport. I stare at my shoes, thinking about where they and I had been.

I thought, How can I tell you about a land so beautiful in its environment and, more importantly, in its people and yet so tragically broken? It’s hard to unpack. It’s all wrinkled and smelly in my mind as I try to iron it out, clean it up and present it to you. I am hesitant to focus on the devastation of poverty. I fear that you will label Africans as victims or you will run and try to fix the problem yourself without considering the consequences of what happens when we are compulsively stirred by our need to immediately alleviate a problem.

And I hesitate to focus on the joy and richness that are rooted in the lives of so many in Africa because I fear you will hear that and justify their suffering with the “even though they have so little, they are so happy” statement and that you will make it an excuse for our inaction.

So here’s the story, a story of unimaginable suffering and of the promise of life and joy that no translation can fully convey.

AFRICA

10/5/05 4:38:03 PM

AFRICA

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9/29/05 5:40:59 PM

Joseph Otieno is 14 years old, quiet and unsure. He was 8 when his parents died from AIDS. Look at his face and posture, and it’s like his parents died yesterday. He and his little brother live with their 80-year-old grandfather.

Joseph goes to collect water twice in the morning before school and twice in the evening after school. He cooks and does the domestic work to help his ailing grandfather. His grandfather weaves baskets and tries to sell them to support his two grandchildren. If he’s lucky, he makes 70 shillings (90 cents) a day. Joseph has white scabs all over his arms and legs. The scabs come and go; these are three weeks old. I imagine the filthy water that he drinks is making him sick—and I fear that he may be HIV-positive.

Joseph says he’s quiet because he’s always thinking about his parents, wondering what it would be like if they were still alive.

“What makes you smile?” I asked. He said he can’t really think of anything— and he doesn’t like jokes. Older kids often beat him and punch him. He wishes they’d stop, but he knows it will continue.

“What would you do if you had a lot of money?”

“I would go to the hospital.” He looked down at his oversized and ragged red T-shirt that he had been wearing all year and added quietly, “And then I would buy a shirt and some food.” Joseph wants to be a doctor. He’s a smart and hard-working student, but he’ll never be able to afford secondary school.

I followed Joseph and his grandfather to their home. It’s a hut made from mud and cow dung. The floor is dirt. There’s a single bed for four children.

The two eldest boys sleep on the bed, and Joseph’s two cousins settle on the ground. The grandfather sleeps in a separate shelter that’s much worse than this one. It’s just horrible. Domesticated dogs in America live better than Joseph and his family do here.

I walked with Joseph, the women and the other children to a small stagnant pond filled with mud, feces, algae and scum. In it lurked invisible, lethal diseases. I’m a pretty adventurous person, but I wouldn’t have stepped in the pond, let alone drunk the water. I filled my big bucket and put a cloth on my head. A woman helped me place the bucket on the head cloth. I held the sloshing container of disease-filled, bacteria-ridden, smelly fluid and walked with the others back to the village. It was hard. My neck ached, my arms lost all strength. Step by step, I remembered that Joseph, and the rest of the children and women in his community, did this four times a day.

Just beneath our hard path and my dusty Keenes was clean water. The village simply needs a well. Without it, they have no choice but to carry contaminated water, which is slowly killing them. I was humbled by the strength of these people. I couldn’t help but compare Joseph’s village with

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Millicent’s, which had been like Joseph’s just a year ago.

Earlier this year, Millicent’s village in western Kenya worked in partnership with us to build a clean water well. Last week she and the women of her village rushed up to us to show us their smooth, hydrated skin, their clean clothes, their tearful smiles, their songs and their joy. Young women and children freed from daily walks for water were now in school. Waterborne diseases and illnesses had been slowed. For the first time, they were free to live healthily and abundantly.

AFRICA

9/29/05 5:41:32 PM

AFRICA

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9/29/05 5:42:01 PM

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AFRICA

9/29/05 5:42:25 PM

Barefoot on the terminal’s floor and almost delirious from jetlag, I walk to the gate for my connecting flight to Nashville. Putting on my worn-out shoes, I wonder if I’ve changed. I hear Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird saying you have to walk in another’s shoes. I went to Africa to do that.

And now I sit back in an air-conditioned Starbucks with my laptop, and Treo phone, headphones blaring my latest iTunes purchase, sipping my tall soy chai latte. I’m wearing the third outfit I tried on this morning and am still not completely satisfied with my decision.

The struggles of my day included complaining about gas prices and my college loan payment and deciding whether to buy the Apples & Cinnamon instant oatmeal with lower fat, the “Made for Women” oatmeal with more soy or the Cream of Wheat with more whole grains than your basic Quaker oatmeal. And in the midst of my distraction and the focus on myself, Joseph’s face sits patiently and graciously in the back of my preoccupied mind. It’s time for me to put my feet back in his shoes, back in all of their shoes, uncomfortable as they may be.

Take Joseph’s story and multiply it by 14 million—that’s how many AIDS orphans are in Africa. I can’t begin to understand the complexities of a world so obviously damaged, so broken and so intimately shaped by the tragedy of the fall. Wearing another’s shoes can make me feel my own advantages and the brokenness of our world, all the way down to the bone. Mostly, it humbled me. Seeing the courage of others and the offer of friendship made me cry. It’s in this weeping moment that I ache so badly for an answer to the injustice, when I stand so

humbly in the midst of strong and resilient individuals and when I know I can only look to the cross to find Someone who can fully relate to the suffering.

Africa has become a trendy topic these days. Hollywood celebrities have adopted the ONE Campaign, the most popular musicians in the world have become activists through Live8, and the media covers more stories on AIDS, famine, war and poverty.

But as Africa becomes more topical, it can be easy to make Africans a cause that is advertised on a wristband or T-shirt or guitar case instead of people who reflect God’s image just as we do. It’s hard when all we see are the staggering statistics and the children with bloated bellies and flies on their faces. In our attempts to be advocates for Africa, it is difficult to reach beyond simple awareness. And although awareness is a vital first breath in the conversation about injustice, the Gospel calls us to something more transformational. It provokes us to the uncomfortable act of knowing and to the intentional decision to be present in the suffering of a person whose shoes walk daily on the battlefield where hope and death, life and despair wage their unyielding war.

They don’t want our pity. They don’t want our charity. Like all of us, they want to be known. Knowing Joseph and Millicent has changed me.

How powerful it is to walk in someone’s shoes when they’re barefoot.

AFRICA

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AFRICA

9/29/05 5:43:31 PM

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THE NUMBERS

GET INVOLVED Action Against Hunger delivers aid to more than 40 countries and is one of the leading organizations in the fight to end hunger. www.actionagainsthunger.org

Christian Missions Aid is a nondenominational, nonprofit organization that provides assistance, resources and training to East African countries. www.cmaid.org

Action by Churches Together is a global network of churches working to save lives worldwide. It works to offer aid to those affected by natural disasters and humanitarian crises. www.act-intl.org

Africare is the oldest and largest AfricanAmerican organization. The website lists ways you can get involved to fight AIDS, help Africa’s children or make fi nancial donations. www.africare.org

African Leadership is a mentoring organization that works with church leaders in 27 African nations and provides for the physical needs of the people. www.africanleadership.org

Lifewater International is a Christian training organization that believe in providing safe water, improved hygiene and adequate sanitation. www.lifewater.org

Blood:Water Mission aims to build 1,000 wells in 1,000 communities. Log on to the website to see how you can get involved. www.bloodwatermission.org

Tearfund is a Christian organization whose African aid includes youth development, HIV/AIDS awareness and leadership training. www.tearfund.org f

• 80 percent of all deaths in developing countries are water- and sanitationrelated.

• 20,000 people a day die from povertyrelated issues.

• Treating diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation cost the equivalent of $20 billion every year.

• More than 1 billion people still use unsafe sources of drinking water.

• More than 17 million Africans have died from AIDS and another 25 million are infected with the HIV virus, approximately 1.9 million of whom are children.

• In Sub-Saharan Africa, 70 percent of the people live on less than $2 a day.

JENA LEE is the Executive Director of Blood:Water Mission.

She graduated from Whitworth College in 2004 with a Political Studies degree. She lives in Nashville, Tenn.

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JEREMY COWART is a photographer in Nashville, Tenn.

He shot more than 5,000 images on his trip to Africa.

• Half of all new HIV infections are in people between 15 and 25.

AFRICA

10/5/05 5:17:21 PM

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BY JOH N FISCH ER

I WAS REUNITED

with an old college classmate recently—we were both in the same graduating class at Wheaton College during the turbulent 1960s. He told me a number of years ago he got a chance to visit with Hudson Taylor Armerding—the president of the college when we were students. Dr. Armerding confided in him that of the 17 years that marked his presidency, we were the worst class.

I have to admit—it is a distinction of which I am quite proud, because I am pretty sure what he meant by “worst.” He meant we had a high concentration of rowdy, nonconforming troublemakers among us. In other words, as an administration, we gave them hell.

And though I’m sure some of it was unnecessary and nonproductive, at its core there was an underlying hunger for truth among my peers at that time. We wanted to know what was really going on in the upper echelons of power. We did not accept easy answers. We questioned everything. We did not come to college to fill up blank notebooks with knowledge. We came with lots of questions. How else do you explain a high concentration of students from solid evangelical homes willing to travel to another continent where a missionary to intellectuals (Francis Schaeffer) was helping them find answers to the big questions of faith, culture, art, philosophy and worldview?

When you consider the era, we were mild compared to what was going on at schools like the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University where sit-ins and large-scale student riots threatened to shut down the institutions. The unrest culminated at Kent State University in Ohio, where the nation was shocked to find four students shot dead by our own National Guard during a student uprising. And Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young answered with the haunting “Four Dead in Ohio.”

I remember some students “lost” their faith during those years at Wheaton, but I consider this an improvement on whatever faith they brought there that was unable to hold up to the scrutiny of deeper questioning and intellectual curiosity. I can see where we would have caused administrators lots of grief, but I know a different story from some of the teachers during that time. Teachers who loved to teach found us among the best of their classes. I know this because years later they told me this, just like the president told my classmate the opposite.

As one who has spent many years lecturing and dialoguing in Christian colleges throughout the country, I must admit that I find this model of intellectual engagement far superior to what I have observed as more the norm over the last two decades—a sort of rote acceptance of whatever those in places of authority hand down, whether they be pastors, administrators or faculty members. There has even been an assumption that to question anything was tantamount to rebellion.

Faith equals blind acceptance, in other words.

In my observation it has been the students who have held tightly to this belief. Most of the faculty members I have talked with have consistently longed for someone to rock the boat, to ask serious

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TIME FOR REVOLUTION

questions and to engage in lively discussion.

For too long, good Christian students have politely reflected the worldview and politics of their parents and rarely asked questions of their teachers. (I’ve also noticed these same kids push the parochial behavioral code to its limit—trying to get away with as much “worldliness” as they can without sacrificing their “Christian” status.

I see this as a major disconnect to truly following Jesus—proof that they are more cultural than Christian.) These students seem content to fill their notebooks with what they came to college for—answers that will lead to a high grade and result in a secure position in society or the Church.

IT’S TIME TO END ALL THIS POLITE NONSENSE. It’s time to end all this polite nonsense and start another revolution.

It’s time to question a lot of what’s going on: How do we really do church? What does a Christian worldview look like? How much of the current expression of Christianity is cultural and political? Do we have a Christian subculture today, and what good is it? Is a Christian subculture what Jesus had in mind for the Church in the world anyway? What does it mean to truly believe? Bottom line, it’s time to ask what it really means to follow Jesus, to get out our Bibles and look for some answers.

Jesus said that new wine can’t be contained in old wineskins, and the old skins are cracking. I can already hear the rumblings of a new revolution of young people who truly want to follow Jesus, and they are looking at what’s being offered—at what calls itself Christian—and not buying it. This happened once before in my lifetime. It happened when, according to the president of a leading Christian college, the worst class in 17 years went through his institution. And history also tells us that this class went on to spark the greatest spiritual revival of my lifetime in this country.

The time may have come to see it again. It won’t look the same, but I venture to guess it will start the same—with a bunch of rowdy, nonconforming troublemakers asking lots of questions because they really believe the answers are there. F

JOHN FISCHER is an author, speaker and singer/songwriter who lives in Southern California. He currently writes a daily devotional for Purpose Driven Life. Sign up at purposedrivenlife.com to receive a free devotional five days a week via email.

