Linus explains Christmas

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MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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Call Your Name - Gateway Worship

One of the best worship songs in the last couple of years. I was blessed to be in the congregation the night this was recorded.

Sing along...it will surprise you.



Gateway Church The singer/songwriter is Zach Neese. Here is a link to more of Gateway's worship music.

Go Bogota 09! - Preparations

Leaving for Bogota in 2 Days!

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Mission Trip to Bogota

On Monday we leave for a short-term missions trip to Bogota, Colombia with a team of 12 people from our church. We have a sister church there, the North Church, and will be working in a variety of jobs, including the continuation of some remodeling at the Wesleyan Bible Institute, an important minisitry training center. The Bogota North Church is the largest Wesleyan church in the world, actually, and it will be a very interesting and exciting trip.

Nancy will be taking and publishing photos, and I will be blogging our trip here, at the website of our team leader, Steve Mathews.

We are praying for a safe and productive trip, of course, but even more so we are hoping and anticipating that we will see God at work in new, transformative ways, in us, our team, and in the lives of our Colombian hosts.

Say it out loud. It's not magic...

...but it is supernatural.

I have found this to be true.

Winners

Just go read this story.

Do it. Go. NOW.



h/t AIM & Kamp Krusty

INDIANA SKY 7/30/08

"They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory." 

Matthew 24:30b

Nancy took this picture a couple of evenings ago. Evidently, the Lord never tires of either sunrises or sunsets. Not only can He see both occurring continuously somewhere here on our planet, but He has made the universe such that this same phenomenon is rendered unceasingly across the breadth of His creation, in infinite and relentless variety. 

What does that say about Him?

BROOKE FRASER - SHADOWFEET (MBPYNHO)

And out of the blue comes this installment of Music By People You've Never Heard Of.  This is Brooke Fraser singing her song "Shadowfeet" from her album, Albertine.  I really like the directness, the simplicity of the lyric and music.  And the video bears the same aesthetic, relying on the intrinsic strength found in the human face, portraits of real people.  

So what do you think?

If I Have Not Love by Matt Redman (a different Matt than the one in yesterday's post.)

I am leading this song at church during the offeratory time this weekend. It is a song that really speaks to me and I am excited about it. Nancy and I were in attendance at the live recording of the album from which it comes a few years ago at the Facedown Conference in Atlanta. One of the things I like best about this album is how the idea of the mystery of Christ is so wonderfully explored in both lyric and music.



(We will be doing without it the foreign subtitles, but this was the best version YouTube had to offer.)

Hot rod guitars and old friends.

I could write and talk about guitars all day, to be honest. So, if you came here hoping for a new travelogue post about what to do in Rome, you’ll want to come back tomorrow. Today our topic is again the details and minutiae of my hot new guitar rig and the joys of reconnecting with old friends.

This past weekend I played the new amp rig and my recently-modified Stratocaster in our worship services. Overall, it went really well and I am very pleased with the new sound. Most of the songs this week were guitar-driven, blues-rock infused styles and I was especially happy with the big, crunchy sound that the little amp delivered. I still need to tweak and refine some of the clean, sparkly, textural sounds that I often use as those seemed harder to get to and control. This involves some rather extensive reprogramming of my aforementioned Boss GT-6. But I must say that when I needed the bark and growl (and who doesn’t need that in worship?), it was right there at my fingertips and loads of fun. When we we hit the chorus of The Newsboys’ version of “Amazing Love”, I had this humongous, warm, rich, textured heavy-rock rhythm sound that was just...inspiring. Amen.

I am just as excited about the new Tex-Tone pickup that I installed in the bridge last week as I am about the new amp. It has a completely different, and far more nuanced, sound than the stock pickup. The output level is not noticeably different than the still stock middle and neck pickups, but it definitely has a nicer tone. One of the best things about it is the way it seems to respond to the tone control knob. Like most Strat players, for years the bridge tone control has been largely superfluous, left wide open (on 10!) nearly all the time. But with the Tex-Tone, I actually found that it was useful for rolling of some of the highs when I wanted to have the characteristic bite, but perhaps not quite as much razor-pointy edge as this pickup is capable of. That kind of flexibility is a surprising and unique benefit.

