I've always been relatively appreciative of the music of Andrew Peterson, but this week I received a couple of CDs to review. This guy makes me wonder why I ever even tried to write a song - really amazing stuff.

Met w/ Todd Hinkie from Tyler yesterday. Still don't know what we wanted. We just hung out, talked about church, worship, and the worship workshop he's doing in February. It seems like it's going to be really amazing. I hope to pass the word around here locally and get folks involved. Who know? I might even get to hang out with Baloche!

Kristen and Jonah are good. Kristen is exhausted at the end of every day. The Clerk's Office, church and wn are taking up a ton of my time. I'm loving it, but I'm really starting to long for the day when I can do worship full-time. Kristen is being so great about it - lately, I've had to be gone a lot more and she's been very understanding.

I've got a couple of gig possibilities. One is local and will probably be free. The other is in March, so I've got time to put together a set, I think.

In addition to all of that, I'm seriously beginning to consider recording a studio album with Ross again. I'd love to sell it on the www.worshipnotes.org label and make it part of the wn product catalog. Of course, I still need to raise about $6000 to do the kind of record I'd like to do.

Sunday's Set
Arise (Baloche)
Praise Adonai (Baloche)
All Hail the Power (Public Domain)
For Your Name (Packiam)
Glorify (Wright)
The Cross of Christ (Wright)

259 in worship! Video went great...lighting was cool. Set worked perfectly. Lots of visitors...great energy from the crowd! Fun day!

Assessment: I would have liked to sing "All Hail The Power" over the ringing F chords from "Praise Adonai" w/o playing myself, but there were too many changes and I needed to lead the band through that.

Found a couple of cool things online. If any of you are wondering what my old pal Forrest is up to, you can hear two new songs he's written at www.kelseyw.com.

Forrest tracked this two songs w/ Edwin and did bass himself. At www.kelseyw.com, click "music" tab. I think that Kelsey (the engineer) titled them "blues" song and "rock" song. Kelsey knows what he's doing. These things sound good.

I'm going to have to be careful here. I got this thing that's weighing on my mind, and I need to put it out there. However, it's one of those things that has the potential to offend. While I completely appreciate the fact that are times when people willingly offend (Neil McClendon,) this is not one of those times. This is one of those times where a particular comment has sparked a line of thought in me. My comments below are not so much a response to the comment as merely the product of the analysis the comment created.

I've been hearing this phrase a lot - "He's one of the best worship writers around right now." Recently I've been hearing that about David Crowder. I am certainly not a die-hard David Crowder fan, but I do think the guy is a straight-up genius. There. I've said it.

But when we say "he/she's one of the best," what we're really saying is that he/she is creating something that speaks to me more than anyone else. That's an okay thing. You see, I can say that I think Paul Baloche is the best worship songwriter around. But is he? I don't know. I just know that of all the worship I listen to, his music moves me the most.

As someone who writes songs for worship, comments like "he's the best around" bother me. Why?

When I write a song for worship, here's what I'm thinking.

• Is the line of thought clear? Am I sticking to one specific idea?
• Am I saying this in a fresh way?
• Can other people use this song in worship?

A great deal of the worship I hear today fails in at least one of these concepts of mine. It's awesome to listen to...but is it a resource? Can a guy who doesn't know many chords on his guitar do it? Can a drummer with meter problems hold this song down? Can it be done at my church w/o 4 synths, 2 loops and 3 electric overdubs?

David Crowder, Charlie Hall, United Live - they all write songs that I love to turn up and sing along with. If I'm moved to worship, then yeah, they've written a "good worship song." But there's a second dynamic and/or calling involved with writing worship songs - can the church body at large let these songs impact their individual congregations?

Those of us who write worship songs should take note:

You can impact people with your songs and never once write anything that can be shared with those who also lead Christ's body in songs of adoration.

Sunday's Set
For Your Name (Packiam)
Stir Up A Hunger (Baloche)
My Lips Will Sing (Wright)
Who May Ascend (King)
Search and Know (Wright)

We had early practice (8am,) the only problem was that Mark decided to replace his drum heads. So we practiced while Mark put heads on the kit and then tuned them. So he came into the set w/ absolutely no practice. Now, I don't mind this. I like being able to freestyle, but Mark is not always the best at remembering songs from our catalog. Plus, the band gets a little nervous if Mark doesn't know where we're going.

That being said, it was a good set. We had 219, which is pretty good. We weren't foolish enough to believe that we'd hit 232 again, but 219 was still strong.