The Award-Winning Tale of Forgiveness.

“Amazing. Heart-wrenching.”

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Coming to DVD October 4th.

Based on the true story that inspired Elisabeth Elliot’s best-seller Through Gates of Splendor, this incredible story about an Amazonian tribe, and the men and women who gave their lives to reach them, will touch your heart.

© 2005 Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC. All Rights Reserved. “Twentieth Century Fox,” “Fox” and their associated logos are the property of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

www.foxhome.com ®

88 68

BURNING 9 THINGS BRIDGES

BY JASON BOYETT

THERE’S A REASON THE AGE OF 30

carries so much baggage. According to popular tradition—by which I mean, what your parents keep telling you—fi nishing that third decade of existence means becoming an adult. You’re supposed to have it all together.

You’ve escaped the goatee-sporting, Vans-wearing, hipster twentysomething life and graduated into responsibility. You’ve become fi nancially stable, psychologically sound and socially adept. You’ve become a grown-up.

But like jamming the straw into a package of Capri Sun, the process is never as easy as it looks. The journey to adulthood is a mystical, winding path, and MapQuest is absolutely no help in getting you there. You need advice. You need solid instruction. But kinking up the issue is the fact that, as you age, things are never quite as black-and-white as you remember.

Sure, absolutes are still important (adultery: wrong; genocide: bad; kittens: cute), but it’s hard to be such a stickler on the details. Life at and around 30 can be contradictory.

And that’s why some of the advice you’ll receive in the following list may seem a tad confl icted. Make money, but give lots of it away. Make time for other people, but save time for yourself. Don’t become a slob, but don’t be slave to appearances. Don’t get too bungled up in the questions, but don’t forget to keep seeking answers. Enjoy the complexity. Relish the ride.

So here’s your handy guide to nine major things you need to know before you hit 30. And while you can’t exactly get maturity, wisdom and common sense from a list, it’s at least a place to start. Welcome, kids, to Grownupville.

9 THINGS

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1

LIFE IS SO NOT ABOUT YOU.

If Day 1 of Rick Warren’s gazillionselling The Purpose-Driven Life can begin with this statement, then so can this modest list. The best approach to life is one that realizes that you are only the center of your universe, not everyone else’s. Successful adulthood means living a life of generosity, of service and of concern for the people around you. Step outside your own interests.

Put others’ needs ahead of your own. Get over yourself. Opening your hands to the world around you is the key to maturity.

4

SAVE NOW WHILE YOU’RE YOUNG.

7

STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS.

It looks like Uncle Sam may be getting pretty stingy by the time we’re ready to start pricing Winnebagos and planning for that vacation to Branson. So ... are you saving yet for retirement? If not, get to it.

Contribute to your company’s 401(k) plan.

Set up a regular or Roth IRA. Start saving, and do it now. The fi nancial decisions you make over the next few years will grow to astronomical proportions a couple of decades from now. If time = money, then procrastination = a lot less money.

It’s not about you, but it’s not about keeping up with the Joneses either. Stop comparing yourself to others. It’s a vicious cycle you don’t want to get caught up in. There will always be people your age who are more successful than you, wealthier than you and better-looking than you. And if Jesus was clear about anything, it was that flawless skin, a sweet ride and a highfalutin title on your business card were keys to the kingdom of God. Wait ... He didn’t say that? Guess I’ve been watching too much Christian TV.

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9 THINGS

2

CREDIT CARDS ARE DANGEROUS.

5

YOU PROBABLY SHOULD READ MORE.

If you’re like most people, you got hooked in college (after all, they were offering a free T-shirt!). Then you graduated with a garbageload of debt. A few years later, you’re still paying it off and gnashing your teeth at the interest rate. You’ve been told time and time again that this is stupid—so I’m not going to yell at you about it—but take the advice you keep hearing and get your credit cards paid off. Stop using them like free money. Until you get to the point where you can pay your bill in full every month, don’t sign that receipt.

And I’m not just saying that because I’m a writer. There’s some fun stuff on TV. Video games are a great escape.

Movies can be cool. But when it comes to gaining knowledge, enhancing your vocabulary, improving your concentration and stimulating the brain, there’s nothing better than a book. Yes, an actual book.

Not a cereal box or a gaming manual.

Browsing the Internet or fl icking through magazines—even this one, as intellectually stimulating as it is—doesn’t count either.

8

GET USED TO SAYING ‘NO.’

The older you get, the better simplicity looks. Prioritize. Rather spend time with your family than go to yet another church worship band rehearsal? Then scale back on your responsibilities, and don’t let anyone make you feel guilty about it. Tired of the hours and marathonlength sprint of your job? Don’t hesitate to downshift on your career. You can’t do it all. Choose health, sanity, loved ones and a “life to the full” above anything else—no matter what conventional wisdom says. Quality of life beats stress any day.

3

STUFF WILL NEVER SATISFY.

6

PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU EAT.

Sure, that new stamp-sized phone-slashmicrobrowser-slash-meat thermometer looks really slick, and all the cool kids have one, and Kanye’s kickin’ it with one in his new video, but let’s face it—will it really make your life that much better? If you’re bored, depressed or unsatisfied without all the gear, you’re also gonna be bored, depressed and unsatisfied with it. Things might perk you up for a day or two, but they don’t give you any sort of permanent boost. They don’t bring you joy. Joy comes from community, faith, love, purpose. And those? Come from God.

Metabolism slows with age. Abdomens, butts, thighs and other formerly desirable body parts start to expand. Your energy level shrinks. Eventually, you’re gasping for breath when you top the stairs. You can’t just eat anything you want anymore, so start paying attention to what you’re shoveling in. Put down that pizza and pick up some yogurt. Toss a salad. Lay off the bacon cheeseburgers. And for Jared’s sake, stop categorizing Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia as an FDA-approved serving of fruit.

9

MAINTAIN CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS.

Ask any old person what’s been more important to them through the years.

Career? Residence? Bank account? Nope. It’s the people they love, the ones who traveled through life with them. Strong, welladjusted adults stay connected to a strong, well-adjusted blend of friends and family members. As the thirtysomething hill gets closer, make sure you’ve got someone to climb it with you. You don’t dare do it alone. 0

JASON BOYETT is the author of Pocket Guide to Adulthood: 29 Things to Know Before You Hit 30 (Relevant Books).

BLINDSIDE FINDING THE FORGOTTEN

BY AARON BRUMMET

BEAM ME UP: (L-R) Marcus Dahlstrom, Christian Lindskog, Simon Grenehed, Tomas Naslund 72

BLINDSIDE

“I THINK IT STARTED FOR ME WHEN I WENT TO South Africa with my wife last November,” Blindside singer Christian Lindskog says of his band’s new album, The Great Depression. It quickly becomes clear that he is speaking from a heart that beats with a renewed sense of purpose.

During the break between touring in support of 2004’s About a Burning Fire and preparing the follow-up, Lindskog decided to spend some of his downtime seeing the living conditions of the people his band had campaigned for on their last tour. His experiences stirred his already dedicated heart to alleviating the hurt of the “have-nots.”

“It’s really a strange thing to see people fighting for their lives,” he continues. “People are dying every day in South Africa. HIV is totally devastating the whole continent. It’s going up in flames.” This, he says, is an unnecessary circumstance.

“I DON’T KNOW SPECIFICALLY WHAT CHANGED, BUT I THINK THAT WE ARE FALLING IN LOVE WITH GOD MORE AND MORE.” —CHRISTIAN LINDSKOG “There are medicines that can prevent people from dying young, but people are still dying when they don’t need to,” he says. “We met one woman when we visited a clinic, and we asked her what she was going to do that week. She said, ‘Well, the usual. It’s funerals on Saturday and church on Sunday.’ It’s just devastating.”

In Blindside’s 10 years of existence, life has taken them on a road trip from the music industry’s high society to the most desperate points of human need, with the occasional stop back home in Sweden.

They have seen and fought for an end to sickness in Africa, recorded two albums in Hollywood, toured with Project 86, Hoobastank and P.O.D. and worked alongside alternative rock pioneer Billy Corgan.

They have seen some of the richest and poorest areas in the world, but what surprised Lindskog were the similarities between the two.

“The thing that I’m seeing here in the States is that more and more people are getting into depression and trying to kill themselves even though there’s nothing wrong and nothing right,” he says. Lindskog faults the lack of priorities and concrete standards as reasons for the rise of depression in even the wealthy parts of the world, the homes of the “haves.” This tragedy, he says, is no less serious than the AIDS epidemic across the ocean.

“What I found was that people are dying here in the West and in South Africa, but for totally different reasons. The similarity is that people are dying young, and I don’t think we’re all meant to die young. That’s what started it off for me.” Those words form the basis

for The Great Depression, showing up almost verbatim in lyrical form: We’re all going to die/but we’re all not meant to die young. The band’s travels have given them a refreshed vision. Even on a less global scale, Blindside has experienced a great deal of personal change over the past year and a half. From touring troubles to label changes, their circumstances have constantly evolved. Not surprisingly, so has their perspective.

At the beginning of last year’s tour, Blindside crashed their tour bus.

Having spent plenty of years in their stable old van, they had little trouble readjusting to using it for the remainder of the tour. However, on the last date of the tour, the van was broken into, and the band was robbed of essentially everything they had. This included their gear, tour proceeds, computers, cameras and passports (which play a slight role in European bands getting home). Despite these apparent setbacks, the optimistic Lindskog still found the tour worthwhile.

“We lost a lot in that respect, but it was an amazing tour when it came to people getting into the shows,” Lindskog says. “It was an awesome experience. I like touring in the States because people are up front singing the lyrics. That’s not really how it is in Sweden. I like playing here more.”

In addition to tour issues, Blindside was left without a label midway through the year when Elektra and parent company Warner Music were sold. The band finished their tour without a label and still managed to sell out nearly every show. Following a layoff for the holiday season, they returned to Sweden and, after forming a partnership with smaller label DRT, prepared to record The Great Depression.

“With a major label, it’s always a compromise,” he says. “Nobody’s really happy in the end. Now we can do it the way we want. If it’s not turning out good, it’s our fault. We don’t have anyone to blame, so it’s more rewarding.”

The process happened quickly, and the band ended up with their most musically diverse rock offering yet. As would anyone who had witnessed so much suffering, Lindskog says he felt the burden to put into words his experiences over the past months. “I went into it feeling this heaviness, and it was like a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Even when he didn’t feel that he could put his traditionally poetic touch on his thoughts, Lindskog found that the words still managed to work their way out. “I didn’t have any lyrics for the last song we were going to record, and it was the only day left to record it,” he says. “I had the music, and I just started singing along. I found myself singing, I’m not forgotten, and for some reason it just hit home. In my mind, I know that I’m not forgotten by God. I know that, you know? With my brain. It’s a totally different thing when it reaches your heart. That totally just broke me. I just sat in the studio and cried for a while.”

Blindside has spent the last decade experiencing and observing life, and it is clear that they carry a strong desire to act on what they’ve seen. Lindskog’s goal is that people not just come to their shows to see a band rock out, but that they see human beings with a passion for the forgotten. “You go through life and you see things and you learn. I don’t know specifically what changed, but I think that we are falling in love with God more and more. When you get stripped from everything else and there’s only God left, you’re just reaching for Him more and more.” o

AARON BRUMMET hails from St. Louis and is amused by Swedish accents.

BLINDSIDE

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SITTING DOWN WITH

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BY WON KIM

s articulate as he is, the most alarming thing about Cameron Crowe is his, well, disalarming nature. He started writing for Rolling Stone magazine by the time he had his first pimple and, at 22, already had a classic movie under his belt. His filmography reads like the typical DVD collection of any twentysomething out there: Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Say Anything, Singles, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky. Most likely, you’ve already seen his latest film, Elizabethtown, and came out of the theater in some transcendent state. So naturally, I was expecting some pretentious Hollywood character to greet my already preconceived notion of who director Cameron Crowe really is. Either I caught him on a really good day, or his stories genuinely reflect a director and writer whose outlook on life is as refreshing as it is inspiring.

