I wish more and more church leaders were like John Dickson.
He is someone who is wicked smart and has his Masters degree in Theology and a PhD. But what I find the most refreshing is that he never forgets what it is like looking into the church and "Christianity" from the outside.
We had a chat on his really great podcast "Undeceptions" that is for both non-Christians and Christians you can listen to here.
He is from Australia and we have some things in common as we both were in bands (he is a singer and I am a drummer) but we also had an elderly person who was our main influence in becoming a Christian. I got to meet the woman who was that for him when I spoke in Australia at an event once. But John is passionate about seeing the local church train people in theology - not just for head knowledge or to use to fight battles with other Christians. But learning theology to be able to share about Jesus in intelligent, kind, winsome ways with those who aren't Christian and asking questions.
In this podcast John makes a challenge to read at least 100 pages of the Bible in 2021. So we talked about what happens when you do read it and see talking snakes, slavery, a lot of violence and even unicorns. He also included a little bit of my drumming in the podcast from when I was in a band way back with my brother and my buddy Mark Frauenfelder from Boing Boing.
I recently bought a new Ludwig Classic Maple Vintage Black Oyster Pearl drum kit. Becky has allowed me to turn part of our living room into a music area. I now never want to leave this room.
I know they are just drums, but they look like a beautiful art installation. Ludwig designed some sweet looking vintage chrome hardware with 1940's-50's looking chrome automobile-like features.
Behind the drums, I hung up some signed photos of big band jazz drummers Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich who have been such major influences. And I put up a large Sun Studio photo where rockabilly was pretty much birthed from and many amazing blues and roots artists recorded there. I will also be adding a Danny Seraphine item as he was/is another incredible drummer that I idolized growing up and is a living drum legend. He was the original drummer in the first version of the jazz-rock band Chicago before they later changed and became a ballad band. I know this is drum talk, so maybe not interesting to non-drummers…..
Thank you Becky, for letting me set these up in the living room. I am going to call in sick today as I just want to stay home and just look at the drums.
A few notes for drummers:
It's all Zildjian cymbals and I have a DW 9000 double-kick pedal I am learning to use. I have Low Boy Custom Beaters for the bass pedals.
