I Hate You, UGR

You know, Maryland is awesome and all. There's just one problem - once you've played in front of 120 students who are crazy-in-love with worship, your own home church seems like crap. C'MON, GUYS! LET'S GET OUR HANDS IN THE AIR! THEY DID IT IN MARYLAND!

last few days... ..

The past couple of days have been pretty cool. Normally, I have Fridays off, but since the church office was closed, I got to take Thursday off, too. I came in for a couple of hours for a meeting, then spent the rest of the day with Kristen and Finley. (Jonah was at school.) Krist and I laid around reading books and just hanging out in a quiet house. It was nice.

Friday, we ran around a lot. Friday afternoon, Jonah and I hit the dollar store for a little purchase - yes, friends. Waterguns. This is turning into a sort of yearly tradition as summer nears. He and I go buy waterguns and then spend the afternoon soaking each other.

Saturday was more of the same - we DID spend 3 hours at Sears however getting pictures of Finley. Krist went nuts - bought the MEGA-PICTURE-PACKAGE with 15,000 pictures in it. Oh, well. That's what money is for!

Gotta' run - it's Sunday morning and I'm needed elsewhere. (I hope)

what i took away...

While Maryland was pretty much amazing start to finish, there were a couple of things that I took away from the actual worship sets that moved me profoundly. Here's one.

Sean appeared to have some sort of mental disability, but didn't let that slow him down. Saturday night, he was on the front row, raising his arms in the attempt to imitate what the other kids around him were doing in worship. Toward the end of the set, I led a couple of soft choruses of "Part of Your Story" and in the quiet, I heard Sean. He couldn't keep up with the words of the chorus - I heard him sing in an-almost moan "sun...waves...you...story..."

And in the moment I heard him, God broke my heart. God showed me how prideful I can be in worship. How I can leave the stage kicking myself because my voice didn't sound good enough or my guitar was out of tune or the band missed a transition. Then I hear Sean simply grabbing occasional words and God says..."that's worship. That's it. That's what I'm looking for."

I want his heart. I want his passion for worship. I want to be like Sean.

Maryland Day 5

Woke up at 10:30 to the sound of Rob Thomas blasting through Jason's alarm radio. This apparently is one of the tiers of Jason's wake-up regimen. I stumbled to the room and closed Jason's door, hoping to knock the decibels down a bit. Jason and Romack got about about ten minutes later. We sat around the kitchen reviewing the weekend and trying to a plan for the day.

We went to the Owing Mills mall so I could pick up some gifts for the family. After that, we went to eat lunch at Don Pablo's, a nice Mexican restaurant that featured something called Queso Blanco - it's made with Monterey Jack cheese and peppers. Queso consumption will never be the same!

After that, we went and sat The Sentinel with Michael Douglas and Keiffer Sutherland. Great film. It was my own litle way of seeing Washington. After that, we went to Lance and Amy's for hamburgers. We all hung out for the next few hours and came home about midnight.

Krist called and then Jason and I watched 24. It was awesome. The plan was then to pack and go to bed. However, Jason found something on the Angel network. Texas Country Gospel. Yep. It was amazing - this sort of cable-access souther gospel sangin' that was laughable. There was hay stage.

Maryland Day 4

When we all to bed at 3am, Jason said..."Hey, we need to be leaving at 7:45." No problem, I said. I'm gonna' get up at 6. Right.

At 7:30, Jason knocks on my door. "Hey, Todd. It's 7:30. We're running a bit late." After the quickest shower in the history of bathing, I jumped in the ride with Jason and the band and headed for the church. We got there and handed over the amp we had been using. (It was really theirs.)

We waited for the praise team to do their run-through, then soundchecked "Part of Your Story" one time. Justin was on V-drums. Forrest says that I used to like V-drums, but I maintain that I've always hated them for live worship applications.

We sat around, went to the service and did the song. Twice. (They have an early and late service.) It was good. People were very passionate about worship and it was encouraging to be surrounded by folks who were praising with such abandon.

After the service, Lance took all the leaders to lunch. (Chili's - had the cheese sticks.) We came home and I pounded out the set.

