Jon Barnes is a doctoral student, Loyola grad, and former Orthodox Presbyterian Church youth pastor now living in Ellicott City, Maryland, a small community just outside Baltimore. Barns is on Twitter, he’s got a largely inactive blog (as of 2013), he’s a contributor to sermonspice.com (which provides video sermon illustrations for a small fee). On his YouTube channel he has made a bit of a splash with tutorial videos generally relating to drawing cars and other things auto-related. He has knife reviews (yep, you read that correctly) as well as how-tos of all kinds. He’s a speaker and author and consultant on church communications and a lot more. So why is Barnes on this list? And why is Jon Barnes the only thing in a column that usually includes a list of four distinct things of interest?
Well, the reason for that is simple. After eight years I’m out of ideas! No… honestly, I found this video of some music he did and I was both confounded by it and simultaneously love it. Moreover, I didn’t know what to do with it. Is it satire? It is kitsch? Is it serious? I had no clue! But I loved it. Then I saw the video on his YouTube channel titled “How to share your faith” and wanted to use that in the column. Then I found the one titled “Rejected online dating submissions” and wanted that one. They are all worth posting. But if I’m honest, the real gem is that first music video I saw and was dumbfounded by. It’s called “Party Like a Presbyterian.” And I just had to get a hold of him to find out just what it’s all about. I’ll let him respond below in his own words:
“Here’s how the Party Like a Presbyterian thing came to be: Years ago there was a famous song, ‘Party Like a Rockstar’ by Shop Boyz. I have no idea who they are or what that song’s about (partying apparently), but I love mashing unexpected things together and in an instant, thought how funny it would be to create a parody song, ‘Party Like a Presbyterian.’ The lyrics flowed effortlessly, the song came together with the magic of GarageBand and my Snowball Mic, and my good friend who actually is a professional musician did the mastering.
“Here’s the substance of my prankery. Colliding hip-hop and Presbyterians together is funny because it’s an unexpected mix. ‘Presbyterians’ (I count myself among them), are not known for our partying yet because of our understanding of the gospel, we actually are wildly free to party if we want to—we realize the radical freedom the existentialists only imagined because through the disciplines and the Word we, like the Psalmist says in Psalm 119:32, ‘can run in the path of His commands.’ So, by way of pursuing radical freedom in the gospel, we’re free to make fun of ourselves, free to enjoy the life we have, free to discipline ourselves unto Godliness. In some weird way, this is what my song and website are meant to accomplish.”
Now if you are a fan of this silly little column you know exactly why I have done this strange thing in devoting the entire thing to one person this month. This guy is The Other Six Days. The whole point of this column is that the Church exists as a people outside the Sunday service; that we are engaged in the world, that the Church is alive and vibrant and odd and active outside those two tiny hours we gather together.
Maybe I’m crazy but this goofy, ridiculous, insane, embarrassingly-wonderful little song is not only worth a buck or too but is also a great reminder that we are in the world but not of it and we are the living, breathing Church alive in the world.
Find it @
Personal website/blog:
pumthuggee.com
Twitter: @pumthuggee
YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/pumthuggee
iTunes:
Search for Party Like a Presbyterian
