Oddwalk Ministries exists to help young and old alike embrace life as Eucharistic people through fun, upbeat and interactive music and witnessing. We share a message of community, participation, and mission with every group.

We would love the opportunity to share the Gospel in our unique way with the people of your diocese, parish, school, group or organization. We have presented in a variety of venues and settings (Catholic, Christian, and secular; ten people to many thousands) and are ready to be a part of your next rally, convention, mission, prayer service, concert, or retreat.

For frequent updates to the website, please keep reading the Oddblog in the posts just below this one. For more information about Oddwalk Ministries, or about Shannon and Orin, our ministry, our music, our merchandise, or to contact us (for any reason at all), please check the sidebar to the left! Thanks for dropping by!

Did some fishing around on YouTube today, happened upon the channel for our Popply friend, Kyle, and found proof that we really are evolving as a human race.  Enjoy!

Shannon’s son Noah taking lessons from the Green Lantern:

Orin grew up in pop country, visited his cousins in coke country, and now lives in soda country – what about you? Visit this site to find out!

Here’s a quick clip of some Israelite slaves lamenting their pre-Moses lot in life.  Remember, one week before this was recorded, these folks didn’t even know the show, let alone which part they might have!  Youth Sing Praise really is a miracle each year. Thanks to Erin B for recording!

Thanks to Fr. Maes at the Shrine for the heads up!  (And, I love the headline, in the 7/2 Wall Street Journal!)

Making a High School Musical When It Isn’t

‘The Choir,” which begins Wednesday on BBC America (10-11 p.m. ET) follows British choirmaster Gareth Malone as he sets out to bring choral singing, and classical music, back to U.K. schools that long ago gave up on them. The result is what might be called a nonfiction mash-up of TV’s “Glee” and the 1967 movie “To Sir, with Love.”

Like the Fox television series, “The Choir” revolves around young people who are drawn, or dragged, to competitive singing—and who learn about much more than music along the way. Many of these students come from less-than-privileged backgrounds in forlorn-looking towns on the outskirts of London. That gives the series an echo of the above-mentioned ’60s movie about an idealistic teacher in London’s grim East End whose most important lessons for his students are about self-esteem.

Read the rest here!

We think we’ve successfully upgraded the WordPress installation that powers the OddBlog to version 3.0. Let us know if you notice any wonkiness (technical term) other than our usual efforts.

Friends, I know this isn’t our usual flavor of post around here, but I wanted to share.

As someone with one foot in classical music (STL Chamber Chorus, etc.) and one foot in Christian (Catholic) contemporary music (Oddwalk etc.), I mourn the loss of Classic 99.1 in St. Louis, especially after hearing the new Joy-FM staff “pray” this morning at about 8:45am. I don’t think St. Louis needed more contemporary Christian music more than it needed any classical music on the airwaves, especially given the apparent motivations as evidenced in the prayer I heard earlier. It was rather self-centered and grandizing, and didn’t mourn the “death” of the old and their staff but rather thanked God for what they had received (without acknowledging what God had also apparently taken away), and hoped that folks who had not heard the sad news and had tuned in that morning might be equally touched by their musical offerings. The prayer was also in part a plea for financial support, a tactic which always irks me.

This is to say nothing of the often theologically shallow (not incorrect, not false, just shallow) and inward-turned lyrics of much the music (i.e. “God, you are my God, and I will ever praise you”). That sort of praise and evangelization has its place, but I prefer my music and worship generally to be a bit more profound. Praise and evangelization is only the first step – the who and the what. Given the usual brevity of lyrics, thats about all that music can be, typically. When we start praying (and singing) about the hows and the whys, then we have entered true theology (faith seeking understanding, said Anselm) and a greater understanding and worship of our God and our faith – and the Christian community, who we are and what we are to be doing, via God’s will. To be sure, much of the music has lately switched its language more directly to God and not self, but there is still very little “us” and “we” in the music, and very little about, for instance, the trinity, or other deeper aspects of the divine life.

Classical music, to be sure, is not necessarily sacred – even some of it with sacred texts! – but I’m sure it reaches some people on a much higher plane than Christian contemporary ever will, and who is anyone to deny someone what connects them with the faith, their God, and their community? I’m not sure that the classical station had to “die” in this instance to give new life even to a generally worthy cause. Were the other (at least) five Christian contemporary stations and countless other religious “talk” stations not enough? How does an organization (radio station, city, society) determine what should stay and what should go, between two worthy choices, if only one choice may be made?

Feel free to answer, disagree or agree in the comments (here on the blog, or if you see this over on facebook or wherever). Now, back to your regularly scheduled internet.

While on vacation, Noah practices his preaching skills.  He certainly does get right to the core of the message, that’s for sure.

Shannon’s brother-in-law Andy continues to be a media darling!  Click this link or the pic so see a little interview he did for Discovery News about asteroid collisions with Earth (couldn’t embed it here, unfortunately).

No, not the show we did a couple years ago (written by Rory Cooney)…  Orin misplaced his binder earier today and had the honor of eating a dollop of sourcream without his hands to get it back.  The video is on facebook now, so I don’t think we can embed it here just yet, but maybe you can see it on Orin’s profile or the Oddwalk fan page, or at this link.

More updates later!

With Shannon on a family vacation, and Orin starting on Youth Sing Praise at the Shrine, posts here will be a little slim for a while.

Not that you’ll notice the difference.

Keep us all in prayer please!

Exactly what we’ve been waiting for, announces engadget:

“Rock Band 3 purportedly gaining keytar peripheral, infinite amounts of our love”

This was Orin's life, truly

But why pink??

And have you seen the keytars all over the TV shows Glee and Community lately? Does that mean we can finally buy this shirt? (And wear it with only mild amounts of embarrassment and shame?)  And thanks to Chris for the heads up!

As visitor #30,000 failed to identify him-or-herself in the allotted time, we move on to visitor 30,001 to find our $30 in free Oddwalk merchandise winner.  This person was much easier to distinguish based on the sitemeter data – and the is winner is…

Winner!

Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry

Diocese of San Jose, CA






John has been contacted to claim his prize.  Congratulations to all who tried, and better luck to you next time!

PS – Make sure to check out mpower28, a ministry of his which aims “To see every church receive quality tools and resources to support their leaders in effectively inviting all people to a deeper relationship with Christ and to committed discipleship.”

Big Brother is watching you.

… an inflatable keytar. Yes, that’s right. Our potential winning visitor hails from perhaps the Stanford Medical School and/or Redwood City, CA, and at 2:15pm pacific time, came to our blog while searching google for “inflatable keytar” – no kidding.  See more incriminating stats to the left.

So, should this person identify themselves in the next 24 hours – expiring at 3pm Thursday, pacific time – they will receive their prize, $30 of Oddwalk merchandise of their choice.  Just drop an email identifying yourself to oddwalk@oddwalkministries.com. Unfortunately, we don’t carry inflatable keytars in our store – perhaps we should. We have used one before though for keytar appreciation day a few years ago.

The winner of the inflatable keytar on keytar appreciation day, 2007

Anyway. If this person can’t claim their prize, we’ll move on to visitor #30,001 and on until we find our winner. Stay tuned – if you didn’t win yet, you just might! And, there’s always the hope for a giveaway at visit 40,000!