I was reminded of the joy of being part of God’s creation by my daughter. It has been a long time since I last read E.E. Cummings. And, although I sometimes find it hard to thank God for certain days, like returning to work on Monday, I never find it hard to thank Him for giving me such a wonderful daughter.

Thank you for highlighting this magnificent poem.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

As Christmas draws near I find myself reflecting on some of the more controversial aspects of the emerging church. If this reflects the dominant thinking of the emergent church, I am not a fan. Carson gives an interesting perspective on the emerging church here.

I tend to share Michael Lee’s view. I mean, who really wants to dress gothic or grunge these days.

We arrived at Lakewood Church about an hour before the service started. And I really was not prepared for the incredible size of this church. The facility is remarkable. Imagine taking a large arena, like the Air Canada Centre, and converting it into a church.

As mentioned in a previous post here, Lakewood invested over $90 million in renovating the arena.

It shows.

The sound system was certainly the best that I have heard in any church and, for that matter, in any concert setting. I was amazed at the clarity and fidelity of the sound at various locations across the facility. I did not get up into the rafters however the main seating areas all presented the sound effectively.

We listened to the sound check and I have a brief video clip of the sound check here. I estimate the average SPL at roughly 95 – 100 dB. They were not afraid to let the music go loud.

The production environment was world-class and state-of-the-art. No doubt that the audio/visual environment is one of the best in the world.

Some interesting observations. The Yamaha concert grand piano was donated to the church by Yamaha. The piano was about $150,000. Sony donated over $200,000 in flat screens for the music stands. The platform for the musicians is on hydraulics. Their stage lowers when they are not playing and rises when they do play.

The church fields a vocal choir of roughly 100 people. The worship band consisted of drums, percussion, keyboard, grand piano, bassist, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and a horn section.

No monitor wedges. Everyone uses in ear monitors.

Best worship team I have ever heard. They were led by Cindy Ratcliff.

Joel Osteen spoke. I had heard that he teaches a prosperity gospel and that his teaching is pretty simple. His message confirmed what I had heard. However, he does have a lot of charisma. I left the church challenged and encouraged.

This would not be the kind of church that I would want to attend on a regular basis although it sure would be fun to be part of their worship team. Great musicians.

Here is the video of the soundcheck at Lakewood.

The picture below has eight different perspectives. Spend a few moments and see how many you can make out.

It is a bit of a strange test. Some people will be able to see all eight perspectives and others will not. Even those who can see the different views will have trouble holding some in mind and getting them to come to mind when they want to evoke them.

In some ways, this picture, because of its multiple perspectives, provides the best example of personality. The personality of an individual person is based on the attitudes and behaviors that get conveyed to others in various situations.

Some attitudes and behaviors will only become apparent in certain situations, while others will be fairly obvious at all times.

The difference between this picture and life, is that the picture is much less complex. We create mental representations of almost everything we experience and these mental representations are combined and separated regularly.

Leo Tolstoy had this to say about perspective:

“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

I spent several hours last night learning to see things from a different perspective.

It was very hard. Much harder than making out the different perspectives in the picture below.