The Christian Imagination

As part of my involvement in the coffee house community that we call Everyday Joe’s Coffee House, I mix sound for about 2 concerts a month, and have done so for 3 years or so.

I love live music, and this gives me a good incentive to not only hear their music, to but serve the musicians and get to know them a little better. It also gets me outside myself, as I have to be attentive to bringing out the best sound possible for any given song, to help the musicians enjoy themselves, and to keep the audience in mind as well. It’s rather surreal, really.

And while the sound is very important, so is the human element. Caring about people, and caring about the sound, and encouraging the musicians, and learning to empathize better with all that they have been through lately (driving, touring, lack of sleep, etc). We have all sorts of musicians from all sorts of places playing all sorts of styles come through our doors and grace our stage. Some share our faith in Christ, others don’t, but every weekend, we have an opportunity to love on them, and listen to them, and hear them, and it’s wonderful. The really cool part is how we’ve been able to build an extended family with some musicians and our coffee house community.

It just occured to me today that my life as a part-time volunteer sound tech is very relevant to this blog, yet I haven’t talked much about it, so this is a start. We hear a lot of great independent and soon-to-be-more-famous musicians, and there are some great ones to know. I may share some concert experiences, and who knows, maybe eventually I’ll have an occasional interview.

And if you are a musician and would like to play at our coffee house in Fort Collins, Colorado, let us know.

The following presentation was given at TED by Larry Lessig, author of Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. I am still processing what he said, but he does make some good points. The presentation is about 20 minutes, and includes the 1-minute Jesus “I Will Survive” remix, and the George Bush/Tony Blair remix, which may offend.

Amazon has the following description of the book, which has some similar themes to the presentation:

Lawrence Lessig, “the most important thinker on intellectual property in the Internet era” (The New Yorker), masterfully argues that never before in human history has the power to control creative progress been so concentrated in the hands of the powerful few, the so-called Big Media. Never before have the cultural powers- that-be been able to exert such control over what we can and can’t do with the culture around us. Our society defends free markets and free speech; why then does it permit such top-down control? To lose our long tradition of free culture, Lawrence Lessig shows us, is to lose our freedom to create, our freedom to build, and, ultimately, our freedom to imagine.

Paste Magazine is one of the fastest growing entertainment publications in the US. Based in Decatur, Georgia, the magazine was founded as a quarterly in July 2002 by Josh Jackson, Nick Purdy, and Tim Porter. The magazine’s mission is to discover and champion Signs of Life in Music, Film & Culture, introducing its readers to inspired and inspiring music, books, film, games and other art forms. In 2005, Paste was listed at #21 on The Chicago Tribune’s list of “50 Best Magazines.” It was also named Magazine of the Year by the PLUG Independent Music Awards in both 2006 and 2007.

Paste Magazine is available nationwide, including every Borders and Tower in North America. They even followed in the steps of Radiohead and let readers choose their own price for a limited period of time. It’s primary focus is on music, most noteably adult-album-alternative, Americana and indie rock.

One Paste writer, Andy Whitman, had this to say about Paste:

A few months later the first issue of Paste Magazine showed up in my mailbox…It was a slick, professional-looking magazine, printed on nice paper, with color photos and an eye-catching layout, and a bunch of genuinely well-written articles on music, film, books, and popular culture….

They had a vision for something a lot better than a photocopied fanzine, and a vision for engaging the culture as Christians. They didn’t put out a “Christian” magazine. That was never their intention. But they put out a magazine that was true to its tagline: “Signs of Life in Music, Film, and Culture.” By focusing on what was excellent, creative, thought-provoking, beautiful, challenging — wherever it might be found — they tried to raise the level of general cultural discourse.

Paste Magazine. Quality publication. Founded by Christians. Part of the conversation with the culture at large.

Everyday Joe’s Coffee House is a nonprofit coffee house in downtown Fort Collins, Colorado. This is the outreach ministry of Timberline Oldtown Church, which meets in the coffee house on Sunday mornings. It’s the coffee house and church of which I am a part.

What does it mean to do ‘outreach’ and ‘ministry’? They are two words that have gained a fairly negative reputation among non-Christians…and even among some Christians. While noble in intent, they sometimes end up being nothing more than one-way communication from Christian to non-Christian, where no real communication takes place, and no relationship is built. When we talk and fail to listen, it can leave a bad taste in people’s mouths.

What does it mean to be a coffee house, run by Christians? Everyday Joe’s Coffee House is a place people come to. Conversation takes place. Walls come down. God works in our midst. He works in people’s hearts here, but not because of programs, but more because we provide a space where we get out of the way, a space where people can be themselves, a space where we can listen and gain understanding with one another. We have concerts on Friday and Saturday, but the concerts may or may not be performed by Christians. We have art on the walls, sometimes by Christians, sometimes not. We have little to none religious imagery. Is this our philosophy of ministry? No, it comes from our heart of who we are.

It’s a crossroads that not everyone is comfortable with. For some who favor an overt Christian message, we’re not Christian enough. For some who know we’re affiliated with a church, the fact that we’re Christians is enough for them to distrust us. But for others, there’s dialogue…and community. We learn from each other and get closer to each other as fellow humans.

We strive for quality too, because people are important. Sometimes in Christian circles we are cheap, really cheap, all while telling people how much we love them. We have our financial limitations, but even so, we have a quality espresso machine, use high end coffee, make homemade chai, and train our mostly volunteer staff how to pull quality shots. It’s good coffee. If you’re ever in Northern Colorado, please stop by.

For more information visit our website at www.everydayjoes.org.

Our executive director maintained a blog for a few years that has a number of details about Everyday Joe’s.

Our event coordinator just started a new blog to go along with our e-newsletter called Appendix E-J. The latest post, written by me, is here.

Let me know if you have any questions.