I had one annoying problem that cropped up at the end of the Saturday night service, an audible 60-cycle hum. It wasn’t terrible and in fact, was unnoticeable on the overdriven sounds, but it did prevent me from using it on clean rhythm sounds. Interestingly, tube amps often have some hum and my Valve Jr. is astonishingly quiet as tube amps go. It was immediately obvious to me that it was my guitar that had the problem. But I have modified a fair number of guitars through the years and, from experience, that sound is virtually always due to a cold solder joint or flaky ground wire. So I will do a little remedial troubleshooting this week and it will be fine.

Ultimately, I may want a somewhat hotter pickup on the bridge, moving this one into the middle or neck position since a little extra output on the back never hurts, but for now I’m satisfied to leave it as it is for a few weeks to see what happens.

I am also waiting for a set of new Fender locking tuners to put on this guitar which will help stabilize the tuning and increase the functionality of the whammy bar.   The high-E string tuner has been busted since New Years Eve, actually, and I have just been procrastinating.  I also did a minor cut-down modification on the plastic backplate to facilitate access and speed up restringing.  That one I've been meaning to do for a couple of years. 

To the uninitiated, I realize this all sounds pretty esoteric.  Like listening to the guys at the hot-rod swap meets talk about customizing their collector cars.  It is like that, only much cheaper.

Tex-Tone Pickups are handmade by a good friend in Texas, David Allmon. He and I reconnected a couple of weeks ago after having lost touch for at least fifteen years. Without the Internet, that might have never happened.  The coolest thing was that, once we started talking, it was like no time had passed.  I love that...and it almost never happens.  David is a blessing and always has been. He is married to a wonderful girl, Kimala, and they have a teenage son. 

But back in the late 80's, he wasn't hand winding precision-engineered, custom-designed electric guitar components.  Nope, he was rocking like a hurricane as you can clearly see in this picture:

Heh. David is the one on the right.  With the mane.  

And, from the sound of things, my friend is still rocking it.  While I've never been genetically capable of growing hair like that, to be fair, I don't look the same as I did in the late 80's, either.  And Lord knows I'm not going to post a picture of me from that era on my website, so here is a recent one of me about to enjoy a nice antipasto in Rome:

Well, I sure didn't see this coming...

...but I must say I'm pleasantly surprised:

American Idol(s) singing Hillsong's "Shout To The Lord."  They actually sang it twice, but the link above is the best of the two performances.  

Simon likely thought it "self-indulgent," his usual response to Christian songs.  

I don't place any great spiritual significance on this, actually, but it is still better than a sharp stick in the eye.

h/t blog.worship.com.  Thanks!

Counting your blessings

So how is your day going?

It's so easy to complain about how busy my life is, how I don't get to do everything I want to do, how there's just never quite enough money to get ahead...but I've got sooooo much to be thankful for.  Say a prayer for the guy and his family in the link above.

Easter at FCWC

It was a great Easter weekend at our church.  In all three services, we were blessed with extraordinary attendance.  Our pastor, Dave Anderson, delivered a great message and there were many people who either recommitted their lives to Christ or took steps toward a first-time decision to accept Christ.

Among the numerous worship elements in play was a drama that featured as it's figurative and literal centerpiece a humongous cross, 38 feet tall.

The drama was an adaptation of a script and concept from Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago.  Nancy was the driving creative force behind the building of the cross, as well as most of the other artistic elements, but it's realization in our service required a huge team effort by a couple of dozen talented and gifted people.  Here are some photos.

The cross was constructed first from pieces of aluminum triangular trussing.  Then pieces of pressed foam insulation boards were cut and strapped to the trussing with heavy-duty nylon ties.  It was made in two pieces that were ultimately bolted together to form the cross.

After much work and careful fitting, our artists painted the blue foam, scoring and sculpting the face of it with a propane torch.  More painting and touch up followed.

Here is a picture of the finished cross on the stage with some preliminary lighting.  This picture was taken at the drama rehearsal on Saturday.  The basic idea of the script is that this huge cross has crashed through the roof of the house, literally through the middle of the dining room table.  But the family who lives at the house ignore it, going to great lengths to avoid discussion or mention of the cross.  One of the lines mentions something to the effect that they only take note of it at Christmas and Easter.  It was very funny, but also compelling.

Above is a picture from the Saturday night service.  For more pics and detailed info, check out Nancy's Flickr page.

How To Get Revival

This is a very funny post over at AIM. It's about how to use the Book of Jonah as a guide for personal and corporate revival. Good times, good times...

The Anti-Itch Meditation: How To Get Revival

I really like Jonah's story a lot. It is so weird. Jesus likes it too and refers to it directly in Matthew 16:1-4 as He excoriates the Jewish religious leaders for asking Him to do magic tricks. Forget saving mankind from eternal damnation and misery, these guys wanted to see some Him do the Water-into-Wine gag or the Walk-on-Water trick.

Excoriate is an especially good word, if I do say so myself, to describe what Jesus does to the Pharisees and Sadducees, by the way. It comes from the Latin excoriare which means to "flay or strip off the hide".

Anyway, in the Matthew passage, Jesus tells them that the only magic trick they are going to get is what He calls the "Sign of Jonah". He is giving props to Jonah for breaking that trick in with the old "three days in the belly of the fish" act that Jonah was (and still is) so famous for. Jesus is, of course, referring to his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection (after three days) that is coming up a few chapters later.

Stupid Pharisees and Sadducees...they never did figure out how He did that.

Palette of Light on a Canvas Grand

My wife has a cool job. She is the Director of Creative Arts at our church. Her responsibilities are numerous and varied, covering basically all of the worship service elements except the spoken message. She works closely with the pastoral staff and with Steve Mathews, our Director of Worship and resident musical powerhouse. One of her principle duties (and joys) is the set and lighting design for our main sanctuary. She is really good at it and continues to come up with fresh, new, and engaging ideas to complement and integrate all of the musical, multi-media, visual, and dramatic components in order to help communicate the Gospel in our little corner of the kingdom.

This is what our sanctuary looked like last week. Those illuminated orbs are Chinese lanterns. They are lit from within and without. One of our best and most gifted volunteers, Phil Lafuze, wired them up and is able to control them from our lighting console. The two large globes on the stage are connected to hoists in the rafters and can be raised and lowered.

This was from a sermon series some months back on technology and it's effect on the family and culture. The Cubist wall hangings are actually paintings. One of our artists, Ben Kenworthy, created several canvases with a "paint-by-numbers" outline drawing. Then, volunteers from the congregation painted in the colors.

This was Christmas 2006. One of the coolest things was the way we had the lights on the trees are wired into the light board. There were actually two colors of light strands on each tree, white and red, if I recall correctly. At different times within the service, the lighting on the stage would change and so would the trees. Pretty cool.

This one, a little harder to see, was for a series called "The Ripple Effect" and utilized a variety of water effects in video and lighting. But the most interesting element was the four illuminated recirculating waterfalls that lined the back of the stage. Conceived by Nancy and brought to reality by Randy Davis, our video department director, and the aforementioned Phil Lafuze.

Here's a picture that shows the waterfalls a little better, behind the guitarists.

Free Hugs

This video is reportedly one of the most popular on YouTube with nearly 23 million viewings:



We used it as a "pre-service element" (which is a "prelude" in the post-modern vernacular) in one of our church services this past weekend.

I could analyze this and we could discuss the social and spiritual implications of this work. Or we could just be grateful that some hippies in Sydney, Australia did something extra cool and thank the Lord for small gestures of kindness and charity.

Jazz Christmas

Our church always cranks it up a notch at Christmas. Actually, we strive for as high a calibre of creativity and execution as possible every weekend, but we always try to do something extra at Christmas. Our primary motivation is that we recognize that this is the time of year when it is often possible to reach some people who perhaps are otherwise reluctant to cross the threshold. The presentation of the gospel through the lens of the biblical Christmas story can often facilitate the honest introspection necessary for an unbeliever or a marginal believer to recast their entire life in a new and profound direction. A direction that will lead them into the life eternal.

This year, we are producing a dinner theater performance entitled The Christmas Rewind combined with about an hours worth of music. The play is a hilarious spoofy retelling of the Christmas story with four actors and a narrator, characterized by snappy repartee and a dizzying procession of lightning fast costume changes. We are fortunate that we have some really gifted actors and technical folk who are doing an excellent job.

For the musical segment of the program, we are doing several special Christmas arrangements, including the one by my friend Mark Bovee, mentioned in the previous entry as well as half-a-dozen or so jazzed-up Christmas carols. We brought in some friends to play in our little pit orchestra. Jeff Reed, an outstanding jazz pianist from Indianapolis and Pat O'Neal, an area band director who plays jazz sax and flute. With Kevin McDonald on drums, me on guitar, and my buddy Steve Matthews (who is way too busy to blog right now) playing bass and leading us, it is really a fun group. And every one of those guys is a serious artist...I mean really good, professional players. I'm fortunate to get to hang with these guys.

