Archive for December, 2008

Here’s my list of my favorite blogs of ‘08.  Most of them made the list because they’re related to my job.  Others just because they’re interesting reads.  It doesn’t mean the other blogs are bad, they’re just not quite as amazing to me as these.  So here’s my list for those interested.  Do you agree with any of these?

Ried Greven - The Ballad Of Mr. Fun - Reid is one of the arts guys at North Point.  They have great art there and this guys obviously a big reason why.  His posts are great and very helpful to me and I’m sure lots of other arts directors around the country.  His posts of the schematics for they’re homemade guitar amp iso boxes was one of the coolest blog posts I’ve seen all year.  That might make you sad for me, but that’s the world in which I live.  He also rambles way more than I do in his posts which makes me feel better.  Definitely one you should check out if you are involved in church arts in any way.

Eric Bramlett - Eric’s Eddyfications - Yes, I read this one partly just because I know him.  Knowing him makes the randomness of his posts that much more funny.  His head’s in 2008, but his heart’s in 1985.  The other reason I like this one is because he’s mostly the opposite of Reid.  His posts are more likely to be about American Idol or his love of the ’80’s than about church art.  He just leaves me wanting more.

Blogs.com - pretty much any blog about anything

Greg Atkinson - Church Video Ideas - Greg’s one of the leading media guru’s when it comes to technology for churches.  His stuff is really insightful and I know he’s been a great help to our church.  He also blogs from the heart which is really cool.

Jeff Ekblad - jeffekblad.com - Jeff’s one of the arts directors at CCC and a really good artist.  He’s always experimenting combining art and technology.  He’s also been posting some really helpful videos for beginning musicians wanting to get better.  If you play guitar and haven’t checked those out, you should.

Perry Noble - perrynoble.com - Alright here’s the scoop.  I’m not really sure I like Perry’s blog.  I like Perry and his church is awesome, I’m just not sure I’m a fan of his blog.  It’s just a personal preference thing.  The thing about it is, he’s influenced me just by the fact that he blogs all the time and when he blogs he rights meaningfully.  Let that be a lesson to you bloggers.

Phil Cooke - philcooke.com - Phil is an oddity.  He’s a christian in Hollywood.  He has a Ph.D. in Theology and he’s a producer.  His blog is an absolute must read.  I won’t even try to describe it so you can go read it.  Finish my post and then hit up philcooke.com.  Do it.

Tommy Bowman - Worship Dependancy - Tommy’s just a seriously good guy and I’m always interested in the stuff he posts about, no matter what it is.  He one of those guys that has “it.”  Whatever it is.  I’m glad he’s at Restore, but I really wish he could’ve hung around CCC.

Dave Stagl - Going To 11 - Dave may be one of the best informed people when it comes to doing sound in a church setting.  He’s really good.  He doesn’t blog a ton, but when he does it’s high quality stuff.  If you are involved in sound reinforcement in a religious setting, this is your blog.

That’s my list.  Did I miss anything?

This was one of those no pressure weekends because of one reason; kids.  We had what seemed like 500 of them cross the stage over the four services.  It was probably only more like 450, but either way it was a lot.  The great thing about kids on stage in a service is that no one remembers what the adults did.  If you screw up, say something stupid, whatever, they don’t remember.  They only remember the kids.  Which is mostly a good thing, but when you have an outstanding weekend like we did, then they don’t really notice the solid effort put in by everyone either.  But that’s not the point anyway.

We did have to follow the kids version of Joy To The World with our own version of Joy To The World which was quite difficult considering we didn’t have the cool fist pumping actions.  I think it got people in the Christmas spirit anyway.

On an unrelated note, this was the first weekend since she was very little that my daughter, now 15 months, came into the service to catch her dad worship leading.  I hear she enjoyed it quite a bit.  She’s been a music lover since day one, which I’m pretty stoked about.  She has a little dance she does and she prefers Coldplay so far.  She won’t let me play guitar at home, because every time I get it out she wants to play it and if I tell her daddy’s working she throws a fit like no other.  So she plays or no one does.  She’s great at pick retrieval when it falls into the sound hole in my acoustic though.  Those little hands come in… handy.  Anywho, here’s the info from the weekend.

