Last week as we began this short sermon series entitled Vintage Jesus, we spent a bit of time describing this whole fascination with the sensibilities and aesthetics of past decades. There is fairly wide interest in the clothes and jewelry and furniture, and other things from the 1930’s and 40’s up through the 70’s. There are shops and websites dedicated to selling vintage things – blogs dedicated to the discussion of all things vintage.

This week we’re going a slightly different way to introduce the vintage theme – in a moment we’ll do so by listening to some Johnny Cash. Most of us know how much dramatically the music industry has changed over the past number of years. It used to be the case that you bought your music in a very concrete form – you bought a record or a cassette-tape or a compact disc – and you would play that very concrete thing in a stereo of some kind. But today music is purchased and listened to in such a different way. You never “see” the music. You download it to your computer or directly to your phone – often wirelessly. For the vast majority of people in North America today, to listen to music you simply pull out your phone or your Ipod, put in your earplugs, and listen. We could easily play some Johnny Cash this way.

Given these technological advances, it may be surprising to us that the interest in vintage things includes an interest in the vinyl records. Over the past 20 years most people threw out their old vinyl records, or tried to get rid of them at garage sales. But there is an increasing number of people who collect old vinyl records – people out there looking for records, and buying up old record players like this Eaton’s model – it actually belongs to Iain MacLeod.  Continue reading →