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Happy Friday!

Rainy Day Music

Dan Wakefield had an intriguing post on Rainy Day Music.  Since here in KC we've been given quite a bit of rain recently, I thought I'd drop my list here with links to iTunes.  Here's what I like to listen to when it's raining:

Tim Hughes: When Silence Falls

R.E.M.: Automatic for the People

Matt Redman: Facedown

Jarsof Clay: Who We Are Instead

Telecast: The Beauty of Simplicity

Watermark: The Purest Place

What's yours?  Be sure to leave a comment if you post them on your blog.

Linking To iTunes

In my hunt to figure out a way to link straight to iTunes on our church website, I ran across a "how to" that I thought I'd share.  I found it over on Michael Hanscom's site: Ecclectisism.  I use his site every week to post links to our music list so people can purchase the songs on iTunes.  You never know when it may vanish from the web so I thought I'd go ahead and post it here.  Check out our Music Home page to see an example.

Link format (as a single line, broken here for clarity):
itms://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/
com.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction/advancedSearchResults?

Immediately following the ending ? are any of four search terms, or a global search term:

• songTerm= (song title)
• artistTerm= (artist name)
• albumTerm= (album title)
• composerTerm= (composer name)
• term= (global, search all fields)

Use & between query items if you are using more than one of the first four (non-global) querys, and replace any whitespace with %20.

Example: building a link to search for U2:

itms://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/
com.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction/advancedSearchResults?artistTerm=U2

Example: building a link to search for U2's 'The Joshua Tree':

itms://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/
com.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction/advancedSearch
Results?artistTerm
=U2&albumTerm=
the%20joshua%20tree


Be sure to type all of the above as one line (formatting issues with Typepad caused this to break up in a strange way).


Flicks

I keep meaning to post something on some flicks I saw recently but just haven't had the time.  I was lucky enough to just get the time to watch them.  Here's some movies I've seen recently and think they would be worth viewing.

Paradise Now
My sister brought this movie over when my folks were staying with us over Easter weekend.  I hadn't heard anything about it and I don't think it got much play in major theatres.  With the upcoming move my parents are making in about three weeks to Gaza, this was quite an interpretation of what the community there may be like.

This story is told from the prespective of a hopeful suicide bomber.  He gets the great news that he has been chosen along with his closest buddy to give his life for the cause against the "occupying Israeli's".  This film definitely puts a face and a story to the people who carry out these attacks while never giving you the impression it's "ok".  The movie shows the struggle that Palestinians face with no sense of hope of ever bettering their lives.  My parents are heading over there to let these folks know that there is hope in the One who loves them all. 

A movie worth seeing if you are open to challenging your faith and understanding that ALL people need Christ.  Yes...even a terrorist.

HopeForIshmael.org
Paradise Now on IMDB
Roger Ebert's Review of Paradise Now

Dreamer
Not a whole lot to say 'bout this one.  Just a good old fashioned great family flick.  Great theme song from Bethany Dillon.  Your basic race horse that can't possibly win another race but comes back to win one more time.  Great feel good flick.

Dreamer on IMDB
Roger Ebert's review of Dreamer

Batman Begins
Seriously.  I know.  It's like 10 months old now but I just saw it Sunday night.  For me there were no other movies last summer apart from Revenge of the Sith.  This Batman is WAAAAAY better than the movies put out in the late 80's early 90's.  Those were CHEESEY compared to this. 

I grew up a comic book geek but HATED the DC comic characters.  I know I'm desecrating the hero's of many comic geeks when I say Superman, the Flash, Batman, and whatever else they put out were to me extremely goofy.  Of course some of you are saying, "Actually all y'all are geeks!".  I will come out now and say this movie actually has me wanting a sequel (which according to IMDB is on it's way in 2008).  Great movie.  Liam Neeson reprises his role as Qui-Gon Jinn from Star Wars Episode 1.

Batman Begins on IMDB
Roger Ebert's review of Batman Begins

Grace Numbers 4/23/06

What a day!  So many new faces returning after Easter last week.  In the past we've always experienced a jump in attendance on Easter Sunday, but man, it's totally different with a building.  More people seem to attend church in a "building" than they will a school, even on Easter.  At least that seems to have been our experience.  Before we moved to the building we prayed we would have attendance at 600 when we began services.  Looks like God has brought the people! 

By the way, there were approximately 10 professed salvations at last weeks Easter weekend during our services.  VERY COOL!!!  And that's just the folks who turned in a card marking that they committed their life to Christ. That's what it's all about!

• Total Attendance: 609 Update. Total attendance: 621

Check out the "Grace By the Numbers" category to see the attendance trend during our transition to the new building.

Elvis Trooper

Any Star Wars fan who has attended a major gathering such as any of the Star Wars Celebrations has had the experience of meeting Elvis Trooper.  Oh yeah...there's an Elvis impersonator who impersonates a Stormtrooper.  It's Friday, a great day for non-essential goofy stuff.  Enjoy.

Question: What's Your Church's Favorite Song?

Well, Easter has now come and gone, the move has come and gone.  I'm now looking to begin the hunt for some new music.  What's your favorite worship song right now?  I'm talking, in your church that you sing, not songs that you want your church to sing.  And for you Gracers out there, feel free to drop your favorite.  And if you just can't leave one, feel free to drop a top 5 list.

Worship leaders - What songs do you just KNOW your church loves to sing?  We have an old faithful now that our church NEVER gets tired of singing. You Are Holy (Prince of Peace) just never tires for our congregation.

My fave:

• Enough by Chris Tomlin - I have always loved this song and never get tired of it.

Grace Numbers 4/16/06 Easter Sunday

Wow.

• Total attendance 961

To see the trend during our transition to the new facility, check out the "Grace By the Numbers" category.

Funny Pic

Happy Good Friday Everyone!

Grace in the Kansas City Star

On Palm Sunday, April 9th, the Kansas City Star ran a six page ad on the Grace Church move.  It included a note from our pastor, Tim Howey, and some details about ministries, history of Grace and gobs of ads from the companies that worked with us to get the building done. 

I don't know how many papers across the country offer this kind of advertising but if you're involved in a building project, it's definitely worth the investment.  With a little legwork on our part through providing the companies we typically do business with (construction, AVL, food etc.) they contacted each vendor and asked if they would like to be involved with an ad for our move.  Great idea!  The paper went to 50,000 customers in our area.  We've received some email queries through the ad.  Our real return on the investment will be this Sunday.  We're hoping to really reach roughly 1000 people over the weekend.

Here's a pdf of the article: Download GraceChurch.pdf