Lessons learned from the tech sector....

I make no qualms, or apologies about it, I want a netbook. I know I've already got a good labtop, and a powerful desktop in the works... (planned anyway), but I've come to really like these little mini-geek toys. And honestly? I wouldn't mind a macbook pro either...

And there's something to be said about that.

The tech-sector is offering specifically different products to different people based on want people have wanted, when the netbooks first came out they were only available with Linux, something that I've got nothing against, they were very limited in capacity, but all they really were intended for was a mobile wifi internet platform, and they served their purpose, as time has past people have wanted more options and the market has responded, now most netbooks that you can find, (or at least the ones I've seen) are preloaded with Windows xp, because it's more market friendly. (Fellow geeks out there STOP! I know, and I'm right there with you, but the fact remains that the everyday normal person who DOESN'T do coding from their station, and could careless about your 37 node beowulf cluster actually likes their windows operating system). And yes if you look linux is still an option, but you know what else I've noticed they're still selling laptops.

Sorry getting WAY off topic here, my apologies.

My point is that you're looking for portability you can buy a low end netbook (for under 200 if woot has a deal and they haven't sold out... again), you can spend a bit more and get a high end netbook, or a bit more still and get a notebook, or a lot more and get a mac. (And lets not forget about the netphones now available, the iPhone being the market leader hands down, but there our android phones and the new palm {pre I think} that's out/about to come out).

Setting aside brand rivalries for a moment, (and that means pc vs mac, give it a break for a few minutes) each machine serves a different market, and sells itself to a different demographic, yet the end purpose is still the same. They guys who use macs talk down about windows notebooks, windows users can't figure out why someone would pay three times the price for something with software that takes up a single shelf at best buy... and poor Linux is left for those who truly understand.... (Sorry getting off topic again).

The Church (capital c) is supposed to be like that too. Some people like a church (lower case c) that has loud rocking music that seeks to amplify and raise up the name of Christ, some people like a church (again lower case c) that has an organ and piano and a full gospel choir with anthems of praise, some people have a church (do I really need to repeat myself at this point) that can't sing at all, they meet in secret because of persecution and sing silently and lift or wjavascript:void(0)orship to God just the same.

1 Corinthians 12:12 - The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.

Perhaps instead of complaining that the music is too loud, or too boring, perhaps we should celebrate that others are worshiping our Creator and Savior...

and who knows I might end up with a net book or a mac yet!

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

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.

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),

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.

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.

Worship Set

I've really got to back into the habit of posting these, even if it's just for reference purposes.

First off we had Tammie and Mia (switching off) Leading worship this week, our set list was

Blessed Be Your Name (The tree63 version)
How he loves (Jesus Culture)
You Alone (Jesus Culture)
We Cry Out (Jesus Culture)

How he loves was amazingly done, but I'm not sure if it's as congregational-y singable as we initially thought. (The Chorus is, the verses are a bit... odd?)

We cry out though was amazing. It was rocking, it was connecting, it started off as a performance song, but half way through became a worship song. I've gotten so much positive feedback about this set as a whole!

This Sunday our Downtown Campus Praise team is coming in. They're got a different vibe than my team does, (I mean they'll demographic that they're reaching is different) but I know it's gonna be an awesome experience. Hopefully I'll be able to post from Drive, I can't believe that it's only... 3 days away!!!!

Oh and I want to try this, it sounds like an awesome worship experience.

Prayer Power...

Somewhere around 11:15 last night I received a call from one of our church staff. Now let me start off by saying I'm an optimistic realist, (IE I always focus on the positive, but I'm not ignorant to the fact that there is a negative), Now almost everyone stored on my cellphone has their own ringtone, (a rash and fiscally irresponsible decision but it's too late now, and it has been useful) so as soon as I heard it I knew something was amiss, I know this person would have waited until the morning for good news so I dove for the phone. He was on the way to MCV in Richmond their baby was having seizures and he asked me to pray and get the word out.

This first thing I did was a very quick prayer, the second was to call my parents, then I got notice that they were being re-routed to Fairfax.

At that point I was mass texting my entire team to ask them to pray.

I got an amazing response back (proving that I'm not the only night-owl on my team) and we got down to business. (And intercession is major business in my opinion)*

Around 11:30 one of the staff came back with this message, "This is spiritual Warfare, use your sword!" I felt rather sheepish for not even considering that, but I grabbed my Bible and flipped to the Psalms. I read, I prayed I meditated, I worshiped, I sang, and I know that there were at least seven other people doing the same (well maybe not the singing). Finally around 12:45, and I have no other way to describe this, but I just felt a peace fall around me and I got up off the floor, closed my bible, and grabbed my ipod to listen to some worship music. Seven minutes later a text arrives letting me know that the seizures have stopped and the little one is resting calmly.

God we thank you for your mercy and grace. I thank you for being my comfort through this, and my strength. We ask for your continued involvement in the protections of this family and this child. Father I cry out for your mercy and ask that you continue to protect our staff at Lifepoint. Thank you for the cross, thank you for the stripes you endured, by which we are healed. In Jesus name.

