The Goings on and Work of Sam Mahlstadt

The other day I wrote a brief post highlighting some great collaborative projects, and my desire for the church to pick up the need for artistic collaboration among creatives.

The producer generation has limitless connections, and it seems like six degrees of separation has become more like two or three with the networks of Facebook, Twitter, and the like. This generation values and understands the necessity of collaboration. We have a deep desire for community, and the humble (although many times this gets overshadowed by insecurity) sense that we can’t do it alone.

If the church can embrace and empower artistic collaboration as a new generation explores past the boundaries the previous generation placed on our faith, the possibilities are endless.

Our faith will take on new dimensions, our understanding of God will be stretched and deepened and our communities will become stronger. Even our Bibles will embrace a more holistic view of the faith that would have seemed heretical in the previous generation.

You can sample The Voice by downloading the Gospel of John, here.

I read a great article on the tendency to get selfish (and ineffective) when the going gets rough from MSNBC Business.

Here is the bottom line: when you turn inward, whether in glory or defeat, the team suffers. Always. There is no room for selfishness on a team. I’d even go as far as to say that a team with selfish members (or even one member ) can be successful outwardly, and all the while, the team is crumbling internally.It’s not sustainable.

And how about selfishness when it comes to the personal victories and defeats of people of faith? When we turn inward, rather than recognize the One who spoke this whole thing into being, things can get pretty ugly, pretty fast. The tendency to focus on ourselves creates distance between ourselves and the one who desires to dwell amongst us.

Just a reminder: This isn’t about you. Lift your eyes, friends.

If you’re searching for yet another reason to hate BP and distrust Washington, here it is. No, I’m not talking about the dead birds, befouled beaches, or zillions in damages inflicted on millions of Americans by the incompetents at BP (enabled by clueless federal regulators). Rather, I’m talking about the way our nation will overreact to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. That overreaction will cause us far greater damage than the disaster itself will, because we’ll import more oil than we otherwise would and produce less of our own.

This is taken from an article published on Fortune; you can read the rest of the article here.

I find this outlook understandable, but a bit depressing. It seems like we just don’t understand the proven dangers of our oil dependency. It’s not about where it comes from, it’s about our insessant use. We are an oil addicted country because we are a country that can’t be satisfied. The writer goes on to say,

“…it’s going to take extraordinary bravery and wise, long-term-oriented political leaders to keep us exploring and developing our own oil and gas.”

That. Is. Scary.

I was having a casual conversation with a guy yesterday about raising money. He was inquiring about a project I am working on, and was curious as to how I would seek out funding.

In a rather funny turn of events (as he didn’t know my background) he said that I should start a church. I informed him that I had been part of a church plant last year, and that they weren’t exactly always a cash cow. I asked him why he thought starting a church would lead to significant financial contribution. His insight struck me initially as funny, but all too often true.

From his perspective, outside of faith and organized religion, I think he is calling it as he sees it:

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From a June 1st BP press release:

The cost of the response to date amounts to about $990 million, including the cost of the spill response, containment, relief well drilling, grants to the Gulf states, claims paid and federal costs. It is too early to quantify other potential costs and liabilities associated with the incident.

While I know I have allocated plenty of blog time and space to the BP oil spill, I truly believe this may be the issue that the church neglects in this decade. While “going green” is fairly hip right now, and there are churches out there who are taking a stand in environmental issues, it is still a rarity to hear faith-based groups speaking up after issues like this. The problem lies in our inability to see this for what it is: something that happens when we sit back as a nation and get more and more greedy.

This thing may have already cost BP $990 million, but we lost our souls well before the oil washed ashore.

Other oil/creation-related posts:

A Creative Theology

Oil Spill Snark

Oil Spills and Creators

Oil Spills, Mining Disasters and The Greedy American

Brand Equity: BP is Spilling More Than Oil

I love these shirts from the snarky folks at Despair, Inc. Sometimes the best way to voice your opinion is to put on a t-shirt…at least in America. In the midst of the snark, frustration and finger pointing, I just hope we can all remember that the cars we drive around everywhere need oil. And that oil has to come from somewhere. As I have mentioned before, this isn’t their problem, this is our problem.

