After a long silence....

Life is complicated. Never knowing what to do, yet people always want an answer. It's hard when you don't know why you were put here on this earth, and what you are supposed to do with the alloted time slot we call life. I have always had dreams, things that I want to do, but sometimes those dreams feel farther and farther away, while the inevitable end of life seems to creep ever closer. And life is fragile. Too fragile. One moment you are celebrating and laughing with friends about how you rule the world and have it all, and the next you are on the brink of death. I don't like death, yet it seems to be taking alot of people I know. It's part of our curse, stemming back to a bad decision about a piece of fruit. But all that aside, I'm still left feeling a little lost. Music is good, but it seems to elude me. I'm 23, and yet I feel too old to do what I really want, yet to young to be effective in what I'm supposed to be doing now. It's an interesting place to be. Torn between what I want, and what someone else wants. But isn't this how it's supposed to be? After all, we work our lives away just to get by, but why should we settle for existence? Why do we settle for just putting our eyes to the floor and trudging on? Shouldn't life be rewarding? Shouldn'd it be something we enjoy? I think it should. Of course to do that, you have to find something you are good at. It seems what I'm good at, or what I think I'm good at doesn't fit into what other people want me to be good at. And so we trudge. Onward towards the mist that we don't understand. I guess in the end all we have is faith. Faith in what we cannot see. I guess that's good enough...

No Small Affair

So after putting it off for years, I finally am writing and recording music with some very close friends who, with me, make up No Small Affair. We spent 18 hours (starting at midnight on Sunday night, and spanning till 6:00pm on Monday) writing and recording a song, which we are pretty happy with. Our plans are to go into the studio in August, to record our first EP. We are pretty excited about what the future could have in store. Currently, we don't have a real drummer, just fill-ins, so if any of you know of a great drummer, let me know. Our style is has elements of Death Cab For Cutie, maybe a little Tycho, a lot of programming, hints of Crowder, some United thrown in for good measure, epic bridges, cool rhythms, but over all trying to sound fresh and beautiful. Anyway, if you haven't heard our first song yet, go to www.myspace.com/nosmallaffairmusic. Let us know what you think, and make sure to add it to your profiles ;-) Thanks for tuning in, and sorry I have been away for so long. Until later....




P.S. Taking care of an elephant is a lot of work, so think twice before buying a pet....

My Hero

I have a new drum hero: Jason McGerr from Death Cab. In my excitement for their new CD, I was browsing their website and found this video. I need a drummer like this...

I will Possess Your Heart

Here is the single from "Narrow Stairs," Death Cab's new CD due to hit stores May 13th. This is incredible. I cannot wait...

New music on our horizon...

So last night, I finally got a hold of the new Coldplay single. All I can say is "WOW"! Actually, I will say a bit more. I'm very excited to hear the entire album. It is a slight departure from the old stuff, but it is a departure for bigger and better places. I am very tempted to fly out to New York, stay with my sister-in-law, and go to the free show... Anyways, the past week has been great to me, in the way of new music. Not only do I have the aforementioned single, but my friend Jon let me borrow a CD by a band called The National. It took me one time through the CD to accustom myself to it (witch is how it should be with any good CD). Now I can't stop listening to it. It is amazing. And by amazing, I mean AMAZING!!! Seriously, go buy it right now. You will not be let down. While we are on the subject of music, the new Death Cab for Cutie album comes out soon. I literally cannot sleep if I think about this release. It was recorded all on anolog tape, with very few overdubs. Very organic. The one review I read said that it is their best album yet, and it could very well end their carriers. What kind of a review is that?! I cannot take the suspense any longer. I feel like Cartman waiting for the Nintendo Wii to come out... (South Park fans are laughing right now).

On another note, I watched Into the Wild last night with buddies Mitch and Jon. It was the third time I have seen it and I am still in love with it. It makes me want to just meet people. There are so many interesting people in various nooks of the globe, and I feel like I need to meet them.

Well, this blog didn't really go anywhere...

