New years Revolutions...

It happens every year, you know, I know it. Every January first everyone decides to make some changes in their lives, ie: People decide that their New Year's Resolution is to loose weight so they go join a gym, two month's later they're still paying on their contract and haven't been there since January 9th.

Let's face it, it's part of human nature to fail on our new year's resolutions, look up the definition of resolution and in regards to how we use for new year's you'll read something along the lines of "a formal expression of opinion or intention made", it's making a decision to change something in your life, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do that. To decide to make a change in your life is a great thing, but how's this for an idea, instead of just deciding to make that change... how about ACTUALLY making that change, why not, instead of making a new years resolution, make a New year's Revolution?

Looking up the definition of revolution, and sure you'll find it's a turn, it's also a political coup, but more importantly a revolution is a sudden, radical, or complete change. Isn't that what so many of us need in our lives?

Happy New Years to everyone,
Matt

mac vs. pc 2.0

You know those I'm a mac, i'm a pc commercials? (And visa-versa for the ones that microsoft put out)

yeah well this blows then all away.

on baited breath....

Tomorrow night is our Christmas Eve service at Lifepoint (Chancellor High School Auditorium, 6:30pm), not counting tomorrow itself here's how many hour that has gone into it.

Planning: 50 man hours
Music Preparation: 67.75 man hours
Video/Tech preparation: 16 man hours (est)

And all this before the actual service tomorrow.
133.75 man hours or almost 17 working days of work straight, and like last year this is only counting the actual meeting times, this isn't taking in countless hours that our staff and volunteers have exerted on their own. That number will easily triple tomorrow.

Why?

It's simple really.

Tomorrow night people will arrive. Some of them may have been invited by a Lifepoint regular, some might have just seen one of our banner or road signs. some might be on the verge of divorce, some might be about to give up for good, some might be at a church service for the first time in their life, some might be there for the only chance they're giving this thing called church, some might be hurting inside, some may have emotional scars, some may have a terminal disease, many will not know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.

That is why Lifepoint exists, To reach people far from Christ, so they can experience God's plan for their lives, and that's we we joyfully pour the hours in for a night like tomorrow. Because they Christmas story is truly the joy story for us.

A Christmas Miracle?

Firefight: Miracle no one died on Denver Runway

Check this post out!

Mike Harrison has a good post on giving here.


I guess the subject is at the forefront of my mind having just ready the go-giver, which is an awesome book you should read, yes you, right there, the one in front of the monitor. Go out a get a copy, in fact, get two and then give one away!

More posts to follow later.

Reason # 2 why I want an iphone...

because this app just looks to be so much fun for anyone musically inclined.

Does that make it middle aged?

Happy Birthday to the mouse, turns 40 today!

This is more for the Lifepoint staff...

than it is for me, I think between our staff members we have two iphones, and multiple crack.... err black berries, ran across these today and thought they might be neat little apps to have on the phones.

The Bible for iphone
Likewise for the blackberry

what?

Somehow this is both kind of sad... and not surprising to me in the least... but apparently "Online game World of Warcraft now offers more secure authentication than nearly every online banking system the average consumer can access"

Are you kidding me? All this for a video game? okay I understand how popular and widely used this game is played... I even know there are people who have made millions (literally, it's kind of scary) by playing in game and sell junk via third parties... insane I know... but still, this is a bit much isn't it?

Nice....

Josh just posted the new bumper for Lifepoint's series for Christmas, Adventus: The coming.

Watch it here

Fresh off lifehacker

http://lifehacker.com/5101972/most-underhyped-apps-of-2008

I haven't tried all of these yet (though i will be) I can personally vouch for VLC, songbird, Opera, open Office (though I haven't upgraded to version 3 yet) and Picassa

What in the world?

Sorry for the delay in posting, hope you had a safe and happy thanksgiving... stumbled onto this via one of the creative blogs... you know that old expression about artist's suffering?

a moment of randomness....

sorry a couple real posts coming sooon, but for now please enjoy a look a "Christian Jelly Bellies" over at SCL

... I want one of these...

Okay so it was like they took a bunch of photographers and videographers and put them in a room full of legos and geeks....

and thus I want one!

Sorry for the lack of informative posts lately.

Very Random

In an effort to help promote energy independence and global initiative we here at Fudi's blog would like to present a new way to SAVE MONEY in these hard times, yes with energy costs on the rise a new champion of freedom is needed and I've decided to spear head the cause, join now and for a mere 25 million dollars you two can own your own nuclear power plant!

makes me want an iphone...

okay now this is cool....



http://gizmodo.com/5079308/the-iphone-ocarina-link-never-would-have-allowed-this

I needed the laugh this morning...

I got this off Greg Atkinson's blog this morning and I got a kick out of it... don't be surprised if you get automated replies from me from now on...

Best Out of Office Replies by Jeremy Wright

1. I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.

2. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn’t have received anything at all.

3. I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me until I return from holiday on 4 April. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.

4. Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged £5.99 for the first ten words and £1.99 for each additional word in your message.

5. The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and is unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and trysending again. (The beauty of this is that when you return, you can see how many in-duh-viduals did this over and over).

6. Thank you for your message, which has been adde d to a queuing system… You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.

7. I’ve run away to join a different circus.

8. I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons… When I return, please refer to me as “Margaret” instead of “Steve”.

*** I don’t know about you, but I’ve needed a laugh lately. I thank Eric for always having a smile and a joke ready. Number 1 is my personal favorite. So what can you come up with? Got a number 9 and 10 reply?

Stories and statistics

I couldn't tell you where I stole this line from, but I'm fairly confident I didn't come up with it myself... for now I'll give credit to the unknown source, but eventually I'll get to the point where I'll take credit for this expression, but here it is.

Behind every statistic is a story

Looking at the church overall, and speaking from personal experience, I know that all too often people look at easily track-able numbers like attendance when it comes to looking at our statistics as a church to see "How we're doing". While this isn't the case at Lifepoint, I do know at churches I have been to in the past the focus seemed to be on attendance, and in force of habit, on occasion I have found myself regressing to see how we did on a Sunday by attendance, instead of focusing on things like that are nowhere near as easy to track such as salvations, baptisms, and/or as how we like to put it, Life Change.

But if you look at it even with attendance, how often do we really pay attention to what those numbers actually mean?

Every one of those "numbers" is a person with a story, that person? you know the one who was number four hundred ninety nine, do you know their story? do you know that their family was in discord before they started coming to Church and that it's made such a huge impact in their lives? What about person number four? They're the one who didn't want anything to do with God or church before a friend dragged them in (kicking and screaming) and now after encountering God their life has turned around and they're not only here every week, but helping with setup and now, bringing their friends!

What about volunteer number 49? They're the one who had been burned by "Religion" and was done with church, who never knew a church like this could exist, where the purpose is to reach people far from Christ, and now are back on fire for the Lord?

Or Kid number 87, who's parents brought them to kidspoint for the first time, who finally was told the gospel in a way that made sense to a 3rd grader and changed their life forever...

Those kind of stories go WAY beyond simple numbers, and this post is more of a mental reminder to myself than to anyone else and really help to drive that point home, maybe you're the Pastor of a Megachurch with over 3k in weekly attendance, or maybe your the choir director of a church that has more people in the choir then on the pews... is Life change happening at your church? What are the stories behind some of your statistics?

Got RSS?

If you follow more than one blog regularly (or in my case if you read like over 3 dozen blogs), then you might find using an rss reader very handy... there are quite a few out there, but the one I've found that seems to work for me is google reader, it's nicely tied into google, (which I use for a variety of things, ironically not so much for searching).

How it works:
Well it does take some time to set up, you have to add the blogs you follow, you can search by accounts if you know them, or do search strings for certain ones... or if you're lucky the blog you read has a "RSS" feed button...

Once it's set up, it pulls feeds (articles) directly from the blogs you've set it up with in one hand y to read from spot so you don' have to go hopping from website to website.

For example, before I started using google reader I had a small cycle... I'd first open my own blog (occasionally to update it) and then from there I'd hit the links to jump over to Pastor's blog, from his I went to Jeremy's from pick's Id go to josh's then from Josh I'd jump back to mine to hit either Northpoints, or Wade's.