The only unfortunate thing is that I just really suck as a jazz guitar player. First of all, I never play straight-ahead jazz except at Christmas. I just don't. I like jazz and I listen to it often, but I am really a rock-and-roll guy. My roots are rock, R&B, funk, blues, and other pop styles. I enjoy improvisation, but I just don't go for the jazz vibe usually. I could be a jazz guy, I should be a jazz guy, and I wouldn't mind being a jazz guy. In fact, I would love being a jazz guy. But, to date anyway, I just haven't put the time in necessary to make it happen. So I fake it. Actually, I know all the characteristic chord voicings and can play jazz rhythm guitar all evening long. But when it comes time for some kind of blistering solo through changes...I just sound like a rank beginner. For me, it's usually like tip-toeing through a mine field. When it's my turn to solo I find myself concentrating not on playing something melodic, but just on avoiding playing any wrong notes...and that, folks, ain't art. It also makes me sweat profusely until my 16-bars are done and I'm safely back comping rhythm.

In addition to not really having the right mindset, I don't have the right equipment. To really play jazz, you need one of these babies:


Now that is sweet. It is a Gibson L-5 CES. It's called having the right tool for the job. Admittedly, owning one of these babies wouldn't make me a jazz player any more than owning a power drill makes me a carpenter. But, hey, it would be a good start. At least I would feel more like a jazz player, which would help.

And even though my solos would still sound like crap, people would say, "man, that guy's guitar is beautiful."

That is one of the the best things about music. Regardless of how good you are and how much you know, just over the horizon is whole new unexplored territory waiting for you to venture in. Living forever is going to be so cool, too, because I'll finally have time to explore those unknown lands.

In heaven, I'll be a hot jazz guitar player. Until then, I'll fake it every chance I get.

Drive-by Blog Entry

Just checking in... some scattershot thoughts, notes, and activities.

First, it's freakin' winter here today. No snow, yet, but it is 25 degrees, counting the wind chill. And it is gusting at 40mph. Time to yank the A/C window units and actually do that weatherstripping project I've been thinking about for the last month.

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My brother has a blog. It is in this cool community site that his church has launched. It is sort of like a Facebook-style social networking thing. When I get time, I'm going to learn more about it and see if it might work at our church, too. I jointed their community yesterday so that I could post snide comments and random jibes, and I really like the vibe and feel of it. Check him out and read about his self-diagnosed obsessive-compulsive approach to writing (or not-writing). Heh.

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Today I am neck deep in putting together a training presentation on A/V systems for worship that I will be conducting at a local church this evening. I'm looking forward to it. I used to do this kind of thing a lot, some 10 years ago or so. Training volunteers in this area of ministry is very satisfying. It is a balance of 50% basic audio technical info and 50% relational servant/leadership info.

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At church this past weekend, my son Jordan, with our worship team, led a song during the offertory called "The Blessing", by John Waller. The response of the congregation was astounding and inexplicable. He did do a great job, playing piano and singing, and it is an effective, powerful song, expertly arranged by our worship director. But the outpouring of emotion surprised us all. Jordan has played on our teams for years and is a very gifted musician, but this is the first time he sang the lead as a soloist. That was really the only difference this week and, still, that doesn't explain the weeping, the effusive affirmations, the hugs from strangers, the people calling us at 7:15 AM the next day just to tell us how moved they were by that song. Nancy, who works at our church, said staff and congregants alike were all still talking about it on Monday.

The funny thing is, JP actually didn't even know for sure that he was singing that song until last Friday, the day before the first service. Also, Nancy and I have always known he could sing and play, so we just assumed that he would give it his best shot and that he'd probably do well. He does have a knack for that. Sure, we were proud of him but, honestly, for us, it was kind of routine. As a family, that's kind of what we do and have always done...we go, we play and sing, we worship. And then we do it again next week.

But there was something different this time. The Kid was at the nexus of some kind of spiritual watershed event, I think. I don't have the answers, but I am intensely curious about what God is doing and what He is planning, both in the life of my son and in the life of our church.

I hope to have a video clip in a couple of days and, if I can figure out how, I'll post it.

Home again...

