NazaRemix – Kansas City to Rome Music Video
August 2009
(Video Here)
This video was produced for the upcoming NazaRemix Sermon Series beginning on August 15 & 16, 2009. A downloadable version of the video is available here to load onto your iPod or other device. The video is also on YouTube.
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackSince this was first released on August 9th, there have been at least 26 “thumbs up” and positive comments made. No way to know how many views on Facebook, but on YouTube there have been 166 views so far. For those who are not on Facebook, here are some of the comments that others have made there:
“Very nice. YOu should send this on to Kansas City and let the 6 popes see if they could use it denominationally.”
“This should be played at every District Assembly!”
“Guys I LOVE this!!!!!!!!!”
“YOU ROCK! WAY TO PUT IT OUT THERE!”
“That is awesome. Great job!”
“thats ridiculous. and awesome. nice job!”
“haha funnnnny! :]”
“classic”
“YO YO YO – That was awesome !”
“hahaha sweet!”
“Sweet!!!”
Here’s a couple that have come in since the original post …
“Guys, that was great live!”
“you guys did a fantastic job…never a dull moment in our church.”
“showed the guys at work they are like, “those are pastors at your church?”
I told em’ “Word”"
Just thought I’d share the love. I thought Tim and Adam did an excellent job this weekend in all 3 services. It was fun – Thank you.
This is not good.
Pastor Tim spoke last week about thoughtless things that Christians do that make yet another chasm for people to have to cross before they can come to Jesus. This is a prime example of creating yet another chasm.
This video speaks about working out the differences between Catholics and Nazarenes. This video will make a further divide between us, not bring us closer.
This video is insulting to the Nazarene people and to the Catholic people.
We should have fun and humor in our relationship with God, but when it borders on disrespect to our own beliefs, and to those of the Catholics, as this video does, then we have gone too far.
The Catholic church views their Pope as Jesus. The Pope is Jesus here on earth. What the Pope says, you must believe and obey without question. If you do not, you have committed a mortal sin (therefore sending you to hell). The Pope cannot be wrong since he sits in the place of Jesus here on earth.
The video says the Nazarene church has 6 Popes – I do not believe you understand what you are saying. Hopefully you now do after reading the paragraph above.
The Nazarene church has 6 men that have been elected into a position to help organize, run and lead the Nazarene church. They do not claim to be Jesus. We are not told to obey and believe everything they say.
The video makes a comment like “we take communion once a quarter maybe because my penance is shorter”. This indicates Nazarenes sin less than Catholics so we have less to repent about. Again, not good for mending relations between Nazarene and Catholics. Plus Nazarenes do not believe that sins are forgiven through the act of receiving communion. That could be misunderstood in this video.
The Nazarene says “I’m saved today” and the Catholic says “It will take me a while”. These are loaded statements that have eternal impact, therfore not being taken lightly by Nazarene or Catholic. These statements need further explaination. Without further explaination, they can be very offensive to Catholics. Again, not helping with mending the relationship – doing the opposite.
The Nazarene in the video says “So many rituals we become a machine”. This needs further explaination and causes confusion. What is even the point of saying that? How does that help lead people to Jesus?
The Lent references were just simply very insulting to both Nazarene and Catholic. This is not funny. This is not humor that glorifies God. This is not humor that shows Jesus’s love and draws people to him. This is the type of humor that makes Christians look ridiculous in the eyes of the would and makes people think they would not want to be one. And haven’t the pastors been preaching lately about how we should not do this?
Then the comment by the Nazarene to the Catholic “Your church is boring”. Wow, I can’t believe this was put in the video. How embarassing to the Nazarene church. This makes the Nazarene church look so bad. Do you think this statement is going to make the Catholics feel good or encourage them to work through differences with Nazarenes? Of course not. A statement like that puts up defenses and will do the opposite of what I believe the Nazarene church is attempting to do.
