I just wanted to give my SoCal friends a head's-up about the REFRESH worship nite at the Pomona Vineyard this Saturday at 6PM.

Melisa, Bill, Steve, Jared, and I will be leading worship for the evening. Come out and spend a night with us worshiping our Lord and praying for one another. We'd love to see you there!

Link for info: vineyardpomona.org

The last several months have been a time of personal growth and change for me. I have been digging myself out of a hole of pessimism for a while now. I have lived as a pessimist for a long time. Part of that is the fact that I a nerd who likes politics, and that arena is full of liars and injustice. I found that spending so much time focusing on the ills of our government and the political world was really taking its toll on my mental attitude.

As we head into an election season, I am going to be challenged to not get emotionally invested in what is happening, and just learn about the candidates I can support and vote for them. Maybe it will be easier this election, because I am not in favor of any of the candidates. It basically is going to come down to voting against Hillary, and I have to just live with that reality.

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. James 1:27/NASB

I'm going to try to stay emotionally divested from politics, and try to redirect my time, my passions, my emotions to things that are far more worthy: my marriage, my community, and trying to somehow break out of my comfort zone and really fight for God's kind of justice. I realized that I was more passionate about being a conservative that being a Christian sometimes. This is a normal pattern of American Evangelicalism, though. But I don't want to be part of the "radical Christian right", I want to be a "radical Christian".

But I'm not a radical. Not yet. But what if I were? How do I change? How do I get there?

Labels: Christian Life, Politics, Social Justice

Ah, the sweet sound of a Telecaster crashing into a delay pedal and then careening in to the glowing vacuum tubes, then resonating out of the greenback speakers of an AC30. It's a poetic collision of electrons that delights the ears, and wows the senses. It makes me want to weep for joy.

Melisa and I were able to join some friends of ours for an evening service at a local Vineyard, and their venue allows the band to crank it up a notch. The church I serve at is a little A-frame building that isn't as conducive to cranked amp tone, so it is a treat to really get the tubes warmed up on my AC30 from time to time when playing as a guest at larger churches.

I've been overdosing on my Les Paul lately, and neglecting my Tele a little bit too much. For some reason, I grabbed the Tele from the start last night, and gave the Les Paul a night off. And wow, did I have some fun. Getting to crank up the AC30 allowed the tele to have both bite and power. When I have to keep my amp turned down, all I get is the bite with the tele. But man, if you get those greenbacks pushing some air, the Tele comes to life.

It was a joy to play last night with abandon, and really make a joyful noise unto the Lord. I don't often get to just play lead guitar any more, due to my commitment to leading worship, so get that chance is a treat for me.

I think I'm realizing that some of my dissatisfaction with some of my gear is due to the fact that it is being mis-used. Electric guitars, by their very invention, are meant to be loud. My success at getting a decent electric guitar sound at a reduced volume has been limited. I think that's why I've been stuck on the Les Paul lately, because it has a chunkier sound at the lower volumes I play at during our weekly worship services. Obviously, the trade off is worth it. Leading a congregation in songs requires us to put others first, and to consider that most people can't tell the difference between the sound of a Fender and Gretsch.

I've been experimenting with an Epiphone Valve Junior head. It's a 5 watt class A tube amplfier that can produce some great sounds at low volume. So far, I've had mixed success. I've done some mods on the amp's circuit that have helped bring out the sparkle I'm looking for, but I've got more work to do. But it sure was nice to get to play 'the real thing' last night and remember why I got so excited in the first place about electric guitar and its potential for musical expression in worship music.

Labels: Gear, Worship Leading

I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. The football game is on, the turkey is in the oven, and we will be joining family and friends for a wonderful time today. Having said this, it makes me realize what a plentiful life I live here in America.

It's the cheesy thing to say, "What are you thankful for?" on Thanksgiving, but it is nice that we have a yearly reminder. Now if only I lived in "thankful mode" year round, I know that my life and my relationship with God would take on a totally different tone.



Oh, and I'm also thankful for Turkeys. I will be eating plenty of that today. Sorry, buddy.

Labels: Christian Life

Earth's Moon is Rare Oddball
by Dave Mosther
SPACE.COM

The moon formed after a nasty planetary collision with young Earth, yet it looks odd next to its watery orbital neighbor. Turns out it really is odd: Only about one in every 10 to 20 solar systems may harbor a similar moon.

New observations made by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of stellar dust clouds suggest that moons like Earth's are—at most—in only 5 to 10 percent of planetary systems.

"When a moon forms from a violent collision, dust should be blasted everywhere," said Nadya Gorlova, an astronomer at the University of Florida in Gainesville who analyzed the telescope data in a new study. "If there were lots of moons forming, we would have seen dust around lots of stars. But we didn't."