The Sunday night set was purely celebration, so I knew we had to "bring the quickness and make it sting." Here's the set:

My Glorious (Smith/Garrard)
Here Is Our King (Crowder)
All the Freed (Wright)
Lord of Life (Wright)
Sing Like The Saved (Redman)
My Life Is Yours (Adam Hunsiker wrote it and led it. He's Lance's worship guy.)
Unchanging (Tom-Tom)
My Savior (Wright)
Part of Your Story (Wright)

I Am Glad (Wright)
How Great Is Our God/How Great Thou Art (Tomlin)

It was amazing. I've never seen anything like this place. When the service ended, we did the massive jam session on All The Freed complete with a drum solo and a 3 person free-for-all on percussion.

Afterwards, we all went to Lance and Amy's house for sandwhiches. It was great - it was literally "Like old times." I love these people; the Fullens, Conns and Burches are such great friends and so passionate about following the Father.

Rachel gave Forrest and Justin a ride back home around midnight and Jason and I came back at 2. Blogged, then jumped in the bed.

It's not so much rain...

It's not so much rain, but the memory of it, the steady but inconsequential drizzle of rain a vague threat that the deluge may well return.

The road beneath is slick and there are little puddles along the curbs and I can see rubber bands floating here and there. (People opening their morning paper and watching the little bands pop and sail down onto the road.)

I've got a cloudy sky above, a cold wind in my face and my hair is slowly getting drenched. Judd and Maggie are in my ears, with that great line for fathers...

I used to paint pictures, now I only paint walls.

It's a Saturday in Maryland and all is well.

Maryland Day 3

The cell phone woke me up at 10:30, but it was on the other side of the room. Soon after that, I heard Jason's alarm again. I think he hit snooze six to seven times. I tried to lay back down, but just decided to get up. I had two pages left in Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis, so I finished it. Amazing book - I know I'm way behind the crowd on this one, but that book has challenged me so much. And though I've finished the book, I think it will keep causing me to rethink my perspective on Christ and the life of faith.

Threw some clothes in the wash, called Krist, went for a walk. Came back in and ate a sandwhich with the boys. Afterwards, me, Romack and Forrest went for a walk with the dog. We met Jason's neighbor who quite possibly use the F-bomb 43 times within twelve minutes. Nice guy, though.

Came back in the house for the afternoon - played on the computer and tried to illegally download the Silvertide record. It didn't happen. Mr. Belmont-Forrest Layton got on his soapbox about how wrong it is to burn CD's. I told him to stick it.

PS - Romack fell down Jason's stairs. Not fun.

We started getting ready and Jason showed up at 5 to pick us up. We went to the church.

The set was amazing - I can honestly say that I've never seen kids that worship like this. It was like this immediate attitude of pure joy and celebration. The set went good and the speaker was excellent.

We added the chorus of Crowder's "Come Awake" to our prayer time at the close of the service. It's originally in F#, but we bumped it to G to roll back and forth to "Part of Your Story." "Come Awake" was perfect for the service and was consistent with scripture that had been used in today's home sessions.

After the gig, we went to Red Robin - a gourmet burger place where I consumed a wonderfully tasty milkshake and a bacon cheeseburger.

Came home at worked on the Sunday night set, crashed soon after.

Maryland Day 2

Slept until 9:30. Yes. Of course, I went to bed at 2:30, but for the dad of a four year-old and a twelve week-old, seven hours of uninterrupted sleep is quite nice. I would have slept later, but one of Jason's alarms woke me up.

I got up, called Krist then ate some breakfast while I checked email. Exercised a little bit (you never eat good on the road, you know!) Romack was up when I came back from walking. I ironed some clothes, played around with Justin's laptop on Jason's wireless network and watched CMT. Living the high life indeed.

Jason came by around 1 and we made sandwiches. After lunch, we went to the church and worked a little more w/ Robert. Had a leader meeting at 4 where we met up with Forrest. During the course of the meeting, we figured out a way to have everybody practice around 11pm. That put everybody at ease.

Met up with the whole band at 10 and worked until somewhere just after 1am. It turned out okay...I'm still a little apprehensive, but I think it's going to come together. Discovered that Jason loves 24 and had DVR'd last weeks episode. So we came home, made some sandwhiches and watched Jack Bauer do his thing.

Also, I had forgotten how funny The Office is.