Imagine my surprise when Cameron Crowe hit me up with the first question: “So, how you doing? Enjoyed your summer?” Um, pretty good. My wife and baby boy are out of town, so it’s kind of weird being all alone right now. (I’m really trying hard to not act surprised ... OK, short pause ... maybe it’s time to start the interview) ... So, let’s ... “How old’s your baby boy?” Uh, he’s seven months. “Wooh baby! Hit him back for me.”

I shouldn’t have been too surprised with his questions; after all, Crowe considers himself a journalist first and director second. Not to mention, he’s a father of twins. It’s this overt interest in the personal lives of others that has helped Crowe create a career for himself. How else could you explain a 22-year-old writer disguising himself as a high-schooler to create a book that eventually became the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High? As his movies always seem to illustrate, Crowe is all about self-discovery and following the heart. In fact, he hopes his movies can be a platform for others to find themselves. Cameron Crowe is not your typical Hollywood hotshot. He’s a prolific writer who still considers himself lucky to be making movies. He’s an inspired observer who cherishes the small moments—like asking a stranger how his baby boy is doing.

If Paramount Pictures’ publicist wasn’t hovering nearby, maybe we could have explored other profound topics like the color of fall leaves, frightening airplane moments and what songs are the best to sing along to in your car, but we settled on discussing such subject matters as his most recent film, the impact of his father’s death, spirituality, love and recognizing those “small moments” in life. And if you need to know, yes, he had me at hello.

WHY DO A FILM CALLED ELIZABETHTOWN? IS THERE A STORY BEHIND THE STORY? Yeah, it’s funny because I had been working on a completely different story. My wife’s a musician. She plays in a group called Heart, and she convinced me to get off my laptop and quit writing and go on the road with her as they tour in the summer. And I went to New York, and so we’re traveling across the country with Nancy and her band, and I woke up a couple days later and looked out the window of the bus, and it was Kentucky. It was this blue-green landscape, beautiful sights. I had not been back to Kentucky since my dad’s funeral, which happened years earlier—he was from Kentucky. I just felt this real pull to get lost in Kentucky.

CAMERON CROWE

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“I’VE ALWAYS BEEN THAT GUY WHO LOVES CAPTURING THE SMALL MOMENTS IN PEOPLE’S LIVES.” I got off the tour bus and got this rental car. Started traveling around with no intention of writing, but this whole story just kind of came in three days. I’ve never had anything arrive so fully formed, and I never finished the other project. From that moment on, I just wanted to bring this movie to life. Elizabethtown is kind of an ode to life and to my dad and what it’s like when you turn loss and failure to a true plus.

HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOUR FATHER PASSED AWAY? Twenty-seven. I just directed Say Anything. So, it was a lot of feelings that had been dormant for a long time. As somebody says in [Elizabethtown] to Orlando Bloom’s character, “It might be 10 minutes, or it might be 10 years from now, but it will hit you.” And it was sort of like a rolling feeling, thinking about my dad. People would always say, “You’ve written about your mom in Almost Famous; have you ever written about ROCK ON ... your dad?” I really haven’t until now. And so odd that it becomes this, and also it’s a comedy—a reallife comedy. This one’s in the tradition of Almost Famous. It has a lot of music in it. I always loved movies where two hours after you first sat down and the lights come up, you feel like you kind of knew these Cameron Crowe’s wife is Nancy Wilson, people and you sort of who is part of the rock outfit Heart. miss them. Those were my They married in 1986 and had twins favorite kinds of movies, in 2000. She composed the music for and those were my dad’s Elizabethtown. favorite kind of movies.

He would love the kind of movie that made you laugh and cry. It’s funny how a movie about him ended up being one of those movies.

OUR GENERATION IS ALWAYS LOOKING FOR A SONG OR AN ANTHEM OR A FILM TO IDENTIFY WITH. WOULD YOU SAY THIS MOVIE WILL CAPTURE THAT SEARCH? I hope so. I’ve always loved movies that didn’t seem like they were straining to reach a generation, but were interested in reaching one person. I love movies that make you feel like somebody is talking or making the whole movie just for you. It’s hard now because movies are expensive, and everybody who makes movies in Hollywood

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CAMERON CROWE

Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom in Elizabethtown.

wants to make a movie for the entire globe.

And sometimes it makes everything kind of bland or about simplistic things, when in fact being personal with what you want to say is sometimes even the most universal. We all experience pain and tragedy and sometimes fiasco, and I love that this movie has Orlando Bloom’s character saying in the beginning of the movie, “The difference between a failure and a fiasco is that fiasco is a folktale told to others that makes other people feel more alive because it didn’t happen to them.” It’s sort of this character’s tale of how fiasco and even tragedy came into his life, but it really was a presentation of an opportunity to feel and be truly alive. So the movie sort of starts with an ending and ends with a beginning.

Which I really dig.

YOUR FILMOGRAPHY SEEMS TO TACKLE QUESTIONS OF DESTINY AND FINDING WHAT IS REAL/TRUE TO THAT PERSON ...

HOW HAVE YOU SEEN THESE QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN YOUR LIFE OR WHAT HAS THE JOURNEY BEEN LIKE FOR YOU? Wow, that’s a great question. I feel lucky because I started as a journalist, and I’m still a journalist. The whole way I approach doing a movie, when I’m lucky enough to do a movie, is ask what would really happen. What would these people be like if you met them in real life? And I just feel like everything that I’ve ever done is being a fly on the wall, and [I try to] do something that captures what it’s like to live a life and what those glorious little moments mean and how much the little stuff matters. I love making movies that have big things and little things on which huge feelings and events turn. As a journalist, I was like that; as a filmmaker, they always say to me, “You don’t need that scene where that guy’s just driving and listening to music.” And I’ll say, well, that’s the whole reason to make the movie, the scene where the guy’s driving and listening to music. I’ve always been that guy who loves capturing the small moments in people’s lives.

WHAT’S A LITTLE MOMENT IN YOUR OWN LIFE THAT ALTERED YOUR OUTLOOK ON LIFE AND YOUR JOURNEY? One of them is in Almost Famous, where I got an assignment to interview a band backstage, and the guy who was working the door backstage wouldn’t let me in. I remember,

he said ... this is in Almost Famous ... “Go to the top of the ramp and stand with the other girls.” And it was so insulting, part of me just wanted to let go and never come back. And I think my parents really wanted me to be a lawyer at that point; even though I was a young guy, they were like, “You should go to law school.” And I almost went to the top of the ramp, but I heard this bus door slam, and this other band, one that I wasn’t even supposed to interview, was coming down the ramp, and I just decided to stay put. I talked to these guys, and they said, “Well, come backstage with us.” And that began the whole career.

It’s probably the reason that I’m a director now ... I just started writing about the things I love, which are music and art and life. That was a little moment, where if I hadn’t heard that bus door slam and decided not to be too embarrassed, I would be a mediocre lawyer right now. On the other hand, I love—and it’s in Elizabethtown—where we’re always at the crossroads every minute of our lives, and there’s a point early in the movie where Orlando Bloom’s character has decided that it’s been such a terrible day that he’s just going to give up. Give up on everything. Give up on all his dreams. And as soon as you do that, life starts knocking in some small way if you hear it. In this movie, it’s a simple cell phone ring, and he decides to pick up this phone, and he begins this journey—the story of what’s authentic in life, what really matters when you’re trying to live a true life.

And all that spins because he decided to pick up his cell phone. I love writing about stuff like that.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIG THINGS THAT HAVE CHANGED ABOUT YOU SINCE YOUR EARLY FILMS LIKE FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH AND SAY ANYTHING? IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WOULD CHANGE ABOUT YOUR MESSAGES?

IN YOUR MOVIES SPECIFICALLY, IS THAT A SUBJECT THAT INTERESTS YOU? It’s very true, and some of this crept into this movie. I went to Catholic school and I was an altar boy, and my family was a very attentive kind of family, and I just put a couple scenes in the movie based on my childhood. There are little messages in there that faith comes in all places, sizes and shapes. I just wanted to send some pulsing signals that faith takes

CAMERON CROWE FILMOGRAPHY

FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (1982)

SAY ANYTHING (1989)

SINGLES (1992)

JERRY MAGUIRE (1996)

ALMOST FAMOUS (2000)

VANILLA SKY (2001)

Hopefully, getting better at the craft of combining the visuals with the words and the music. So that it all feels like one big story that you’re being told. I started out as a writer, and I feel like I’m still primarily a writer, but with each movie I study the visuals a little bit more, so I like planning the shots out and the technical stuff like that.

THOUGH YOU’VE NEVER ACTUALLY TACKLED FAITH OR SPIRITUAL CONTENT

ELIZABETHTOWN (2005)

CAMERON CROWE

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“I JUST WANTED TO SEND SOME PULSING SIGNALS THAT FAITH TAKES MANY FORMS.”

many forms, and it’s worth paying attention to all the avenues that are available to you to believe and be decent to people. I think there are a lot of movies that might not take the time to put little clues in. I think people get a lot from movies, and it’s great to put in parts of a movie where you can see that people are human to each other. Some of that springs from having faith.

BY THE TIME PEOPLE HIT THEIR 20S, MOST HAVE OUTGROWN THEIR PARENTS’ FAITH AND NOW ARE “COMING OF AGE” AND IN SEARCH OF THEIR OWN UNDERSTANDING. WHAT HAS YOUR OWN SEARCH LOOKED LIKE? I’ve been accused of having written a lot about the pursuit of optimism. And it began with Fast Times at Ridgemont High in a way, but it definitely was the big theme in Say Anything, which is probably still the favorite of the movies I’ve done. And that movie really is about John Cusack’s character, who represents optimism as a revolutionary act.

I think whatever your faith is or whatever your search is, it begins with positivity and optimism. Joy comes to people who choose joy and celebrate joy. And sometimes joy is a very hard thing to bring into your life, particularly if you don’t have a background or family that has given you an underpinning of faith. But sometimes, against all odds, you have to choose positivity. Because positivity breeds positivity. That’s sort of a theme that has gone through a lot of stuff. That basic theory of life is tested every day. That’s a nondemonational way of just embracing goodness. I like characters that fight against the tidal wave going in the opposite direction sometimes to find joy.

AS A DIRECTOR AND AN ARTIST, WHY DO YOU FEEL LIKE IT’S SO IMPORTANT TO SHOW THIS OPTIMISM? Well, it’s my definition of what fun is. It came a lot from my parents, which I outgrew in my 20s and found a very, very deep bond with later when I came back to realize how

“John Eldredge gave men permission to be ‘wild at heart.’

Paul Coughlin shows us how to do it. This book is a road map to a larger life.”

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Available from Bethany House Publishers 1-866-241-6733 • www.bethanyhouse.com

valuable they were and are. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m still very close with my mom. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot about, what can you do in your life to make the world a better place, and my dad was the same way.

For example, in Elizabethtown, the main character deals with a sudden death, but as soon as he deals with it, life hits him like a hurricane. Family roots and people he never knew. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an entertaining story, but the cool thing, after [someone has] seen the movie, they stay in their seat and say, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I wanna call my mom or visit my parents during Thanksgiving.â&#x20AC;?

SO YOU WOULD SAY THEMES AND WORDS LIKE LOVE, HOPE, JOY, OPTIMISM AND PURPOSE ARE SOMETHING YOU CONSCIOUSLY GO AFTER? I like to say they arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just things you choose and have for always. You have to ďŹ ght to keep them and ďŹ nd them and appreciate them. And sometimes that takes a lot of courage. Basically, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not a soapbox guy. My hero in ďŹ lmmaking is Billy Wilder. And he

always says, â&#x20AC;&#x153;You must sugarcoat that pill when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re telling a story.â&#x20AC;? [he laughs] But the pill in a way is ... how can you make an appointment with people that youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to spend two hours of their life in a dark room and give them something backâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the feeling that they have something to think about thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s of value or that thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something to remember later that they can use in their own life. And it just happens naturally. If Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve written a script that is entertaining or funny, but youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re left with that feeling of the most superďŹ cial fast-food diet, then why do it? Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to get a bunch of people together and make a movie and work really long hours and get really tired and letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s have everybody go to the theater and not get anything out of it. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s much better the other way. 0 ONLINE BONUS: Reviews, interviews and more on

Elizabethtown.

WON KIM is the managing editor of RELEVANT and moonlights as a father and husband. He misses watching the St. Louis Cardinals with his dad.

