Another preview from my book

I've been writing like crazy this week. I've got the outline for the 23 chapters I'm gonna write and I've written really rough drafts for 4 of those chapters. Here's an excerpt from my chapter called "Jock turned Rockstar."

As soon as I could drive we started going to concerts like crazy. The early 90’s was a beautiful time for the Christian music scene in Southern California. The Prayer Chain, Plankeye, Mortal, MXPX, The Violet Burning, Starflyer 59, The Killing Tree, Sometime Sunday…I could go on forever. Over a period of 2 years I recalled over forty Prayer Chain shows that I had gone to. There was a great community that was built at these shows that I have never seen since. These bands played every weekend and they always played together. You would see the same people at every show and an amazing music scene was built. And it wasn’t about what you wore or how tight your pants were. (I’m starting to sound old!) Nine out of Ten shows you would find me with my shirt off, sportin’ my semi man boobs in the mosh pit screaming at the top of my lungs with every lyric.

The circle pit was a beautiful thing that was the source of every great story after a show. I don’t know why but it wasn’t a real pit unless there was a 450 pound dude with no shirt on in the middle. His job was to keep the pit going in a direction and rough up the dudes that were getting a little too crazy. The amazing thing about pits at these shows is that if you fell down people actually picked you up. I recall a Prayer Chain show in the summer of 91 or 92 when things got a little crazy. I was caught up in the song and the pit was going off. I literally got thrown into the air and then everyone decided to change directions. I came down on a guys shoulder with my nose. As I whipped my head around I remember blood shooting from my nose and spraying this girls white t-shirt from top to bottom…oops. When you are on the edge of the pit, this is the price you pay and the collateral damage that you are willing to accept as being part of the show if you want to be that close.

Those concerts shaped a huge part of my high school experience. These guys were writing powerful songs that thousands of people were all singing to in unison. The amazing part was that the music didn’t suck! When people think of Christians doing music they usually think of artists like Carmen and the Gather band. (For your sake I hope you have no idea who those people are.)

I remember watching Mortal’s final show. It was over fifteen years ago but I remember it like it happened yesterday. Two thousand kids in a wharehouse on our knees as they ended their set with an amazing rock and roll rendition of “As the Deer.” I was hooked. I knew I was going to do that someday. I couldn’t really play guitar and I couldn’t really sing but I could feel the jock slowly being pulled out of me. I was turning into one of those music guys.

That's all you get for now. The book is going to be called "Born in the pew." The sub title is going to be something like: Pastors kid, turned rock star, turned Pastor, in search of something real. I'm going to end each chapter with a section titled: In search of something real. I'll wrap up each chapter by talking about how in each part of my journey I can see how God was pushing me towards a better understanding of who he is. I'd love to have some more creative elements like that in the book. Any ideas?