I was first introduced to Cake in 1996 when I lived in Barrie where I was a youth pastor. My friend, John-Mark, who has recently returned from Ghana where him, his wife and their two girls were missionaries for two years, played "Fashion Nugget" - a Cake CD - in the car one day and I instantly fell in love.
The funky drums, bass, and guitar, along with the catchy rhythms and unique vocal styling's won me over. I have been a big fan ever since. In fact, I have said on many occasions, when probed for such information, that they are one of my top five favourite bands of all time. I can often be seen and heard singing loudly to Cake tunes in my car. Cake makes me happy.
Music has always been huge in my life. From using music as therapy and escape from family feuds, to playing in several bands, to being a radio DJ for a while, to my church leadership experience, etc. I want to explore my life in music in some subsequent posts, bit by bit.
Part one of the video of our session is up at Allelon now, and you can view it here if you are interested. Part two will be up soon... I'll keep you posted.
His name is Mike, and every day he sets out to a new public venue (restaurants, churches, offices, City Hall, etc.) in Hamilton and surrounding area, sets up his video camera, dances by himself and posts his video on YouTube. He has been doing this for nearly a year now... every single day.
365 days. 365 songs. 365 spots in Hamilton.
I love this guy. He is quirky and very cool.
I wanted to share two of his videos below. The first video is of Mike dancing at The Freeway (near the beginning of his year-long dancing journey), and the second is of him dancing at the tattoo shop where I get tattooed, while I am being tattooed (watch closely at the beginning and you will see me).
One of my musical and spiritual hero's died on Sunday. Larry Norman had a profoundly significant impact on my life. His music meant something. I saw him in concert three times. My brother and I own all his albums. I will miss him.
Well, I have to make an embarrassing admission to the blogosphere. I… ahhh… I… err... prefer… to piss sitting down. There, I feel so much better now that I've said it. I’m just tired of constantly missing the mark and having to clean up after myself. And after watching this video, I’ve learned that God is not pleased with me at all.
Tonight at The Freeway we say goodbye to a great guy who has been a key part of our community. Kevin has been with us for almost two years now while he studied at Tyndale Seminary. He has been a barista at our coffee house, a worship leader, a Manny to our kids [Manny = male nanny], and a friend and support to many of us.
Shortly he will be moving down to Austin, Texas [he is from Detroit originally] to work for another new church called Vox Veniae. We are totally excited for him... but very sad that his time in our midst is coming to an end.
Kevin: "you are win." We will miss you a lot, buddy.
Update: My nine year old daughter, Samantha, made a video for Kevin:
...Jacob turned five on Sunday. We had the "class friends" party on Friday, and some church friends over on Sunday [we completely let Jacob invite whomever he wanted for both parties - sorry if that wasn't you].
Two videos were made of the Sunday party for your viewing pleasure. The first one is of pictures taken by Carolynn - some great shots. The second is a "Wonder Years"-esque video by Jordan - very cool looking. Enjoy.
In the past five and a half years, we have had 10 babies born to people in our community at The Freeway. All of them have been absolutely beautiful and amazing children. Aubrey Donald [3 months old] is no exception. Look at this cutie:
Bill Kinnon talks about his - and Alan Roxburgh's - time at The Freeway on Wednesday [along with the rest of the happenings of their week together]. Today they are meeting my buddy, David Fitch, who is in town for The Evolving Church Conference tomorrow [Bill, I will forgive you for dissing my friend's design of the conference website.]
Darryl Dash will be live blogging from the conference tomorrow. Drop by.
I found this video quite funny [though it isn't intended to be]. But, I found this re-mix absolutely hilarious [and it is intended to be].
Steve Taylor asks some great questions about audio communication vs. written communication. And then goes on to ask some more great questions about the theological implications on our study of the Bible.
Tony Campolo was interviewed by George Snuff-all-up-a-gus on "The Hour" last night. My brother sent me the link and said it reminded him of my blog post from yesterday.
Tomorrow Dr. Alan Roxburgh and Bill Kinnon are coming to The Freeway to interview me for a video netcast for Allelon. This is part of a great new feature they are doing as a resource for those interested in missional church. I am really looking forward to hanging out with and learning from those guys.
Alan recently caught up with my friend [and author of the best book written for the emerging church], Steve Taylor from New Zealand. You can catch that fabulous interview here. Steve is an amazing missional leader whose wisdom and insight continues to amaze me.