THE CAMERON CROWE MIX ALBUM Croweâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s movies are known for their phenomenal soundtracks.

Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a sampling to help you make your very own mix.

Track 1: Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Simon & Garfunkel (Almost Famous) Track 2: Drownâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Smashing Pumpkins (Singles) Track 3: Come Pick Me Upâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Ryan Adams (Elizabethtown) Track 4: World on a Stringâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Neil Young (Jerry Maguire) Track 5: Svefn-g-englarâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Sigur Ros (Vanilla Sky) Track 6: Love Rulesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Don Henley (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) Track 7: Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll All Work Outâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (Elizabethtown) Track 8: Secret Gardenâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Bruce Springsteen (Jerry Maguire) Track 9: Everything in Its Right Placeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Radiohead (Vanilla Sky) Track 10: In Your Eyesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Peter Gabriel (Say Anything)

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Regent Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s policies governing the admission of students relate to its mission statement, but are not applied to preclude a diverse student body in terms of race, color, religion, gender, disability or national or ethnic origin. Regent University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, GA 30033-4097: Telephone number 404-679-4501) to award the bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and doctoral degrees. Regent University is certified by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia to operate campuses within the Commonwealth of Virginia. COM052437

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UNANSWERED QUESTIONS UGH DIVORCE A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY THRO

BY CAM ERON CONANT

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IT WAS ABOUT 18 MONTHS AGO when my wife, Sara, called me in a hotel room. I was on a business trip and wasn’t expecting her call—in fact, she rarely called when we were apart. We had been married for almost four years, but our marriage was far from the pictureperfect relationship that many imagined. We looked like a couple in a J.Crew catalog, but our marriage didn’t mirror the happy, carefree lifestyle portrayed in catalogs and magazines.

As I answered the phone that evening—high atop a twinkling city hundreds of miles from home—I was in hell. Our marriage was on the brink of disaster, and I knew it. We had been to numerous marriage counselors, but they never seemed to help. We needed Jesus, but there was never enough of Him. We needed grace, but there was never enough of that—not in our relationship.

As I heard Sara’s voice on the other end of the phone, she sounded different. For the first time in months, she wasn’t angry. She was sad, forlorn.

“I loved you,” she said. “I called to tell you that I really loved you.”

“Loved.” Past tense.

“Will I see you when I get back tomorrow?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Will you be running errands or something?”

“I don’t know.”

That was the last time I would ever talk to Sara as her husband.

For years, I focused on head knowledge—Bible facts, theology and answers—all the while neglecting the heart. I became a Jesus-follower late in college, and my first Jesus experiences were emotive. But somehow, they became less and less so. As time passed, I attempted to prove to myself—and any doubters that I encountered—that the Jesus story was valid, that it really happened, that everyone should believe it.

I became interested in theology, primarily out of a desire to “know all the answers” to all the big questions. My shelves were lined with impressive-sounding books, written by “defenders of the faith” or professors with long credentials. I don’t mean to dismiss such books or dismiss the importance of theology, but sometimes it’s not enough; in fact, sometimes it misses the point entirely, like when you’re more interested in being “right” than in loving people.

It’s funny how inadequate theology seems when your wife leaves, funny how our life experiences sometimes butt heads with our ideas about life. How could a loving God let this happen ... to me? The answer requires a knowing that transcends textbooks or theology, a knowing that sees with the heart, a knowing that exists between two lovers or between a parent and a child, the sort of knowing that says, “Even if it’s not OK, it will be OK.” When Sara left, the need to know all the answers—to fit all of the stories of Scripture and all the stories of my life into a neatly wrapped theological box—went out the window. When Sara left, nothing made sense. When Sara left, all I knew was hurt, pain, doubt. I was only 26 and completely unprepared for the heartache of divorce. I suppose that no one, no matter what his age, is ever prepared for divorce. But in my youthful naiveté I thought that Christians didn’t get divorced. I thought that Christians found a way. But the sad reality is that sometimes Christians don’t find a way. The sad reality is that Christians are broken people, just like everyone else.

Sara and I had a difficult marriage, but I never expected to come home from a business trip and find half the furniture gone; I never expected to find a typed letter on the kitchen table with no forwarding address, no phone number given and no explanation for her leaving. It did say, “I’m preparing to file for divorce.” I thought, Why would God let this happen? Did I deserve this? How would something so hurtful ever be used for good?

I used to think that there was a tidy answer for everything, that the Bible provided answers to every question on earth—but it doesn’t. That doesn’t mean it’s not true; it just means that God never intended to answer all of our questions. Job is perhaps the best example of this. The Scriptures tell us that God allowed Satan to do terrible things to Job—kill most of his family, take away his wealth, put horrible sores on his body—and yet Job never learns why. He asks all sorts of questions of God and never gets a theological explanation. Instead, he gets all sorts of

questions right back from God. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand, who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!”

God’s point seems to be this: I know more than you will ever know. And, believe me, there are some things you will never know.

In the end, Job learns his lesson; he learns that sometimes simply knowing that God is there is enough. It is a lesson that I continually must take to heart.

And so as I sleep in a queen-sized bed by myself tonight—the same bed my wife and I once shared—simply knowing that God is there is enough for me, too. It has to be. Of course, I still have questions for God, but I’ve become comfortable with the tension of not knowing, the tension that comes from embracing a faith that cannot be fully deciphered, parsed, chopped up and dissected.

Some things are mysterious—especially God. Yes, He can be known, but how can an infinite being who has no beginning and no end ever fully be known by us—clumsy humans, who stumble along in the dark, groping for meaning and truth and answers?

And so today, some of my deepest, most profound moments with God come not during church services or reading works of theology or even reading the Bible.

They come in all sorts of surprising places—a U2 song, a hug from a friend, a good laugh, a walk through the woods or even watching a well-made movie. Or sometimes, these incredible moments with God come in silent, painful times—times of not knowing, times when you sit and wonder why life turned out the way it did, times spent wondering why your wife left, times spent wondering why you have to hurt so badly. And slowly, you come to sense deep within your soul that it will be OK, that the tension between faith and doubt, knowing and not knowing, fact and mystery is a tension worth embracing. l

I WAS ONLY 26 AND COMPLETELY UNPREPARED FOR THE HEARTACHE OF DIVORCE.

CAMERON CONANT is the author of With or Without You: A Spiritual Journey Through Love and Divorce (Relevant Books). He lives in Nashville, Tenn.

DIVORCE

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E L A KE

BY K Y L

FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS,

I have donned some variation of the unkempt hair. Shaggy unkempt. Chaotic unkempt.

Spiky unkempt. Faux-hawk unkempt. For some time now, my hair has tried to communicate, Hey, I woke up about eight minutes ago, threw on some clothes and got here as fast as I possibly could. This is the way I live. I’m edgy, reckless and disorganized. There’s absolutely no forethought to what I will do next. I’m unconstrained and frequently put my own life at risk. When, in fact, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, I have three kids. And I admit I stood in front of the mirror this morning arranging the hair for at least three minutes.

Actual thought processes took shape to form some sort of conclusion about what I would wear. Actual thought processes! Why? Because I completely care what other people think. I’m fairly organized, intentional and currently vying for legal ownership to “my space” at a local coffee shop where I practically live. I’m a creature of habit. But the hair is trying its darnedest to communicate otherwise.

Prayer, on the other hand, is difficult to fake. Well, personal, oneon-one, alone prayer is difficult to fake. Eliminate the audience, become a fly on the wall, and you’ll notice the thing that’s created there in that space between the individual and God says it all. Want to find out what someone thinks of God? Listen to the way they pray and how they pray it. There, in those words and posture, is everything— how they view and approach God, life, faith, relationships, vocation, meaning, the past, the present, the future.

String together the alphabetic symbols—P-R-A-Y-E-R— and you’ll get a variety of reactions from different people.

Immediately corpse-like sentiments are evoked because all that’s ever been known has been lifeless, rote, legalistic ritual. Or what immediately comes to mind is the time in college when that church guy wanted to “pray over” your diabetes and told you if you had enough faith and confessed enough sin, you could no longer be a diabetic. Or the time you heard a conference speaker say, “God was talking to me the other day and ...” You, however, left feeling miserable because you’ve never experienced that level of open communication with God, and there’s only one reason ... it must be due to your lack of spirituality. Or maybe the word “prayer” doesn’t evoke sentiments of monotone, lifeless duty, but hyped, emotional, super-spiritual drama just as lifeless with more words and heavier breathing.

If we are going to push toward a real, whole-life, interactive relationship with God, we must be willing to cut ties with misunderstandings—perhaps misunderstandings we picked up along the way or even misunderstandings we were explicitly taught.

Luis of Granada, a 16th-century Christian spiritual writer, simply defined prayer as “any raising of the heart to God.” Tony Jones, author of Pray (Th1nk Books), defines it as ...

At school, before you eat, while you drive, in the locker room, at home, eyes open, eyes shut, before an exam, through the woods, feeding the dog, on the deck, walking to class, in the morning, before you sleep, wondering about the world, after the fight, looking for an answer, because you care, because you don’t care, flying across the ocean, on your knees, to erase or to remember, when you’re happy, when you’re scared, when no one else hears, using ancient ideas or new ones, singing or screaming, writing a letter, in a journal, at the interview, with or without something to say, to get real, on the date, sacred or irreverent, help! help! help!, loud or soft, at work, floating or sinking, after you fail, after you succeed, hands folded or raised to the sky, with a friend, with your dad, for your friends, for your family, during the game, at the meet, to find Jesus, on the mountaintop, in the valley, when you feel alive, when you feel half-dead, under attack, or to attack, to reorganize, at the concert, for composure, to praise, to worship, to just listen, wherever, whenever, however ...

WE MUST BE WILLING TO CUT TIES WITH MISUNDERSTANDINGS.

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PRAYER DEFINED

That’s prayer. Redefined. Or, to be precise, historically defined. And my guess is that it’s already been going on in your life. It’s just that no one has ever said anything about it being legit, about it counting.

So may I be the first to come along and tell you that the persistent, silent awareness of God that threads through your day, even in the most mundane times—on a bike, in a journal, after the movie, in the car—they all count. Not only do they count, but that fluid, seamless life with God you exhibit has actually been God’s hope all along. F KYLE LAKE is the author of (re)Understanding Prayer (Relevant Books) and the pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, where David Crowder leads worship.

BY MIKE HOGAN AND WON KIM

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JOHN LEGEND

JOHN LEGEND IS BUSY THESE DAYS. Besides touring North America in support of his Get Lifted album, Legend is the new face for Gap and considered by many as the emerging star in the world of R&B. He is also adamant about one thing: he is not from Philadelphia.

Not originally, at least. “I grew up in Ohio, then I went to college in Philly. That’s a common mistake that people think I’m from Philly. I just wanted to clear that up and make sure that you don’t write that I’m from Philly.” Right.

That said, it is somewhat difficult to separate the man and his music from the blossoming neo-soul movement that arose from the streets of Philly. The influence of fellow artists The Roots and Jill Scott are immediately evident within the raw hip-hop beats and textures of his music, but at the same time one hears nods to Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green and The O’Jays, all artists Legend counts among his primary influences.

There is another influence, however, that is impossible to ignore: gospel. Legend’s vocals and melodies are steeped in a deep tradition of church music. “Church has always been a huge part of my life, and the music of the church has always been a huge part of my life,” he says. “If you listen to my arrangements and the way I sing, it’s very reminiscent of gospel music.” This is not at all surprising considering that before he made the jump to solo artist, he worked as a choir director in both Ohio and Pennsylvania. In fact, just prior to starting work on what was to become Get Lifted, his major label solo debut, he ended a nine-year run as the choir and music director of an African Methodist Episcopal church just outside of Philly.

The story of how John Legend got where he is today is the stuff that the good old American dream is made of. With gospel music already a big part of his life, he entered into his early teens listening to radio hits by Boys II Men and LL Cool J. College brought with it the opportunity to perform at various talent shows and open mic events, eventually leading to solo performances around Philly, New York and Washington, D.C. He recorded a number of demos and live records before grabbing the attention of then newbie Kanye West, the cousin of his roommate.

He eventually began to find work as a studio musician, playing piano on the Lauryn Hill hit “Everything Is Everything,” lending vocals and piano to tracks by the Black Eyed Peas, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, and co-writing two songs on West’s College Dropout album.

West eventually signed Legend to his production company, KonMan Entertainment, and they began work on what was to become Get Lifted. With West serving as executive producer, Get Lifted manages to blend all of Legend’s influences into one seamless package. The gospel roots of his youth are evident in his vocals and piano playing while his lyrics speak of a booklike knowledge of hip-hop, honest and poetic yet raw and witty at the same time.

Some of his lyrical content may come across as off-putting to those who have preconceived notions of what a church-bred former choir director should concern himself with, but Legend insists that it’s all part of being a storyteller. “I talk about some sinful things, but I also think those are things that all people deal with,” he says. “I think the stories I tell are things I’m sure that people in the Church can relate to, because I know them. Clearly I’m not giving a shining example for Christians for what people should do. But I never write music as a prescription for a happy ending. I’m just a storyteller.”

Indeed, Legend is equally committed to telling his stories as he is to maintaining his faith and family. “My family is very involved [in church], and it’s a huge part of the way my family interacts with each other,” he says. “My father is a minister, and my mother sings.

My grandfather was a pastor. Faith has always been important to us and our social life and community. The foundation that provided is still with me. Most of the music I make is heavily influenced by that. I’m telling my own story and telling stories that I think people like me can relate to while using music—that is very familiar and very soulful to me.”

And apparently, there are many out there who have no trouble relating to him or his soulful

JOHN LEGEND

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“I TALK ABOUT SOME SINFUL THINGS, BUT I ALSO THINK THOSE ARE THINGS THAT ALL PEOPLE DEAL WITH.” music. His video for “Ordinary People” is constantly on VH1 and MTV, and Get Lifted reached as high as number 4 on the Billboard top 200 chart. He has also become the proverbial go-to guy for the hip-hop world, his appearance list a virtual laundry list of critical darlings and fan favorites: Twista, the Dilated Peoples, Janet Jackson, Talib Kweli, Eve, Common and even Britney Spears.

“My vision is about [furthering] my own songwriting and doing the best I can do,” he says. “That’s really what it is. My main thrust is to try to make great music over a long period of time, and that involves me [doing] songwriting and singing and producing as well.”

It is this focus and his ability to meld a host of musical styles that promise a long and storied career for John Legend. The genius he applies to his playing, songwriting and singing as well as his ability to collaborate with some of the most important artists of the moment threaten to make Legend not only his name, but also his primary description. That being the case, he has a slightly more humble view of what he’s here for: “I want to make music that makes people feel good and that touches people’s lives. My mission is to make the best music I can, to entertain people, to make people happy.”

And that’s exactly the stuff that Legends are made of. 0

MIKE HOGAN is a full-time member of the David Crowder Band and a part-time writer. He lives in Texas with his wife and cat.

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JOHN LEGEND

AVAILABLE AT BOOKSTORES EVERYWHERE OR SAVE 20% AT RELEVANTSTORE.COM

S N A I T CHRIS N R O P A AT SHOW THOUGHTS FROM XXXCHURCH VOLUNTEERS AFTER EROTICA LA 2005

BY CRAIG GROSS

T

he glass doors of the Los Angeles Convention Center stood in front of me, and I paused. It was my third consecutive year exhibiting at the Erotica LA Convention, which happens to be the world’s largest porn show. More than 60,000 people would walk through these doors into the 250,000 square feet of floor space over the course of the weekend. And even though Erotica LA 2005 was actually my sixth porn show, my pulse still quickened as I stepped into the huge building. I arrived early that morning to think about what I was about to encounter. I remembered the first year vividly—I had no idea what I was doing.

This year, XXXchurch, which I co-founded with Mike Foster, who also attended the convention, rented two booths. In the “Porn Challenge” booth, we would ask as many customers and proprietors as possible if they were willing to give up porn for seven days. We wondered, If they could see their lives briefly without porn, would they feel better about themselves or their futures? Three girls I’d known as a youth pastor worked booth number two. They sold and gave away T-shirts that said “Jesus Loves Porn Stars.” Sure, the slogan gets a little laugh, but the real goal was to get some porn stars to connect with these girls after the convention and create relationships outside of the porn industry.

Over the course of the convention, 213 people signed up for the seven-day porn challenge and more than 250 T-shirts were passed out. What follows are the responses the volunteers had about their experience.

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9/27/05 6:44:34 PM

JULIA, 24

LACI, 20

I’m so sad right now, so broken, so burdened. Why do people want to do this?

Why do they think so little of themselves that they would take something so precious, so special, something that God wants us to save for one person? As I walked through the show, my soul felt like it was being suffocated. A life of complete emptiness and abandonment awaits these young girls. I want to hold them and convince them somehow that they are so special and precious and don’t need to be used. They are amazing women that God wants to love and hold close. You should see the hurt after some guy puts his hands on them for a picture. They smile for the camera and cry in their hearts. How can I, through my Jesus, help someone who has no understanding of love? By example, right?

But I was only there three days. All I can do is pray that God will become so real and His amazing grace will heal their broken hearts and minds.

Thousands upon thousands of people lined up to pay up to $30 for a weekend filled with lust and physical desires only to go out of the show and think that what they saw is how sex and relationships should be. God taught me that I need to love these people even more, and that sin is sin and I am no different than them. I too have made compromises that have hurt me, and just like me, God can heal them.

Also I realized just how disrespectful we all are to each other. How can we ever have true relationships with friends or significant others if we only care about ourselves?

This weekend was by far the best and most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done in my entire life! It was weird because I’m the type of person that worries about everything, but I was not worried or nervous at all for this weekend; I was completely at peace ... even excited. It was so awesome to be able to share the truth with all the people at the show and, most of all, the porn stars. They were all so sweet and so excited about what our T-shirts had to say. It was weird because even though I didn’t know any of these girls, I loved them all so much. It gave me so much energy and excitement when the girls would come to our booth on their breaks just to get the shirt.

Then they would bring their friends that were also involved in the business over to our booth. There were definitely some times of frustration, but the girls’ grateful and excited attitudes made it all worth it. By the end I felt completely drained (emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually), but I can’t wait until the next one! I am so anxious to get even one email. I know at least that they were left with (even if it was just in the back of their mind) “Jesus Loves Porn Stars,” and they are porn stars, therefore Jesus loves them. That’s all they need to know ... at least for now.

KELSEY, 22 Jesus worked along the sides of prostitutes.

I felt as though I was in His place this weekend. The place where I felt Christ called me to be was the porn convention. My heart broke to see how the girls had no respect for

BY THE NUMBERS 25 million Americans visit cybersex sites between 1 and 10 hours per week (MSNBC Survey, 2000).

According to the Justice Department, in 1998 there were 28,000 X-rated websites, generating $925 million in revenue. Three years later, there were 280,000 X-rated websites, generating more than $10 billion in revenue (The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 26, 2001).

It is believed that 70 percent of women involved in pornography are survivors of incest or child sexual abuse (XXXchurch.com).

their bodies. Or guys for that matter. The body is a temple of Christ, and so many temples were exposed. I wanted to go cover everyone up. I offered my jacket to a girl who said she was cold, but I knew she probably wouldn’t take it. The girls were like machines that people could come up and grab, touch and take a picture with. Underneath that machine was a person.

I left knowing that God used me to touch a couple of girls’ lives. I know I will contact a couple of them who I built relationships with, and my hope is they will respond.

I trust God had me there for a purpose. I felt called to let people know just how much Jesus loves them. I’m no better than anyone I met there. We all fall short of the glory of God. He is God though, and His grace is amazing!

For now, I will pray that the images I saw

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9/27/05 6:38:43 PM

“IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT OTHERS THINK WHO DIDN’T ATTEND THE SHOW.” —CRAIG GROSS

will be erased from my mind. By going to this convention, I feel I did pay a price. The images I can picture in my mind now are disturbing and sad. I know and trust that God can take them away. I’m thankful I got to go and be a part of this. God can use us now to reach people back at home.

JR, 38 MY TOP 10 PORN SHOW MOMENTS 1. Sonny, the 25-year-old former professional skater now porn star, who told me, “All I want is fame, money ... and God is OK with how I’m doing it.”

2. James, a paraplegic, who said, “If you want to help me, don’t pray for me, give me money so I can buy a prostitute to touch me ... no one will touch me.”

3. The hundreds of people who told me, “I can’t get enough porn.”

4. The guy who just got out of rehab for booze and was filling his bag with porn until he came to our booth. We talked and prayed; I’m pretty sure I ruined his porn show.

5. The guy who told me he’s so addicted to porn he has no friends.

6. Donna, who works for the LA Convention Center, who thanks God she is no longer in the porn business.

7. Craig and Mike’s push to see healing and recovery in the name of Christ.

8. The 213 people who took the Wally PornFree Challenge.

9. The young porn producer who admitted his industry is destroying people, after he told me XXXchurch is stupid.

10. My walk back to the hotel on Saturday night ... I took an eight-block look at my life given the days’ events. I felt remorse, joy, disappointment, sorrow and peace. God wants us in the trenches. I will no longer be comfortable sitting in a pew, and if you don’t get that ... you’re probably a critic.

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MIKE, 34, PASTOR, CO-FOUNDER, XXXCHURCH It’s rare in life when you get to lay it all on the line, to find out who you truly are, what you believe and what is ultimately important.

Erotica LA was a refining fire. To be submersed in that type of environment for three days and to come out the other side unscathed was a miracle. It’s not something I want to do every week, but it’s a very important experience.

I think about the radical things we do at XXXchurch, many of them controversial and over the top. People have pointed their finger at Craig and me and told us we have gone too far. But I believe there isn’t a single person who would say that if they stood beside us in a 10-foot by 10-foot booth at Erotica LA. You would get it. You would see it. It would make perfect sense.

XXXchurch is moving forward, no doubt in my mind. I struggle to really convey all the stories, all the revelations, all the moments.

It’s still way too fresh and raw. Much of it too disturbing to mention. I’m still processing and figuring it all out. I just know that as I stood in that booth, I knew that God had our back, and I think He was smiling. I now encourage you to move forward. Get out of your comfort zone. Stretch your faith muscle a little. It’s a beautiful thing.

CRAIG, 29, PASTOR, CO-FOUNDER, XXXCHURCH We prepared for this weekend long before it happened. We sent out emails asking for prayers. We had people fasting for us over the weekend of the convention, and everyone on the team had spent hours on their own asking God to show up and for each one of us to step out of the way. It has been a few days now since the porn show, and I am still amazed at what took place. The message boards on our website are filled with mixed reactions about our trip to Erotica LA. But in the end, I guess it doesn’t matter what others think who didn’t attend the show with us. Forget about trying to figure out if our approach with Wally and “Jesus Loves Porn Stars” T-shirts was the right move. We were and are convinced it was. As absurd as it might sound, it worked.

Not because of anything we did, but because God prepared the hearts of those who we encountered. 0 CRAIG GROSS is the co-founder of XXXchurch.com and the author of The Gutter (Relevant Books).

CHRISTIANS AT A PORN SHOW

9/27/05 6:39:36 PM

N E W L I V I N G T R A N S L AT I O N

Despite all of the stuff we try to obtain to ďŹ ll ourselves up, we all just want one thing: to connect. You and I need connection with people, but underneath all other connections lies that for which we were made: to know God and be known by Him. Thats the longing that nothing else seems to satisfy. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the Bible to help you along the journey. iConnect, New Living Translation.

newlivingtranslation.com

BAD CAREER MOVE?

BY DALLAS JENKINS

A FEW YEARS AGO I WAS GIVEN A SCRIPT called The Man Who Moved a Mountain by a guy I’d worked with on a film. Even though he wasn’t a Christian, he thought I’d appreciate it because it was about a preacher. I read the script, and I didn’t like it. It’s based on a book with the same title, the true story of a man named Bob, who lived in the mountains of Virginia in the early 20th century. The mountain region was basically uncivilized, as it was set apart from the rest of society. Dirt poor, the people mostly spent their time drinking, fighting, even killing, with very little fear of the law that was rarely enforced. Bob is the “heller of the hollow,” one of the hardest drinkers and strongest fighters. He ends up realizing his life is meaningless and becomes a Christian and eventually a preacher. Through his preaching, his servant’s heart and his tireless work ethic, he builds five churches (still in operation today), along with roads, bridges and schools.