Band - Danielle DeSouza, Dylan Higgins, Ryan Barr, Evan Ciambrone, Sean Cawley, Me, Vocal Ensemble

Tech - Bob Proctor, Ryan Sudol, Adam Menard, Teralyn Gifford, Sam Mullin, Beth Bartlett

Teaching - Dave Ferguson

Set List

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee - Charlie Hall

Rejoice - Chris Tomlin

Joy To The World - Hillsong

Pictures?  Somebody remind me to take my camera!

Oh, yea, full rehearsals for Let It Be Christmas started right after the end of services this weekend so a big thanks to those techies who stuck it out with me for the full day.  It was long, exhausting, and a pleasure to work with you all.  Only 7 more days to go.

Community Christian’s new musical “Let It Be Christmas” opens tonight at the Yellow Box in Naperville and runs through Sunday night.  The rehearsals have been fantastic and I promise you won’t be dissapointed if you brave the weather tonight and come to the show.  Tickets are free and I’m pretty sure you can get in even if you don’t have one.  Make sure you get there early though to get a seat.  I think most of our campuses totally ran out of tickets.  See you there.

This was one of those weekends where Murphy’s Law ruled.  We had a pastors mic quit between services so there was no way we could know about until he stepped on stage and it didn’t work, our live video feed to the theater decided to get really blurry for no apparent reason and shaking the cables seemed to make it happy, our sound tech had a baby and couldn’t make it for obvious reasons, we had multiple d.i. problems with our acoustic guitars, a really annoying buzz through the house system, and on top of that our cappucino machine and elevator quit.

Even with all that we still had an outstanding weekend.  The 11 am service ended off the hook.  Leroy was leading and was getting a little carried away with the overall energy of the attenders singing.  The new version of “It Is Well” was seriously rad.  Oh yea, Reconsilosec killed for the second year in a row.  Everyone left in Peace.  Thanks to the awesome team that was involved.

Band - Leroy Barncord, Jeremiah Higgins, Danielle DeSouza, Jeff Cybulski, Ryan Whipple, Ross Mathesius, Julie Bullock

Tech - Cheryl Mealle, Ralph Cahn, Merlin Mathesius, Sam Mullin

Set List

O Come All Ye Faithful - Third Day

Angels We Have Heard On High - Third Day

Peace (Saudade) - Extreme

Peace Is Here - Jars Of Clay

It Is Well - Aaron Keyes

You Are Good - Lincoln Brewster Version

Sorry no pictures again.  I forgot my camera this time.

Wow I’m behind in my wrapping.  Maybe it’s the Christmas Eve prep or the Let It Be Christmas prep, or just generally not turning on my computer.  Not sure.  Here’s what went down two weeks ago at the Yellow Box though.

We did an acoustic set as we kicked off the Advent series.  It was a nice change of pace for us and pretty well recieved.  I wasn’t able to pull off the stage design I was looking for partly because I was working the day after thanksgiving and didn’t have much time and also because the screen I rented was a little to big for our stage.  And by a little I mean more than a little.  We were able to get some trees up thought and it made it pretty Christmasy.  The team was awesome and here are their names for proof.

Band - Steve Wood, Scott Thomas, Doug White, Pam Zafiropolous, Beth Bartlett, Me

Tech - Cheryl Mealle, Kirk Denson, Adam Menard, Brian Theis,  Jason Thomas

Set List

Song Of Hope - Robbie Seay Band

Hosanna - Hillsong United

My Hope Is You - Third Day

In Like A Lion - Reliant K

Everything Glorious - David Crowder Band

Sorry no pictures this week.  I was on stage and obviously couldn’t really take any from up there.