Its July 15th.  I’ve been away from Cornerstone for nine days, and I’m still completely homesick. Yes, the wonders of flushing toilets, showers, and paved roads just dont seem to delight me. I came home from the fest and was practically escorted to the nearest shower so I could start chipping away at the multiple layers of dirt, sweat, dust, and even other people’s sweat.  But I still rebel even now.  One of my best friends at the fest gave me a single dreadlock that I simply can’t wash.  Knowing that there’s still some Cornerstone dirt in there keeps me a little more sane.

Through various social medias, the overall question is: “How does one recover after a week at the fest?” For some, its as simple as a shower and a few extra hours of sleep.  But for people like me, the ones that are the lifeblood of Cornerstone, its much more difficult.  Cornerstone has become a home to many “social rejects” like myself, and it’s just not as easy as washing all the dirt from our clothes.

Some Facebook statuses and comments Ive seen are as follow:

Cornerstone relapse….when cleaning your shoes avoid breathing any dust that may come off lest you aquire a severe case of C-stone Homesickness..

Who knew some of the worst smells could bring such joy and memories?

It’s like heroine, you get hooked the first time, but after every time after that you only get more addicted; with one exception: it gets better with every time.

I was listening to Flatfoot 56, my favorite of Cornerstone bands, and the faces of all my new friends flew through my mind. Ducky, the punk from Nashville; Justin and Luke, the brothers from Indiana; Youngest… We’re all different people, but these along with a few more familiar faces became my family.  I laughed with them, I cried with them, I let them laugh at how much of an idiot I am. But through it all, there is still that overall sense of family.

And family isn’t something you can just leave behind. So what is the cure for a bad case of Cornerstone homesickness?

Another trip back home next year. Only 345 days left.

LauraREBEL

We put tons of photos and videos up here on the official Cornerstone website. But if that’s not enough, here are my favorite photos from the week on my Flickr site. Check ‘em out!

The question God was asking me as I went to Cornerstone was “Who are you?” Over and over this kept playing in my head. To be honest I headed to Cornerstone yes, to participate in the ministry of Sanctuary and be a blogger…the bigger thing I went there for was to hear from God about 2010 and how it is a year of change for me. There are some things in particular that I needed firm peace on.

Before I became a pastor I really dug deep into outreach and working with people that were definitely the outcast type of people. It is funny but I even liked to dress a certain way (hippie meets metalhead) and really went into being a youth pastor as a bit of a rebel…I guess some things never change. I had no other family go before me as a pastor, I joke around that I am a PK (a polisher’s kid) but immediately saw things that began to change me. I was not a suit wearing person and the first church I went into was a fashion show in which I was required to wear a suit. From that point on I began to morph into someone that was being tamed by the institution. When I did get away to camps, outings, etc. I would wear shirts and things that made some Christians wonder. They were Godly t-shirts but some refused to see it. I remember a directors wife at a camp scolding me in front of my teens for wearing such an “ugly/ungodly” shirt. The funny thing is it said, “Dead to the World, Alive in Christ” on it in a big skull. I kindly responded…”I feel the same way about your shirt” (probably from Dress Barn or something). I have always had a rebel streak in me though I never want it to get out of control.

When I moved to Waupaca I continued to become a people pleaser for all the wrong reasons the first year or two. After I began to see the ugly side of religious politics I decided to throw it all out the window. The biggest eye-opener for me was the minute I became the youth pastor to a district official. At big meetings people would come up to me and be buddy buddy that were never that close to me before. It appeared to me that because I am now in this position working with that particular person, I am now someone that others will hang out with so they can get in with the pastor I served under. It was then that this persons silo came crashing down and I lost 90% of those “close” people as friends because of a fall-out that happened. I still get random pot-shots taken at me via email, facebook, or face to face conversation. This made me all the wiser for what was ahead as a lead pastor (senior pastor).

