Saturday, March 12, 2011

Sermon In B flat

There's nothing really "web 2.0" about Morris, OK.  A handful of my church-members have blogs or twitter accounts, and a larger group have facebook pages, but quite a few more have dial up connections or nothing and don't really know how to use the computer.  (They sure could school me on repairing a light socket or running a tractor or birthing a cow though.)  But, since this is my context, I sometimes hesitate to unleash something like the following at church, though I really want to.  So, instead--you are the web 2.0 church I preach to, mkay?

Today's sermon comes with a hat tip to Darren Solomon of "Science for Girls" who created the "In Bflat" collaborative music project, which I heard about today on NPR in the car and pulled over to write a note to myself to check it out when I got home.  (Okay, I didn't pull over, I just drove with my knee while fishing around the car for a pen--hey the roads are pretty straight and trafficless here in rural OK).  The link to the In Bflat thing is here:
http://inbflat.net/
The idea I had today (Saturday, which is the day before Sunday) was to set up the webpage in the church service and then have the congregation call out different instruments to start, etc.  I just know something would probably go wrong though: probably get a hang up with my wifi or something, and I imagine half the congregation would kinda not know what the hell was going on anyway.

But if I were to pull out this cool thing (and I still may next week), what I would like to relate it to is the power of a common theme (such as the season of Lent or the key of Bflat) to make sense of or harmonize various sounds or experiences.  So, abiding by a season of faith is essentially a collaborative exercise.  People all over the world are reflecting on temptation, struggle, repentance, mortality, wilderness, and preparing to receive the mind blowing newness of resurrection, grace, and transcendence.