It’s a great story, but certainly not very marketable. Unless they’re directed by superstar directors, period pieces are usually death at the box office. Plus, what’s the market for preacher movies set in the Virginia mountains?

I politely declined. But over the next couple years, as I worked on the release of my first film, as well as directing two short films, I kept thinking about the story. I found other scripts I liked, I even commissioned a couple scripts based on ideas I had, but this story wouldn’t leave my head. I finally decided to get the rights, and I commissioned a writer to do a new script from scratch.

So I’ve decided to try an experiment. I’m going to give this whole “follow what God is telling you” thing a shot. Problem is, I’m an old-school fundamentalist who never claims to “hear God’s voice” outside of Scripture, and quite bluntly, I can’t tell if it’s God or Satan who’s making me think that I should do this movie. Seeing as how it’s a movie about serving others and showing the love of Christ to the most unworthy sinners, I would assume God is the one pushing me through this “bad career move” door.

At this point, you’re probably thinking, “Why do I care about this guy’s mental warfare?” I don’t have a good answer for you, other than I’m hoping that one of two things happens. Either I fail miserably and the film doesn’t see the light of day, in which case you can learn from my mistakes; or I’ll make a fantastic movie that everyone wants to pay to see, in which case you can be inspired to follow your gut instead of conventional wisdom. Or something.

So now that I’ve decided to do it, I’ve got to figure out how to maximize the movie’s potential.

Again, this is where you can see some of the decisions that will make or break my film, and perhaps we can all learn something.

In my opinion, my best chance is to do something unconventional. Most successful

independent films that come from first-time directors are unique, fresh and edgy. This movie is set in the ’20s and ’30s in the South, and most movies and TV shows from that setting look and sound the same. If you think of Little House on the Prairie, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and Christy, you picture lyrical, smooth editing and picturesque scenery. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on big wagon wheels, sassy school marms and phrases like “I’m tahhred, Sadie Mae ... so tahhred.”

But what if I changed things up a bit?

What if I did a period movie in the vein of Quentin Tarantino or Steven Soderbergh, with fast editing, close-ups, the occasional handheld camera? And what if I actually showed the violence and vulgarity that was typical of this mountain region, especially the main character before he became a preacher?

Maybe it still wouldn’t work, but at least I’d go down fighting.

Sheesh. An edgy Christian period piece with bad language.

Maybe it is the devil making me do it. F

I CAN’T TELL IF IT’S GOD OR SATAN WHO’S MAKING ME THINK I SHOULD DO THIS MOVIE.

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WHAT’S NEXT

ONLINE BONUS: To follow Dallas Jenkins’ journey in filmmaking and find out whether this particular project will mean an end to his career, check RELEVANTmagazine. com for a regular column about the process of making the film.

DALLAS JENKINS is an award-winning producer and director of several features and short films. www.jenkinsentertainment.com

ARTISTS THAT ARE RELEVANT // TRISTAN PRETTYMAN • THE DEARS • DENISON WITMER • ESTER DRANG • THE REDWALLS

TRISTAN PRETTYMAN PAVING HER WAY

BY KATE GOODELL

IT’S THE NIGHT OF

a local battle of the bands competition, and for the first time your parents see you perform. The set goes perfectly, and the audience response is overwhelmingly positive. Afterward your parents pull you aside to tell you, “You looked really happy up there, and we think you should drop out of college to pursue your musical talent.” It sounds unrealistic—like any young musician’s dream. But it went something like that for San Diego native Tristan Prettyman a few years ago.

Now, after building a fan base around her emotive voice and go-withthe-flow performances, she has signed with Virgin Records and recently released her first album twentythree.

Last year, the former competitive surfer and Roxy girl toured with Jason Mraz, G Love, Howie Day and Gavin DeGraw, which allowed her to learn the business from the inside and test things out for herself. “If you start building fan bases, then you know you’re doing something right,” Prettyman says. “It’s like this good, honest test whether or not you have it. Every show is like going to school in a sense.”

But Prettyman learned the not-so-hot aspect of touring. It’s work. Instead of finishing college and hanging out with friends, she’s moving along with her career. “I kind of live vicariously through them,” she says of her friends. “I tend to start writing about them and their relationships.” But the flexibility of her new label allows her to balance her career with time spent back home, which keeps her grounded.

The last thing Prettyman wants is to become another female pop princess.

“When you’re starting out playing music, you hear those horror stories of the music industry, like how they take all your money or they’re going to turn you into this pop tart, and you’re going to lose all your creative freedom,” she says. “But when I met my label, everyone there was super nice and super supportive as to what I was doing.” Prettyman credits her success so far to the fact that she didn’t get ahead of herself by rushing to find a label. She insists that being patient helped her understand what she was getting herself into.

What propels her forward is grabbing hold of confidence and knowing she can be a role model for other girls. “You start paving your own way instead of following anybody else’s way,” she says. “You start taking chances. When you start doing that, you know you’ve become inspired more, and then you start inspiring other people to go their own way too.” F

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SPOTLIGHTS

THE DEARS

LOVING EVERYBODY

BY BRAD WITTY

THE SPLENDOR OF THEIR LATEST ALBUM, No Cities Left, and the passion of the live show suggest that The Dears are more than the latest indie import from Canada. Through their performances, they deliver a sort of spirited message. Keyboardist Natalia Yanchak calls it a “message of hope and love.”

“We want to help other people remember what love is and what other people are,” she says. “To remember the essence of life. To care for each other and make the world a better place.” When asked if there’s ever a struggle to make that message apparent, she says that “it happens naturally. People kind of come to that conclusion on their own. The people who love the band experience that willingness in their hearts to love everybody.”

After an extremely long tour, including one period that kept them away from home for three months, The Dears are finally enjoying a much-needed break. Most bands will say that the true artistry of their music comes out in the live show, but for The Dears, it’s just the opposite. Many liken the sound of No Cities Left to that of a musical or cabaret. “I think that the theatrical element of the recorded album comes from having a lot of orchestration and different parts that make it thicker and fuller,” Yanchak says. “We try to recreate that as much as we can live. A lot of time people see us and they’re like, ‘Why do

you have six people?’ If you listen to the album, you discover it’s a lot to bring to the stage.”

Inspired by The Smiths and fueled by similar artistic impulses, a group of Montreal youths formed The Dears in 1995. From the donning of that sweet name to now, frontman Murray Lightburn has carried a banner of love and appreciation for life through music that he intends to drip with genuine emotion. As it is with most bands whose energy flows from one ambitious individual, The Dears were a revolving door of musicians serving Lightburn’s vision until 2000. At that point, the band solidified into its current lineup and released End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story. Met with critical acclaim, the album lifted The Dears from local bar familiarity to national attention.

After only a year, the band entered the studio to record a followup. But this was to be no lazy sophomore release. During three years of production, Lightburn utilized all types of instrumentation and complicated harmonies into his twisting and turning songs. In fact, the credits of No Cities Left proclaim him the writer and director. “[The album] was such an ordeal, such a grand undertaking, that we needed a director,” Yanchak says. “Otherwise that album would have completely fallen apart.” l

LOOKS LIKE RAIN: (L-R) Martin Pelland, George Donoso III, Natalia Yanchak, Murray Lightburn, Valerie Bodoin, Patrick Keriff

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DENISON WITMER

THE WORLD OF A DREAMER

BY DAVID McCORKLE

AFTER HOVERING UNDER THE RADAR for the last several years, Denison Witmer has stepped into mainstream consciousness. Armed with only a guitar, he has opened for great acts like Rosie Thomas, Sufjan Stevens and My Morning Jacket. His most recent album, Are You a Dreamer?, was the first to receive adequate national distribution (thanks to The Militia Group) and has created a buzz in the industry.

“I stayed at a certain level for a while because that’s what I was comfortable doing,” Witmer says. “And now I’m realizing if I have this opportunity, it’s great, and I’d be silly to pass it up.” Don’t expect Denison Witmer to alter his minimalist sound to appeal to a wider audience, though. “You create because you are answering to instinct,” he says. “It’s not about how the world’s going to view it but how you feel creating.”

Some might find that instinct a bit depressing.

Given the melancholic tone of his music, it would be easy to dismiss Witmer as another forlorn singer/ songwriter, but he is quick to correct this notion. “I think that situations can look hopeless,” he says. “But I don’t think they ever are, and I think it’s important to keep that mindset.”

While his previous albums have focused on joy, sorrow and moving to Philadelphia, his latest is a collection of songs journaling the lives of dreams and dreamers. He started the project asking himself questions like, “When I’m asleep at night, what am I subconsciously aspiring toward? When I wake up in the morning and think back over my dreams, loosely interpreting what they mean, how are they playing out in my life?” The songs don’t offer much in the way of answers, but definitely prove that Witmer is capable of asking hard questions.

“I think my faith plays into my songwriting as much as my demons play into my songwriting,” he says. “I think songwriting for me is a journal, and since I have a specific set of beliefs, I can’t dodge those things. I can’t dodge the things that I wrestle with or the things that I rejoice in. And I wouldn’t want to try to, because it would be dishonest to write in a different way. Even if you’re writing fiction, you’re writing truth because it’s coming through the lens of the way you see the world to be.”

That commitment to honesty is obvious in Witmer’s music. He bares so much of himself through his work that when he asks, “Are you a dreamer?” listeners are compelled to consider an answer—or at least face the question. l

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ESTER DRANG DEATH TO LIFE

IT WAS TWO YEARS AGO WHEN THE

Oklahoma-based outfit escaped death by a matter of inches while touring in support of their 2003 release Infinite Keys. They were traveling on the interstate late at night when a car approached them head-on. They braced themselves for a crash, but the driver, band member James McAllister, was able to swerve just before the car hit them. The band’s van swung to the shoulder of the road. The other vehicle hit the rear corner of the band’s hitched trailer and spun into the next lane where the driver collided fatally into a semi.

“It was such a surreal experience stepping out of the van afterward with, miraculously, nothing more than a few scratches on any of us,” vocalist/guitarist/pianist Bryce Chambers says.

“The trailer had been totaled in the accident, so our gear was all over the highway,” guitarist Jeff Shoop says. “I remember rushing to pick up a pile of my records scattered along the road and looking up just in time to see a passing semi demolish a bunch of our guitar pedals and other pieces of equipment.

“So much stuff that we’d personified and placed so much importance on in our lives was destroyed before our eyes; it was almost farcical,” he continues. “At that point I thought to myself, ‘Does this even matter?’ and just dropped everything and walked away.”

After such traumatic circumstances, inspiration was not hard to come by as Ester Drang began work on their third and latest LP

BRICK HOUSE: (L-R) James McAllister, Bryce Chambers, Jeff Shoop

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SPOTLIGHTS

BY MATT INGLE

Rocinate. The album title derives from the fictional Don Quixote’s bruised and battered, yet ever faithful horse, which was later used by John Steinbeck to name his characteristically similar pickup truck in his book Travels with Charlie.

“Following the accident, things that had been valuable to us, like our instruments, didn’t seem nearly as important anymore,” McAllister says. “We look at life a bit differently now—as far as what’s really important in life and what’s not—which certainly inspired at least parts of the new album.”

Soon after a string of tours throughout the summer of 2004, Ester Drang took a much-needed break from the road and spent more than three weeks recording the album in San Francisco with producer Scott Solter (Spoon, John Vanderslice)—an eternity compared to the scant nine days they spent recording Keys.

“This is an important album for us,” McAllister says. “It comes as a follow-up to a couple of years touring nationally and experiencing all that comes with that. We had pretty specific ideas of how we wanted this project to sound, so we took our time and did our best to see that vision through. It’s still not a cool, trendy album by any means, but it’s a lot different than anything we’ve done before. There are melodies and hooks on Rocinate that make it a bit more poppy than what we’ve done in the past, but we were able to present a modern sound without sounding current, if that makes any sense.” l

SITTING PRETTY: (L-R) Justin Baren, Ben Greeno, Andrew Langer (Front) Logan Baren

THE REDWALLS

ON THE RISE

BY ANDY ARGYRAKIS

IN WHAT SEEMED LIKE A BLINK OF AN EYE,

The Redwalls went from playing little local club shows throughout the suburbs of Chicago to inking a deal with Capitol Records. Considering the band members—Logan Baren, Justin Baren, Andrew Langer and Ben Greeno—are between the ages of 20 and 22, such a rocket ride is especially remarkable and is perhaps a foreshadowing of what’s to come in their already storied careers. “It’s what we hoped for when we started out, and even though we didn’t know how long it would take, getting these types of [opportunities] were always our intention,” says vocalist and guitarist Langer. “We’ve spent the past five months straight on the road, so we’re seeing how all of this works out.”

