So what is a song? What's it's for? What is it about a particular marriage of lyric and rhythm and melody that makes a spirit rise from the dead, as it were, and find new energy for the day. When I was in high school, I listened to Janis Ian's famous album that contained "At …
Does Art Matter?
I've rarely asked this question. I've always believed in my bones that it does. But in exiting paid ministry, in which lives can change pretty dramatically as a direct or indirect result of your work, I wonder not only about the theatre, but about art in general. Who gets their busted lives put back together …
Sacred vs. Secular
Here's a question...help me out here: we use the terms "sacred" and "secular" to categorize certain events, phenomenon, and experiences. Skipping the obvious, that these can be helpful categories in distinguishing various lens' by which we see the world, how do you define, and differentiate between, "sacred" and "secular"? Are they helpful distinctions, or should …
Light, Visual Life, and The Hopper
Yesterday I led worship in A Cappella, then preached both services, and went home and crashed, as wiped out as I’ve been in a long time. Sick for most of the week, I propped up on the coach and through one lazy eye managed to watch a few more episodes of the first season of …
Thinking about The Placebo Effect
I don't know much about this, really, but in reading about the brain, science, and belief, it seems clear that somehow human beings are made to be people of faith. I don't necessarily mean people of religious faith (although I think were made for that, too...the imago dei, and all that). I mean that we …
JEFF BERRYMAN 