It was just about a year ago we started filming Blue Like Jazz the movie, and since then we’ve been feverishly editing the film, adding a soundtrack and test screening the film. At first, the movie ran for nearly two hours, but not we’ve got it down to 97 minutes and the movie, in my “objective” opinion, is singing. Seriously, it’s getting great reviews, and this is without color correction or sound editing, two factors that take a movie over the top. So far, we are getting about 45% of the audiences saying the movie was excellent, about 49% saying it’s “very good” and the rest liked it a little less. Out of the thousands who have screened it so far, only 6 people rated the movie as “poor.” Of course, that’s going to happen no matter what we do, but we are still making the movie even stronger and by the time it hits theaters I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised. The number one comment we get when we screen the film is “finally.” And by that they mean “finally a film that talks about faith that feels normal, not preachy, not heavy on agenda but [...]
Each work morning I read a bit of the Bible. I don’t study it, I just read it. It’s my morning coffee and conversation with a power greater than myself. It centers me and without it I think I’d be distracted at work, distracted by a bunch of stuff that doesn’t matter. This morning I was reading through Psalm 7. There’s a humble thought in the Psalm where David asks God to “trample his life to the ground and lay his soul in the dust” if he has ever screwed over a friend or an ally. David was a dramatic guy. He was a passionate leader, or at least a passionate writer (something tells me he was a bit more sober in person as passion inspires but leadership needs to be measured). Regardless, the thought occurred to me that we often need to pray against ourselves. I was taking communion a few weeks ago in Nashville, at one of my favorite churches. My friend Jim Chaffee happened to be delivering communion that day and as I stood in line to go forward, I prayed about what to pray. Literally, I asked God what He wanted me to say to Him [...]
I make a lot of decisions using intuition, which researchers are beginning to understand as more reliable, and less mystical than previously thought. Intuition is really about pattern recognition, about subconsciously picking up on conflicting patterns in a situation. One of the more discussed examples of intuitive decision making has to do with a fire chief who, shortly after entering a burning house, commanded all his men leave the house immediately without really understanding why. He said the decision came from his gut, that “something wasn’t right” and he wanted his men out of the house. That decision saved the lives of his men, as seconds after exiting the house the floor collapsed. If they’d have stayed in the house, everybody would have been killed. When interviewed about his decision, the fire chief couldn’t explain his decision logically. Some of the men under his command attributed the command to a higher force, a sort of guardian angel. But guardian angel or not, by design our brains work to protect us from making mistakes, and often we have no explanation as to why. On further investigation, several things were happening in that fire that worked to inform the fire chief’s subconscious. [...]
Last year I had the chance to have dinner with Matthew Perryman Jones. My flight out of Nashville was cancelled and I found myself, suitcase in hand, standing outside the Nashville airport dismayed because all I wanted to do was go home. But there was a part of me that wondered if something good could happen, if I couldn’t “create a reason” for being stuck in Nashville. I made some calls and the night turned out to be great, one of the best I had that season. Within a few hours I was having dinner at a Mexican restaurant with a couple singer/songwriters and producers. One of them was Matthew Perryman Jones. Matthew doesn’t know me very well but I’m a fan of his music. Over dinner he talked about where he was in his career and how he’s returning to his heart, to his love for self expression as a way to connect with others. As I listened, I knew he’d evolved as an already talented songwriter into an artist who longed for a more personal relationship with his audience and wanted to serve them as a friend. Matthew writes songs about his life and the way it echoes [...]
Here’s a secret I learned long ago. It’s a big one and it’ll propel you into a future of greatness…. STOP TAKING SOCIAL CUES FROM YOUR PEERS. Instead of taking social cues from people your age, take cues from people ten and twenty years older than you. Are you looking for a church that has a lot of people who are your age so you can hang out? That’s fine, but try looking for one where most of the people have families and perhaps a little grey hair. Why? Because the sooner you can relate to their priorities, the sooner you’ll be ready for the next stage of life. I’m in my late thirties but I’m more interested in hanging out with people who are retired. What’s it teaching me? It’s teaching me what matters later in life is friendships, family and love. In matters of faith, what matters to them is not theological debate, but closeness with Jesus and unity with believers.
