Make Your Day Video

Many of you have already seen this, but for the rest of you, I present, Sonseed:

Keith Green

 

I was boppin’ around youtube.com tonight listening to music and ended up listening to some old Keith Green songs.  For those of you who don’t know Keith Green, he was a 1970’s singer/musician who became a follower of Christ and then began writing and performing some great songs.  He’s probably not the best musician or singer you’ve ever heard, but no one can deny his passion, enthusiasm and “no compromise” attitude about truly living as a follower of Jesus.  If my memory serves me well, he died prematurely in a plane accident.  I believe his wife (Melody) wrote his biography entitled, “No Compromise.“  Even if you’ve never heard of Keith Green and his music, “No Compromise” is a great read.  I think I have a copy at my office if someone wants to buy it.  Check out www.keithgreen.com for more info or search for him on youtube.com.

Besides being an outstanding example of what it means to follow Christ with passion, Keith Green had great hair like my Uncle Phil did when he was younger!

Hitting the Wall…

It seems I may be “hitting the wall” in terms of blogging.  I apologize for my lack of faithfulness.  Sometimes, I just don’t feel like writing anything.

Anyway…here’s what is going on these days:

1. Connection Group – we just finished week 6 of 10 in our Starting Point group last night.  First of all, the Starting Point material is outstanding!  If you might label yourself as a “spiritual seeker” or someone who wants to learn more about the God of the Bible, Starting Point is the place for you!  It’s incredible stuff.  And “b” (that’s a joke – let me know if you get it), I love our Starting Point Group.  Last night we met out at Jordan Lake for our meeting, where Joe and Elisa were camping.  What a great setting and I’m so appreciative of the dedication of our group members to make the drive out, and to brave the waters!
2. I ran this morning.  Yup, you read that right.  I woke up at ten minutes to 5 for some reason, and figured, “why not?”  So I got up, strapped on my two-year-old sneakers, that no one in their right mind would run in, and hit the road.  I am a s-l-o-w runner, usually running 10 minute miles.  But, I haven’t run in, geez, years.  But I was determined to make it one mile before stopping, pressed up the hill that felt like a quarter of a mile and then “sprinted” the last tenth of the mile in order to come in to the approximate 1 mile at 10 minutes.  Then it took me 16 minutes to walk/run my way back!  I hate running.  But I may toy with doing it more since my sis-in-law challenged my athletism on her blog and challenged me to run with her in a half marathon.  It will be nothing more than a small miracle for me to run a half marathon.
3. Reading a couple of different books.  On is “Experiencing God through Prayer” by Madame Guyonne.  Warning – this book is not for everyone – only those who so long to grow deeper in their relationship with God than you might ever imagine.  It is odd book, and will leave many saying, “Huh? I don’t get it.”  Give it a shot if you’d like.  It’s incredibly practical, which I like.
4. Preparing to “lead worship” on Sunday.  In theory, they (whoever they are) tell me I am the lead worshipper every Sunday at church, since I am the Lead Pastor.  I can only hope that I truly do model worship in my life.  But this Sunday, with our esteemed worship leader, Cary, out on vacation, and our usual back up out of town as well, I have accepted the responsibility.  I enjoy playing guitar and singing, but I’m not the greatest at either.  I get the job done, but I know it is not my calling.  But I welcome the opportunity and look forward to sharing the responsibility with Linda who will be leading out as well.  It will be a great day of worship!  Come prepared!

That’s it for now. 

Cyber Hymnal

Our church is such a mixture of people with varied spiritual backgrounds!  As a rule, most of what we do at our church is consider “contemporary.”  By contemporary, I mean that we have a worship band instead of a piano, organ and chior.  We sing mostly current Christian music and only occasionally mix in an old hymn, usually performed with a contemporary twist. 

Anyway…a couple of us were discussing in small group a few weeks back about old hymns that we love and miss.  While we do mix in the occasional hymn at church, I think people miss out on the rich Christian tradition that the old hymns pass along.  Some of the lyrics are so amazing – I wish everyone could know them.

So, if you get in a nostalgic way, go to Cyber Hymnal to find so many of the old hymn with lyrics and instrumental accompaniment.  It’s not the flashiest of sites but it may take many of you on a trip down memory lane.

Name That Tune

Occasionally Courtney and I get into “name that tune” battles usung YouTube videos.  We go back and forth trying to stump each other with 80’s songs and some 90’s.  Courtney usually wins b/c my music knowledge ends in about 1993 since I am “old.”  Anyway…after our match last night that ended with “I can’t believe it’s 11:41pm”, I searched a few more songs and landed on this David Crowder video below.  I love Crowder and I appreciate his remakes of the older hymns.  I wish I could play this song.

Feist

For some strange reason I am really enjoying this song below by a group called “Feist.” You may recognize it from the “ipod” commercial. I had never even heard of Feist and figured they were some random band with little following. How wrong and out of touch I am with popular music culture! Our worship leader, Cary, was like, “Oh yeah…Feist…Do you have their album? They two of them…their on my ipod.” And I was thinking, “yep…I’m old and out of touch.” Maybe I’ll get an ipod in two years. Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the video and song below.

Steve Fee

 

I got exposed to a new Christian artist by the name of Steve Fee at the Catalyst Conference earlier this month. You need to check this guy out. Go to http://www.myspace.com/stevefee to hear free samples of of his music.

 

Hot Hot Hot

Yes, it’s been awhile. Blogging has taken a back seat to who knows what.

Anyway…my wife is an App. State grad. And as you may know, the App State football team pulled off the biggest upset in college football histroy 3 Saturday’s ago. They, a division I-aa school, beat Michigan, a Div I-a school, who was ranked #5 in the country! I know, some of you don’t care at all about sports. And this isn’t about sports. Just to poke some fun at my wife (and Tim, Cheri, Carl, Cindi, etc. who all are App grads), I wanted to post the following promotional video for Appalachian State!

FYI, I’m told that enrollement for App is going through the roof now!

New and Improved Worship Band at The Bridge

Not that the old way of doing things wasn’t great, but our new and improved worship band did an awesome job yesterday in their debut! The music sounded great and I’m really proud of all the team and their leader (Amanda, I mean, Cary)! Thanks to all the team members – Cary, Amanda, Jason, Jeremy, Tony, and Linda! And thanks to our sound man, Russ! Anyway…I don’t have any pictures including the whole worship team so this one of Cary and Amanda will have to do until I get a new one! Thanks guys! I love the worship!