Slight Edge Nugget #1

I'm catching up on some of my reading, and one of the books I'm in at the moment is The Slight Edge, phenomenal book that I highly recommend, wanted to share something I just read out of it.

And I'm paraphrasing a bit, but the point remains:

Making the right decisions, doing the right actions is easy to do. It's also easy not to do; It's the waking up at 5:30 to exercise, or hit snooze and go back to sleep (Guilty), it's the pack a healthy lunch, or hit a fast food joint at noon (Erp, guilty again), it's taking 15 minutes to sit down with a good book (besides THE Good Book), or switching on the news for a quick update.

Little things! No big deal right? you won't see a difference for doing, or not doing anything I just mentioned....

Today.

Probably not tomorrow either, let's not kid ourselves the obese kid who's parent are suing McDonalds for him being overweight didn't eat a single Big Mac and gain 200 pounds, it was little decisions daily about food intake and exercise that compounded over time to bring us to the end result that we now look at today. Just like that, those decisions we make daily compound over time to deliver the life that WE have created for ourselves.

We can make the slight edge work for us or IT WILL work against us.

So there it is, one little nugget out of... well I have no idea how many more, I'm only 5 chapters in and lost count of the amount of places I've highlights, or that have made me set the book down for a bit to think about what I just read.



The Slight Edge is written by Jeff Olsen and published by SUCCESS BOOKS.

Cathedrals....

Before I begin, I wanted to say Congrat to Pastor Daniel and Tammie for the arrival of their daughter Faith. (Just in case you're not on twitter and somehow missed the news).

Having said that, let me begin...

This post is based off one of the talks at the Leadership convention I was at over the weekend, but this is something that stuck with me and reminded me so much about Lifepoint that I had to post it.

Most people I know who tour Europe always mention two things to me. 1) The castles and 2) The cathedrals... which if you read the topic of this post is what I'm going to be talking about.

These monolithic? neolithic? Ginormous structures were massive houses of worship, built in a time where drafting software didn't exist and heavy equipment was defined as a hammer that weighed more than 10 pounds....



Notre Dame I don't think anyone would argue with me if I were to say it's a architectural and artistic marvel... They began construction in 1163, the cathedral was completed in 1345 so that's a 182 year period, during which time life expectancy was 30 years at best, or over 7 generations of time, the people who began work on the cathedral did so knowing they would never see the completion, but that they were building something that would outlast them.

And yes there were several cathedrals that went up under in under 50 years, but even so that's beyond life expectancy for any one generation.

And the craftsmanship. There were artist who worked on the structures doing carvings and other touches, in places where people would never see the work their response when asked? God would see it. And they did this work and in some places it's there for all to see, and in others only God would be able to see their work. They dedicated their lives to build these structures and NO ONE knows their names, they were there to do something great.

People dedicated their lives to the work because they had a vision of greatness, and in their case it was building a location that honored God to worship him.

As I sit here and type this I don't know where you, the reader is in your life. I don't know if you're a member of an awesome church that's mission is to reach people far from God, or if you don't even know what this whole Christian thing is about and you look at people like me as if we're mad, my hope today is that you would understand this, when people grab hold of a dream, a vision that's bigger than they are, and when they're willing to sacrifice to see the vision through, then they can accomplish great things.

If you're a lifepointer and someone pointed you to this blog post I want to tell you a few things, that before the doors open on Sunday morning and people come pouring in, there's a team who shows up before the sun (though NOT before the Son) arrives and they go about the business of unloading tons of gear off of 3 trailers to build an environment that helps people to focus in on the Word of God that pastor is going to bring.
That during the service there's a small army of people working making sure that there's as little to distract someone as possible, they might be holding a baby, it might be pushing a sound knob, it might be teaching a 5 year-old.
That after the service and you've gone home, or more likely out to lunch (be honest!) that there's another group who'll spend over an hour restoring the school back to how it was before we began (And in some cases even better), including reloading those same three trailers.
That during the week the staff and at least a platoon's worth of volunteers are working behind the scenes to prepare for the next week,
That pastor is on his knees in desperate prayer to God his heart breaking for the lost that we KNOW is going to be walking into church, possible for the first time, possibly for the only time, and that we have one chance to reach them. That's a burden of a senior pastor and one that I'll never be able to fully comprehend. (Sorry off on a tangent).

For the most part, if you just come and go and show up to lifepoint you'll be blessed, you'll hear the Word of God preached straight from the Bible, you'll hear worship music that amplifies and glorifies our amazing God.

And you'll be just like a tourist walking through a cathedral amazed at the beauty of it all, and never know any of the stories behind the stories.

But if you get your hands on the net, if you decide to get out of the seat and join us in the field, you'll find your life on an amazing ride with other people, who like those who came before are willing to pour out their lives for a cause a purpose that's bigger then we are. You'll be putting your lives into creating something that's much more amazing than a giant building, it's seeing life change and we get to see results in our lifetime.

And should we go on for another seven generations, another 182 years, I doubt seriously that people will know our name.

But if they know the name of Jesus, if they enter a relationship with their Creator, and Savior, than like the amazing artisan ship of centuries past, our lives would have been poured out into something that truly does last.

God Bless
Matt Furukawa June 8, 2009

Does your pastor know that you've got his back?

This was actually something that came about during Unleash 09 (Newspring's Conference) and it's been sitting in the unfinished pile of my blog (along with about 10 other articles) for the last several months .

Now I occasionally have trouble remembering what I had for dinner yesterday... but I can still remember this part of Perry Noble's talk like it was... errr... yesterday? Anyway, the part was, "Your senior pastor carries a weight on him that you will never understand or comprehend and needs to know that you've got his back."

I hope, what ever church you go to, what ever organization you belong too, what ever sport you play, your leader knows that you've got his back. Because if he(or she) does, then they doesn't have to worry about things like petty bickering or whats going on behind them, and can concentrate on the task that God has put before him.

More on this later...

So I guess I am a right-wing extremist...

because apparently:

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has turned her attention away from acts of Islamic jihad on American soil (which she now refers to as "man-caused disasters"). Instead, her department is sounding the alarm over an unquantified "resurgence" in "right-wing extremism activity."

On Apr. 7, DHS sent a nine-page warning memo to law enforcement offices across the country entitled "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."

The report includes a sweeping definition of the threat:

"Right-wing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

(Quoted without permission from http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=46640)

But wait doesn't that make the entire Catholic Church Right-Wing extremists as well? The Baptists too,

Wow with such amazing examples of Leadership in Washington it's no wonder our Country is doing so great economically...

Socialism for Dummies a case study...

I had this conversation with a co-worker of mine who didn't understand the whole socialism/capitalism conflict, and was thus educated.

Here's the example that was used.

Illustration: You are a college student, you work hard, you spend your free time studying the big exam arrives, you spend the entire night before studying, you arrive at the class and take the test. Your roommate is in the same class as you, he arrives late everyday, parties every weekend, spends his nights bar-hopping, and the you find out the night before the final exam he was bowling.
Capitalism: Your efforts pay off and you receive an A for your work, likewise your roommates habits catch up with him and he fails the class.
Socialism: Everyone's grades are taken in and Averaged, you, your roommate, and everyone else in he class passes with a C.

There, that wasn't so hard to understand now was it?

Decompression....

How do you relax after stressing yourself out?
Case in point, I love what I do for and with Lifepoint Church, and seeing people come to relationship with Christ is the most meaningful and significant thing I can imagine, but it doesn't make the morning any less stressful.

So what do you do to decompress? I've asked this question to several people, one said they like to relax with beer (no, not someone at Lifepoint), other's said they like to go and play basketball for a few hours, some read, for one it's just a nice hot relaxing shower, I knew (well i guess i still know him, though I haven't seen or talked to him since High School) who'd paint (like throw the paint on the canvas), and I've got it on good authority that Chocolate is an excellent stress reliever...

For me it's always been writing and even more so music, but even the type of music will very by my mood, even in decompressing, sometimes I like to listen to something relaxing, other times I need something driving... tonight's been rather ecliptic, let me give you the last 10 artists I've cycled through in my playlist:

No Doubt
Maroon 5
Mark Schultz
Michelle Branch
Nana Mizuki
Mikuni Shimokawa
New LIfe Worship
New York Voices
New Radicals
Nightwish

So that's a rather large skip in genre (if you're wondering, I just grabbed the m and n folders and tossed them into winamp and hit shuffle)

So what do you do to decompress?