What started as shows in dive bars in front of a few hundred people blossomed to time logged with Brit pop darlings Keane, followed by the recent summer run with Oasis and a fall jaunt with Shout Out Louds. Of course, spending time with the guys who wrote the Top 40 hit “Wonderwall” has been the most overwhelming experience to

date and quite possibly the most perfect considering The Redwalls’ similar blend of shiny melodies, distorted guitars and three-minute radio-worthy nuggets.

“We had a half-hour slot for the whole tour and put all of our best songs into that amount of time,” Langer says of a set list that mixed the group’s Capitol debut De Nova and some forthcoming cuts. “It’s hard to tell what people think of you since the crowds are so huge— basically 60,000 people a night in major football stadiums. A lot of times before an Oasis show, the crowd chants [“Oasis”] really loud during the opening act, but that didn’t happen too much [to us].”

Even though the current project hit streets in 2005, The Redwalls are ready to record another album whenever they finish touring. “We’ve got tons of new songs, but the label wants time to promote the ones we have out,” Langer says. “We’d put out two records a year if we could, but we know that’s not how the game’s played.” F

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RAMMER JAMMER YELLOW HAMMER

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

WARREN ST. JOHN

C.S. LEWIS

PUBLISHER

PUBLISHER

THREE RIVERS

HARPERTROPHY

MEMOIR

FICTION

IMAGINE BEING GRANTED TIME OFF TO CHASE YOUR FAVORITE sports team around the nation. Better yet, imagine getting paid for it.

Warren St. John may have hit on the sports fan’s dream job. In 1999, St. John took leave from The New York Times and returned to the Deep South. The Birmingham, Ala., native spent the fall months documenting not only University of Alabama football, but the fans whose obsession carries them from game to game.

After much cajoling, St. John convinces a couple to allow him onto their RV for the season opener. Though he was raised as a Crimson Tide fan, St. John finds his enthusiasm increased by this group of football fanatics. He purchases a motor home and is accepted by the RVing faithful. St. John befriends a radio announcer who earns countless death threats for his criticism of the team. He meets a ticket broker whose living comes from selling seats to gridiron battles. These and other characters add color to an already exciting football season.

What better team to chronicle than one that claims 12 national championships and some of the toughest fans known to college football?

Crimson Tide supporters have been accused of chewing up coaches and spitting them out. St. John examines the psyche of fans, as well as the challenges they present to university administrators.

Football fans will find their heart rates increased by this chronicle of a championship season, regardless of their loyalties. Before you even complete chapter 1, St. John will have you salivating for the next Saturday match. —CARLA JEAN WHITLEY

GET THE JUNK

OUT OF YOUR TRUNK

BORN AGAIN AND AGAIN

SPIRITUAL LIVES OF

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

DUANE VANDER KLOK

JON M. SWEENEY

PATRICK KAVANAUGH

PUBLISHER

PUBLISHER

PUBLISHER

CHOSEN

PARACLETE

ZONDERVAN

NON-FICTION

NON-FICTION

BIOGRAPHY

Everyone carries around pain from their past, grudges against others and resentment that seems unavoidable. It can seem impossible to pray for those who have hurt us and unlikely that the memories of past transgressions will ever fade. Klok offers scriptural notes and anecdotal stories from his experience as a pastor. He offers helpful advice on how to unload the trunk you might be carrying around and follow Jesus’ example of a junk-free trunk. Klok explains the steps to forgiveness and living with a clean conscience. —ML

110

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE IS ONE OF SEVEN titles in the Chronicles of Narnia series. While ostensibly for children, with its magic and mélange of strange beings, the meaning and message are decidedly adult.

Via a large wardrobe, English siblings Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund end up in Narnia, a magical land where the White Witch rules its creature-citizens through terror. The lion Aslan, son of the great Emperorbeyond-the-Sea, returns to free the land (with brilliant symbolism his spring begins melting the Witch’s perpetual winter), but selfish Edmund secretly sides with the Witch. When Edmund learns all traitors belong to the Witch, only a blood sacrifice can save him.

This leads into the book’s most touching scene—the sacrifice of Aslan. Lewis recreates the crucifixion with fresh eyes: the omnipotent lion allowing himself to undergo numerous humiliations by ghouls and ogres so that unworthy Edmund might go free.

With her knife ready, the Witch gloats, “Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? ... When you are dead, what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who will take him out of my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die.”

Yet strange surprises occur when death is swallowed up in victory, for death is only half of this story.

The movie might be good, but the book’s a classic. —KENT CURRY

BOOK REVIEWS

Born Again and Again is Jon M. Sweeney’s personal story of how the doubts he had about his fundamentalist upbringing led him down a stronger path in his relationship with God. Using his life as a guide, Sweeney discusses the cycle of birth and rebirth that every Christian experiences and the ultimate discovery of a personal belief system. Sweeney attended Bible college and at one point considered becoming a monk, but ended up abandoning fundamentalism and finding peace and balance in his faith. —MM

THE GREAT COMPOSERS

For fans of classical music and lovers of biographical writing, Kavanaugh offers a glimpse into the lives of Handel, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and the amazing composers who wrote the songs mostly confined to elevators these days. His impressive documentation displays his knowledge and love for classical. This book would look great on your coffee table and give you some starting points from the suggested listening section so you can look like you know what you’re talking about. —ML

Face to face with Satan!

Trapped for months in a living hell! Mental torment day and night! And finally…rescued by the power of infinite love!

This is the kind of story that Hollywood dreams of: an encounter with the demonic world in the best tradition of Lovecraft, Craven, and King—yet it is

absolutely true! oin author Clint Byars as he discovers a power

J

greater than the lies of the devil: the power of

truth; the power of the infinite love of Jesus Christ that breaks the chains of his deception, frees him from his hell on earth and brings him for the first time into the world of those who are truly alive!

You’ve never read a personal testimony like

Devil Walk. Once you read Clint Byars’ incredible true story you will never look at Satan the same way again. You will understand that because of Christ there is no reason to fear Satan. He is a “paper lion” and an already defeated enemy!

Devil Walk by Clint M. Byars ISBN 0-924748-51-6 • UPC 88571300021-5 Retail $14.99 • 192 pages • Trade

Available at these fine stores: Anchor Distributors • www.anchordistributors.com • 1-800-444-4484 Amazon • www.amazon.com Berean Christian Stores • www.berean.com Family Christian Stores • www.familychristian.com • 1-888-319-0319

MileStones International Publishers 4410 University Drive, Suite 113 • Huntsville, AL 35816 Phone: 303.503.7257 • www.milestonesintl.com

SNEAKERS: THE COMPLETE COLLECTORS’ GUIDE

THE HISTORIAN

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

UNORTHODOX STYLES

ELIZABETH KOSTOVA

PUBLISHER

PUBLISHER

THAMES & HUDSON

LITTLE BROWN & CO.

NON-FICTION

FICTION

SOME HAVE SAID THAT TO REALLY UNDERSTAND A PERSON, YOU have to walk a mile in his or her shoes. Well, here’s a chance to envision yourself walking in a lot of different shoes. Sneakers: The Complete Collectors’ Guide, written collaboratively by Unorthodox Styles, takes readers on a visual tour of 11 of the top sneaker brands—ranging from Adidas to Converse, Nike to Vans—and introduces the world to a new, urban trend: examining sneaker brands through the ages. If you have never heard of sneaker collecting or doubt its existence, walk into any shoe store and observe all of the different styles of sneakers available— old-school styles, classic styles, sneakers that look like they can talk, sneakers that look like they can fly.

This book serves as an encyclopedia to help you put your best foot forward on your way to becoming an avid sneaker-collecting enthusiast.

Each section is divided according to brand and includes information like the year of first release for a particular shoe, the shoe’s intended purpose and a random fact about each shoe discussed. Still not convinced?

Try this on for size: the 256-page, full-color book includes a timeline of the evolution of the sneaker, a collector’s guide to crafting your potential new hobby and a list of the top stores and websites to help get you started with your collection. Sneakers is an informative pictorial for those interested in becoming part of a counter-culture, sneaker-collecting phenomenon, one that really gets to the heart and sole of the most sought-after sneaker designs. —REBECCA MERCURIO

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WHEN THE UNNAMED NARRATOR OF THE HISTORIAN IS 16, SHE finds a packet of mysterious old letters in her father’s library addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor”... and the adventure begins.

The story unfolds across five decades and follows three major characters in different times and different countries, bound together by the same obsession: Dracula. This Dracula is not a stiff-limbed, black-andwhite Bela Lugosi—he is the historic figure Vlad the Impaler, who fought the Ottoman invasion of his Transylvanian homeland and was renowned for his peculiar habit of torturing people (even his own) with sharp spikes when they didn’t do exactly what he wanted. Charming fellow.

This debut novel from Elizabeth Kostova has, for good reasons, been a surprise hit. It is a fast-paced and suspenseful read, but remarkably literary. Kostova’s exhaustive research into the archaic vampire legends of Europe and the Middle East is startling, as is her ability to paint in the scenery of her wide-ranging sets. Her characters are tragically flawed and very, very human.

The Historian has been compared to The Da Vinci Code because both novels are concerned with unraveling an ancient mystery and realizing its implications for the here and now. That said, Kostova blows Dan Brown out of the water, and not just because she doesn’t try to dismantle 2,000 years of Christian orthodoxy. The Historian is outstanding because it does exactly what a vampire fable should do: tell us about ourselves. —ALY HAWKINS

MEALTIME HABITS OF THE MESSIAH

SPECIMEN DAYS

MEAN GIRLS ALL GROWN UP

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

CONRAD GEMPF

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM

HAYLEY DIMARCO

PUBLISHER

PUBLISHER

PUBLISHER

ZONDERVAN

FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX

REVELL

RELIGION

FICTION

NON-FICTION

Written by one of the TNIV translators, Mealtime Habits sets out to examine 40 encounters with Jesus that might otherwise go unexplored. Gempf uses sharp humor and sometimes startling pictures of Jesus to ask passionate questions of us all. Are we picking up the habits that our Master set out to teach us? Short enough to be a devotional but steeped in theology like a textbook, this is “food for thought” for anyone who wants to explore Jesus more. —DK

This latest book by Michael Cunningham has received a fair amount of criticism for being too similar in structure to his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Hours. And in spite of the compelling characters, strong writing and page-turning storyline, you may find yourself wondering what the novel was really about.

The three stories (“In the Machine,” “The Children’s Crusade” and “Like Beauty”) seem to lack enough connecting tissue to hold each of them together. However, the author does a fine job of showing us how the past whispers the truths of America. —KM

BOOK REVIEWS

This is one of those books you either need or you don’t. If you are a woman suffering at the hands of other women through gossip, backhanded compliments or straight-up meanness, you should read this book. It would also be helpful if you can be honest enough with yourself to realize that you are the person this book was written for.

