Wow – I can’t believe that tomorrow will actually be the first day of June. That is crazy in my books. Especially because it doesn’t even really feel like summer has started yet. We have had moments of warmth but lots of moments of coolth as well.

Okay – prefessional. Haven’t done one of these in a while but the basic idea is that I talk about what we’re hoping will happen on Sunday before we actually get there. We’re in week three of our “Rest Area” series and the first two mornings have been amazing. Our associate pastor, Dan Brubacher, is preaching tomorrow and I think we’ve got a good service put together. Here’s what’s on the lineup -

New Doxology – Gateway – F
Yesterday, Today & Forever – Vicky Beeching – A
Offering/Announcements
All The Earth – Paul Baloche – E
Everlasting God – Brenton Brown – A
Be Still And Know That I Am God – ?? – D
Message – Be Still – Psalm 46
Be Still And Know – Steven Curtis Chapman – A

Alright. That’s a good looking morning. A few things that I’m excited about -

1. New Doxology from Gateway. Check it out if you haven’t heard it yet and pick up the click/loop track from PraiseCharts, too. Good stuff. We’ve done this before with the additional lyrics but it’s the first time we’ll be adding the new chorus. Our congregation really likes this song and it will be a good opener
2. Yesterday, Today & Forever – I sent a Twitter message to Vicky Beeching today asking her what she does vocally and musically in between the “Always loving, always true” and “Always merciful and good” lines. There’s two bars there and I always feel awkward at that spot – it feels like I should be doing something. When you play that song, what do you do there?
3. We’re closing with a little response opportunity for our congregation where they’ll be able to interact with the message and the passage – I’ll give more details in my confessional but I’m looking forward to it. While that is happening I’ll be playing that SCC song – I wonder if he’s been listening to any of his own music over the past week or so.

So there you go. I’ll post my confessional next week but leave some comments and let me know what you’re planning this weekend too!

I’ll be in Nashville – re:create is just about the only thing that happens in February worth looking foward to, except the birthday of one Pat Dryburgh.

 

Are you coming too??

My pastor, Earl Marshall, wrote some good stuff on his blog today -

It seems that church planting is a hot topic these days.  There is ongoing discussion as to whether or not we need more churches (which may be a statement based on form rather than function).  There can be no doubt, however, that we need more churches that are making a difference.  I see making a difference revolving around gospel ministry.

In the 2 1/2 years I have worked for Earl, I have learned one thing* – Earl is very intentional with his communication. If Earl tells you something, it’s because Earl wants you to learn something :) He has done this in subtle and not-so-subtle ways in our time together! I’m glad it didn’t take me long to learn this about Earl because I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer and sometimes I need things spelled out for me very c-l-e-a-r-l-y! Ha.

Anyways. I’m not sure how many folks from our congregation actually read Earl’s blog (we don’t promote blogs or drive people there for content very often) but if they understand his philosophy of communication and what he is saying in that post I’m sure that we are in for some very interesting discussions in the coming days.

So here is my question:

100 new Canadian churches making a difference, who’s in?

P.S. The book he’s referring to is written by Bob Robert of Northwood Church, home of the one and only Jordan at WorshipTrench.com – if you haven’t checked out his site you really need to.

*I’ve actually learned lots of things in my time working with Earl but this is the one thing that is relevant to this discussion :)

After a couple of weeks away from the blog for a variety of reasons I’m ready to get back on the horse. Let’s start with a quick recap of how things went at OBC yesterday morning.

We’re in the second week of a new series called “Rest Area” where we are intentionally taking time away from the busy things and just resting in the presence and the character of God. Last week was focused on Psalm 55 – our natural desire to run away and hide when we are faced with trouble – and this week was all about Psalm 1 – what it means to be like the tree with deep roots.

Here’s what our service looked like -

Reign In Me – Brenton Brown – A
Holy Is The Lord – Chris Tomlin – G
Here I Am To Worship – Tim Hughes – E
Offering/Announcements
Video – Down To The River
Saviour King – Mia Fieldes & Marty Sampson – E
Wonder Of Your Cross – Robin Mark – G
Message – “Transplanted”
Amazing Grace – Trad/Tomlin – E

Two things to talk about this week -

1. Our typical setup Sunday morning is to have a full band – acoustic guitar, piano, bass, drums, singers – but the “vibe” of this series really lends itself to changing things up. For the first set of three songs I was up on stage by myself with my guitar which was a nice change to what we normally do. By changing up what people are used to it communicated that we were intentionally trying to make them pay attention to what was different.
   We also changed our lighting – as much as we could. We meet in a gym and our options for lighting are only on or off with about 30 switches controlling different sections of lighting. We worked out which lights could be turned off and which could be left on to create a darker environment in our room but still light enough that you could see people around you.
   The combination of the change in lighting and the change in how the music was presented was pretty effective and allowed us to again communicate the idea of resting in God’s presence as we were meeting together.
2. The video we used was a nice little element. I introduced our service by talking about the biblical metaphor of a river representing the presence of God (Genesis 2, Ezekiel 47 and Revelation 22) and that we know that when we meet together that God is in our midst. Sunday morning is an opportunity for us to rest in the river of God – to be refreshed and renewed by His spirit. I knew that I wanted a video element to support the river metaphor because it would also come up again in Earl’s message on Psalm 1. I spent some time thinking about songs and remembered the Alison Krauss song from the “O Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack, “Down To The River”. I then went hunting for the right video and found one over at SermonSpice.com that would work nicely. With a little editing of the video and audio we had a final product that worked really well.
   So if you’re looking for a video to use in a service and you can’t find the right video/audio combo as a pre-produced video, sometimes you can put your own together with just a little bit of work and get a very useful finished product that will really help your service. It worked really well for us and helped to continue the “river” theme that we had running through the whole morning.