Gorlova and her team detail their findings in today's issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Violent birth

Shortly after the sun formed about 4.5 billion years ago, scientists think a vagrant planet as big as Mars smacked into infant Earth and ripped off a chunk of our home's smoldering mantle. The rocky, dusty leftovers fell into orbit around our wounded planet, eventually coalescing into the moon we see today.

The scenario is unique among other moons in the solar system, which formed side-by-side with their planet or were captured by its gravity. Gorlova and her colleagues looked for the dusty signs of similar smash-ups around 400 stars, all about 30 million years old—roughly the age of our sun when Earth's moon formed.

Read the rest of the article

The cosmos is beyond my comprehension. It is interesting to hear scientists try to explain the most incredible, incomprehensible things in human terms. I'm not knocking science, because Science gives us insight into the incredible wisdom, creativity, and intelligence of God's creation. But I think God confounds the scientists by doing things they just can't explain. It leaves us in awesome wonder of Him.

Labels: Christian Life, Wonder, Worship Leading

I have been in the throes of contemplating a shift in my guitar rig. My rig has gone over a few changes in the last couple of years, and I've not really found anything that I love. I've acquired some nice overdrive boxes like the Fulltone Fulldrive 2 and the Budda Phatman tube overdrive that have stayed on my board for a long time. Maybe too long. The Fulldrive 2 has been the centerpiece of my overdrive sounds for about five years, and I think I'm satisfied with what it does. I am thinking about pickin up a new dirt pedal, though. Something with a little more spank and brightness.

The big change I am contemplating is effects. I've gone through several changes lately. I used overdrive pedals into a Boss GT-3 for several years, and it worked out really well. The GT-3 is a pretty impressive pedal, especially for the era in which it was released. Of course, it is very "digitally", but the ability to tap in multiple, timed effects was cool to me. A few years ago, I decided that my GT-3 was a little long in the tooth, and I tried to go to individual effects. I had my overdrive section running in to a Boss DD-20 gigadelay, a holy grail reverb, and a Boss tremolo. It was ok, but not really what I was hoping for.

My buddy, Brandon, is a heck of a guitar player and lead singer for the up-and-coming LA band, Matcli. He has been using the POD XTLive for a while now. He showed me some of the delay tones, and it sounded really great. I have been playing through one ever since. And up to this point I've been really enjoying the vast array of delays and effects the unit has. I've been disappointed with the amp modeling with it, however, and find that it is no better than the GT-3 for amp and cabinet modeling. Everything sounds squashed and compressed and lifeless. So what I've got is a really big and heavy delay pedal. And lately I've found that this pedal is putting me into a rut as a player. Because it is a multi-effects pedal, it has dozens of patches that are all individualized and unrelated. If I want to brighten my tone for a particular amp I'm playing, or tweak anything, I'm scrolling through menus and punching a lot of buttons. And what's worse, is that change isn't carried over into other similar patches.

So now I am contemplating selling off some gear to got to individual stomp boxes again. I used to have hours to spend tweaking patches and getting the right tones, but I have to face it: I'm in my mid 30's, married, a fast paced job, and I'm volunteering as a worship coordinator at my church. Do I have time to tweak my patches every week? Heck no.

So I'm stuck in a quandary. I have to choose between the Boss DD-20 Gigadely and the Line6 DL4. The Line6 DL4 is pretty sweet, except that you can't dial in tempos, and it won't do a "dotted-quarter" delay time. For me, that is almost a deal killer. As a worship leader, I try to keep the flow going, and nothing breaks the flow like punching in a tap tempo and having it be just a "little off".

But the DL4 has some gold-standard delay tones that the DD-20 just can't do. I thought of going with the DD-20 and piggybacking the Line6 Echo Park with it. The Echo Park pedal is an awesome pedal, and will do the big swirly delays that the DD-20 won't do. The DD-20 also cops the Boss Analog Delay that is the "holy grail" of analog delays amongst many players.

But the DL4 would give me a wider array of overall tones, and so many pro guys are using it......it has to be good. I haven't been able to pull the trigger, though. Of course, to pull the trigger means that I have to sell of other gear.......a true dilema!

Labels: Gear

I almost forgot to post about Daughtry. I had no idea that this guy/band had become so popular. Isn't this band a lot like Incubus, with a little more of the Alabama sound? I had no idea that these guys were even remotely popular. Where have I been? Oh, that's right, listening to Jimmy Eat World's latest release.

Labels: Music

Lloyd is stepping down after a very rough year at Michigan. Many fellow Michigan fans have respected Carr's character, but not his coaching philosophy, and are glad to see him stepping aside for someone new to come in. Michigan, year after year, has amazing talent that is coached into mediocre results.