Maryland Day 1

Picked up Romack a little after 6 and headed south. Everybody thought I left too early, but since I had never flown commercially and didn't quite know about the parking situation, I decided that it was better to be safe than sorry.

Romack and I stopped on the way out of town for a little McD's and then in Splendora to let Larry get a little exercise. Found a decently priced parking lot ($4.95 per day) and got shuttled right to the curb. I had printed our boarding passes early, which made for a very quick check in. He checked our baggage and headed to the security check. We came through security fine...they checked out the cymbal bag and Larry, but it was all okay.

We got to the gate about an hour early, so we hung out and talked about the set. Just before they started calling the passengers, Justin went up to see if we needed to do anything special w/ Larry. They went ahead and boarded us first.

My first commercial flight was cool. He had some delays getting to the runway, but all told, our flight was just under 3 hours. Jason picked us up and we headed toward Reisterstown. (That can't be the right spelling...)

Jason's plan was to grab some food on the way to the church, but we hit a major traffic jam and then tried to detour through downtown Baltimore. It was beautiful...even Jason said so. (It was HIS first time in downtown Baltimore, too.)

We got to the church, checked out all of the decorations. (Cool) Then pretty much stayed out of the way for Lance and Jason to do their kickoff. Around 9, the room was clear so Romack and I started setting up the stage. Their sound system had been previously unhooked and was operating on minimal status, so while Justin tried to make sense of the youth drum kit, I wired up monitors.

I gotta' give it to Justin...he worked really hard and the kit ended up sounding great. Around 10, Robert and our bass player Jonas, came over after his leader meeting. We took about 45 minutes to run through the set, then went with Jason, Lance and the Conns to Denny's.

Forrest arrives tomorrow, so we'll do a run through with him tomorrow night. I'm praying for God's peace and anointing on us as we do our best to be "worship hosts" for the evening. Here's the set...


All The Freed (Wright)
Unchanging (Tomlin)
Hosanna (Baloche)
All We Need (Hall)
Part of Your Story (Wright)

I'll update you all tomorrow!

Romack and I fly out tomorrow at 10:50 for Maryland. Pray that

A) Me and a blind guy can find our plane
B) God tells me what songs to play
C) Sound/Musicians/Projection are in place
D) Student will be able to focus their hearts and minds intently on the Lord's beauty and truth

Why does looking at myspace sites make me feel so dirty?

Jason - www.lufkinfirst.com/maryland.htm

"Part of Your Story"

Here's the tune I wrote for Maryland. It's a live board mix from the Wednesday night .5IVE service on April 12, 2006.

Had some trouble downloading it from www.soundclick.com. If it doesn't work, let me know and I'll throw it on the church site.

W.W.I.D.

As of late, we've seen an abundance of "prophets" in modern Christianity. As with anything, there are those who abuse and misuse their gifts, but in my experience, many of these modern-day prophets have spoken words of truth and power that have served as a tough but welcome change to my soul. But something upsets me about these guys.

A few years ago, our church brought in an amazing speaker who was powerfully anointed to preach the whole counsel of God - even the hard stuff! I was amazed. I loved it. However, after the service, a woman in our congregation approached the speaker with a gift basket. A gift-giver by nature, she had worked meticulously and spend a moderate sum of money designing a collection of books and snacks to give the speaker in thanks for his time.

The speaker looked at the basket and noticed that one of the books was written by an author with whom he had significant theological differences. The man quickly told the woman in no uncertain terms that he didn't like the author and did hold to the same line of thought regarding God.

Was that necessary? What did that accomplish? It certainly didn't "sway" the woman to boycott the author. (I doubt she knew much about the book, anyway.) It certainly didn't communicate gratitude. Do we let our kids do that at family Christmas? When Jonah gets a toy that he really hates, do I just sit idly by while he says something to the effect of:

"I really don't like this."

I keep thinking about the prophets of old - they had families, acquaintances, crowds even. Did they act this rude all of the time? There's no way to know, but there's something to be said for asking for God's wisdom in discerning sincere hearts. That woman didn't mean anything wrong by buying that book...but she left feeling chastised nonetheless.

What would Isaiah do?