All in all it was a really good morning. When the band came up for that middle section and the closer it was a nice change from what we had done before so people really responded. I’m hoping that the rest of the weeks of this series will continue to allow people to rest in the presence of God not just on Sunday morning but through the week as well.

Thanks to everyone who left comments on the “Give and Take” post last week. There were some great song ideas! And the lucky winner (thanks to our friends at random.org) of the two iTunes free download codes is..

Dan (djbyron) – congratulations!  And yes, the Tenth Avenue North CD is definitely worth buying and listening to – it is good stuff!

The blog shall return – but first, a reminder of FREE STUFF!!

My friend Randy Elrod has this crazy ridiculous dream to build an amazing retreat centre for artists in the hills of Tennessee. I know it’s a crazy ridiculous dream because all of the mildly wild dreams that Randy has had have come true, or so it seems.  We got to visit the property at re:create this year and I know that people are excited at what this whole thing is going to become.

One of the first “official” Kalein things that Randy is doing is putting together a Songwriting Retreat & Master Class with Mark Lee from Third Day and Bryan White, a country recording artist.

Randy posted this about the Kalein retreat -

The Kalein Songwriting Retreat & Master Class is an international songwriting workshop. The Retreat is open to amateur and professional songwriters who submit entries in any one of 12 categories.

Master Teachers are Mark Lee of Third Day & Bryan White. Combined their songs are responsible for 7 million albums in sales, 4 Grammy Awards, 25 #1 songs, 20+ Dove Awards, ASCAP Song of the Year Award, CMA’s Horizon award and the Academy of Country Music’s Top New Male Vocalist award and was named CMT Rising Star and Male Video Artist of the Year, TNN/Music City News Star of Tomorrow, and SRO Touring Artist of the Year and songs such as “Show Me Your Glory”, “Strong Tower”, “Sky Falls Down”,”Love Is The Right Place” and “One Small Miracle” “Love Is The Right Place” and “One Small Miracle”, “Someone Else’s Star,” “Rebecca Lynn,” “So Much For Pretending” and “I’m Not Supposed To Love You Anymore”

If you are interested or know people who would be, you should definitely check this out. I promise that you will not be disappointed.

We don’t get to watch movies often so when we do I’m always hopeful that it will be a good one – sometimes we lose but this time we definitely won!

“Atonement” was on my list of maybe-I’ll-get-to-it movies but I am really glad that we were able to see it on the weekend. The movie is an adaptation of the novel by Ian McEwan and from what is posted online it seems like the movie does a very good job of staying true to the original story.

I won’t post any spoilers in case you haven’t seen the movie but the story revolves around the ideas of atonement, penance, repentance and forgiveness. The story – as a film – is told beautifully. The filmmaking is incredible, the Oscar-winning score is unbelievable and the use of flashbacks was done in the most non-cliché way I have ever seen. This is the first performance of Keira Knightley that I have actually enjoyed and the two actresses who play the role of her younger sister, Briony, do an incredible job.

“Atonement” is definitely a thumbs up as an adult-only movie – you should know that much from the R rating. There are for sure adult themes of sexuality and violence that need to be taken in to account but nothing gratuitous or totally inappropriate, in my opinion. The value of the story told in this film far outweighs any of the content concerns that may come up and this is definitely the kind of movie that would be an incredible discussion starter with people who are exploring the idea of the crucifixion as substitionary atonement or even those dealing with issues of guilt and blame.

Okay readers – I know you love free stuff as much as I do. And I know that most of you like music. So if you like free stuff and you like music, imagine the galactic superpower that would be unleashed if I were to give you.. .. .. wait for it.. .. .. FREE MUSIC!!

Amazing.

If you’re still here you must be interested and you probably want more info. I’m going to call this game “Give And Take” and I think it should be fun.

First, the give! I’ll be giving the winner of this little game two – that’s right, two! – download codes which can each be redeemed for one song in the US iTunes store. Sorry my Canadian brethren, you need a US iTunes store account to take advantage of this.

Now, the take! I want you to let me know what two songs you would take from iTunes if you are the lucky winner of said download codes. Leave your answer in the comments below and I’ll choose one name at random one week from today – Thursday, May 22.

Give and take!

Dave & Reid both posted videos about how they use guitar amp isolation boxes at North Point Community Church.

Dave & Reid – thank you!! Stuff like this is so so so helpful and you guys are awesome for putting those videos together and explaining something that can be very helpful for lots of people.