Lighting and our videos ran great. The set was amazing up until "Who May Ascend." I had a key change designed, but didn't get to run it with the band, so I had to do it myself. It didn't work that well. It was a G - A jump, so I could have done a couple of other things.

• Do the transition in the previous song and end on the A. (Very pop feel)
• End the G song, go to scripture/encouragement and let Mark start us off
• Let Mark start the A song on the 4 beat of the previous song

I want to keep using the Modex to build transitions...I just need to plan a lot of time for the band to learn them.

After offering, we did "Search and Know" w/ percussion, acoustic and piano. I have done the song here once or twice a long time ago, but it was brand new to most everybody. I was shocked at the response. I heard a lot of good feedback about the song, which was encouraging.

So, I off to plan another set (w/ better transitions hopefully) and get our video ready for this week.

See ya' when I see ya'!

Sorry, gang. Since the OSM laptop crashed, I've been unable to blog. So whatever time I've had at a computer has been spent updating setlists and getting stuff done on worshipnotes. (Little tip - September issue is going to be really cool.) October ain't looking too shabby either.

Aaron Keyes was in this week during the Refuel Conference, so I couldn't have practice. I did enjoy hanging out with him. He's a great leader and teacher. Wednesday night, I found out that his ministry is about to really grow and expand and that excites me. It's great to see God blessing guys who are passionate about serving the local church.

Of course, our stage is a mess; I freaked out our projection layout running Aaron's Mac through the system(Mac's Pro Presenter program is pretty amazing;) Aaron's drummer destroyed Mark Saldana's floor tom; I've got to rehearse at 8 Sunday morning and plug two seperate videos into the order of worship.

I've been on vacation this week, which has been good for me, but I keep getting overwhelmed by the workload at the church and through worshipnotes. I also am really passionate about writing/recording these demos and passing them on...

Anyway, that's all I got for now! I'll post my comments on the set Sunday afternoon. Later!

So I've got a lunch meeting in a few weeks with a guy from Tyler (he's coming here.) He emails me to see if I can tell him a local wi/fi place where he might could do some work in the morning before we go to lunch.

Now, my first guess is Starbucks...I don't know why, it just is. So I asked Robert and Jason. I don't know, they say. So after the kids go to bed last night, Jason, Robert and I go to Starbucks.

I order my hot chocolate (because I can't stand coffee) and the three of us settle into soft chairs in a dimly lit corner. Jason steps up to get his drink and I ask him to find out about wi/fi. So he asks. And what happens next still has me reeling. (I'm not going to quote the employee, but here's the overall theme of his response.

"Nah. We were supposed to, but corporate decided not to."

Look...I hold no illusions about Starbucks...I know it is a corporation. A big corporation. But I look around and I think, these guys aren't selling coffee. They're selling community. That's why we're here. My friends and I want to hang out.

But how the heck does Starbucks survive when all of us "millenials" are so good at spoting fakes?

Why is it that we are first to start griping when churches seem fake, yet we buy the Starbucks experience hook, line, sinker?

You can sell an experience. You just gotta' know what you're doing.

Right?

Today's Set
All the Earth Will Sing Your Praises (Baloche)
For Your Name (Packiam)
Majesty (Hayford)
Glorify (Wright)
Lay It Down (Lubben)

Holy Moly! What a set! What a crowd!

We had 232 in worship today - the highest I've ever led. The set went great...in retrospect, "Majesty" to "Glorify" could have been smoother. It was too much of a temp change. I thought I could pray it through, but I probably should have read scripture and maybe talked a bit about worship - make it more conversational.

Technology went off great...Mike's lapel wigged out, but I don't think anybody even cared. What a day!

I love days like this!

Saw some more of the red tape today with LIFE written on it. Some folks in our town are doing that, and I've seen it on TV over the past few months. Today it was on TBN...this edited promo for some sort of conference or something.

The abortion debate is vast and certainly way too big to be contained in a few lines on some blog, but let me say this about the red tape.

At least they're not talking, yelling, pleading or embarrassing themselves. (And me.)

The only problem is that everybody I see with red tape doesn't seem to be praying...and isn't that what this whole deal is about?

I'm on vacation next week! Yeah!

I feel really excited about the September issue of worshipnotes. We've got the songwriting winnner (not picked yet,) an interview, a review, Tom's got a good article. Plus, I've got a cool idea for our October issue.

