After church today, a husband and wife who are about to be received into the church and have their baby baptized were hanging around waiting for me, and when I got to them the husband asked what kind of music I listened to. I told him everything, but I was a big U2 fan, and he said "Oh, great; then you'll love this, it's also alternative--" and pressed a CD into my hand. It was by the band Live, a current song titled "Heaven," and they'd burned it for me because they wanted me to hear it.

I played it a few times in my car on the way over to do a hospital call. The lyrics are not at all theologically complicated, but talk on a popular level about the idea that intellectual "evidence" against God pales next to intuitive experience of God in nature and people. It's a little individualistic and fideistic, but sincere in its intention and preach-able, with care.

However, I came home and looked up the video (on the VH-1 top 20 currently) and it just blew me away. I have no idea how conscious they were of the images they were using, but the confluence of Baptism/leap of faith/savior imagery is unbelievable. I was crying by the end. You could even preach it as a summary of salvation history. If you happen to be a preacher and work with contemporary videos in worship, I highly recommend watching it (scroll until you find the title, then click on the little TV.) It seems pretty obvious that I should try to use it in some way at this couple's baby's baptism...