...can't even imagine

I was horrified to hear the news today. 5-year old Maria Sue Chapman tragically killed yesterday in an unthinkable accident in her own driveway.

I have a 4-year old son myself. He'll be five in September. I can't even articulate how I think I might feel in Steven's shoes right now. If you haven't seen it already, there's a very sweet video of Maria Sue and Steven on her memorial page... click the picture.

Steven, you've touched so many people you've never even met. May you and your family feel the prayers of those and a million more right now...

'inside out' lands on pureNRG's new record...

Ok, so just before I recorded 'Every Reason Why' I sat down with a few other writers to see if we could co-write something for the record. Matthew West and I have been friends since college, and though we hadn't written much together at all, it was a no-brainer to see what would happen if we put our heads together.

The product of that co-write was a tune that you may have heard if you've seen me live, or if you go to church at MSC where I lead worship almost every weekend. It's a song called 'Transformed.'

Here's where it gets fun: the song obviously didn't make 'Every Reason Why' but we had tried to pitch it to a conference as a theme song of sorts. It landed in the hands of the A&R camp for the tween group pureNRG, and they liked it. The words needing some tweaking to fit the demographic, so Matthew got out his hammer and chisel and made that happen. At the end of the day, the 'new' song, now entitled 'Inside Out' was recorded and recently released on pureNRG's newest project. Check out www.myspace.com/teampurenrg for a listen to how 'Transformed' morphed into pureNRG's 'Inside Out!'

worship confessional (5.18.08)

this past weekend was a crazy one... big weekend in the life of our church, honestly. The numbers came in a few weeks ago regarding the financial commitments for our building initiative Love. Loud. and while it was a lot of money--and represented significant sacrifices from many families in our congregation--it fell substantially short of the figure we needed in order to actually build.

We stood tall, though, and Pastor Mike delivered a powerful, compelling message that reminded us all why we're here... to worship our God without condition. That's what we did. We had started each service with a 3-song set, and after Mike's message we played a video and then launched another 3-song set to close the service. Some people were wrecked by the service as a whole, and I honestly think some people were over it once we hit the first song of the second set. Regardless, I have scarcely been more proud of my church... I'm excited to see--and eventually blog about--the eventual victory God has for this little slice of His church called MSC.

The songset for the weekend was:

Meet With Me - Lamont Hiebert

You Never Let Go - Matt & Beth Redman

We Fall Down - Chris Tomlin
__________

The Least I Can Do - M. Roach

Break Through - Tommy Walker

Everlasting God - Brenton Brown/Ken Riley

Worship Confessional (5.11.08)

This past weekend was, of course, Mom's Day. Usually, we get a packed house on Mother's Day weekend, but for whatever reason (maybe the ridiculously dismal weather) we were not only light on attendance, but a bit blah as well. Now, my friend Gary Durbin in Florida points out in his most recent WorshipSource confessional the importance of not measuring worship by the congregation's response, but focusing instead on God's pleasure... good reminder for all of us, I'm sure, and so I'll move on. :)

The last few weeks, I've been doing something a bit unorthodox with my acoustic--and I'm actually kinda likin' it. I've been plugging my acoustic into a Line6 floorboard, bypassing everything but the delay, and then using the built-in wah pedal as well. This past week, I used this on 'Welcome Song' by Pocket Full of Rocks. I use the Edge-inspired dotted quarter delay, and it manifests that tight, even sixteenth delay when I play eighths. The wah allows me to shape the sound a bit, like an envelope filter. It's cool stuff. Anyway, I'm in the process of replacing the church's Line6 with 'real gear' that will serve the same purpose--a Cry Baby and a DD-20. I'll keep you posted!

Here was the setlist for this past weekend:

The Welcome Song - Michael Farren

Filled With Your Glory - Jon/Tim Neufeld

How Can I Keep from Singing - Tomlin and Co.

Spirit Song - John Wimber

feature tune: Thank You Mom by Good Charlotte

ended with: As Long As I Have You - M. Roach

The feature tune was a crazy find... a hidden track from a Good Charlotte record that actually talks about his mom singing songs of praise and teaching him how to love God and such... we were just looking for a simple Mom's day tune and I was elated to find something by Good Charlotte instead of having to veer toward Bette Midler. :)

Until next week!

Worship Confessional (5.04.08)

Ok, this one's really late, I know, but I have to mention this... we had Mike Lewis, also known as the Jesus Painter, come and be a part of our Celebration services--the culmination of our Love. Loud. initiative. He is truly an awesome guy, and what he does in worship should be incorporated into every church across America and beyond if you ask me. If your church doesn't incorporate visual art or painting during worship, you should click on the painting to the right and check out what he does. Anyway, the services were jam-packed with songs, paintings, kids, baptisms, confirmations, pledges, thumbprints (kind of a way of every saying "I'm in") ... one of those services that triples the number of elements we include in a normal weekend. Great stuff, though, and Mike Lewis was an awesome addition. The tunes we did during the worship set were perfect for the two paintings he did while we worshiped. Here's the setlist:

The Happy Song - Martin Smith

Beautiful One - Tim Hughes

You Are - M. Roach

You Gave Your Life Away - Paul Baloche/Kathryn Scott

over 15,000 views!

yeah... so he's now 4 years old. The video was shot about a year ago. He likes to tell people about how he's on YouTube. But honestly, 15,000 views! That's awesome. So here's a reprise: