tools | Chris From Canada

Archive - tools RSS Feed

I’m back – here’s some links.

November 7, 2007 in friends,ideas,links,tools,worship with 6 Comments

Spent the last couple days up north at the Next Level worship conference. I’ll post later this week about the things I learned while I was there but here are a couple quick things:

Brenton Brown has chronic fatigue syndrome
More learning can happen with the right people over lunch than in a whole bunch of workshops
Transitions in worship sets are really, really important

So here’s the deal – I’ll expand on each of those in my “what I learned” post. Cool?

I came home to a whack of stuff in my Google reader and found a few things that I thought were worth passing on.

Color in Science: Microscopic Photographs (via Tim Challies)
Shrimp nets, waiting rooms and today’s dreadful meeting (If you’re not reading Prodigal Jon, you really should be!)
Igniter Tracks (via Church Video Ideas)
Burnout Self-test (via Church Communications Pro)
Carey Nieuwhof’s blog – if you’ve seen my post on Connexus (and a bunch of you have) you may be interested in following the story of their lead pastor as he blogs through this journey
Christian Copyright? – excellent post and comments at Milestone Worship

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

I’m a sellout.

November 2, 2007 in arts,ideas,tools,worship with 6 Comments

So SermonSpice.com is giving me $20 for posting this. I have no ads on my site, don’t post affiliate links, have no desire to make money off this thing. But $20 will basically get me a free download to use in my ministry so I’m going to go ahead and do it.

Here’s a list of videos I’ve purchased and used from Sermon Spice over the past couple of years. I would give you direct links to each of these videos to preview and buy but Sermon Spice doesn’t let me do that – bad choice. Instead these links take you to the results page after searching for these titles.

Who Was Jesus

Creation (The one titled Creation, not the first result on the search page. Boo Sermon Spice.)

Our Hero Lives

Raising Kids

Psalm 139 Worship Films

Motherhood

That’s My King!

Someone Is Reaching

March Of The Unqualified

The Bride (Again, not the top of the list. It’s the second one down.)

I’m a sellout.

Are you okay with that?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Good things for traveling artists to know.

October 29, 2007 in admin,ideas,tools,worship with 1 Comment

Jeff at ConsumingWorship.org has a great post with lots of great information for people who are bringing their music ministry to churches. Here’s a few points:

In today’s modern, internet based communications world, please make sure you include an email address for me to contact you or your agent. Why should I bother picking up the phone and charging a long-distance call to my church when you could easily be contacted via email if I am interested?

If you contacted me last year, and I said I was not interested in your ministry making an appearance at our church, and gave specific reasons as to why I did not think your ministry would “fit” our “format,” please don’t contact me again the next year and ask if I’ve changed my mind. It is doubtful you have changed your format, so I’m still not interested.

Make sure your ministry has a website with mp3s of your demo music available for download. Sometimes, especially when you send one of those little mini-discs instead of a full size CD, I misplace your demo before I can give it a good listen. If I can’t listen to your demo, I’m not interested. Spend a little money, and start up a simple web site (even a WordPress blog) so that I can reach you in yet another way. In fact, save yourself some money and reduce waste by only offering mp3s and forget making demo CDs. It would work, trust me.

You can read the rest of the post here. Thanks Jeff!

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Songwriters’ Forum

October 27, 2007 in admin,ideas,tools,worship with 1 Comment

Today was tons of fun. We had practice this morning to get ready for our services tomorrow and this afternoon I hosted a forum for people in our church who are interested in songwriting. Craig Douglas, worship pastor at The Meeting House in Oakville, and Joel Auge, an incredible songwriter and worship leader that you will be hearing about later this year, came to co-host the day with me.

We had about 20 people altogether and covered some really good material. This was very much a “Songwriting 101″ type of an event and the main purpose was really just to gauge the interest level with people in our congregation.

Here’s some of the topics we covered today:

Song structures – Verse/Chorus, AABA, AAA

Taking songs from inspiration to completion

Importance and value of co-writing

Writing while living “in the valley”

All in all it was a great day. We had an awesome range of people there – jr. and sr. high students, adults, worship team members, people who are creative but not musical – and I think we’ve begun moving down a road that is going to bring some musical blessings to our congregation. I’m excited about that!!

