Article published November 28, 2009
Cincy band Seabird's career is taking off
Seabird will be in concert in Toledo on Dec. 9.
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Seabird is flying high and heading this way.
The Christian rockers from Cincinnati, who will perform in Toledo on Dec. 9, have some notable achievements since their last Toledo area appearance, when they opened for This Beautiful Republic at the Maumee Indoor Theatre in August, 2008.
The group's poignant version of "Joy to the World" was heard on the hit TV series Grey's Anatomy last week and a couple of other Seabird tunes have been featured on the TV show Numb3rs and in promos for Pushing Daisies.
The group earned Artist of the Year honors at the 2008 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, and has just finished a two-month gig opening for the David Crowder Band.
Seabird will be going back on the road in support of its sophomore disc, "Rocks into Rivers," which is set for release Dec. 15 on EMI's Credential label.
The band members - Aaron Morgan on keyboards and vocals, his brother, Ryan Morgan, on guitar, Chris Kubik on bass, and Aaron Hunt on drums - cite some venerable classic rock bands as artistic influences, especially the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd.Aaron Morgan said Seabird's songs connect with listeners because the lyrics deal with real-life issues, including struggles, relationships, and redemption.
Seabird will play at Frankie's Inner-City Lounge on Dec. 9 with opening acts Civil Wars, the Undeserving, and the Kaleidoscope Brighter. Doors open at 6 p.m. and tickets are $8 in advance, $10 day of show. Information: 419-693-5300, or seabirdmusic.com.
Advent begins tomorrow, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has posted daily prayers, readings, and reflections for the season, which ends Jan. 12, online at usccb.org/advent.
The site also includes biographies of saints whose feast days are celebrated during Advent and a list of 20 holiday movies recommended by the bishops - including Fred Claus, Earnest Saves Christmas, and the old classic, It's a Wonderful Life.
First the good news: After one year of publication, Rick Warren's glossy quarterly magazine, The Purpose Driven Connection, will no longer cost $10 per issue but will be free starting in January.
Now the bad news: The magazine will no longer be printed on paper, but instead will be published in "an expanded, fully Web-based, digital format."
The 2009 Christmas edition, released this month, will be the last hard-copy print issue of PDC.
"Impressive reader feedback has prompted us to focus all our energies on our digital format, so our content can be expanded, international, interactive, and free," Mr. Warren said in a positive-spin statement. "The positive response from readers was so overwhelming we didn't want the content to be limited only to Americans who could afford a subscription to a magazine."
Refunds are available for unused print subscriptions.
Mr. Warren, the renowned megachurch pastor and author of The Purpose-Driven Life, had created the magazine in collaboration with Reader's Digest.
The magazine and related information are available online at purposedriven.com.
Hard-hitting Christian rock band Pillar is not just singing songs about "Confession" - the title of the Nebraska group's sixth studio release on Essential Records - but is writing about the issue as well.
In promoting the need for repentance and forgiveness, the group brought a confession booth on tour with it this year in which fans could fill out cards confessing their sins anonymously.
The comments were so moving that Pillar decided to address the issues raised by putting them down in book form, using chapter headings such as "Spiritual Doubts," "Victimized," "Sexuality," and "Broken Self."
The Confession book, published by Pillar in partnership with the American Bible Society, is a pocket-sized, high-quality publication that will be given away free at Pillar concerts starting in January.
The book also will be available as a free digital download, with extra chapters, from Pillar.americanbible.org and pillarmusic.com/confessions.
Donald Miller, a spokesman for buster-generation Christians and bestselling author of Blue Like Jazz, taps into the increasing popularity of videos to teach Bible lessons and small-group studies with Converge, a series of dialogues on DVD.
Converge's press materials say it is "designed specifically for small groups looking for more than just Bible study."
In the 15-minute videos, Mr. Miller and guests sit on comfy furniture and discuss topics such as "living in a fallen world," "meeting God in the everyday," and "learning to share our stories."
Viewers watch the episodes and then follow up with their own small-group discussions.
The first three videos in the series feature Mr. Miller as host to such noted Christian thinkers as Phyllis Tickle, Lauren Winner, and Dan Allender and Tremper Longman.
List price for the Converge videos are $14.99 each, available online at allthingsonverge.com.
A new searchable online map is available, at no cost, to anyone interested in keeping up with archaeological activity in Israel's West Bank and Jerusalem.
The University of Southern Carlifornia's Digital Library's searchable map offers detailed info on hundreds of digs and won the 2009 Open Archaeology Prize from American Schools of Oriental Research.
Data on the Web site - digitallibrary.usc.edu/wbarc/ - took several years, a lawsuit in Israeli court, and hundreds of hours of research to compile.
Mollie Ziegler Hemingway raises an interesting point in a column in Christianity Today about how the mainstream media seem to revel in their coverage of religious people's moral failings.
"Every time a scandal breaks involving a prominent Christian laid low … we're treated to an endless news cycle about hypocrisy," she writes in the magazine's November issue. "But hypocrisy isn't failing to practice what you preach. Hypocrisy is pretending to have beliefs that you don't actually have. Real hypocrisy is rare and difficult to discern."
The Kendricks brothers, two filmmakers and pastors, pulled the upset of the year when their movie Fireproof turned out to be the top independent film of 2008.
That low-budget film (by Hollywood standards, anyway) used a mostly amateur cast plus Kirk Cameron to tell the emotionally powerful story of a couple's efforts to save their troubled marriage.
Now Stephen and Alex Kendrick, who are still on the pastoral staff of Sherwood Church in Albany, Ga., hope to do for fatherhood what they did for marriage in their next film project, Courageous.
The film, whose title and theme were announced last week, will focus on four fathers in law enforcement who go through an unspecified "terrible tragedy" that forces them to look anew at their roles as fathers.
"We believe God is calling men to rise up with strength and leadership in their homes, with their families and with their children," Stephen Kendrick said.
The Kendricks should know a few things about fatherhood: Stephen has four children and Alex has six.
More information about the film is available online at CourageoustheMovie.com.
Local Christian band Keys2Eden uses its heavy-metal growl to help the helpless on its three-song EP "Stand."
After the death of a friend's 3-year-old granddaughter, who was the victim of child abuse, Keys2Eden wrote and recorded the songs "Angry?" and "Not Forgotten" to help raise awareness and money to try to prevent such tragedies.
They then added the song "Freedom" to complete the disc.
You can read all about it at Keys2Eden.com or standagainstchildabuse.com.
David Yonke is The Blade's religion editor. Contact him at dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154.
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