I watched most of the latest season of American Idol. Of course, since I watched this one, I promptly missed the season finale. In case you are wondering…Lee won.

Here are a couple thoughts on the American Idol phenomenon:

Americans want to be famous

• The lore of American Idol is that you don’t have to do much work, and you can come out of the experience with a tour and record label.
• People really really really want to be on TV. I wonder when the reality television phase will pass and celebrity doesn’t matter. My guess is…sadly, never.
• Putting in the hours playing small gigs, building a reputation and establishing a local, regional, and then maybe a national platform seems so 1999. Gimme national now. I’ll wait five minutes for international fame. I want Tokyo on Tuesday and Dublin over the weekend.

Americans want to be told a story

• Despite my criticism of what Idol represents in our society, it is clear that Americans, for the most part, want to be told a  good story
• Lee, the winner, was a paint salesman from Chicago
• Crystal, the favorite most of the competition, was the rough-around-the-edges and young mom wanting to provide a better (more wealthy) life for her kid.
• Many of the shows began and ended with telling part of the contestant’s story. It’s great marketing because it works. I want to know why you insist on me texting in to vote. And you better believe when I see their past, you have me sucked in.

Many creatives tend to be independent individuals who don’t look further than themselves for help. Of course, this is part of the DNA of the millennial generation stepping up to the helm.

The culture of young creatives says go do it yourself, and the technology followed. With YouTube, you can create, edit and publish your work easily. With blogs, you can do the same with your writing. And a perk of being in the most networked generation is that your audience is expansive.

However…

This do it all yourself mentality will only get you so far. There are better writers, designers, organizers, networkers, builders, artists and executives than you. The smart creative recognizes this and reaches out.

If you can get yourself to ask for help, you are well on your way to success. Collaboration opens the door for which you do not hold the key.

And of course, by that I mean,

I’ve got to get me one of these!

This is one of the several watches (some are R-rated, consider yourself warned) that offer stylish social commentary via the wrist. You can see the whole collection at normalwatches.com and for those of you in Des Moines, you can pick on up at Raygun in the East Village.

You’re welcome.

After a series of posts that challenged our perception of who Jesus the radical Rabbi was, and how to best apply his teachings in our culture, I incited some pointed conversations. (To catch up, the posts spanned from April 12 through April 22.) There were some comments here, and many more on Revelife.com, where this blog happens to be syndicated. I also got some push back from friends in private messages.

Let me bear my soul for a quick moment:

It was hard for me to be challenged. I post on this blog daily. Almost everyday more people than I think is appropriate come and read what I have written (largely because I remind you all via Twitter and Facebook status updates). Rarely do I get negative responses; people who think I am wrong letting me know so. And when that happens on rare occasions, readers usually come to my defense. Well…this time, even though there was some great conversation happening, I felt as though I was taking on my readership.

I felt defensive; they aren’t listening to me!

I felt disappointed; they just don’t get it!

I felt like I had failed; none of this is the point!

I second-guessed my motives. Why I had written the posts? Could anything good possibly come out of them. Did I simply facilitate an argumentative snark-fest instead of a conversation? It sure seemed so…at the time.

But then something staggering happened. I received a tweet from a good friend of mine (one who disagreed with me throughout the political series :) ) announcing a new blog called Be The Now. I read The Kick Off post laying out the vision of the blog, and the heart behind the movement. I was blown away.

The entire purpose of the series I wrote was to encourage you to wrestle with your faith, no matter where you are on the journey. If we consider ourselves Christians, I believe we need to take a long, hard look at what that means for today. For now. I could not be more thrilled to announce Nate’s new endeavor, Be The Now, to you creators of culture. Please take a few minutes to click over to BeTheNow.com and look around.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter @BeTheNow. This is is what it is all about!

Go be the now.