A couple of resources I used to put the content together were “God Songs” by Paul Baloche and Jimmy & Carol Owens and a DVD from Vineyard Worship called “Songwriting For Worship.” If you’ve got people in your congregation who are interested in learning more about songwriting for congregational worship, these two spots are good places to start.

How are you developing songwriters in your church?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Hate Facebook?

October 19, 2007 in friends,funny,ideas,tools with 1 Comment

Try this!

If you’re on Facebook you can find me here.

( via Tony McCollum)

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

PWArchive.com Top Songs List

October 19, 2007 in admin,arts,tools,worship with 1 Comment

Billy posted about this last week and I thought I’d pass it along as well.

PWArchive.com has a list of the top songs that people have requested on their site each month. Read Billy’s post about why this is better than CCLI’s top 25 or top 100 lists.

What’s on your list?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

My pastor has a blog…

October 5, 2007 in admin,friends,ideas,tools,worship with 1 Comment

…sort of.

We are beginning another long series next week and one of the new things we’re doing is our senior pastor will be blogging daily through the book of Luke. You can follow along here.

Does your pastor blog?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

“Recently Added” to iTunes

September 27, 2007 in arts,tools,worship with 3 Comments

David Crowder Band – Remedy – B+
Nice effort but nothing spectacular. The best tracks are ones we’ve already heard before.

Shane & Shane – Pages – A-
Good effort from these guys after taking some time off. “Burn Us Up” and “Before The Throne Of God Above” are hilights.

Soularize - InMotion – C
I know that you guys don’t like what’s happening in the current church worship culture but do you really think that a song called “Kiss Of His Mouth” is the way to go?

Johnny Cash – My Mother’s Hymn Book – A
No evil must ever be spoken of Johnny. Great takes on “I’ll Fly Away” and “In The Sweet By And By.”

What are you listening to?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

What would Jesus do?

September 25, 2007 in arts,tools,worship with 6 Comments

David Crowder Band – Remedy released today.

Local Christian bookstore – $14.99
WorshipMusic.com – $12.99 + shipping
iTunes - $9.99
Amazon – $8.99

I don’t know what Jesus would do but I know what I did.

What did you do?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Apparently I had a good idea!

September 19, 2007 in admin,ideas,tools,worship with 4 Comments

Today was fun. Made some friends. Learned some stuff. Put some faces to some names. Good times. Say what you want about Willow but the emphasis they put on training and developing leaders so they can be more effective in the local church is done at an A+ level.

So what was my good idea? Well let me preface by saying that I hadn’t thought of posting this until Nancy Beach said it was a good practical thing she learned during today’s seminar. So I figure if she learned something, we all might as well learn something! :)

Lately the morale and the numbers on our A/V team have been a little low so at our ministry fair two weeks ago I decided that recruiting tech guys (or girls, thanks Nancy!) needed to be our A-1 priority. Since the typical tech guy is usually not the most forth-coming sort of person, I decided I needed some kind of bait.

So basically I took apart a small 4-channel mixer, laid the pieces out on a 6-foot table and waited. I knew that anyone coming to the table and hanging out for 10 seconds would have some kind of tech interest and so those guys would by my prospects.

I’m excited to say that in the two weeks since we did that experiment we have had THREE guys who are not currently serving in any ministry area sign up, get trained and get placed on our A/V schedule. Yesssss!!

Got any tips for finding volunteers?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Page 14 of 14« First...«10 11 12 1314

Chris Vacher Married to Sonya, dad to Avery, Emmy, Isabelle and Anderson. Director of Worship at Orangeville Baptist Church near Toronto. Founder of WorshipRises and doing my best to follow Jesus in the midst of it all.

twitter + feedburner 5,313

I’m back – here’s some links.

I’m a sellout.

Good things for traveling artists to know.

Songwriters’ Forum

Hate Facebook?

PWArchive.com Top Songs List

My pastor has a blog…

“Recently Added” to iTunes

What would Jesus do?

Apparently I had a good idea!

Search

Archives