I also have this idea for wn. Originally, it was an idea that I plan on using here at home. I want to create a 5-7 week series of "mini-lessons" on worship. like Why We Worship or something like that. Each lesson would about 3-5 minutes long w/ an accompanying powerpoint template. For my particular church, they're cool with clapping in worship, but they don't really know anything about kneeling or shouting or other Biblical commands about worship. If I did it, and it worked, I think it would be cool to make it available as a free download on worshipnotes. Even in today's hip society, I think a lot of church bodies really don't have any idea what the Bible says about worship.

As worship leaders, I think we bear a responsibility to teach our people about worship. But, if you're not a gifted teacher, it's hard to come up w/ creative ways to do that. Maybe this worship "curriculum" might be a help for worship leaders out there?

Love to know what you all think...

Today's Set
Who May Ascend (King)
All The Freed (Wright)
Great and Glorious (Smith)
Come Ye Sinners (old)
Beauty of the Lord (Anderson)

Lighting went really good today. Carol did a great job...I think the video clip really helped. (Gave her some creative options on where to take the sermon.) I had to do all the announcements/prayers/etc from the stage, which I don't particularly enjoy.

I also learned to NOT use "Who May Ascend" as an opening song.

The past couple of weeks have felt really weird from the stage. Technically, the sets are going well; the lighting and sound and video teams are all making their transitions. It just doesn't feel very good up on stage. I guess we're getting to that point where we know some of this stuff so well that we're automatic pilot.

From a musical standpoint, that's supposed to be good. You're supposed to know all of the chords and words and riffs and be able to tthem all without thinking. But when that happens, the challenge is remaining emotionally invested in the thing that you're doing.

I've never believed that you had to "feel it," to be a worship leader. Let's face it, there are a lot of times you serve the church when you don't feel like it. But how do you maintain a passion for these songs when you no longer have to focus on how to play them?

Went to a combination birthday/farewell party for the Fullens tonight. I'm happy for them. Don't know if Maryland is ready for Jason Fullen...guess they better get that way.

When I got home tonight, I had an email from a church in Alabama that wants to use The Cross of Christ. I thought it was realy cool that they asked. I wonder how big my royalty check is going to be! THANK YOU, CCLI!

I am such a bad lead guitar player. I slaved over "My Savior" last night and never came up with anything. So, I've asked Ryan Finnerud to cook up some side acoustic stuff that we can track within the next few weeks.

I tried to track "My Lips" and "Glorify," but found out that sequences weren't exactly right. I shot off an email to Romack to ask him to tweak them a bit.

Sent the August article to Rob. I'm really bummed the coolhunting issue didn't turn out better. It's frustrating because I did the work, it's just that nobody would or could help.

I'm already getting ready for the September songwriting issue - mailing Rob a CD of the submissions on Monday so we can start picking a winner. We're also interviewing Thomas Miller of Gateway Church in Southlake. Gateway has developed a ministry for songwriters in their church.

I've got a good bit of stuff to do for church tomorrow, but I ain't doing it today! Guess I'll pull another all-nighter tonight. Carol is running a clip of For the Love of the Game tomorrow morning! Excellent! Plus, we're doing "All the Freed," which I believe will rock nicely.

My parents wanted to take Jonah tonight, so Krist and I went on a date. We went to Applebee's (Club House Grill, Diet Pepsi and Triple Chocolate Meltdown for dessert. Yes, sir.)

After dinner, we drove around, walked the mall, etc. I did find a ton of books I'd love to buy. Why is it that when you actually HAVE money to spend on something, you can never find anything? I didn't have any money to spend tonight, and of course, found a lot of cool books. My next read will hopefully be Charlie Wilson's War. I don't know if anybody knows this Lufkin-based politician, but the book has caused quite a stir and it's just been reported that Tom Hanks will play Charlie Wilson in the film version after Hanks wraps up The DaVinci Code.

We picked up Jonah around 9. Got home about 9:30. After he and Krist get to bed, I'll exercise then try to finish my 2nd guitar part for "My Savior." If I can get done, Krist will do her vocals tomorrow. I got Romack's drum tracks done for "My Lips" and "Glorify" so maybe I can make some progress on those.

And then, tomorrow....you know it....oh yeah....AFTERNOON NAP! I'm so excited!

Little list of things that make me happy...

• 107.7 FM - Classic Rock and Roll all day long
• The Chick-Fil-A Chicken Sandwhich
• An afternoon nap
• Seinfeld

Left work at 2 today ...came home and crashed for a couple of hours. Krist bought me some Target-brand Robitussin. Nasty.

Don't know if I'll go in to work tomorrow or not...gotta' iron my pants just in case.

What a life I lead.

A man of integrity will only require one thing of you in return for his hardest and best work - respect.