Now I open up google reader and if there any new posts from any of the above mentioned plus 30 or so more there all in one centralized location.

if anyone has some questions on rss readers feel free to post them here.

~Matt

We Don't need no stinking measuring spoon...

If you spend enough time in the kitchen, you eventually arrive at the point where you can "eyeball" certain measurements, (watch any cooking show, unless it's Alton Brown, odds are you won't see a measuring soon). (For the record I'm nowhere near that point). r

Well I found this little nifty game, for those who like to "eyeball" certain angles and such..., enjoy, as for me I'll stick with the spoons.

Pranking to bless...

Lifepoint Staff Retreat Prank from Matthew Furukawa on Vimeo.

So a little bit of explanation... about the video you just saw, or are now watching, is the work of a small group of us who wanted to both uplift, and prank the staff of Lifepoint church... the cans in front of the office doors are the preferred soda of each occupant, and who doesn't like candy? The one thing that didn't translate to video well was the smell... something like five pounds of double bubble gum was scattered about and the scent hits you right at the door.

Sorry about the poor quality of the video, all I had was my litle cannon sure shot digital camera which shoots 30 seconds of video at a time.

Aggravation...

Is there actually anyone out there stupid enough for to fall for this? And if there is do you feel sorry for them, or feel like they got what they deserved for falling for something like this...

First off, the typos... (though to be fair this one has far less then the ones that normally arrive in my inbox)

Second of all, if it were to be true (it's not, bear in mind) than by accepting this you would be guilty of some massive tax fraud/evasion/etc... keep in mind that They didn't bag Al Capone for murder, racketeering or any kind of crime syndication, but they nailed him for tax violations... (That's where the IRS gets it's fearsome reputation).

By the way if you read this blog and you've actually tried to do one of these things.... please don't tell me, I will think less of you.

Hello Dear,

I have Paid the fee for your Cheque Draft.but the manager of Eko Bankn
Benin told me that before the check will get to you that it will expire.So
i told him to cash $2 Million USA DOLLar all the necessary arrangement
of delivering the
$2 Million USA DOLLar in cash was made with FEDEX COURIER COMPANY.

This is the information they need to delivery your package to you.with
FEDEX COURIER COMPANY, contact them now.

NAME: FEDEX COURIER COMPANY.
ATTENTION: PERSON: JIMI ANDERSON.
POSITION: FOREIGN DELIVERY DEPARTMENT.
ADDRESS: COTONOU BENIN REPUBLIC
E-MAIL:fedexcouriercompany432@gmail.com
PHONE NUMBER: +229-9317-8953

Please, Send them your contacts information to able them locate you
immediately they arrived in your country with your BOX .This is what they
need from you.

1.YOUR FULL NAME
2.YOUR HOME ADDRESS.
3.YOUR CURRENT HOME TELEPHONE NUMBER.
4.YOUR CURRENT OFFICE TELEPHONE.
5.YOUR CURRENT HOME TELEPHONE NUMBER.
6.A COPY OF YOUR PICTURE

Note that this is there E-mail contact is (fedexcouriercompany432@gmail.com)

Please make sure you send this needed info's to the Director general of
FEDEX COURIER COMPANY BENIN REPUBLIC,DR.JERRY COOK with the address given
to you.

Note. The FEDEX COURIER COMPANY don't know the contents of the Box. I
registered it as a Box of an African cloths. They don't know it contents
money, this is to avoid them delaying with the Box.don't let them know
that is money that is in that Box.

Thanks and Remain Blessed.
MARK ROBERT(ESQ)

Has anyone seen?

I was thinking about going to watch an American Carol tonight, has anyone seen it? Is it worth the ticket price?

Healing to do healer...

I still distinctly remember how i felt when I first heard the song "Healer" by Mike Guglielmucci, I also (VERY distinctly) remember how disgusted I felt when I heard the truth behind the story. But, as Pick has pointed out to me on more than one occasion (mainly when I'm arguing about doing a performance song) is that Truth is truth, whether it's coming from an old hymn or a Train song. And after a bit of consideration I've come to accept that regardless of the means of promoting the song, there is strong truth to it, and it's an amazing worship song.

However, with far better words and scriptural backing allow me to share with you an email I received from one of our band members about using this song in worship, I've left out name references as i didn't ask this person permission to share this on the blog, but as awesome as this email was I wanted to share it.

Man you sure know how to make a guy think...

When we were talking about this song at practice that night - about how the Hillsong guy Mike whatshisname lived a lie, promoted the song with his fake illness, the unbelieveable audacity of a very well-known Worship Leader to so distort everything related to the situation, I had no desire to ever do the song at all and said so that night. When I saw the Planning Center notification this morning, I "reviewed" the service to see what we were doing. I saw the song listed and the pit of stomach balled up in a humongous knot. I was getting ready to click the "Decline" button when something (had to be God) told me to wait. I then remembered something in Phillippians I had read before in my personal reading etc. Here's the passage...

Phillipians 1:15-18 (NIV)
15 It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. 16 The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.[c] 18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.

I didn't remember anything false in the lyrics, but I listened to them again to make sure and yes there is truth in the song.

I went to planning center again and clicked the accept button. I'm just thankful the Lord and the Holy Spirit kept the promise from John 14 about the Comforter (Holy Spirit) being with us to bring to our rememberance everything He has taught us.

The reason I'm spelling all this out for you is in case someone else has doubts about the song feel free to share how God helped me.

Just don't expect to see the song on my "favorites" playlist :-)

I personally felt "ministered" to by this email and if you're a worship leader out there, or someone who's job is to find new worship music and you've been struggling with this song as much as I have I hope this helps you out.

God bless,
~Matt

Momentum....

Tonight's the momentum meeting for some of our Volunteer leaders and coordinators. Having been off yesterday I had the chance to spend some time in the office while they were planing part of the meeting, It's going to be an awesome night, full of inspiration and information to help us invest in our teams so that we can reach this community.

things that make me go hmmm....

I'm a conservative person, I mean that from a financial, political and social stand point.

So with all this bailing out going on, I got quite a kick out of this "Birk plan" I don't know if you've seen it so here is a copy of it.

Subject: The Birk Economic Recovery Plan
Hi Pals,

I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I'm in
favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We Deserve It Dividend.
To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at
adults 18 and up..

So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billion that equals
$425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It
Dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let's assume a tax rate of 30%. Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes.
That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam. But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket.

A husband and wife has $595,000.00. What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.
Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
Put away money for college - it'll be there
Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
Buy a new car - create jobs
Invest in the market - capital drives growth
Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves
Enable Deadbeat Moms and Dads to come clean - or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( "vote buy" ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President.
If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG - liquidate it. Sell off its parts. Let American General go back to being American General.
Sell off the real estate. Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up. Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't.
Sure it's a crazy idea that can "never work."

But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party! How do you spell Economic Boom? I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion We Deserve It Dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC .
And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because
$25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam. Ahhh...I feel so much better getting that off my chest.
Kindest personal regards,

T. J. Birkenmeier, A Creative Guy & Citizen of the Republic
PS: Feel free to pass this along to your pals as it's either good for a laugh or a tear or a very sobering thought on how to best use $85 Billion!!

Now before we even consider expanding this for 700 billion, let's look at it this way....

Where did the 85 billion dollars come from in the first place? Think about it, $425,000 to every person 18+ (Before taxes) had to come from somewhere, or they (as the Government just absorbed it, either by introducing more money into the market, thus decreasing the inherit value of the dollar, or by just taking it as part of the federal budget (snort).

I'm no economist by any stretch of the imagination but to me it stands to reason, if the Government bring in money through taxation... wouldn't that mean that the 425,000 that would have been paid out to every person 18+ is now being PAID by every person 18+, I know what you're thinking, but Matt, the Government will levy taxes on those big corporations, like the oil companies, they'll just sock the money from big oil...

Well where does big oil get it's money? Government taxes One Company (let's just use Exxon as an example) for 10 billion in some sort of new tax? Exxon just shrugs and adjusts the price of every gallon being sold to make up for it. So who ends up paying for that in the end?

And since when has the Government ever been able to take over something and then produce better then the private sector? If you don't include the military I think the score is 0 and counting.

Case in point: The Post office, if the Postal Service runs so well, why do people pay fed-ex and UPS, and DHL instead of just going to the post office?

Okay, this might be more like it....

So last weekend (the one before this past one) I had the awesome opportunity to go down to Elevation Church with Ben (Our Kidspoint director) and Chris (Our Foyer team director/coordinator), I met a ton of awesome people, seriously their staff just rocks!

And I had a great time sitting in with their worship team meeting, what do I mean? Well check out these videos done by Wes (their Producer) and you'll see what I mean.

I need some bleach for my brain...

STOP
Before you watch the following please note that I found it in a thread topic WORST Worship ever! But this is my answer to Clark always playing the Sonseed video.

So True!

Read this over at Los' blog, so true... well I couldn't relate to everything, but most of it, and definitely the spirit of it.

Sorry for not posting much, been very busy this week, mostly been twittering,

Lifeshare!

Life worship tonight online at Lifeshare, Join us, you've got some time left!

Who knew....

Okay admit, if you've spent any time online... and let's be honest, if you're reading this blog you're someone who has, you're probably familiar with emoticons.

Now some people reading this probably don't realize what I mean by that term, emoticons are those little :-) that people use instead of words, or use to convey emotions, (Hence: Emotion Icons, or Emoticons). Most of us have used them at one point or another, it seems like they've been around for as long as the internet has... well not quite but almost, ran across THIS ARTICLE from wired about the history of them, or at least the origins.

Lifeshare JOIN US!!!!

LIFESHARE!

For the next 5 days, join us at 9:00pm on the east coast!

Lifeshare

The Payout...

Recently (well a week-ish) ago I had the chance to talk to Pastor about the payout for volunteers. Looking at what was it that got our teams to do the amazing things that they do, looking at what they do is nothing short of phenomenal, but why?

Why would people give up their Sunday (Morning for some, whole day for a few others) why would they make time during their week doing things for free that would astonish most people. Why do a few put 20+ hours a week into this?

Submitted for your approval (Yes with the accent): a few reasons why our Volunteer army does what it does. This list isn't all-inclusive in fact its quite short, and I'm sure that there are a lot of things that people would say that aren't on this list... but I'm the one blogging here and this is what I managed to come up with.

Reason number one: Bigger than yourself, AKA wanting to belong to something. People join many organization, or volunteer for community services because they like to be a part of something that it bigger than just them.

Reason number two: Emotional beneficiary, AKA That warm fuzzy feeling. A lot of people get a warm and fuzzy feeling for doing things for others.

Reason number three (and this is the real one I told pastor that I thought the pay out was for our volunteers): Life change, AKA grabbing the net. Or I could say buying into the vision.

Lifepoint is about one thing, reaching people far from Christ so that they can experience God's plan for their life.

That's what I think most of our volunteers get as their payout, we get the humbling honor to see peoples lives change. The day we talked about this I realized that we've seen more people take a radical step of faith and forever change their eternal destination than we started this church with, THIS YEAR ALONE, and we've got 4 months to go before the year is over, I don't think there is anything out there that compares to a payout like this, and I daresay that there isn't a single core volunteer who would disagree with me.

Lifeshare

So I'm not 100% sure what I just got myself into...

But it looks like it's gonna be a wild and fund ride, so be ready!
Lifeshare a 7 day online challenge!

Warning: YARAD (Yet Another Rant About Driving)

Right I've been working on an actual quality post for the last couple days, but that'll have to wait.

Dear Dude driving in the fast lane...

I consider myself to be a safe driver, if one who prefers to drive a bit faster than one probably should. That being said I've always a few ground rules that I am meticulous about when driving.

The one that applies to this case is this, the left lane, oft referred to as the fast lane is for people who want to drive fast. As such the bare minimum speed to drive in this lane is the actual posted speed limit... (Side Note: As such as long as someone is at LEAST driving the speed limit I'll cut them a break even if they are in the fast lane.) Having said all that, allow me to continue my rant...

I understand that, despite having state tags you may not be from this area and thus you may not be familiar with the area and as such may have missed that rather large 55 miles an hour sign that was RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. (Okay deep breath) I also know that the big field used for the equestrians when they have a horse show going on is really interesting, though I would think that it might be more so when there is actually something going on rather then a big empty field. Even though it's on the RIGHT SIDE OF THE ROAD and NOT ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ROAD KNOWN AS THE FAST LANE (Sorry).

So even taking all of that under consideration, you were passed by a SCHOOL BUS! That's right the big yellow cheese wagon with LIMITERS was going faster than you! And the final problem I had was after the long uphill climb (during which you finally eclipsed said school bus) you did not get out of the fast lane, no you decided to once again slow down and let them catch up... I'm just grateful that the school bus driver noticed my obvious ire, (Perhaps the fact I was banging my head into my window was an indication) and allowed me to pass.

By the way have you ever noticed that anyone who drives faster than you is an idiot and anyone who drives slower is a moron?




*No I did not actually bang my head into the window, nor did I do anything else to actually indicate that I was ready to run someone off the road this morning, if anything I'm rather proud of myself for NOT getting offensive in my driving, it was however extremely frustrating to be passed by a school bus...

Kaizen!

Is what I would use to describe our approach into creating an engaging worship environment, actually it's something that I would use to describe anyone on Lifepoint's staff (Both volunteer and paid). It's something that's part of our staff culture.

So what is Kaizen? (Okay, I know some of you are googling it at the moment, so I'll wait). So now you know, at least I hope you do, for everyone one else who was waiting for my explanation allow me to enlighten you.

Kaizen, the literal translation for this term means improvement, however to the Japanese (irksome glare in the general direction of everyone on the Drive Conference... especially Clark, with the possible exceptions of Kristen, Ben and Ronnie) the word goes much deeper, it's a term for a continuous (unending perhaps) quest for excellence. It looks at every part of an organization and analyzes not only the the results, but also the process that brought them about, and is always looking for ways to improve the systems.

I remember reading about PDCA Plan Do Check Adjust, and that's something that takes place every week at Lifepoint, every week we plan the service (okay actually a few weeks out now, but work with me on this!) We then do the service, the following Monday we Check (review) how it went, and the Adjust our next Plan for the following week, we not only look at the results, (Life changes via salvation's, baptisms, etc...) but on what went into the service that produced said results.

Applied to daily life it's a quest for personal excellence in all aspects of life. One part of my life I know that I apply Kaizen to is drumming, I'm always studying different techniques grips, etc (which is actually what lead to me learning the tradition grip that I often use).

Content, but never satisfied, a never ending quest for excellence... How can you apply the philosophy of Kaizen into your life?

Is it really on your side?

Here at Lifepoint we're gearing up for our fall semester with the kick-off series "One Month to Live" and the series in general has gotten me thinking, how often do we think of our lives as a clock where the hands go continuously around in a circle. It's understandable to think like that as we go about our lives on a daily basis, but it's perhaps more proper to consider time in the frame of an hourglass.

As maudlin as it sounds, we all have an appointment to die, (baring the rapture but that's a whole 'nother post)and every day we get closer to that appointment, our time on this earth isn't infinite so the hands of a clock going in a circle isn't as good an illustration of our time as the sands that fall from an hourglass.

I had the opportunity to hear Willie Jolley speak a few years ago and I still remember how he began his talk, it's a poem that has, and probably will stay with me for the rest of my life, "I have only just a minute, only sixty seconds in it, forced upon can't refuse it, didn't seek it didn't choose it, But it's up to me to use it, I must suffer if I loose it, give account if I abuse it, Just a tiny little minute but an eternity is in it"

So what are you doing with the time that's been given to you? 525,600 minutes in a year (With all due respect to the song) how did you spend yours?

Failing Forward

Author and speaker John C. Maxwell talks about the difference between ultimate success and lack thereof has to do with our view of and response to failure... and mind you that's paraphrased and not a direct quote as I read the book several months (A year?) ago.

That being said, I realized I've dropped a huge ball, and it's not something I've done, it's rather something I haven't really done.

One thing we talked about in our Volunteer staff meeting this morning is that there's more to our jobs than just the systems we have in place, Like what are we pouring into the people on our teams?

After chewing on that thought all morning at work, I'm not quite sure that I really have spent time getting to know the folks on my team beyond the superficial "See you at Practice on Thursday/Church on Sunday" check that I'm actually quite sure that I HAVEN'T spent any time really getting to know the amazing people on my team.

I can't tell you how many kids that everyone has, or what they're names are, and it's not like getting to know people is that hard to do, or something that I don't already know, I once read (and I honestly couldn't tell you where) is that we usually know what we're doing wrong, we just need reminders of it from time to time.

Failure on my part? No doubt, response to said failure? Well beyond the immediate "duh" reaction of hey stupid get to know your people I'm still staring at my screen trying to think of things...

So.... If you're on the worship team expect to be having coffee or something in the not-to-distant future, or heck maybe I just need to schedule something fun for the whole team to enjoy doing... hmmm that gives me a couple ideas....

The point of this post? (shrug) I'm not sure perhaps things for other people in my position as a reminder to TAKE THE TIME to get to know your team, or perhaps for my AMAZING worship teams (yes plural) to let you all know that I've been slacking, but I want you guys (and gals) to know I love y'all (egads I live in the south!) and respect your talents, time and ministry, I can say without hesitation that the practices we have and Sunday Mornings (and nights?) are the highlights of my week.

Or in other words...
Getting to know you,
Getting to know all about you.
Getting to like you,
Getting to hope you like me.

Getting to know you,
Putting it my way,
But nicely,
You are precisely,
My cup of tea.

EVERYBODY!

Getting to know you,
Getting to feel free and easy
When I am with you,
Getting to know what to say

Haven't you noticed
Suddenly I'm bright and breezy?
Because of all the beautiful and new
Things I'm learning about you
Day by day.


Sorry that was corny I admit it, but my point still stands.
Right, lunch break is over, back to work.

You've got to be kidding me.

So Clark and I have this little game we do to amuse ourselves, if someone says something really stupid we ask Public or Private, meaning did they go to a public school or a private school.

So what do you think, Public or Private?

Way too much fun!

What am I talking about? Well allow me to give you an example... good luck following it...

For all you Grammar (And spelling) Nazi's out there, this one's for you...

I tend to be very loquacious when it comes to penning, or perhaps now typing my thoughts, some people talk a lot, I write fairly decent amount I think... Despite my claims (which are yet to be proven untrue) of being the most wordy blogger on the Staff,I've got nothing on some of the other bloggers I think most (If not all of us) follow. And I know that my information and random thoughts aren't always useful to everyone but I try to do some relevant posts on a semi-regular basis... which does remind me that I haven't done one that recently so I supposed I should get to work on that.

There that didn't look to bad right? Well now shudder at how it looks now!

i tend too b hella loquaciouz wen itz comeses tew penning, ore perhaps nao typing miy thoughts, sum ppl tok lot, i riteses fairly decent ammount i fink... dispite mah claims (wich am yet 2 bee proven untrue) beeun thee mos wordy blogger oan da staff,i've haz nothing onna som o' de othr bloggers i thikns most (iffn nawt al of us) follow. an i kno dat my informsion & random thoughts aren't always useful too everyone butt i trai to do sum relevant posts oan an semi-regular basis... witch doez remind mi taht i haven't dun wun dat recently zo i suppost i shud git to wokr on taht..

Just having some fun with-- unintelligencer.com

Geek Talk....

That's right this post is for people who aren't afraid to admit their geeks!
(And yes you apple fan-boys, you're included by default in this)... for that matter if you even reading blogs to begin with chances are you're a geek... (hmmmm that gives me ideas for a Jeff Foxworthy-ish post "You might be a geek if...")

So anyways here's a few interesting geek stories that I've found and decided to share with you, that's right you, the one sitting down over there reading this

So yeah I'd like an iphone but... these are just cool... way cool imagine a world where people go from talking on their cellphone to playing in a Jazz (insert world relevant to the number of people around you) in seconds! And it's not just limited to jazz, (though that was the first thought that popped into my mind).

So this is something right out of a movie... and while it's cool it's also kind of creepy. So move aside pixar Emily's kung-fu is stronger than yours. Watch the video in the link, it's got to be seen to be believed.

Finally putting that road space to good use... Of course then you run into the problem of what to do during a cloudy day... But sure no one wants to hear MY theories of a magnetic induction generator, though there is the problem of needing a ten jigawatt flux capacitor...

Though speaking of roads reminds me that I still need to get a new gps unit... Oh look here's one, how convenient and... KIT is that you? wow GPS AND a slice of my childhood all wrapped up in one convienent package. Directions to anywhere even Beijing...

And speaking of Beijing, unless you live under a rock I'm sure you know that the Olympics are going on right now. Well apparently even up in the Satelite Of Love they're aware of what's going on....

Changing it up...

I've modified setup for the church drum kit a bit...
switched out the 13" Tama for my personal 10" Grestch (Tom)
Switched out the 13" piccolo snare for the 14" Tama with fat cat strands.... Let me say for the record that I LOVE what these new snare strands have done to my sound. It really makes the snare pop.
Cymbal setup it pretty much the same, but I added a clasped in place hi-hat, it makes it easier for me to hit a couple grooves when I don't have to worry about the l/r cross factor... and it's easier (I know cheap cop-out) than me trying to learn how to play open handed (which is on my list to do!)
I'll have to post a picture when I get a chance to take one again.

This is Lifepoint?

We have a staff culture at Lifepoint of Passion, Generosity and Honor, but there's an unwritten fourth part of that and that's having fun!

Here's a little video that the staff did introducing our two newest staff (not to be confused with volunteer staff) members, showing that yes, we do indeed have fun with the little camera thingy that comes with a mac.


And yes, they do actually do work most of the time, at least they are every time I've gone by the office.

Lessons Learned...

Okay, so this post is going to both the Lifepoint Worship blog, (Check it out if you haven't yet) and my personal blog (Which again, I would encourage you to checkout if you haven't seen it yet).

But as this past week we did an acoustic worship set there are few lesson's I've learned as music director that I'd like to pass along to you.


Point number one: It's really important to be off stage and evaluating worship on a regular basis. (Ironically Reid just talked about this on North Point's music blog, the same day I talked to Pick about the issue).


Point number two: Acoustic sets, are well recieved by the people attending the service (at least the few we've done have been), however, they are much harder on the music team.


Point number three: When you normally have a male worship leader, and switch to a female lead do not forget that every song will need to be re-keyed, and allow lead time for this to happen rather than wait for practice to role around.

We've had other churches come to see how we do things at Lifepoint and one person commented that it seemed like we had it all figured out, well we don't but we're always learning how to do things better, (hmm this gives me an idea for another post),

We Interrupt this regulary scheduled blog to bring you...

As probably the most active (and unquestionably the most verbose) Blogger in the Lifepoint Staff, (Both Volunteer and paid staff) I also try to keep current on what other churches and ministries are up to. As such I follow many other blogs, only some of which I have in my blog list.

The results of the above are occasionally I link to another blog for information or insight, or something of that nature. Today, though I just wanted to share something that I thought was really flipping (and by use of the term "flipping" I am merely attempting to state that this goes way beyond the term awesome) awesome.

As perhaps not everyone at Lifepoint knows (But will if they read this post) we are part of a network of churches (Ground Level Network) The church spearheading this is Elevation Pastored by Pastor Furtick. They are hugely impacting their community and have invested a lot into Lifepoint Church.

So back to the reason for this post, I was reading Wade Joy's Blog (Elevation's Worhsip Pastor) and found THIS POST, and then went to Pastor Furticks Blog and Read THIS POST and I got excited. and I mean excited, why? Read and see for yourself!

Testing... (tap, tap, Tap)

Testing a new program for blogging called Zoundry Raven, it's a portable application (that fits on a flash drive) and allows me to write and save my blog posts, and then post them to multiple blogs (which I run) at the same time...

So this is a test to see if it's working correctly .

I get no respect...

See? (You'll need to go down to bullet points)

Minor changes, Major results...

It's amazing what a huge effect you can get from a small change... well on second thought perhaps not so amazing, after all a slight shift of one or two millimeters can put your aim off by a huge amount 100 yards downrange...

Let's try this again, it's amazing what tweaking the way you do things can have a profound effect on the end result... bugger this just isn't working out right, let me jump to my point.

I play both traditional and match grip when I drum, as I had loaned out my copy of secret weapons for the modern drummer I'd been working on rudiments, my only problem is my left hand (the one in the traditional grip) wasn't working right, (well it's the left hand, so I guess it shouldn't be working right, but I digress) now I got it back and started watching and there I see what I'm doing wrong, I turn my hand somewhere between 5 and 11 degrees and bam, problem solved. I can now play just as fast (Arguably faster) with trad than match.

So why all the drumming posts? (As I've got two more I'm working on), well the drum-off is coming up and I'm debating entering.

Here's the thing I'm not a technician, and I've never had much experience playing without a band, (IE solo work), on the other hand... it's a chance to gain some experience and more importantly, from what I understand, contestants get special discounts...

Sorry getting of track here, this principle expands beyond the realm of drumming, what little adjustments can be made in your life to have a major affect on the way you live? I've been slacking a bit these last two weeks, but when I take my quiet time in the morning before I start my day, I always seem to be better equipped for the challenges (And accompanying stress).

So what minor change can you make for a major result in your life?

The GH fanmode strikes again....

Okay so as a drummer there are certain other drummers that I really love to hear play, Neil Peart (Rush), Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), Jojo Mayer (Nerve), Buddy Rich, Max Roach, Stevie Wonder (Believe it or not, but he did a lot of the drumming on his albums) but when I logged into my itunes to see what the new podcasts were, turn on fan-boy mode because Gavin Harrison was up for the drumset video. (Winner of the Modern Drummer Prog drummer 2008 award, and drummer for Porcupine Tree) Random a bit, yes, but it's a drummer thing (hmmm I'm blogging that... oh wait I just did).

One of his signatures? Is a custom 5 cymbal "Chime" thing (Watch the video you can't miss it) I SO want one of those...

So, what's YOUR story...

This is something we came up with at our creative planning session and implemented it this past week.

Stories, and we've gotten a few, one of which brought tears to my eyes...

If Lifepoint Church has had an impact in your life, or the life of someone you know we're looking for stories, Why? well partly because we love to know that we're making a difference in peoples lives, (and eternities truth be known,) but we also need them for something else... it's a surprise let me just say hat you don't want to miss this series!

send to
stories
at
visitlifepoint
dot
org

And yes I did it that way to avoid the spambots, this is something that we're hoping everyone will take part in, I know my own story (which I almost posted on the blog before this came up) will be headed that way.

So what's your story? (so far anyway, because like mine I know it's still being written).

~Matt

Drummers go Crash Boom Bang

Reid just posted this article over on North Point's music blog, regarding my favorite subject as a drummer, cymbals.

Which of course got me thinking about my own cymbals, (Because I'm ALWAYS looking for new/new old cymbals). Lifepoint's standard cymbals (which are, in all honesty needing to be replaced at some point, but it's not a big priority), include a set of Sabian Hats (And I honestly don't remember what series) a B8 crash (16") a B8pro crash (Again 16") and an 20" XS series Ride.

My current set of cymbals are as follows: 1 10" Sabian HHX Splash, 1 12" AAX Sabian Splash, 1 12" A Custom Zildjian splash, 1 16" A Zildjian crash, 1 18" A Custom Zildjian Crash, 1 20" K Custom (My Baby!) Zildjian Ride, 1 mix pair (K custom bottom, K top) Zildjian hats (I really got a good deal on those, like half of what they're worth). I also had (until two weeks ago) a Cobalt River 14" crash. This was a cheap (very cheap) cymbal but had a very nice trashy crash sound, I need to replace it soon, and as it was a 15? 20? dollar cymbal, replacing it is nowhere as difficult as replacing one of the other cymbals in my collection.

When will I have enough cymbals? I'm not sure. They're not a huge priority for me budget wise, but they are something I'm always looking at/for. I'd love to get some meinl's to try but no one carries them locally, and while I've gotten a couple of my collection via ebay, I do prefer to test out a cymbal before I buy it.

So gifts for me can include itune giftcards and cymbals. I like Zildjian A Custom, and K Custom series, Sabian Paragon, Vault, or any series that ends in an "X", Meinl Byzance and Soundcaster Series, Paiste Signature and 2002 series. Yeah Guitarists have it cheap. They get a few guitars, and sure the cost several grand... drummers collect cymbals, at anywhere from 100-700 a pop, and some drummers (Say like John "Bermuda" Schwartz best known for his work with "Weird" Al Ynkovic) Has collections spanning hundreds (over 400 in his case).


And yes this was a rather Random Post

Basics....

Sometimes it's hard to remember that they best of homes always begins with a strong foundation. And even when we know that it occasionally takes a reminder that even a foundation needs to be maintained.

Case in point, myself.

My reminder came from an article I was reading about Bassist John Myung (Of Dream Theater) where some of his bandmates mentioned that he was one of the only person they knew who warmed DOWN after a show.

Which brought my back to my drum corp days were we both warmed up and warmed down after practices, (but not always after performances) which then took me to the fall I worked as an Drum adviser for a marching band. I came in about halfway through the season on a request from a friend to give them a hand, the kids (I thought of them as kids even then, and I was only a couple years out of high school myself, at the time) were decent, but had no drum instructor to build their foundation and thus were floundering.

Instead of jumping on the music (which is why I was asked to come in the first place, to help them learn their parts better) I jumped on their fundamentals (Discipline! Rudiments! and Warm-ups!) It wasn't that they didn't know their part, quite the opposite actually, it's that they had problems on the performance aspect of it.

Now a part of me wishes I could say after a few weeks with me they turned into a whole new drumline that went on to win a bunch of awards at competitions, sadly that is not the case.

However I did come to find out that my time spent working on their fundamentals wasn't wasted as that helped them And I quote this from someone who had seen their early shows) "They looked and sounded like a real drumline"

So why did I just say all this? Well my point is I know about basics and fundamentals, but like so many of us, after playing set for a while I've slacked off on most (Nearly all) of said basics. So yesterday I began a regiment for getting this drummer's fundamentals back up to par.

So what does that entail?
1) Ear training, (this is the one part of my fundamentals that I can honestly say that I haven't stopped doing ever.
2) Arm strength/power/endurance, Jojo Mayer covers this one on his dvd but this is a delicate balance, because of the nature of the human body, build up more power, and you won't be able to access higher speeds.
3) Foot training, for those funky syncopated kick patterns (not something you normally run into in worship music, but you never know!)
4) Coordination/limb interdependence, the abilty to play different beats with different limbs (arms, legs, etc) at the same time. Sounds easy? here's a simple warm-up. Try tapping triplets with your left hand, eighth notes with your right foot, quarters with your left foot, and sixteenths with your right hand. (Try it slow, if you manage that, try speeding it up).
5) Warm-up/Cool-down routine, if I had professional drum instructions I'd probably have a slew of fancy exercises, (well maybe, shrug, it's not something I've had the luxury of having), I do have my rudimental listings and a handful of exercises for that, having played quads in drumline I'm used to adapting said exercises, of course my favorite exercise? (This sounds odd, I know) is eight on a hand, (plus the adaptations 1-xx on a hand, countdown on a hand etc).

So that's it, getting back to basics all around, remember that the house you live in is only as strong as it's foundations, (Read Matthew Chapter 7).

Oh the Irony....

It's thursday and that means it's Creative Chaos time hosted by 'Los at Ragamuffin Soul.... (Creative Chaos is like a meeting of the minds... errr blogs for creative type people in various ministries)

This is some thing that Josh (Campus Pastor for Lifepoint Downtown, and Creative Director for Lifepoint Church) participates in.

With me so far? Okay He's in Canadia (and yes I meant it like that, it's an inside joke) so he posted his before the start of creative chaos, it's a look at what we do on the creative team. (Find his post HERE) So the irony? 'Los did his Creative Chaos posting on this....

now see the irony?

Not Dead....

Just very busy these last few days, I've got a half finished setlist blog on LC Worship that needs to get done too.

What The Heck?

Okay so I was checking DLS's blog earlier and ran across this article...

Now let me start by saying that I consider myself a geek, and I happen to like Ubuntu, which in my opinion has done an amazing job bringing linux to the general home user. but I had to blink at this.

Okay if you don't want to read the full article here's the lowdown, Ubuntu is a Linux operating system available free, (And if you ever read the open source disclaimers they almost add this clarifying statement, as in free beer) as a download, or as a mailed cd (don't expect one for ages though, it takes a while). So Best Buy is now offering it for sale as an operating system for about 20 bucks (as in dollars, not what gives you a fever(as in buck fever, not a reference to more cowbell) or the verb consisting of a throwing action), ok if you want to get technical they're charging 19.99, but really, it's 20 bucks.

Now I understand that this will bring more exposure to a linux operating system (A good thing in my books) but 20 bucks for something you can get for free? Heck I know of a couple cases where people mailed Ubuntu distro Cd's to a few of our fighting men in Iraq who didn't have the ability to download it, so the paid version gets you 60 days of customer support, but the community is such that there are a ton of users who would help you out for free... so is this a good thing or not? I don't know, yet.

If it gets more program (beyond open source, which is a whole other story) support I'd weigh it in as a good thing, I'm just curious who's going to be buying these.

Lifepoint Resources

One of the joys of being the Musical Director for the Lifepoint campus of Lifepoint Church (as we are currently a two campus church, with a Lifepoint Downtown campus as well) is getting introduced to a plethora (oooh big word for me) of new worship music on a semi-regular basis, as well as delving (wow two in one post!) through a slew (yes, I did get a thesaurus) of all types of music to review for performance songs.

As far as Performance songs go, I'm working on a post for the Lifepoint Worship Blog (this past week's set listing post is up) regarding those, so check back there later, but as far as programming worship goes I wanted to share a few thoughts out there.

First off for programming a service let me recommend the amazing planning center online it's a service that helps you build your service and setup your people for their services that they can service.... sorry... Basically you can setup your service add your worship plans, schedule your people, and time everything. they have different paid plans for what your need, our let's me store our lead-sheets online and when I apply a song to the service it automatically builds a package of all the lead sheets (as long as I have them pre-uploaded) for the musicians and vocalists. (and the drummers, mustn't forget the drummers).

CCLI, not only a great site for keeping worship "legal" (CCLI license required) but also a great place to get charts, and to see new worship music. We use the Song select service which is awesome when I need to find a chart for a worship song... not always perfect (some songs/charts aren't available, some songs searches return a million [ok, not literally] results) but still a very good service.

Itunes (I'm not putting a link for this here, you should have it by now). I also use Amazon MP3 (Again no link here) to obtain most of my music selections. I can browse and preview thousands of worship songs without having to borrow a cd player and stand in the middle of an aisle with earphones. Not only that but I'm a huge fan of Podcasts, (the 8 gigs of space currently dedicated to storage of such would agree with that statement) and some churches (namely lifechurch.tv have made available, not only their sermons, but also their worship sets, it's cool to hear what other churches are doing).

North Point Music: (You can also find this one off the North Point Music Blog) - If you've got a subscription to the service then you can watch video tutorials on numerous subjects from how they run practices to how to play one of their worship songs, also has numerous Multi-Tracks and Core Packages available for purchase.

Numerous other blogs: Such as North Points, Elevations, (Wade Joy's who's the worship pastor for them), to name a few (There are others, so many others). It's a simple way to see what other ministries and/or churches are doing to reach their communities, along the lines I know Josh participates in the creative chaos blogs hosted by `Los. It's an "event" that takes place every Thursday where people from all across the country post something creative they've done in regards to their services.

These are just a few of the many resources I look to when it comes time to program the worship for the service...

Lessons learned...

Well Weds. night (last week) the worship team (well, most of us) were at Camile's (And I'm pretty sure I spelled that wrong) for the FCA powercamp concert...

And we learned a lot.

1) We learned that when fudi (aka me) is frustrated/aggravated/and annoyed my normally, extremely (is that pushing it?) consistent tempo goes out the window, (though in my defense with absolutely no monitors I was kind of guessing what the tempo Jeremy set was anyway).

2) We learned that when planning a worship set for an outdoor event do one of the following.
Either A) Pick songs that don't have click tracks/loops
or B) Have a backup set list in case your click tracks/loops won't run on your sound system.

3) We learned that even under extremely adverse technological conditions, when it comes to Worship our God is ALWAYS good.

4) I learned that playing in live events like that while they can be extremely frustrating are very fun!

5) I learned that after being out in the heat and performing, water, no matter how hot it's been after sitting in my trunk taste great!

6) I learned not to leave my wallet on my desk. (oops!)

7) I learned that I can climb around like Willy when I need to dig a keyboard out of the back of our box truck.

8) I learned that I work with an amazing group of people who'll rock it out, even when they don't have a clue what's going on (as we changed set lists on the fly).

9) I learned that O'Charlies (sp?) has amazing bread, (of course the fact that I was about starving might have something to do with it.)

10) I learned that I can cram an entire drumset into my alero, (including kick, toms, snare, cymbals and hardware!)

Head full of good thoughts, belly full of grub...

So I've got a few more detail in the lifepoint worship blog, but before I begin... does anyone recognize the title of this post? (Family not allowed to compete!) The first person who can tell me where it's from will get... bragging rights to all their friends about how much a geek you are.

So we did a "country" by which I mean "Bluegrass" song this week. If you've seen the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" then you'd probably remember Man of constant sorrows.

Despite the fact that I wasn't able to put together a full bluegrass band, our worship team rocked the song. And I got to play washboard, (a first for me)... and why is it every time I've got some weird I-need-my-percussionist-for-some-special-odd-type-instrument-thing, she's on vacation!

I'm not kidding, I'm planning to make sure to schedule our next acoustic worship set for after she get's back.

Anyway I've got more details about this last week's worship set including the performance song on the Lifepoint worship blog.

oops?

you ever forget something and can't remember what until after it was needed...

yeah, exactly.

Did you miss me?

I'm back from my trip, had an amazing time, missed Lifepoint on Sunday though... heard it was amazing.

Forgot to mention... actually come to think of it, this is the first time I've put a post up from my laptop since I got rid of vista... that's right David Gregory gave me a hand (More like he did most of the work while I sat and watched) but we rid my very nice machine from d4 3v1l that is vista and replaced it with XP. Yes I know a lot of you will be saying how I should get a mac instead of a pc, but for the price?

Normally I'm geeky enough to do this kind of operation by myself, but on those same lines, normally I already all the hardware in the machine because I built it myself. Not wanting to take a chance on the new machine that I do nearly all my work on I went to the expert.

Now I've got my machine with quite a few extras, mind you it's very stable (unlike Vista) very fast (unlike Vista) almost no bloatware (unlike vista) and takes full advantage of the dual core 64 (well as close as you can get without TRUE 64... and only the geeks will understand that) (oh, and again unlike vista).

So here's some of the 3rd part apps that make my machine run the way I want it to.

Launchy For someone who does a lot of typing, or knows a ton of keyboard shortcuts (IE my hand's not always on my mouse) this is a great little program. It's a program launcher you bring up the menu (via keyboard shortcuts) and then type the name of what you want to launch, it seems to be intuitive after a while.
Dexpot I never used this program on my old machine, it's a virtual desktop program and while it's not perfect... (honestly though, what is?) it does work extremely well. I have mine set to 4, and often will have illustrator open in one window, itune in another, reference images in a third, and firefox in the fourth, transition smoothly, rarely (if ever) hangs, and it allows me to have have different settings on the different desktops, thus I have 4 different backgrounds to help me keep them straight.
xneat really helps me set up my windows environment the way I want it to be, allowing for things like window transparency, minimize and show items on the taskbar it's not flashy, but very functional.
dexpose reloaded now there are some mixed reviews on this but I personally haven't had any problems with it. See there's this program on the mac's call expose which is a really nifty task switcher, (way cooler looking than alt_tab, and way more efficient then the stupid 3d thingy they tried in vista) this is a windows version of said program.
About the only thing I don't have that one would expect (well from me) is a dock bar, and while I've used them in the past, I have found Launchy to be mush more efficient, at least for me.

and... oh bugger, right, expect me to post something tomorrow.

Quick ReCaps...

Okay, Like Pick, I'm loving twitter... even when I don't have time to write a long post... or access to a computer (when I'm on the road... errr not literally!) I can send a tweet to my twitter account via a text message. Like last night I found myself at a Borders in Gaithersburg (sp?) Md. I found the OLD style of the plug by Koss, repackaged so it must be a new release.

To date I have not found a better set of headphones/in ears for the price. And it's cheaper now than it was 3 years ago when I last saw them.

The good: Great bass response, good high range, decent mid range. 15 bucks!!!! VERY comfortable (memory foam, instead of those little plastic thingies) in the ear portion.

The Bad: Let's face it these are consumer grade headphones, and they're only 15 bucks, you get what you pay for, or in other words, they're much less sturdy than say my old shure e2c's or my current Westone UM2s, so handle with care! Darn near impossible to find!

Overall: With sound quality that I feel rivals shure's entry level e2's or most other base level in-ears, I can't recommend this set of in ears fast or loud enough. Especially for 15 bucks, they might not replace my UM2's anytime soon (or the livewires as soon as I get some), but for the price I'm far more comfortable traveling with them or loaning them out. If you can find them I say grab a set, if you don't like them bring them to me and I'll buy them for you, but make sure you grab the right ones... (pics to follow eventually)

Oh, and if you're wondering what this last post was all about, all I'm gonna say is that it involved this, a fancy name brand of water, and a humorous fake note that may have contained a forged signature.

Oh and I just finished posting both last weeks and this past weeks worship notes on the (shameless plug)Lifepoint Worship Blog (/shameless plug)

For Pick

I found this online, for Jeremy Our Worship Leader.

Twitch

Ever have this happen? You get a brain flash, you didn't keep that handy pad that goes with you ALMOST everywhere you go and you scramble to get it, you reach the pad and just when your pen or pencil touches the paper you forgot what you wanted to write down?

Well this is one of those posts. I had four or five things I wanted to mention and I can't come up with anything... wait I remember one thing I wanted to cover.

Rules of the Road, fudi version. (To be updated as I see needed): If you've got a red light and you're on a right hand turn lane it is okay to turn if no traffic is approaching, (and if there is No sign that indicates no turn on red).
HOWEVER, if traffic is approaching and you decide to go anyway it is NOT acceptable to pull out in front of an Alero traveling at 45.5 mph in a 45 zone. Furthermore it is even less acceptable to slowly accelerate somewhere in the neighborhood of 4mph a minute until top speed is reached. If that top speed is 10-15 miles UNDER the speed limit for the next 5 miles you should turn in the keys to your car/truck and go and buy a Vespa.

Right then.

Hopefully whatever interesting insight that I had wanted to share will come back to me soon.

umm wow?

Okay, the inner drummer in me drools at pulling something like THIS off at Lifepoint. This was apparently the opener at Willow Creek's Arts conference.


Also found this one that I had to share, (the last one has no streaming media, it's a couple of pictures on that post, but don't look at it while sipping coffee, you've been warned!)

Relax!

Okay so I admit it's been a bit stressful last week, I had a lot going on at work, I had quite a bit going on at Lifepoint, and now I'm a bit behind on my blogging, but I found this little article on stress management and it was so helpful for me that I wanted to share it with you.

"Whenever you are having a rough day, try this stress management technique recommended in all the latest psychological journals. The funny thing is that it really does work and will make you smile.

1. Picture yourself lying on your belly on a warm rock that hangs out over a crystal clear stream.

2. You can feel both your hands dangling in the cool running water.

3. Birds are sweetly singing in the cool mountain air.

4. No one knows your secret place.

5. You are in total seclusion from that hectic place called "The World".

6. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.

7. The water is so crystal clear that you can easily make out the face of the person you are holding underwater.

See? It really does work. You're smiling Already!"

See it's good for you!

For those of you whom I have gotten on the case about blogging, (ie, yo, you should blog, you would be good at it) all I have to say is here's more proof that YOU yes, YOU should be blogging.

Graphic fun

ok I'm not Josh by any Stretch of the imagination but I've enjoyed Working with graphics for years. Well I finally got around to installing my old Intous 2 Tablet and in point of fact this entire Post was written with the character image recognition software that comes with the tablet . And when you think about how bad my handwriting is that is very, very impressive.

I am SO blogging this!

Last week Tuesday we had a meeting for the some of the volunteer leaders (ie unpaid staff) of lifepoint. Pastor talked about this topic, which we got from drive, the material is excellent so I can understand why he wanted to share it with the rest of the team, most of the high points can be found here (my first and until later tonight my only notes from drive that I have posted)

The quotable line from the night with pastor (and I'm not saying WHO said it) would have to be...

"I'm not saying figure it out, I'm just saying... figure it out"

In other blogging news I really have gotten to like the wordpress interface... at some point (and I WILL let you know) I'm going to move my official blogging presence there... but I'll still update this page, (copy and paste, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to blog, because if it did then I wouldn't be doing it, now would I?) but there may be a time lapse between that updating and me getting around to updating here, I AM going to leave lifepoint worship on Blogger for now, although in all candidness I don't know how many people even know about that blog who would have any issues in... oh forget it that's random drivel for some other time, (And I typed 2/3 of this paragraph with my eyes closed... sad isn't it?)

Did I mention?

I also contribute to the Lifepoint Worship Blog... okay I actually run the Lifepoint worship blog, mainly as a way to communicate to my team/staff and also to other worship leaders/music directors/etc...

If anyone on the Lifepoint Worship would like to contribute to that blog please let me know. I'd love to hear about worship from your perspectives, for now here's this past week's set list.

Good Morning Mr. Phelps...

I disavow any knowledge of the actions of any individuals concerning this.

Wow

Today was amazing.

Despite several technical difficulties, it was still amazing. I'll be posting notes on worship on the Lifepoint Worship Blog in a little bit, but what a great Sunday, my personal highlights:

Awoke early for the LAST setup at Parkside!

Rehersal (despite some issues with video/loop volume went really smooth.

Played until my arms were numb and I was ready to collapse,

ROCKED OUT for the last week at Parkside, next week we move to CHS.

My Amazing worship team stayed late to help pack up, (Thanks, Ronnie, Anne, Elizabeth, Bill, Jeremy and everyone else).

Had a chance to chat (for a couple minutes anyway) to the new Mrs. Heather Jordan,

Had a great laugh with some friends.

Now chilling to "Hollywood Nocturne" by Brian Setzer Orchestra. (actually listening to the entire album)

Working on catching up on writing a bunch of blog posts.

No I'm not dead

been ub3r busy lately (especially at work) and haven't had a chance to sit down and blog, I've got about 9 posts at various stages and another 4 I need to type up. Hopefully tonight I'll get some work done.

~Matt

TEST...

This is a test to see if Wordpress auto aquires posts from blogger, this is a test, this is only a test, had this been a real post by me it would have been much, much, MUCH longer.

mwahaha!

SO earlier today (or rather yesterday as it's past midnight) Brandon, the worship leader for Lifepoint's Downtown campus and my former roommate got married.

I'm sure it was a moving and stirring ceremony of which I wasn't officially invited, (at least I don't think I was... err that's a long story, he did tell me to come if I could make it) Alas I had to work and therefore was unable to participate in the time-honored tradition of pranking the grooms car.

So instead Clark and I got together to prank his guitar.






As you can see it's nothing too horrible just a way for guys to tell their friend congratulations and that we care. And yes that's a microphone shirnk wrapped to it.

Wordpress...

No I'm not bowing to peer pressure...

Okay so maybe I am bowing to peer pressure, but not really...

See Clark's been on and on (and on and on and on and on) about how good wordpress is and how much he likes it over blogger, typepad, and what else other service he was using... so I'm gonna check it out and see if I like it... in which case I may move TBOFDD over there, we'll see.

Oh the Irony...

So I finally post the Twitter blog post I started last night... now the thing about twitter is with the nature of the service they, (the geeks at twitter) are constantly upgrading, fixing and generally tweeking their servers, which results in twitter outages... Not ten seconds after I put up my post twitter went down for yet unknown reasons...

TWitter

So I twitter....
Yes that's right as if blogging wasn't enough I twitter, it works out great especially since I've now added a texting plan to my phone. (Honestly, I spent more on texts last phone bill then phone calls, So what it twitter? Well I found THIS LINK HERE on Pastor Wade Joy's blog (worship pastor from elevation) that describes and explains it much better than I could. The nice thing about twitter is that it syncs nicely to facebook, or in this case my blog. as you can see from the top right section.

But while I'm on the subject of twitter let me bring something else up, it's called blip. Now what is Blip you may ask? (hey i did when I first saw it) well in theory it's twitter for music geeks. Here's what I mean, like twitter you can send short posts to the service, however it has a built in music engine meaning you pick a song (and if it has it) you can play that song from your blip page. The cool thing? It syncs to twitter so while you have to click a link it's a nice way to share a song your blipping.. errr listening to. The nice thing is that blip posts show up with a music note in my twitter updates that you can click onto to hear what the song is, they kept it simple and easy to use. Update: that only works from the actual twitter pages, the twitter updates shown on outside the page (like this one) don't seem to link right.

Side note this post was quite a bit of fun to type with all the links and all.

.... Seaquest?

Anyone else remember the short lived TV series with Roy Scheider(sp?) of Jaws Renown?

Well I just saw this on Wired which reminded me of parts of the show.

The Current Kit...

I've often told people I like my drum kits to be either very basic or very complex. The translation is I like 4 piece kits (Kick, Snare, Tom, Floor Tom) and 7+ kits (Kick, Snare, 3 toms, 2 floor toms, etc...) I guess I really don't like what's considered the "Standard" drum kit, (Kick, 14" Snare, 12" Tom, 13" Tom, 15" Floor Tom) I've got a ton of optional/swap out drums for Lifepoint's kit, but here's a picture of my kit.



Yes I have a cymbal addiction, I make no apologies for it either.
The Drums are as follows:
Kick: Tama 23"
Snare: Pacific 13.5# piccolo
Tom: Tama 13"
Floor Tom: Mapex 15"

The Cymbals (as shown, yes, I have more) are as follows:
HiHat: Zildjian K Custom Dark (Bottom) K (top)
Splash(es): Sabian HHX 12", Zildjian A Custom 12#
Crash(es): Sabian B8 Pro 16", Zildjian A 16", Zildjain A Custom 18#
Ride: Zildjian K Custom 20"

Hardware: Roc-N-Soc Hydraulic throne (love it!), Gibraltor double kick (don't snort it was on sale), Pacific Hi-Hat/Cymbal stands.

So my cymbals outnumber my drums 2 to 1.

More on Drive

While I'm processing the next Drive session notes, Clark has this post up regarding drive as well.

Drive Notes Volume 1

Originally Drive Update #3
Update: http://www.driveconference.org/ highlights video is up and awesome.

(When I started this post) I wanted to put up a few notes from last night's session, something I wasn't quote sure I had the mental capacity for by the time I actually got to sit down to type last night.

Point #1
The Church should be the best run organization in your community, I mean look at it, it
a) already has a single uniting vision, seeing people who are far from God experience His plan for their lives.
b) is full of Christians
c) is run by people who are passionate about reaching for Christ

Point #2
To maintain the relational integrity and operate as a team we must choose to trust and be trustworthy.

There often gaps between what we expect of people and what actually happens. We choose to place either trust of suspicion in the gaps.

Two things that make it difficult for us to trust is Who I am, what is my background experience that gives our natural outlook a certain color, and what I see, what have I experience from this person that would color my view from an event.

Three commitments we need to make (And that I will if I have not already made, or shown that I make to my team):

a) When there is a gap between what I expect and what I see I will fill it with trust.
b) When I observe someone filing a gap with suspicion I will come to your defense.
c) If what I expect begins to erode my trust I will come directly to you about it.

Point #3
Being trustworthy is not the equivalent of being flawless in character or performance, it meant being worthy of trust. A trustworthy person comes and addresses the gaps they've created.

There are three commitments we need to make (And that I will if I have not already made, or shown that I make to my team):

a) I commit to do what I say I will do and when I don't I'll tell you.
b) I commit to not over promise and under deliver. But if it looks like that's where things are headed I'll tell you.
c) If you confront me about the gaps I have created I'll tell you the truth.

Where there are gaps there are three causes for blame.
a) A person
b) Human Nature
c) A system

What is the first line of response when something goes wrong?
When something goes wrong it is important to address is quickly. The longer you wait the more likely you are to over communicate (ie blow up) your response.

Here are the take away questions from the session,
1) Are there people in your organization that you have a difficult time trusting?
2) Is it your issue or theirs?
3) What can you do about your part.
4) What do you need to address with them about their parts?
5) Who do you sense has a difficult time trusting you?
6) Why?
7) What can you do about it?

There are a few other points that didn't make it to my review.... just think of it as a reason to get to drive next year!

One of my biggest take away was something that Andy said, To reach people no one else is reaching we need to do things no one else is doing,.

Forget separation, and Kevin Bacon for that matter...

Because here at lifepoint, it's the six degrees of Clark. Confused? there's this mathematical theory (I would assume theory rather than proof) called the 6 degrees of separation in which any person in the world can be connected to any one else with six connections.

There's even a university (And no I don't know who) that has proven that you can link Kevin BAcon to any movie ever listed using this theory.

Well During Drive we've come to realize that we have the six dgress of clark. So far we've been able to link any recording artist we could come up with to Clark within 6 or less steps. The next time you see him, see if you can name someone he can't link within 6 steps.

It is coming...

So I ended up taking Drive Update#3 and turning it into my Notes from Drive post which is going to be Uber long so bear (bare?) with me please, I'm also working on creating a video from the footage I shot while at drive, also taking a lot longer to edit than planned so again, please wait.

For now check THIS out, go to the bottom of the page, these are the three performance songs that they did to kick off each main session at drive. What's sick is it was at least a hundred times better live.

And I think we (Lifepoint) are visible in one or two of the videos as we sat in the center area for the last two session breaks.

Tweaking Windows...

While You're still waiting for the rest of the posts regarding Drive I thought I'd be a geek for a minute.

I have a sad confession to make... I'm not a mac fan, I know this puts me on the minority of Lifepoint Staff as all of them would be mac fan-boys, but I'm a geek and I love getting into the guts of a machine (both hardware and software) and let's face it Mac's don't like you doing that. I can't go and order a new video card, and over clock a processor on a mac... at least I don't think you can. I'll have to ask our resident mac users at todays meeting.

But I'll be the first to admit that some of the things that the MAC os does is pretty cool. Thankfully there are a lot of geeks out there who know their code and have re-created (at least to a degree) some of the cook things that the mac's have. Here's a few of the tweaks (more than just the mac ones) that I run on my pc(s).

Xneat - This nifty little program lets you modify the windows environment, including transparency, window level (ie on top) and a bunch of other little tweaks.
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2901961721017159085&postID=5115967194606300324
Blogger: The Beat of a Different Drummer - Edit Post "Tweaking Windows..."
Launchy - a long time favorite it's a keyboard program launcher (ie you type it shows up and then launches the program, especially nice on my notebook as I'm not a huge fan of that little touch-pad thing.

DExposE2 - Basically a copy of Expose from the MAC os, it's a nice program switcher that I occasionally use, but like for the simple reason that it looks really cool.

Watch Cat (no link, sorry) - Another Windows environment modifier what I like is that with a couple keystrokes I can hide my taskbar and all my desktop shortcuts, (Mainly becuase I'm OCD about having a clean desktop environment)unfortunetly it's not (yet) Vista compatible so I haven't tried it on my labtop.

Drive Pictures

Complete with commentary

Raven, (AKA Michael) getting a ticket from one of the CHiPs that were patrolling the conference.

Close up of said ticket (take a look at some of the offenses)

They had Mike Lewis (sp?) aka the "Jesus painter" in on Monday night and he painted these while the band was playing. (Sorry for some reason it's not letting me rotate the picture properly)



Close ups of the paintings that he did.

That's it for this batch. More to follow later.