Here's a video Allelon recently produced to explain who they are and what they do:
Today is the birthday of one of my best friend's in the whole wide world, Mark Jefferson [aka Markus, Mark Jefferdaughter, Marko Polo, Butt-head]. He is thirty-five years old today. Woo Hoo. The old man doesn't look a day over forty either, trust me!
Mark and I have been really good friends since 1994, when we met in Bible College [our girlfriends - now wives - were roommates and we became friends by association, I suppose]. Well, it wasn't long before we became good friends in our own right. We have gone away on dozens of trips together, visited each other consistently when we lived in different cities, and he was the first Freeway "recruit" when we moved to Hamilton in 2001 and has been a great pastor to this community ever since. Fact is, The Freeway would simply not exist without Mark. I would have likely "thrown in the towel" years ago if it wasn't for his wisdom, insight, encouragement, partnership, and being able to laugh at each other [mostly me at him].
I have had quite a few good friends over the years, but none who make me a better person like Mark does. Twelve years, and not one argument or fight. He is literally the smartest, coolest, most refreshing guy I know... I am really quite sweet on him... in as manly a way as I can muster.
Happy birthday, buddy. And even though people may poke fun at you for a couple of these, here are three of your favourite tunes:
I found this video of two eight year old twins who are unbelievably good skateboarders. Watching this video reminded me of how much I loved skating before I got a tumour on my spine in 1998. I was actually a sponsored skateboarder at one time. For seven or eight years I spent every possible moment perfecting tricks... and falling down a lot. Hours and hours of my life were spent with friends skating hard. I am still super-drawn to skateboarding. Anyways, these two kids are crazy good for their age:
Followers of Jesus have the tendency to re-hash the same old, same old in terms of the communication of the gospel. We all too often lack imagination, creativity, and authenticity. Now, while I think that the message should never change, I do think that each of us needs to find our own voice in the telling of the story [new wineskins]. And we need to live/speak our own story in the midst of God's most amazing story.
Fellow pastors, please... please stop downloading sermons to regurgitate. I have heard far too many "Rick Warren Purpose Driven sermons" and "Bill Hybels sermons" and "Mark Driscoll sermons" and "Erwin McManus sermons" and on and on... spoken by well-intentioned pastors who are actually, I believe, doing a disservice to the Kingdom. It's annoying. And wrong. And by the way, where do these guys get off selling their sermons? Ridiculous.
Also, please stop copying every new neat program or idea that comes along, jumping at the next new latest and greatest. It's tempting, I know. I have done the same thing. We all want to be effective, but we need to learn how to hear God's voice and learn to respond to our own postal code, led by the Spirit.
For God's sake [literally] find your own voice. And please, inspire me to do the same. The people we encounter on a daily basis deserve for us to be authentic, creative, and imaginative, especially when it comes to telling the amazing story of God.
This scene in "Walk The Line" says it better than I could:
...But I found this video absolutely hilarious. The first 30 seconds kind of stinks, and I nearly put an end to the show, but then... Greg won me over. Funny stuff. Enjoy:
100 Huntley Street did a piece on November 1st [unbeknownst to us] on the emerging church. It features some folks at The Evolving Church Conference in April... and The Freeway. It uses some footage from the episode we were featured on last winter, and some additional unused footage.
Last winter my friend, Dave Blondel, and I shot some footage for a video about The Freeway. He never finished the video. He says he probably never will [lazy runt]. But here is something he did complete with some of the footage we shot. I love it. And I love downtown Hamilton.
We had quite the experience down in New Orleans last week. Five of us (Kristyn, Melissa, Nathan, Kevin, and myself) set out on a journey we will not soon forget. Unbelievable really. We met some wonderful people. We worked our arses off in unbearable heat, gutting houses that were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina almost a year ago. We saw things we will never forget.
Which reminds me, a few of us are putting together a non-conference this summer called Cultivate. The bare-bones website is now up and running. Should be a gooder.
I am Pernell Goodyear. I live in a beautiful old house in downtown Hamilton, Ontario with my wife Margaret - who was my college sweetheart - and our three great kids: Samantha, Lucas, and Jacob... and our miniature schnauzer, "Bear."
I am a pastor at a church I started in 2002 called The Freeway. I am also a founding leader at Resonate, a director of a training centre for Allelon, and a member of the TrueCity network.