Having said that, Carr did bring Michigan a national championship in the 1996-1997 season, and had an excellent winning percentage. However, he perennially lost to Ohio State, and couldn't find a way to win in the Rose Bowl in the last three trips.

Now the silly season begins, and many wonder if U of M can entice LSU head coach, Les Miles to come to the program. Les played for Bo Schembechler at Michigan, and is one of the favorites to replace Carr amongts fans. The only problem is that LSU has a clause in Mile's contract that specifies that he must pay $1.2 Million to LSU if he exits his contract early to coach at Michigan. Perhaps they saw this coming in Baton Rouge??

Labels: Leisure, Sports

1 | Blessed Be The Name |Redman |Scott & Melisa Co-lead
2 | Love Me Like You Do | Vineyard | Scott
3 | Mighty To Save | Hillsong | Scott
4 | Above All Else | Vineyard | Melisa
5 | Glory In The Highest | Tomlin | Melisa

We kicked it old-school with Blessed Be The Name, which was a song we had not done on Sunday morning for a long time. This song has been over-used by the contemporary church to the point that I got a bit tired of this great song. I like to pull it out sparingly, but when I do, the people love to sing it to God.

Love Me Like You Do is another song I've done too many times, but it felt right to put some familiar songs at the top of the set. We've been doing several new songs in the recent weeks, and putting two familiar songs at the top seemed to allow many in our congregation to dive right into worship at the-get-go.

Mighty To Save, a song that I've long wanted to include in our worship repertoire, is a powerful song. The power in the message of this song is just incredible. I love singing about our mighty King. I remember the old kids-chorus we sang in kids church, "What a mighty God we server what a mighty God we serve.....angels bow before him, heaven and earth adore him, what a mighty God we serve." Remember that one? Well, Mighty To Save is another great song expressing that same message.

Melisa did a beautiful job leading Above All Else. What a beautiful song, and one that serves as both a reminder that we need Him above anything else, and also serves as a prayer-in-song to God.

Glory in Highest is seeming more and more appropriate as we approach the first Sunday of Advent next Sunday. I love the line:

You are the first
You go before
You are the last
Lord, You're the encore

Chris nailed it right there, and the powerful ending to the song is loud and anthemic. I'm sure that the praise in heaven is going to be louder than anything we've ever experienced on earth. Can you imagine the throng that will be praising at the throne?!

Our good friend, Chris Manus delivered a powerful message as part of our series on the book of James. He led a ministry time that allowed brothers and sisters in our church to wash each others' feet. I'm a little squeamish about foot-washing......it kind of bugs me......I prefer to be the washer, because being the washee is so humbling. And I don't like a fuss made of me. But Chris brought me forward to have my feet washed in front of the entire church. It was humbling. It was kind of weird, but it was good. It was also wonderful to see others getting down on their knees to wash the feet of their neighbors. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Labels: Set Lists, Worship Leading

Today is the big game between Michigan and OSU! Go Blue! The Wolverines can come to Pasadena if they win today. Check out the action on ABC.

Labels: Sports

Today is the day I put out the worship team schedule for my church. It is one of the tasks I take on for our worship community, and it is amazing how fast the weeks go by and my schedule gets outdated. It seems like every time I send out the email and post the web-page, I get this "frustrated" feeling. I always wish that I could do more to minister, train, and pastor our worship community, but don't have the time or resources to do it the way I'd like to.

The Volunteer Leader: 100% heart, 100% vision, 10% of the time of a full-time leader. I'm one of those volunteer leaders that can't quite live up to my own vision. I have a heart to see our worship community gathering from time to time, and going deeper than just doing worship songs together on Thursday nites and Sunday mornings. I have a heart to see our youth raised up in leading worship. I have a heart (and some of the skill) to write songs and record them. My heart longs to do all these things, if only I had the time!!!

So, I have to let go of certain expectations, and serve God the best I can in the place He has put me. Being a volunteer leader also reminds me that my fellow team members are also grinding out the commute, the job, the commute, a quick dinner, and running out the door to make rehearsals and meetings. It's not easy, but the passion for Him, and to see Him worshiped compels us.

Sometimes I get down on myself, and wonder if I'm doing a good job at being a leader. But I pray that there is grace for the time and skills that I lack. I think maybe when I'm down on myself is when I'm relying mostly on myself and not on Him. When I'm really relying on Him, the struggle goes away, and I find rest.

Could we all be doing more as leaders? Maybe? Should we? Maybe....and maybe NOT. Some of us are already stretched. But all of us should do what we do in His strength, and not ours. That's a fairly basic belief of our faith, but I forget it all too often.

Labels: Worship Leading

Congratulations to my sister, Sheri. Her worship album, due out in May, is recorded and mixed!! You can check our her blog post here:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&friendID=123908409





Kudos, Sher!

Labels: Kudos