.5IVE

Here Is Our King (A)
All I Want To Do (G)
Hosanna (G)
Part of Your Story (G)

Amazing set. Great live recording. New guitar player did awesome. Played "Part of Your Story" which I wrote for the upcoming Maryland gig. Went over big-time.

Billy Foote called me today. It was weird. I'm still not sure why he called. At first, I thought that maybe he was just trying to promote his new record, but it won't be out until June.

It was strange - he's a great guy and I enjoyed talking to him, but at the end of the phone call I had no idea why he called.

Oh, wait - he did ask me for a few songwriting tips. Maybe that was it.

.5IVE is tonight. I'm using a new electric guitar player this week. I must be out of my mind.

A few days ago, I was riding in the car with Jonah, and somehow our conversation turned to Jesus. I look forward to these talks with Jonah because it’s a great time to invest in his spiritual development as well as a perfect opportunity to try to wrap my mind around the theology of a four-year old.
We had been talking for a few minutes when Jonah just exclaimed… “Yeah! Jesus makes you alive!”

Jesus said in John 10:10 that “the thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

Jonah is exactly right. As we prepare to celebrate Easter and the fact that Jesus is indeed alive, let’s hold to those words in John 10:10. Christ came to give us abundant life. This Easter, I want that to be my prayer, that God would show me what it means to have an abundant life.
Get it? JESUS MAKES YOU ALIVE!

Sunday, April 9th
SING TO THE KING (F)
AT THE CROSS (E)
THE CROSS OF CHRIST (E)
ALL PRAISE AND HONOR (A)
LAY IT DOWN (G)

Pretty good set. We had some drama stuff related to Palm Sunday. It went okay. The band did a great job . . . Cross of Christ was especially fun.

I'm freaking out about the Maryland gig. I need to get setlists together and I was going to mail CD's and now it just ain't happening. Dang it! I want to go up there and be good but I've got about a thousand things to do this week.

Went to the dentist this morning - man, I am such a little girl when it comes to the dentist.

Had to knock out a logo last minute for an upcoming series...figured I'd share.

.5IVE

We practiced for literally 25 minutes...it was awesome!

Hosanna (G)
Unchanging (G)
For Your Name (G)
You Gave Sight (D)
For (D) Bridge only

I could not be more pleased with how worship went. Justin's loops didn't work out, but it really didn't matter. I used a new electric guitar player named Dave Buchannon who knew the ending lead to "Unchanging" perfectly. I've been playing that tune for years and I've never found anybody who could pull the lead off the right way. Dave did and that scored big points with me!

In addition to a great live set, Chris Caraway did our sound and recorded a great live mix to CD. I loaned it to Dave and Justin...I may post some of it soon. It was a great mix....little weak on vocals, but, what you see is what you get!

We also have raised about $2000 for the CD project, which is good. $8000 more to go!

Thought This Was Pretty Cool

O merciful God, grant us love, that we seek not our own honor, but the profit of our neighbor and thy glory in all things. Expel out of us all disdain, greediness, ungentleness, headiness and flattering of our selves. Preserve us from discord and division; bind us together in uniform love; that we may be one body, and one mind. Establish also our faith, that our minds may be always comforted in the resurrection of thy Son, and immortal life purchased by Him. Amen.

-Prayer from the 16th century

This hit just right for me - I've been really spending a lot of time thinking about servanthood and the kind of attitude I want to cultivate.

Well...I officially started my first day as a full-time employee. Clay and I went to breakfast, then I came in and worked on my office some. My computer is wigging out a bit, so I'm kinda' stuck doing more manual labor right now.

I'm excited - there's a lot to do and I'm not sure I can handle all of it, but I'm going to give it a shot!

Well, my first couple of days as an official "full-time employee" have been eventful.

First, we had church workday yesterday. I was dreading it, but we got a lot done. I worked on our sound/video room and also started getting my office organized. I love my office.

Secondly, we start reporting CCLI today. I'm very excited.

Thirdly, Clay and I meet tomorrow to plan the set for .5IVE on Wednesday.

Here's this morning's set:

WHO MAY ASCEND (King)
BLESSED BE YOUR NAME (Redman)
WASH (Deal)
MY HOPE IS YOU (Third Day)
THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD (A)
IN CHRIST ALONE (Koch)
COME YE SINNERS (Hart)