This blog is a compilation of life lessons involving ministry, life, family and pretty much anything I feel like sharing.
Life's best lessons are learned from the trials and errors of yourself...and those around you. Hope you can learn from mine!
This week was a one shot message from Youth/Ministry Pastor, Jim Williams. Good message on packing
up for your journey with God in 2008. To anyone who heard the message, please know this...I can run circles around my workout buddy. Lifting doesn't help much when you can't catch me. :) You can listen here to Road Trip 08.
It was refreshing for me to get back in the groove of playing worship tunes after the Christmas season. We pulled out a few tunes we hadn't played in awhile. The new drum set is still going through tweaking week in and week out. Thunderfoot Jon's tuning in some better sounds each week. Also nice to have Soakie back with us after a month long reprieve. I think I saw him spinning on stage. That means he was pumped about playing for the Lord. Nicely done Soakie!
By the way...was it packed in second service or what? I wonder if Tim needs to hit the First Service bell hard again?
Here's the worship set list. Don't forget you can click the titles to purchase on iTunes:
Lord Most High (D) by Dave Luben (Sorry, not on iTunes)
Here are the top 20 most frequently played songs at Grace from January 7, 2007 - December 30, 2007. In order of most played. Thanks to Jon for the idea. You can click the titles to purchase on iTunes.
Gigantic hats off to the entire crew of folks who volunteered this past weekend. With three services on Sunday and an additional two on Christmas Eve, the people of Grace stepped up big time. From the greeters, to the ambassadors, to the ushers, to the audio, stage, video, lighting, and children's ministry...everyone was amazing.
All the work this past month that the worship band put into creating the Transiberean Orchestra songs paid off huge. I think we've found a traditional Christmas song at Grace. It will definitely be back next year...and the year after...and the year after...as long as these guys and gals are at Grace. Way to go Lynnora, Chris, Jon, Sam, and Jimmy Luv. Thank you for sacrificing so many Saturday mornings this past month to make it happen.
I must also note and thank Lance and Jenny Caldwell for the AMAZING lunch they provided at their home for the Grace staff and all of the WST serving on Sunday morning. Such a HUGELY generous offer and such a blessing to our family and everyone else I'm sure. After such a long morning it was so nice to just come to someone's house with the food all prepared and ready to be eaten. Thank you Caldwell's for opening your home and stuffing our faces with such wonderful food. You guys are awesome!
Since we had two dates I'll break up the confessionals.
Sunday, December 23 Added a third service and recruited a slew of volunteers for various roles and teams. Grace Church has some awesome attenders who submitted volunteer forms leading up to the big days. It was a blessing for our staff to see so many folks wanting to get engaged in ministering to people this Christmas. Thank you all who submitted forms.
Thanks to Marie and Jason who provided food backstage. You guys are awesome! I think my favorite was the egg casserole and the salmon roles. Not great for singing...but thankfully we did a lot of instrumental songs so the belching was held to a minimum. :)
Doug and the video dudes - You guys as always are masterful at making things happen last minute. With the addition of the video clip from "The Lonely Guy", you guys never cease to amaze me. You made it happen when the expectation was just...hey if you can great...if not great. Thanks Doug and Jim for all you do.
On Thursday and Sunday morning we decided to give a third Transiberian Orchestra song another chance. We played a tune as folks were exiting the auditorium after each service. Our team has so much talent I'm blown away. They made it happen with little practice as a group.
Audio and lighting was operating under our "second stringers" as both leaders were out of town. Todd on audio and Jeff B. on lighting. You guys did fantastic! It's comforting for leaders to know they can leave without the pressures of worrying about their teams.
Tim brought a great message on being alone for Christmas as a part of the "A Survival Guide to Christmas" series. With all that he had to deal with this week (death of a grandmother) I can't imagine having to put together a message for both Sunday and Christmas Eve. God used Tim this week in huge ways. scroll to the bottom of this post to see the video clip he used for this message.
Here's the worship set list:
O Come Emmanuel - Instrumental on violin with Acoustic guitar pre service
Joy to the World (A)
O Come Let Us Adore Him (G) - Matt Redman
Mighty to Save (A) - Hillsong
Christmas Eve Serajevo - Transiberian Orchestra
O Come All ye Faithful/O Holy Night - Transiberean Orchestra
First Snow - Transiberean Orchestra post service
Monday, December 24 Christmas Eve We scaled back the music and had an acoustic set for our two Christmas Eve candlelight services. Brian, Camelia, Brad (aka: Soakie) and myself sat on stage pickin' and grinnin'. With these services being "family" (which means no children's classes or nursery) we decided to mix up the music a bit throughout the message. Thanks to Brad for stepping in and playing geetar with me. It was fun having Soakie back on as he's been breaking for almost a month. Break's over for him! :)
Jason and Addie - They were the glue between the stage and the booth. I am convinced that every service needs a stage person to keep us connected with the booth. Jason had a huge curve ball thrown at him when Brad's battery in his acoustic went out during the baptisms in the first service. Jason ran back to the booth and retrieved a battery. Stage crew at Grace rocks!!!