So here I am now in the desert and what an exciting place it is! There is a negative connotation that the desert can be a bad thing, however in the bible the word “desert” means “without inhabitants”, not “without vegetation or water”. I love how one author describes the desert vs. forests. “When a man walks or rides into a forest, he is lost among the trees, can’t see ahead, doesn’t know what might be lurking there. The forest surrounds him, obscures him with shadows, confuses itself with him by its vertical composition and competitive detail. But when a horseman appears on the desert plain, he dominates it instantly, his view extends as far as the eye can see, and enemies are exposed to his gaze. The desert flatters the human figure by making it seem dominant and unique, dark against the light, vertical against horizontal, solid against plane, detail against blankness.”
The openess of desert space also symbolizes infinite access. As Tomkins notes, “There is nothing to stop the horseman’s free movement across the terrain…Distance, made palpable through exposure and infinitely prolonged by the absence of obstacles, offers unlimited room to move. The man can go, in any direction, as far as he can go. The possibilities are infinite.”
It is time to run free after a refreshing time of re-finding who I am while at Cornerstone Festival where I truly feel at home among the wierdos, goths, metalheads, preps, jocks (though few), hippies and free-thinkers. Fact of the matter is two tents down was a lesbian couple that felt at home at Cornerstone. I am not downplaying the fact we all need Jesus and some things are not okay. What I am saying is God created us uniquely and we should not stray from that to fit some kind of mold or to appease some person/people/institution. God spoke to me in such awesome ways this past week through song, teachings, and one on one conversations with people I look up to.
Who am I? I am a unique free-thinking pastor that won’t be bound down by ideals that don’t line-up with scripture. I am a black t-shirt wearing person that loves everyone and hates no-one. I am a pastor that has little to no tolerance for religious crap (politics) that bogs a church down so it cannot be free to find God unless it goes through a filter. I am person that is a Christ follower first, husband and father second and pastor third. I am a pastor that welcomes questioning and skepticism in a church so that it leads to a deeper understanding of who the one true God is. I am a person that invites you to journey with me on through life understanding I am not better than you and you are not better than me. Rather we are following the one true God together which will tighten our bond to each other and to God.

I am telling you…God is at Cornerstone and he always reveals himself to me among what some might call, “THOSE PEOPLE!”

Back home in Nebraska for less than an hour, I’m already keeping my internet connection busy (yay for high speed access)! With my wife getting cleaned up, I’m passing time waiting for the shower by downloading soon to be new favorites from Amazon and iTunes.

Among the CDs I picked up at the fest were albums by Future of Forestry and Seabird. Now downloading are works by Paper Route, Campbell the Band, and Quiet Science.

What did you pick up at the fest (or will you be downloading in the coming days)?

Safe travel to everyone still on the road (or soon to be) following Cornerstone 20ten. What a beautiful week we had, full of musical and other highlights. I had a fantastic week and will look forward to doing it again.  I’ll bring more cookies for sharing.

My favorite sets:

Iona, Over the Rhine, Shel, Timbre, the Choir, Lost Dogs. I was working at Gallery while Photoside Cafe were on Main Stage, but I heard they knocked it out. Way to go, guys!

It was a joy and privilege to play with my friends in the Maron band and Ping. Thanks to so many friends for sharing the moment(s) with us.

As I am writing this blog I am looking at the beautiful view from my screen tent looking down the road at the lake here on the Cornerstone grounds. Looking around and reflecting back on the week, I cannot help but to say “Thank you God for letting me be here and using me in new ways.”
The events that transpired at the Sanctuary tent were great. Every day there was a great line-up of bands that loved Jesus. The Bombworks record day was definitely a highlight. That evening wrapped up with Rex Carroll (lead axeman of Whitecross) playing. When he began to play Nagasaki…IT WAS AWESOME!
For me personally to sit in the trailer and talk to band members, give some counsel and just minister to people was an experience I will never forget. I will admit that the Sanctuary tent was not the same without Pastor Bob Beeman or Jim LaVerde in attendance but God still did some awesome things at this tent.
I hope you plan on being a part of this great ministry again next year when Pastor Bob and Jim LaVerde will be back. Sanctuary is a ministry that has blessed me since I was a teenager and still does to this day. You can visit Sanctuary online at www.sanctuaryinternational.com or visit my ministry online as well www.thatsnotmygod.com.
Have a safe trip home!

I don’t know that I really need to say anything beyond the title of this blog post.  I left my 100% natural, whole grain Sunrise Energy Bars with Omega-3 at my little tuning station behind the Gallery Stage today.  I left briefly to do some techy things under the front-of-house mixing console, and then went to the Exhibition tent to settle up for the Ping shows. When I came back, Dignan was onstage. My cookie container had been relocated to a table, and about 1/2 of the cookies had been consumed. I noted that the Dignan folks were rocking with much energy, and seemed to faintly glow in the light of the setting sun (comparable to sunrise). They seemed to be very satisfied, so I must sadly conclude that they stole(d) my cookies, and now I cannot hog an entire box of them all by myself.

p.s. Dignan was rad and had a big Gallery crowd going bananas. Much love to them.

This year I got to bring my wife for the first time to Cornerstone. One of the misconceptions a newbie to Cornerstone may be that you will get a nice private campsite much like one you might have at a KOA or Jellystone campground. Upon arrival you find this to be the complete opposite of your traditional campground.
If you are an introvert, and plan on camping, you will be forced to break out of that mold. If you arrive early you may begin to think not too many people will show up and you will have much space for yourself. It is when you leave for your first concert that you are surprised with all of your new neighbors. Even after many people surround your campsite and you get used to them, you will still see late comers to the campground looking for a site. What seemed to be a full campground already is now their new place to camp. It is amazing how many people can pack into one campsite. What seems to be a full campsite gets fuller.
This is the great part. Unless you are camping next to a stage the chances are you will have great neighbors. This is the case for my wife and I. We met our new neighbors who drove 20 hours from Florida to be at Cornerstone…this made my 6 hour trek to Cornerstone child’s play. I guess you could say one of the pleasantries of being a camper is making new friends. I have yet to hear of someone having a bad experience and if everyone was fortunate to have campers next to them like the ones we have….you will have a very pleasant Cornerstone experience.

We have options when it comes to spending a week at Cornerstone. My first couple of years, we stayed in a hotel. While a hotel is nice, they aren’t exactly convenient to the grounds being in surrounding towns. Another option is the dorms at a nearby college. The most popular option (and the best in my opinion) is to camp on the grounds.

If you have been camping before, this is not like going to your local state park. Tents are everywhere. These grounds become a tent city for a week. A couple of days ago, two guys in a truck stopped me and asked, “Where are we supposed to camp?” I pointed and said, “Anywhere!’ And that is true with a few exceptions; obviously you can’t camp on the Main Stage or in a seminar tent.

Camping presents its challenges. With the exception of reserved RV spots, there is no water and electricity at the camp sites. Showers are available in the shower house in the middle camp, but most people seem to do without those. The weather often presents challenges. One year it was really hot; last year it rained; this year the nights are cool and perfect.

There are some huge advantages to camping. You save money, both on gas and on lodging, since when you bought your ticket you paid for a camp site. You are always close to everything. When we stayed in hotels, we didn’t make it out to the fest until late in the afternoon pretty much guaranteeing we would miss all the seminars and films as well as a huge portion of music.

As I have camped at Cornerstone the last three years, I have started to feel a connection with the place, the people. Cornerstone is often called a community, and you don’t get that feeling in the hotels. If you have never camped at Cornerstone before, consider it next year. The experience will be much more meaningful.

the Choir is my favorite band, and i feel really lucky that I got to see them play again … 21 years after the first time I saw them on their tour for Wide Eyed Wonder. I missed everything before that, and wished I had seen them during the time supporting Chase the Kangaroo, but I made up for lost time. I’ve seen a LOT of Choir shows, and I was beyond eager to see one more.  which i did, tonight. and i’m glad i did. but by the band’s own admission, it was a rough gig, noticeably underrehearsed.

nonetheless, the sound the band makes is unmistakeable, and i still find it to be a beautiful thing. i hope they come back again before long (not another 5 year gap, please) and maybe work in another rehearsal or two ahead of time.  i love the fact that they’re playing new material, and that the new material is so good.  i’ve heard “Burning Like the Midnight Sun” once now, and it sounds like the work of people with a rare gift.