Worshiping God, or worshiping god

So lately Seth (Creative Arts Pastor) and I (Associate Creative Arts) have been re-thinking our department, and how it runs. In the past, we have done worship teams the way most churches do. We have a pool of people, that we schedule regularly for our different services. We have a lot of people that want to get there time leading musical worship. However, I don't believe that this is the most effective way to reach culture. For one, you have a pool of people who are trying to learn 85 songs, and these people all have different styles, that don't necessarily fit with each and every song. This method tends to overload your musicians. Also, we believe in what Tim Smith, Music Pastor at Mars Hill in Seattle says, and that is we need to do three things with culture: Receive, Redeem, Reject. Obviously we can receive some parts of culture. Other parts we need to Redeem. How can we take what the world has made bad, and turn into worship? And lastly of course there are things that need to be rejected. Ok, here is how this plays into worship teams. Typical worship teams consist of a 6 singers, a leader, piano, keyboard, bass, acoustic guitar (or 2), electric guitar (or 2), percussion, drums, and maybe a choir. Here is my question. What part of culture is that redeeming? Where in the secular music world, which is a term i don't like, do you find that kind of a band? You don't. It is something that the church has invented over time. It reflects a mentality that encourages us to sit inside our box, and only take part in what we deem "Christian." What if instead of a huge worship team, you had a band that lead worship? Obviously this is not a new idea, seeing as David Crowder, Chris Tomlin, and Charlie Hall have been doing this for a while. We need to be relevant to the culture we are trying to reach. And for crying out loud, can we maybe not all try to sound like U2. Don't get me wrong, I love U2, but it's already been done. Why don't we try to be more original, more in tune with our culture and the city we live in. In being original, we can set down the electric guitar once in a while. In my own church, I think that the music has gotten in the way of our corporate worship. As we all know, worship is not music, it is not words. As Harold Best says in "Unceasing Worship," we are always worshiping, whether that's God or god. With music, sometimes that can get in the way. Now I am all about having a great sounding band lead musical worship, however sometimes the congregation can come to expect a certain style of music. How many times have you heard the famous line of "I can only worship to a certain style of music." That tells me that maybe it's not God they are worshiping, rather a style, feeling, or environment. Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13, which says, "This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me; in vain do they worship Me." I read that the other day as quoted by John Piper in his book "Desiring God." That is a powerful verse. It made me stop and wonder how many times I have worshiped God in vain. Later in the book, Piper talks about how "Worship is more than an act of mere willpower. All the outward acts of worship are performed by acts of will. But that does not make them authentic. The will can be present (for all kinds of reasons) while the heart is not truly engaged (or as Jesus says, is "far away"). The engagement of the heart in worship is the coming alive of the feelings and emotions and affections of the heart. Where feelings for God are dead, worship is dead" (Piper 86). Worship should be able to happen anywhere, anytime, through anything. This is something I am trying to implement in my daily life. How can I make each and every moment in my day bring glory and worship to God. David Crowder makes a good illustration in his book "Praise Habit." He correlates our daily praise with a nun's habit. For those of you who didn't attend a Catholic college, and didn't have classes taught by monks, and didn't have the opportunity to jam with one of those monks on acoustic guitars like I did, I will explain what a habit is. A habit is the robe that a nun or a monk wheres. As Crowder says, they put it on each morning. There is no question if they will where something else. It becomes part of them. They are identified by it. In this way, we need to put on our praise "habit" everyday. It should become part of us. It should identify us. Worshiping God needs to be in our DNA, not a service we attend on the weekends. It need to infiltrate our lives to the point of overflowing. This is my challenge myself and you, the reader. Let's make use of each moment in our day to direct whatever we are doing as worship to God. I promise it will change your life.



P.S. If you can, avoid stubbing your toe. It really hurts and isn't good for you....

I don't really have words to describe this...

I really can't pin point the feelings I have when I see this video. My first reaction, if put to words, would be something like "That is horrible! I can't believe they did that! That girl could have died! Freaking rednecks...." However, my second reaction, again if I were to compose it upon paper, or in this case reduce it to 1's and 0's, would read a lot like "Man, that actually looks like fun. I wonder how fast she is going? I wonder if they tried this on something else before her? I wonder where I could get 200 feet of bungee cord and an ATV..." Without further adieu I present to you Redneck Bungee "Jumping"