NEW PROBLEM RECORDS

People who are regulars at bars are the kind of people who would be in Washington D.C. on Christmas Day. While the majority of the capital's millennial population go on bar crawls and Yelp “The Ten Best Places to Eat a Scone” 50 weeks a year, they have a middle American suburb to return to on the holidays. But because we Regulars aren’t sampling D.C and aren’t existing in a place long enough to Instagram it we are left to pick up the crumbs at Christmastime. We gather here every Thursday. Even if a Thursday is December 25th.

Of course I still know your face.  New York is a small town. We aren’t just using Tinder or on Tinder, we are Tinder. We are charter members, the elders, the original gangsters looking for love in all the wrong radiuses.

We’re all on line together.

Thanks 4 the mmrz.

Nihilists on Twitter may disagree but the New Year isn’t just another day. A birthday isn’t just another day. The universe is laid out cyclically so I one ought to live in a cycle. Give me every Monday, the first days of the month, New Year’s Day.  Imagining life as a never ending string of boxes laid out side by side like existential dominos tumbling to a perpetual tomorrow is technically correct. But not nothing else on the planet lives like that. The morning resets and trees reset and the stars reset and Hailey’s Comet will be back into view for eighteen minutes 700 years from now.   But it does come back around. The universe is a Radiohead fan: everybody leaves when they get the chance and this is my chance. Take the chance to start again at one.

"Our proximity to whiteness does not address our trust problem and I’m comfortable not pretending it does. If I’m supposed to be afraid of myself, I can give you the reasons all by myself,  without repeating a Puritan taking the reins from the hands of an angry God. I just don’t think righteousness looks like prom night in Utah."

Somewhere in the Bible it asks, "Can these dry bones live?" “Only you know, Lord" was the right answer. But somewhere else in the Bible, it says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Yeah. No one believes that.

"My mother repeated a warning she delighted in scaring her children with: you can sing a lie as fast as you can tell a lie.  My least favorite song to sing as a kid in a Baptist missionary church was I Have Decided to Follow Jesus. Middle children self protect by preemptively doing everything necessary to stay off people’s radar. I would not sing in a way to get on her or God’s radar. So I took my mother’s advice, accepted her premise, looked at the words on the projector, and conceded: yeah, I can’t sing this shit."

Let's talk about the future of this podcast! It's called Metropolitan Union. It's simple reflections about keeping your faith while you're letting people down, knowing you're never forever up to the task of loving as much as you wish you could. But in between these official entries (twice a month), we're going to talk like ordinary podcasters doing ordinary podcasty things. It's the off-week segment called The Blessing of Both. Just talking about things, warts in all. Because I can't always be an aspiring elegant writer. I'm an Aquarius. Of course I was going to have a podcast, no matter how embarrassing that association can be. It's the blessing of both! — the elegance and the vapid incoherence of podcasting. Thank you for the supporter! Let's keep going.  newproblemrecords.com

"Church planting" in New York City is a case-study of blood, sweet, and flowcharts all pointing to lost friends, lost dreams, and unfulfilled futures. I've watched this cycle my whole life. Being in this work and back in this world is dejavu all over again. Let's get honest about our work history in the Kingdom of God, and consider what (little) we have to show for it. And keep pouring.  NEW PROBLEMS vol. 1. conclusion, THE JUST SHALL POUR BY FAITH act 6. conclusion

I wrote this in 2016, and like that random Radiohead song they only performed on tour that finally gets a proper version on an album, this is here. We have one episode to go in this podcast's first season, and this is the evolutionary prequel to the finale. You knew this — my father was a Baptist missionary in New York. 20 years later, I found another one. His family and I had one prayer meeting together in Greenpoint together. I could have picked a better week. But the problem with being a Baptist missionary in New York is: there's never really an easy week.  NEW PROBLEMS vol. 1. THIS DATE IN OLD PROBLEMS #2

My father was a Baptist missionary in the 90s. We traveled from Baptist church to Baptist church with his go-to sermon I sat through dozens and dozens of times as a kid. I'm happy to save you from the therapy of unlearning of a childhood on the road in Rush Limbaugh's America while giving you the highlights, and a reminder: the just shall live by faith.  NEW PROBLEMS vol. 1. THE JUST SHALL POUR BY FAITH act 6. chapter 3.

How many things continue to exist because we’re allowing them to exist, not because they’re actually alive? There is nothing more vexing than people’s capacity to lie to themselves about what living looks like.  I can't settle for a church or a job or a podcast that exists without multiplying. Life produces fruit, which means something has to die first. Easter is only worth celebrating when you acknowledge the death beforehand.  NEW PROBLEMS vol. 1. THE JUST SHALL POUR BY FAITH act 6. chapter 2.

This is an unauthorized oral history of Bridgetown Church and Oaks Church Brooklyn's pastoral changes. Change is hard and the will of God is hard to know. But if Mary of Bethany teaches us anything, it's simple: keep close, and keep pouring.  NEW PROBLEMS vol. 1. THE JUST SHALL POUR BY FAITH act 6. chapter 1.

Death planning is not an easy conversation. But your loved ones won't know what Beyonce to play at your funeral unless you let them know. (Sorry? I'm not sorry.) So I'm letting my buddy, Tim in Minnesota, know!  Thanks to Five Wishes, an organization that "changes the way we talk about advanced care planning," death arrangements seem doable. The 1975 were right: It's not living if it's not with you. NEW PROBLEMS vol. 1. CHRIST HAS NO BEARD NOW BUT OURS act 5. conclusion 

New Coalition Sanctuary convenes ordinary people to accompany ordinary people during their immigration proceedings. It's a brutal judicial fiction under the florescent lights of 26 Federal Plaza. It is the most ordinary office in New York City.  All together, no body is hiding. Which means we don't have to do much to be seen, except show up.  NEW PROBLEMS vol. 1. CHRIST HAS NO BEARD NOW BUT OURS act 5. chapter 3.

If we are the hands and feet of God, we have to acknowledge the divine in Tom Brady's. It's not easy I understand that but it's just theology.  NEW PROBLEMS vol. 1. CHRIST HAS NO BEARD NOW BUT OURS act 5. chapter 2.

Things just don't get better because time goes on. Things exist and the moral arc of the universe doesn't have an opinion about where it's heading.  NEW PROBLEMS vol. 1. Unscripted #4

Growing a beard at 32 is like trying to become a better man at 32. You just thought you'd be further along by now.  Nevertheless, this face, this life, is patchy af.  NEW PROBLEMS vol. 1. CHRIST HAS NO BEARD NOW BUT OURS act 5. chapter 1.

This was a hell of a week to stop drinking. The siege on the capitol building on January 6, 2021 is both frightening, and frighteningly predictable. I watched CNN sober, with a peppermint tea and in light of the last book I read, Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It's okay to be shocked. But we have to be shocked in context. The refrain is still the same: Lord, have mercy.  NEW PROBLEMS vol. 1. unscripted #3