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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),

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?

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?)

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,.

Open the box...

So the title of the post really has two meanings. In our Volunteer Team meetings Jeremy's got us reading the (In my humble... no scratch that in this case, in my wildly unapologetic overinflated opinion, at least in this case...) Book the Houdini Solution, thinking INSIDE the box.

As he, or anyone else who's a part of this meeting will tell you I've been fighting this book from day one. It's not to say that I haven't come away with a lot of information, it's just something about the book rubs me the wrong way... and as the team knows I will argue the semantics of how the book is subtitled until they want to strangle me.

Actually I've started to use the book in creative planning, instead of responding negatively to an idea... or arguing it and pounding the table as we have been instructed to do I just whip out my copy of the book and bang THAT on the table.

Really and truly though I HAVE taken away some good ideas from the book so it hasn't been for naught but I don't know... I'll post more when I get a bit further in it.

Now the REAL reason for this post (congrats for sticking around long enough to get to this point, I could make a sarcastic yet witty jab about your needing a life (all in love though, really and truly!), but then I'm the one writing this so I have no room to talk now do I?) oh did I type that out loud?

AHEM. Back to the point. Pandora. (as in Pandora's box) No NOT the Greek Mythological figure, although that is the reference for the post title, no I'm talking about the website. I've managed to get two people (At least two that I'm aware of) addicted to it so I'm going for more.

What is it? Well to put it basically it's online radio station that where YOU create your own radio station. Just try it. You know the old saying "What do you have on your ipod?" well try "What stations do you have programmed on your Pandora?"

And while I'm on the subject of addicting online radio, I've found this little gem a while ago, not as... effective? (In my now humble opinion) as Pandora at song selection it's fun to play around with, and it does have a nice selection.

So where have YOU been in the last 8 days?

For me I've been editing some audio clips for a little project, going through music to pick a couple songs for the worship auditions coming up, planning set lists for the worship team, checking out our (Lifepoint) new office and generally staying very busy. (including three nice draft blog posts that aren't up to my publish standards).

I haven't even had a chance to write out a real set of music notes to my amazing team (for shame)!

Also doing a fair amount of reading lately, several books (yes I read more than one book at a time, you point?) but one in particular is "The Houdini Solution" that Pick has his team (myself included) reading. And I'm arguing with a book... sad yes but I am indeed that much of a geek to sit read and argue with a book.

Really and Truly (smirk if you get the reference) I like the book, but I'm arguing the semantics of phraseology and the real meaning of a known saying.

Had it been my book I would at least have had the decency to sub-title it:

Thinking outside the box by thinking inside the box.

Confused yet? Well get a copy and read it for yourself... or ask to borrow mine in a few weeks, heck if you can wait mine will be hi-lighted and annotated... mind your some of said annotation will probably be me arguing with the book, but is that such a bad thing? (don't answer that).

Finally I've been drumming. One thing nice about my new place (aside from the fact that we now finally have a working stable internet connection) is that we've got a drumset. Well, we had a drumset. Once I got my hands on it I turned it into a DRUM SET!!! (insert loud echo-y effects and dramatic fanfares). My only sadness regarding it is that I ran out of cymbal stands before I ran out of cymbals, (And I'm sure everyone who knows my set up is rolling their eyes about now).

The set up?

13.5" pic. Snare
10" Popcorn Snare
8" Gretsch Tom
10" Gretsch Tom
12" Pearl Tom
14" Pearl Floor Tom
Standard 22?/24? (I honestly don't remember) pearl kick
The gretsch's I nabbed on ebay, the pic and pop are both Pacific (by DW) from Guitar Center and the Pearl pieces are part of the original kit that I Frankenstein-ed. I'm using Remo Pinstripes (Mainly because GC didn't have any of the fiber-skin heads that I really like) but I'm very pleased with the sound quality that I get out of them.

Finally the Cymbals. LOTS of cymbals, of which standard configuration changes on an almost daily basis depending on which ones I feel like playing.