Categories: uncategorized
Date: 12 July 2007 08:53:58
Ok, so I've been focusing on music over the last couple of entries and to a certain extent I'm going to be keeping that up. However, I realise just as I've been priviledged to have heard some of the best artists of my generation play (The Cure, U2, Green Day, etc, etc) I've also heard a number of the best Christian speakers preach over the last couple of decades aswell. So I've decided to kind of start doing a double header of remembering (because let's face it as my daughter constantly reminds me I am a geek).
Oh and before anybody thinks I'm going to build it up, no chance. Incase I get bored I'm starting with the best.
So today it's Green Day & Tony Campolo .
The Green Day performance I'm going for is Milton Keynes June 2005. My entry at the time sums it up. It was, a wonderful summers day, with the sun shining down. Tens of thousands of people, of a variety of ages (most between 15- 45) coming together to enjoy themselves. The headlining band playing the biggest career of their lives, following an album that catches the mood of a generation. As I went onto say, it was quite honestly the best gig I have ever seen. When they played a cover of We Are the Champions as part of the encore it wasn't wishful thinking, it was a gig of a generation :D
For Tony Campolo I'm going back to Detling 2003 . A vintage set of talks by a master craftsman, which I'm currently reliving with our housegroup. If you want to learn to dream again, to think again and to understand why it is actually quite healthy when your teenager is driving you mad with their lively personality, imaginative language and rather scary antics, rather than passively sitting there saying "whatever" and meaning it, I can't recommend this set of 5 talks enough.
So what is it about these which was so special? Well first off they allow the audience to enjoy themselves and have a laugh, although both intersperse the fun with some really serious stuff to think about. They don't take themselves too seriously and yet they realise they are doing professional jobs and appear to be giving it 100%. Both use intelligent simplicity to connect with both the audience and the spirit of the age. In doing that both challenge the dominant values and show how both absurd and dangerous those values can be. They also seem to value their audiences in a way other big name groups and preachers don't always appear to.