got milk?

why is it that after i eat ice cream, all i want to drink is milk? how does that even make sense?

quoting [Tom Morello]

Q: What would you say to a guitarist who feels like his tone is stuck in a rut?
A: We’ll I’ll tell you what I did when I encountered that problem - I gave up. For years, I tried to find this perfect tone I had in my head. Then, one day, I spent a few hours fiddling with my gear, and I decided that I didn’t particularly love the tone, but it wasn’t going to get any better. So I marked those settings and said, “Now I’m done. This is my sound.” And those settings are the same ones that I used in today’s rehearsal - as well as on every record and every show I’ve ever played. When I stopped worrying so much about tone, and started worrying about music, the problem went away.

i read this in an old issue of Guitar Player magazine recently. i’ve always loved tom’s playing, in both Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. there’s so much much depth to this thought for me, both musically and spiritually. do you remeber what your big picture is, or are you buried in the details?

working the house

last night my parets suprised me with both a ShopVac and pizza for dinner. that is what we in the biz call a win-win. i wasn’t sure if the ShopVac was a “we want you to have this” gift or a “stop taking our ShopVac all the time” gift, they said it was the former, but i’m not sure if i totally believe that. so today, armed with new ShopVac, the goal is to finish patching & mudding my dining room walls so we can get some more color in this house.

what are you doing on your saturday?

my reading list

here’s what i currently have my head in, as well as what’s on deck.

currently reading:
Soul Cravings // Erwin McManus
Intuitive Leadership // Tim Keel

waiting on the table:
Vintage Jesus // Mark Driscoll
Everything Must Change // Brian McLaren
7 Practices of Effective Ministry // Andy Stanley

what are you reading?

ripped from the headlines

here’s today’s gem from FOXNews:

Apes Deserve Human Rights, Spanish Leaders Say
Spanish apes are one step closer to receiving the same rights to life and freedom humans have. (more)

now, i don’t mean to state the obvious about human rights, but…

thanks, Bible college

even though i’m a Penn Stater, we all know it’s true.

thanks to Josh Griffin for the link.

quoting [Rev. Eugene Rivers]

In some cases, because the American public is not terribly theologically literate, they hold contradictory views because they haven’t thought deeply or been taught deeply about their faith tradition.

here’s a link to an article & video from msnbc.com regarding some thoughts on the scope of faith in American as a whole. while i’m becoming less and less tied to the results of surveys, this quote really nails down where i believe the Church as a whole needs to step it up.

how’s the Biblical literacy rate in your church?

setlist 06.22.08

setlist for 06.22.08

filled with your glory : starfield
beautiful Jesus : kristian stanfill
amazing grace : arr. jason rhodes
never lose the wonder : tim hughes
you never let go : matt redman

it was a great day yesterday with worship. had a great drummer subbing in with us again, as well as a newer vocalist to our team. when we were about to begin i thought i maybe everyone in our church decided to take the day and go picnicing, but folks showed up. i love being a part of our team. it’s been fun leading the past two weeks, but it’ll also be good to get back to my regular spot on electric, too.

quoting [Rick Warren]

If you don’t have freinds who are unbelievers, you are not Christ-like. If everyone you associate with is just your little group, you have a lot of growing to do - grow up.

i heard Rick Warren say this at a conference to church leaders a few weeks ago, and his intensity & bluntness floored me. i needed to hear it. the Bible study I’m in is reading through Mark. on monday we got talking a lot about who we associate with, who are friends are, and who is in our area of influence. this has always been a struggle for me, because my bet is that if you would ask most followers of Jesus where they around the most unbelievers, it’s their workplace. being in vocational ministry, that one is not as natural for me, and i’ve been trying to find intentional ways of doing this.

what do you do?

setlist 06.15.08

sing to the king : billy foote
yesterday today and forever : vicki beeching
nothing but the blood:your blood : matt redman
you said : reuben morgan
he was there : david crowder band

we had a great service yesterday. i was pretty stressed about it for most of last week, mainly due to personnel. nate moved on friday morning to D.C., leaving us vacant on drums. i’m leading the worship band while spence is away, so it’s my problem to solve for two sundays. lucky for me, every drummer and their mother were on vacation for father’s day weekend. pair that with it being our pastor’s last sunday, and i was worried about coming though. and by thursday night rehearsal, still no drums, and no bass showed up to rehearsal, either. thankfully it worked out - drums and bass showed up sunday morning and rocked that gym like nobody’s business.