I believe the Nazarene church is attempting to bring Catholics and Nazarenes closer together so we can walk together in our relationship with Jesus christ, inspite of our differences.
This video is not helping that cause. This video is doing just the opposite. For the sake of us all, please remove this video from the internet and do not show it in church.
Thank you for this well thought out response. I appreciate being given an opportunity to respond to these concerns. It is clear that we do have the same goals and motives when it comes to bringing folks together. I do want to assure you that there was process behind this video. I understand what you are saying when you raise the word ‘thoughtless’. In this case, however, each step of the process, each word, indeed even every motion was analyzed multiple times. The script was carefully written and referred to others for accuracy, perspective, and feedback.
Humor is subjective. Whenever we use humor we run the risk of either confusing or offending. But from my perspective, what would the atmosphere be like around here if humor was outlawed? I approved this video because I felt that it helped us attain a bigger dynamic. I value being comfortable enough with who we are to poke a little fun at ourselves. There enough Catholic folks in our congregation that ‘ourselves’ includes both Nazarene and Catholic heritages. We wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for our Catholic heritage. We pay homage and respect to that more often than any other Nazarene Church of which I have been apart. With that in mind, I hoped that folks would take the rap from the ‘tongue-in-cheek’ perspective for which it was meant.
The video’s final verse is called “…on these things we mesh…”. To us this is the most important verse. It is here that we espouse the eternal truths on which both Nazarene’s and Catholic agree; stronger than agree actually, I would say,” cling to unswervingly”. Humor aside, this was the key point of the piece. All the other differences pale in comparison to these core beliefs.
I must say I apologize if this offended you. That was not our intent. It seems you are more concerned about how others would view it as opposed to your personal perspective. I get that. It was meant to start the conversation about who we are by exploring the differences and similarities with those of a Catholic background, our largest demographic. We believe we should take the Gospel seriously, but ourselves not so much. We believe we should be comfortable with who we are and where we came from. As to the atmosphere consideration, we believe we should laugh more. We also believe we should have more silence. As a worship planning team we do our best to find a balance within our values. Thank you for your feedback and helping us to find balance.
Annonymous –
I fully understand your concerns about the “Kansas City to Rome” rap. You raise legitimate issues and concerns about it. Please forgive if they/we offended you in any way – or any Catholic for that matter. As we announced Sunday, this was an attempt by creative people on our staff to express in a contemporary way honest differences we have – both doctrinally and perceptionally – and do it in a non-threatening humorous way. Please understand our motive was pure in this project – but not everyone will like it!
We ran it by several Catholics in our church to make sure we were on the right track – they all absolutely “loved it” – to quote most of them – Bob Brown and I both approved of the language content – and frankly the only negative response we have received either in e-mail or direct comment after having the video out and after this weekend’s live performance is from you. We have many, many Catholics come to us after the services thinking this was a great, creative way to point out our uniquenesses. That being said, your issues are still legitimate and are some of the very things we were concerned enough about to check with some people first.
I had some personal concerns about the video – in terms of playing it in the services – which is why we didn’t do that. They weren’t the issues you raised – but again I felt they were legitimate.
Again, our response has been amazingly positive – far more than I had thought it would be – and mostly from the Catholics among us -which is over half of our church! This might be the type of thing some will dislike and most will like – but I appreciate you raising these concerns and we will certainly remember them in future planning.
Blessings to you and yours! Thanks again for the input.
One correction – I did approve of the final wording – Bob Brown was involved in the development phase of the rap but we did not seek his final approval on the final project- wanted to make sure I was correct on that!
I felt the video was well done and made you think how close we are to our Catholics brothers in seeking Our Lord. I really don’t believe that current Catholics veiw the Pope as Jesus. My Catholic friends say that he (Pope) has the final word on doctrine on a particular principle, position, or policy taught or advocated, as of their beliefs in Catholicism. Also, keep in mind that Catholicism teaches through works they see attain Heaven.
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