DiMarco gives advice from Scripture and other wise sources on how to reverse the impact of mean women and the damage they can cause. She encourages women to live out more productive friendships based on biblical principles of kindness and selflessness. —ML

AMBER PACIFIC

THE POSSIBILITY AND THE PROMISE (HOPELESS)

RITA SPRINGER I HAVE TO BELIEVE (FOUND)

GENRE:

GENRE:

PUNK

WORSHIP

:LYRICS

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Amber Pacific hits all the important elements of a good pop-punk record. With melodic tunes and the ever-present double drum bass beat, this quintet has created a strong sophomore album. Add the energetic vocals of frontman Matt Young, and you’ll find yourself pumping your fists in the air and singing along. —JPW

Already one of the big names in worship, Rita Springer is back with I Have to Believe, a moving worship experience. Like her other albums, this one boasts a collection of songs that will make an impact on all who hear them. Powerful lyrics combined with Springer’s soulful voice promise to guide listeners on the journey to next-level worship. —RM

THE CLOUD ROOM

PROJECT 86

THE CLOUD ROOM (GIGANTIC)

...AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW (TOOTH & NAIL)

GENRE:

GENRE:

SYNTH-ROCK

HARD ROCK

:LYRICS

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Wielding a nicely melodic brand of synth-rock, The Cloud Room rides on the crest of the New York New Wave to deliver their eponymous debut album. Buoyed by the infectious single “Hey Now Now,” The Cloud Room floats on a sea of guitars and analog keyboards that keep it hipster-friendly but accessible. —JA

With their fifth studio release, Project 86 manages to do the impossible—combine beautifully crafted lyrics with hard-hitting chords. The title track delicately laces piano melodies with macabre vocals to create one of the most beautiful tracks on the album. Project 86 shows no signs of slowing with their most intricately composed release yet. —BM

We’ll join you on the Journey. “ Grace Theological Seminary gave me a very high view of God’s Word and the tools to handle it accurately. I was deeply touched that my instructors not only cared about my development as a pastor, but also as a person.” ~ Kary Oberbrunner, Grace Seminary M.Div. 01 Pastor and Founder of Redeem the Day Ministries www.redeemtheday.org Author of The Journey Towards Relevance, Relevant Books 2004 In today’s world, it’s not about getting a diploma, but the process of becoming the right kind of person. Seminary is one way God will challenge you beyond anything you ever imagined: • Exceptional academic training • Spiritual growth in community • Personal mentoring • The tools to help real people face real-life challenges

To get your free copy of Grace Theological Seminary’s new brochure “Continuing the Journey” call 800-54-GRACE, ext. 6435 or order online at www.relevantseminary.com

ELBOW

LEADERS OF THE FREE WORLD (V2)

ROYKSOPP

THE UNDERSTANDING (ASTRALWERKS)

GENRE:

GENRE:

ALT-ROCK

ELECTRONICA

:LYRICS

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

To say that the UK’s Elbow evolves from record to record would be a gross understatement, and on the band’s third release, Leaders of the Free World, that evolution continues. Much of the instrumentation is reminiscent of another UK band, Doves, and songs like “Station Approach” and “Forget Myself” are immensely enjoyable. —KW

Norway’s pre-eminent techno duo is back with their sophomore album, and it doesn’t disappoint. With down-tempo, Air-meets-Moby chill music, this record feels less like an after-hours rave than dawn the morning after. Glacial beats and ethereal swoon are the order of the day, with a fun bit of R&B (“49 Percent”) to boot. —BM

SHELBY

DWELE

THE LUXURY OF TIME (GIGANTIC)

SOME KINDA... (VIRGIN)

GENRE:

GENRE:

INDIE-ROCK

R&B

:LYRICS

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Shelby harkens back to early ’90s Britain, when bands like My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Radiohead were making some great music. Noisy and very melodic, Shelby’s first full-length album is pleasingly pop and sounds vaguely like what might have happened if Kevin Shields had been born in America or if Thom Yorke had ever been happy. —JA

Dwele brings a soulful sound in his latest album, which is mostly about being a lady’s man. Dwele’s velvety, Stevie Wonder-like voice is accented by slower beats and beautiful keyboards to create a style that is modern, clean and sophisticated. Unfortunately, his lyrics aren’t as clean as his music. —JPW

SARA GROVES ADD TO THE BEAUTY (INO)

PILOTDRIFT WATER SPHERE (GOOD)

GENRE:

GENRE:

POP

ALT-ROCK

:LYRICS

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Sara Groves’ conversational style packs profound ideas into simple words. Add to the Beauty boasts straightforward lyrics, which has always been Groves’ strength. The piano-infused melodies show off her vocal range, and her poignant expressions will stick in your mind. This album is part inspirational, part challenging and wholly enjoyable. —JG

Ethereal, mystical, atmospheric and sometimes downright creepy, Pilotdrift defies definition. Though they have been compared to Pink Floyd, Radiohead and Muse, this quintet has no trouble mixing rock guitar with rhythmic beats, synthesizer sounds, piano, brass and violins. —JPW

CARTEL

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS

CHROMA (MILITIA GROUP)

TWIN CINEMA (MATADOR) GENRE:

GENRE:

PUNK

INDIE-ROCK

:LYRICS

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

These modern-day minstrels have built their reputation by crafting outrageously catchy songs and touring like madmen. While the production values and basic structure of Cartel’s debut album owe much to other influences, songs like “Burn This City” and “Settle Down” prove they’ve got the talent to compete. —DM

Though their name causes many parents to run for the hills, this Vancouver nine-piece collective is anything but offensive. Rather, their sweetly tuned, harmonious power-pop could be called life-affirming.

On the group’s third full length, they give us 14 tracks of lovely balladry, witty word play, danceable ditties and driving anthems. —BM

SIGUR RÓS

OHMEGA WATTS

TAKK... (GEFFEN)

THE FIND (UBIQUITY)

GENRE:

GENRE:

INDIE-POP

HIP-HOP

N/A :LYRICS

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:MUSIC

N/A :SPIRITUAL CONTENT

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

In the tradition of their other polyphonic endeavors, Sigur Rós’ latest release, Takk..., proves that the Icelandic quartet can get away with just about any musical endeavor. The fifth track, “Se Lest,” takes listeners on a journey from an orchestra to an audible circus and, like nearly all of the other tracks, remains a haunting yet whimsical melody. —RM

The Find is helping MC and producer Ohmega Watts gain recognition.

Combining a unique lyrical style spun over old-school beats, his Jamaican heritage is proudly displayed. Sometimes compared to the musical stylings of A Tribe Called Quest or the Pharcyde, his 22-track album is evidence of his creative genius. —BM

FEIST

CONSTANTINES

LET IT DIE (INTERSCOPE)

TOURNAMENT OF HEARTS (SUB POP) GENRE:

GENRE:

JAZZ/FOLK

INDIE-ROCK

:LYRICS

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Don’t let Canadian-born singer Feist’s soulfully honest and vulnerable crooning let you assume that she is a “newbie” on the music scene.

This experienced singer/songwriter, who opened for the Ramones as a teen, brings a moody album of storytelling folk and mixes it with “doowop” melodies reminiscent of several decades gone by. —SF

The Toronto quintet’s latest effort oozes raw rock, evoking old legends and forging new frontiers. On “Soon Enough,” vocalists Steve Lambke and Bryan Webb sing with a wisdom and edge reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen. Addictive drum beats and guitar-driven melodies flow through each song. —JM

DAVID CROWDER BAND

A COLLISION (SPARROW/SIXSTEPRECORDS)

LYRICS:

MUSIC:

SPIRITUAL CONTENT:

GENRE:

WORSHIP

Mixing bluegrass and piano-driven ballads with its familiar rock and pop sensibilities, David Crowder Band takes worship music to an elevated experience. Their follow-up to Illuminate shows the progressive growth of frontman David Crowder as a songwriter, as well as the group’s maturity in musical composition. DCB delivers an eclectic collection of songs that range from the fast-paced “Foreverandever Etc.” to the unhurried introspective “O God, Where Are You Now.” Sprinkled throughout the album are short interludes, and several of the tracks suggest that DCB is far from done with experimenting different genres into its anthology. A Collision is remarkably fresh and sonically carries out the task its title suggests. —WON KIM

DAVID GRAY

LIFE IN SLOW MOTION (ATO)

LYRICS:

MUSIC:

SPIRITUAL CONTENT:

GENRE:

FOLK-ROCK

The much-anticipated follow-up to the very successful A New Day at Midnight finds David Gray eschewing the home studio production values of previous albums for the cinematic scope of the “full scale” studio environment. The result is possibly the most sonically satisfying David Gray album ever. Life in Slow Motion manages to combine Gray’s poetically precise lyricism with the vast lushness of live instrumentation. Songs like the panoramic “Now and Always” and the orchestral album opener “Alibi” soar while the delicate “From Here You Can Almost See the Sea” retains the intimacy that David Gray fans have come to love. Lyrically, Gray has turned storyteller, moving away from the introspection of his earlier albums in order to write some of his most mature and complete work to date. —JACK ARNOLD

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE PLANS (ATLANTIC)

LYRICS:

MUSIC:

SPIRITUAL CONTENT:

GENRE:

INDIE-ROCK

With Plans, Death Cab for Cutie has accomplished a feat above and beyond other bands of its caliber.

Where most indie bands might attempt to redefine themselves and their sound after huge success and a subsequent major label deal, DCFC has stuck with what works. While evolving in musicality and style, the Seattle-based band has not ventured into territory its fans cannot follow.

Although Plans feels lighter in tone upon first listen than Transatlanticism, Ben Gibbard writes in darker corners than before. He uses the ideas of love and death almost interchangeably, from the delicate “Soul Meets Body” to the raw and naked “I Will Follow You into the Dark.” This album captures Gibbard’s signature storytelling style and makes Plans one of the best albums of 2005. —CHRIS TROUTMAN

ROSIE THOMAS

IF SONGS COULD BE HELD (SUB POP)

LYRICS:

MUSIC:

SPIRITUAL CONTENT:

GENRE:

INDIE-ROCK

After a two-year curtsy, Rosie Thomas has emerged with her third record, If Songs Could Be Held, a lovely blanket of bright and somber choruses gingerly written in nods to love, hope, death and tomorrows.

Thomas’ fictitious writing for the album translates through the canvas of her piano; the luminosity of her voice recedes and overwhelms in forms of poignant questions and romance. “Guess It May” swells, leaving delicate imprints of a surrendered heart, as “Death Came and Got Me” pioneers a wicked layer of her vocals, creating an abruptly simple effect that captures awaited brilliance. Thomas’ ability to compose a ballet of honest, elegantly told melodies is a safety net for those of us who depend on her to articulate what we long to conceal. —KIMI RASPA

The devotional companion to Under God opens each reading with Scripture and a theme—including justice, mercy, and sacrifice—illustrated in lives and events of our country’s past. Readers are challenged to live their lives boldly as revolutionaries for Christ.

Living Under God

by Toby Mac and Michael Tait

Available at your local bookstore or by calling 1-866-241-6733

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE • ROSIE THOMAS • DAVID CROWDER BAND • DAVID GRAY

Photo: Getty

KANYE WEST CLASS IS BACK IN SESSION THE GOLDEN BOY OF HIP-HOP IS BACK, DROPPING WHAT MAY BE the most anticipated rap record of the year. No longer just a hot producer, Kanye West stepped up his game with last year’s The College Dropout and picked up a handful of Grammys for his troubles. The beats were tight, the rhymes ranging from poignant to tongue-in-cheek, confessional to confrontational; it was a stunning debut, perhaps aided by the fact that no one expected it to be such a tour de force. The College Dropout proved the naysayers wrong. Does Late Registration show that it wasn’t just beginner’s luck?

Yes ... and no. Make no mistake, West’s Midas touch continues on this album. It’s chock-full of head-bobbing beats and breakdowns, flowing with smooth rhymes and rhythms. In fact, it’s even more pleasing to the ear musically than West’s first. His use of samples has gotten better, creating instrumental backings that aren’t simply window dressing for his emcee skills. Once again, the guests are plentiful, from the predictable (Jay-Z and Common) to the unexpected (Adam Levine of Maroon 5). The skits are also back. They’re funny on the first few listens, but after that, you’ll be skipping them to get to the meat of the album.

For all of his promise, West continues fighting his lyrical demons.

As is all too prevalent in the world of rap, there’s profanity a-plenty on this album. Degrading language about sex and women is also present, which is even more frustrating given the tough issues that he is willing to tackle. “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” addresses blood diamonds from conflict-torn Africa while “Crack Music” wrestles with the drug addiction

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of choice within the African-American populace. “Addiction” may be the perfection articulation of the dual nature of West’s work. He decries the evil that he struggles with, yet celebrates it within the same breath: Why everything that’s supposed to be bad, make me feel so good?

It’s this eternal fight that colors the whole record, making it the logical step forward from The College Dropout. The overall impact is a sense of confusion, even desperation. How do we break free from our sins?

West says it best on “Touch the Sky”: I’m trying to right my wrongs, but it’s funny, them same wrongs helped me write this song ... The moral struggle is hard, the battle long. Here’s hoping that he’ll be able to fully utilize his amazing skills in the future without having to concede to the worn-out, profane lyrical clichés.—JEREMY HUNT

KANYE WEST LATE REGISTRATION (ROC-A-FELLA) GENRE:

HIP-HOP :LYRICS

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT