Do You Write Long Blog Posts
May 13, 2013 Leave a comment
5.12.13 Worship Rewind
May 12, 2013 Leave a comment
We had a wonderful and emotional service today for Mother’s Day. Huge Props to Lyndsey, our systems director, creating an amazing video for moms. Of course when my son, Levi, spoke on it I cried my eyes out. I’m so emotional knowing God has entrusted me with another life to teach and encourage and raise and to hear him say “I love you Mom” plainly blows my mind.
We began with You Are Good and mad props to Eddie singing for us. This song rocked and second service I thought there was gonna be a party. Wow.
After announcements and welcome which included a video for moms by Kid President we went into Grace Like Rain. In the first service, I totally bombed the lyrics. That’s what happens when you get lost in the message of the song your singing. I was so zoned in on what God was speaking to me that I just went in a weird direction in the first verse and when I looked out, it was evident EVERYONE knew it. There was no hiding it. Second service though, the party continued.
I applied a guitar loop on my acoustic while I changed from my electric to my acoustic to play the last song Give Me A Clean Heart. The first service, the Spirit was still speaking to me and I wore my emotions on my sleeve as I cried talking about God’s great love and grace for us. Eddie done a great job leading us. Proud of that guy!
Pastor Carlo brought a great message on grace washing us of our sin. I love my church; all the folks who worship with me, my pastor, the leaders and those who invest in our kids.
Now… Get off the internet and go treat your mom right and tell her you love her!
It’s My 6 Year Blogiversary
May 10, 2013 2 Comments
I don’t think that word existed when I started blogging six years ago and man how times have changed. So help me offer up a woot woot for sticking with blogging for so long. I’ve wanted to quit a dozen times but I’m still writing. So here’s to may more years of sharing on my little piece of the web.
Dead Giveaway
May 9, 2013 Leave a comment
It didn’t take the The Gregory Brothers — authors of “Bedroom Intruder Song” and “Backing Up” to come out with their new auto-tuned version of Charle’s Ramsey’s interview. It’s really good I must say. Check out Schmoyoho on youtube.
Leading Without An Instrument
May 8, 2013 1 Comment
I’m reading an amazing book right now for worship leaders titled “Doxology and Theology.” I ran across a quote last night that is so true. If you’re a worship leader…
Get this…
Feel this…
Understand this…
Meditate on this…
Grapple with this…
Let it seriously blow your mind!
“How many of our worship leaders would still be recognized as leaders in their churches apart from their instrument?” - Aaron KeyesRuined
May 7, 2013 Leave a comment
Sometimes when I see a familiar passage of scripture in a book I skip over it. After getting advice from my pastor telling me that one thing he never skips over is scripture in a book when he’s reading and recently reading a book, the author very kindly asked the reader to please read even though it’s a very familiar passage, I succumbed to wise counsel and read on.
So I ask you as well. Read this very familiar passage of scripture. I’ll meet you on the other side.
Isaiah 6:1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted,seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips,and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
I’m glad I read it too because I saw something I never saw. Maybe you caught it too. When Isaiah saw God, immediately he knew that he was “ruined.” Did you get that word? Think about what it means to be ruined. Here are some synonyms: abolished, annihilated, crushed, decayed, exterminated, extinguished, wrecked.
In other words; USELESS.
What I gleaned from this scripture that I never have over the million times, is I need to understand that in light of the almighty God, in light of His power, in light of His radiance, in light of His awesomeness, and without Him I am ruined. I am useless. I am like Judas in thinking that I should have never been born and it takes the seeing my uselessness before I can come to Him. Without realizing that we are a dying creation rotting away in our sins we can’t see that God has the antidote to death waiting for us to accept it.
But the story doesn’t end there. He goes on to say after God showed him mercy by touching his lips with the coal from the later, he was given a second chance and God asked a rhetorical question; Whom shall I send knowing the answer and hoping that Isaiah knew as well.
Isaiah said, “I will go!”
Thankfully, God allows us to accept his righteousness in our stead and gives us another chance. Millions and millions of more chances.
Hiking Helps Me Disconnect
May 6, 2013 Leave a comment
…and I really hate connecting back sometimes. I get out in the woods hiking for hours. I cut off my phone. Not just put it on silent but actually cut it off. When I return to my truck I turn it back on and I immediately am drawn back to my social networks to see what I missed. I hate this about myself. That’s exactly why I love getting away from it. I need the disconnection!
It’s funny that I actually feel dirtier checking my phone than when I’m in the woods. Why? Because Social Networking can feel fake. Not that I am fake. It can just feel fake. But the woods are natural. Nothing’s trying to impress you out there. Nothing’s trying to vie for your attention in the woods. Nothing’s is attempting to be what it’s not out there.
Everything you see and experience is what it is. You get what you get when you walk down the trail and see a flower slumping in the mid morning coolness. The trees give you all they have when their limbs are boasting full of leaves. The flies, nats, and mosquitoes give you their all and don’t care that they annoy you. The sun beats down on you heating you and the water replenishes your thirst. Everything you encounter in nature is being all it can be and nothing more, nothing less. They give you what they have the day they are having it. God’s creation in nature is truth.
Social Networking? Not so much. That’s why I feel dirty checking my phone after coming out of the woods. I feel I have just left the cleanliness of truth to a dirty facade. I need the disconnect in order to be refreshed. Drama, phoniness, arrogance, hatred, lies, and more that I find when I turn on my Social Networking is enough to drive me crazy sometimes.
Unfriend them you say. Quit following them you suggest. Here’s the problem. Social Networking is a habit for me. It’s a drug, a stimulant, and addiction and if you’re honest with yourself, it is for you too. We’re drawn to the inadequacies that Internet networking gives us. Like a moth to the flame that knows it hurts, we go back for more punishment because we can’t seem to be satisfied without it.
For me, disconnecting from it is the best I can do. So I grab a backpack and hit the woods. For me, it’s therapeutic and when I return, I return with hopes that I get to do it again soon.
“Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.” – John Muir