I love the in-ear monitor system we use. It gives the booth the ability to talk to us in our ears, a lot like they do in news rooms communicating to the news readers when something happens. On Christmas eve, while installing the new battery in Soakie's guitar, a call to our ears said "tell them to move to the center". I was perplexed not understanding what was up. I thought he was telling us on stage to move to the center. Then a clarification came through "Tell the congregation to move to the center". It was so packed in the first service we had to tell folks to move to the middle in order to open up seating for more guests. Man I love that in ear system. If you ever see me with a strange look on my face during worship...it's because the booth is talking in my ears. Hopefully I'm smooth enough to not distract people from worship. :)
Brian sang O Holy Night which makes every persons heart melt in the room. That guy has got some smooth pipes and can croon like no one else I know. Awesome job Brian! Camelia provided some great garnishing with her great harmonies along with Brian. Great job team!
Here's the list:
Jingle Bells (G)
Joy to the World (Bb)
Angels We Have Heard on High (Em)
Mary's Prayer (D) by Bebo Norman
O Holy Night
Silent Night during candlelight
Thanks again to all who made Christmas services happen this week. It's a privilege to serve with so many great people who love to worship God with the talents and abilities He's given.
What do these guys have in common? They were both a part of our Christmas celebration in our home.
I've never been a great gift giver in my past. One year I remember being pumped about the 10 VHS videos I purchased for her filling a gift bag all the way to the top. Oh yeah...the romantic gift every woman looks forward to at Christmas. A bag full of videos. I think I redeemed myself of that drastic gift giving mistake I made some 12 years ago. This year she got the most recent Michael Buble CD along with two tickets to his show coming this March. Bam! I figured it out...identify the love language of your spouse and come up with a gift. And "quality time" is the language that my wife speaks best. Thanks also to a good friend who helped me make it possible!
I was thrilled to find under the tree my gift. A Force FX Lightsaber...Darth Maul style...oh yeah! BEST
GIFT EVER! The greatest gift this man can get is the one that is absolutely useless.
Nothing much to say lately. Extremely busy with gearing up for Christmas. Here's a video to fill the time between now and the next post. What George Lucas doesn't want you to see:
You can dispute all you want. This is Christmas music at it's finest. And yes...I do like Christmas music. Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song" So what's your fave Christmas album?
This was week 3 in the current series "A Survival Guide to Christmas". The topic was dealing with interruptions. There are those weeks where you know God is going to do great things based on the life situations that occur leading up to a weekend. This was one of those weeks for our pastor.
His family has been preparing for the passing of his grandmother for at the very least a month, however this week she took a turn for the worse. Take a look at his blog for more info.Today's message was an inspiring and insightful look into the various interruptions around the birth of our savior. It was awesome. We also heard the story of "Scorin'" Goran Hunjak and his wife Gina Hunjak. She was near death a few years ago after being electrocuted by touching her stove and refrigerator at the same time. Their story of faithfulness is inspiring. Give it a listen in the first 20 mins of the message.
Musically we had an interruption as well. I woke up without the ability to sing and had trouble speaking. I think God was really trying to bring home the point about dealing with interruptions. But our team rolled with it. Fortunately, I was only going to be leading one song which made it easier to just have one of our vocalists take the lead. Great job to Gina and Camelia!
This week we rolled out the instrumental songs the team has been working on for about a month. They played Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Eve in Sarajevo" and "O Come All Ye Faithful/O Holy Night". I was blown away. I think the congregation was as well. We had folks stick around second service just to hear the "Christmas Eve in Sarajevo" tune since they missed it first service. These guys and gals have been working very hard at making these songs come together. Amazing job you guys...I'm ready to rock again next week!
Here's the worship setlist. Don't forget to click the song to purchase on iTunes:
My oldest turns 8 years old today. I can't believe it. She's half way to driving age. Seriously...8 years went by so fast and I can't imagine how fast the next 8 are going to go. Happy birthday to Sporty!
This week was a one shot message from Youth/Ministry Pastor, Jim Williams. Good message on packing
up for your journey with God in 2008. To anyone who heard the message, please know this...I can run circles around my workout buddy. Lifting doesn't help much when you can't catch me. :) You can listen here to Road Trip 08.
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