Home again and happily so. It was a good trip, as business trips go, and will likely be fruitful. Travel and accommodations were perfectly fine, without snag or complaint. That is, until I got to my car in the parking lot at the James Cox International Airport in Dayton on my return Saturday afternoon at which point I found that I couldn't find my keys. They remain lost to date, presumably in Atlanta, but who knows...they still haven't turned up. Nevertheless, thanks to my son, I made it back home in time to catch the end of the worship rehearsal at church and the evening's service.

The highlight of the trip was, without a doubt, the worship concert that I attended Thursday night. Diante do Trono ("before the throne") is the worship team of Igreja Batista da LaGoinha, a large evangelical church in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, that I mentioned in a previous post. I had been invited by Randy Adams, who is the recording engineer for most of the Diante Do Trono's worship recording projects. (Go here to see a list of Randy's astounding discography.) The amazing thing was that these friends of mine from so far away, whom I had never met in person before, happened to be in Atlanta at the same time I was, performing at a local church that was less than a mile from my hotel.

My friend and colleague, Jeff McLeod, and I stood behind Andre Espindula, the chief engineer whom I have known telephonically and virtually for several years now. It was a joy to meet him in person at last. The worship was wonderful. They had a full rhythm section, background singers, six-piece horn section and a pair of young dancers. Ana Paula Valdao Bessa is the worship leader and she is a great leader, possessing a wonderful voice and a strong passion for the gospel.

Jeff and I speak enough Spanish between us that we could roughly interpret the Portuguese lyrics and speech, although the languages are, in fact, very much different. It is not the first time that I have worshipped in a non-native tongue and, hopefully won't be the last. I believe that Heaven will be very much like that. It is likely that in Heaven, the Lord will reverse the curse of Babel so that we will all speak and understand a common language, but it is undeniable that the children of God come from every time and every culture on Earth. And language is an integral, inseparable part of cultural identity.

An especially moving segment was when Ana spoke at length to the predominately Brazilian audience of some 1200 or so people about the need for them to remember that most Christian believers in Brazil were saved as a result of the efforts of American missionaries over the last 150 years. She encouraged them to now do all they can to, in turn, embrace and positively impact their adopted country. I was somewhat undone emotionally by the passion of her prayer for our country, the outpouring from the people, and the power of the worship song that followed, Águas Purificadoras.

After the concert, at Andre's request, the host-pastor of the Brazilian congregation took us back to the green room and introduced us to Ana. As it turns out, we share a number of friends in Texas, where she went to college in the early 90's. She was humble and gracious, and it was very considerate of her to spend time with us after a rigorous evening. They were to leave by bus later that night for Miami, Florida for the final concert on the tour before returning home.

What an unexpected blessing this was, and one I will remember often for years to come.

More Groovy stuff

The new Midas XL8 digital audio console is amazing. Not only does it boast extraordinarily high quality and an amazing feature set, it has more cool lights per square inch than anything else I've ever seen. This little pic does it no justice, but it really is one of the most beautiful, aesthetically satisfying high-tech device I've seen in a while. Multiple interactive display screens, hundreds of illuminated knobs and buttons, it is stunning...like something out of a sci-fi movie.

To really see how beautiful these 3-dimensional decorative tools are from Rose Brand, you need to go to their website and follow the links.

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They are very cleverly designed and beautifully made, consisting of a spandex-like material stretched over a stick frame. They come in several sizes and are quite wonderful.

And, just to demonstrate the diversity of this tradeshow and prove that it is by no means all about technology, across the aisle from our booth is Starry Host Design. This is a company devoted to the design of creative worship spaces for children. They partner with churches and focus on facility planning, security, and an engaging, artistic environment for children to learn about God. Their website cites an important statistic, that "80% of the decisions to follow Christ occur between the ages of 4-14." Personally, I can testify that more than once, when our son was young, we decided whether or not we would attend a particular church based on the discernable quality, or lack thereof, of the child care. A church that wants to reach out to and meet the needs of young adults with families need to understand how critical this is. It doesn't matter how beautiful the sanctuary is, how wonderful the worship music sounds, or how great the preaching may be if the needs of your kids are being ignored.

This is the last day of the show and I fly home tomorrow. I had a great time last night at the Brazilian worship concert at Cumberland Community Church. I will write more about it later, but it was great to see in person some friends that I have only known for several years by phone.