I ask that anyone who reads this would pray for our staff and their families, for their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual protection. For the work that has begun here, that we would have the courage, the strength and the compassion to do what God has called us to do. That we would live lives obedient to his purpose.

Thank you and God bless.
~Matthew Furukawa
04/29/08

*Sidenote: post to follow.

My Amazing Team

Before I begin I wanted to let you know that I've been working on this post for the last week and a half (which is also why I haven't posted much lately) it's not easy to condense the amount of verbage that I'd like to use regrading my amazing worship team into something small enough to fit into a blog post.

Philippians 1:3-7
3I thank my God every time I remember you. 4In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
7It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. 8God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

God's really blessed me to give the chance to work with such a great group of people. As Auditions are coming up in two weeks (edit: 1 week) (edit #2: 2 days) (Edit #3 tomorrow) (edit#4, in less than an hour)I wanted to share a few thoughts on everyone I've worked with for the past 6 months.

Band - You guys are awesome, no matter what I (and/or the creative team) throws at you it's always pulled off in a professional and impeccable manner. Really and Truly guys it's trout (snicker, sorry inside joke)

Vocals - My only complaint is that I haven't had the chance to get to know y'all (hey we're in Virginia, Y'all is an acceptable term) as well as I'd like, and I know that it's mostly my fault, but with your rotation I just don't see most of yous guys (or I guess rather, yous gals and guy) as often. I'll shoot to do something about that this season.


LP Worship Winter 07 / Spring 08 (In P/C acceptable alphabetical order)

Anne - One of our newest Vocal's, and I don't want anyone here misunderstanding me, I knew Anne had a really great voice, and she's absolutely phenomenal when it comes to modeling worship on the stage, but when we did "What if I stumble" by DC talk, she completely blew me away, she was amazing, the song was amazing. Oh and did I mention she play's the guitar?

Bill - I've known Bill longer than anyone else of the praise team with the possible exception of David Gregory (who isn't on the Worship team persay, but he is our technical director and thus in charge of the sound engineering). Bill was my youth pastor many years before Lifepoint, at the time I knew he played Bass. I've since learned that he also plays guitar, keys, mandolin, and probably several other instruments that I'm failing to list here. Not to mention he's the most natural harmonizer I've ever met.

Brandon - One of the guys we started with way back in the day, Brandon doesn't work as much with my team now as he's the worship leader for Lifepoint Downtown and most of his energies go to that campus. He does from time to time rock out with the Main Campus team.

Dave - My bespeckled Keyboardist, Dave's playing has quickly become something I miss on the week's that he has off. He does an awesome job on the keys, in particular I created a loop to play behind a video we did during our Sun Stand Still series, when the video (And it was on a Mac HA!) crashed Dave dove into playing it, and playing it so well that I didn't realize that the audio had crashed with it, yeah, he's that good.

David - I've known David for what seems to be forever. And yes he's always been a geek, for as long as I've known him. But he does know his way around the soundboard, and he never gets aggravated at me even when I'm throwing impossible requests to him. Technically not a member of the worship team persay, David and his team of sound engineers (Which includes, best of my knowledge, himself, Clark, Sheldon, Ricky and Bobby) do a great job making us sound good on Sunday Mornings.

Elizabeth - My Oft mentioned percussionist, who goes as far as to nearly breaking her hands playing. (Now That's Dedication!) Always a good sounding board for some of my more insane ideas, (and does not hesitate to let me know) and probably the biggest TSO fan that I know.

Hanah - Our occasional Celloist. While we don't do many songs that have need for the cello it's always amazing when we do have a piece and Hannah joins us.

Jason - Our new drummer, with a ton of potential, and to help tap that I'll be handing over the reigns as a worship drummer for a month or so to him in a couple weeks. (Actually next week now that I think about it). He does an amazing job with a click track, especially when until now he's never used them before.

Jeremy - My Boss? Working with Jeremy can be a wild (if not fun) ride at times... however riding with Jeremy can be both a faith-builder and an exercise in "Praying without Ceasing" (I kid, sort of). One of the biggest hearts for worship that I know, and yes he can indeed play like Clapton when the need arises.

Jessica - The only other person who's been on the team when we were God's Gang ministries a small group of over 18 yr olds who were tired of seeing our generation drop out of church. I've watched her grow vocally over the years and have enjoyed working with her (both on stage and occasionally with some improv comedy that I got drafted into).

Justin - Our newest addition, Justin joined us a couple weeks ago as a fill-in and he's got skillz (yo!) Play's blue guitar like all get out and does a great job, I look forward to being able to say more about him after next season.

Kimberli - One of our vocals, aka the CD Czar(ess?) Who is unfortunately (for me anyway) taking a sabbatical to work with her Husband Ben (who's in charge of Kidspoint the children's ministry at Lifepoint), when it comes to ear training she's a natural, (at least near as I can tell anyway) and both Jeremy and I have learned not to bother arguing with her when she says we're playing something off from how it's on the cd, 9 out of 10 (Really more like 99 out of 100) times she's right.

Kristen - Who is actually out production manager and not a member of my team, but she runs the show on Sunday morning... Runs the show I make it sound like a theatrical production, and in a lot of ways the work that we put into a Sunday morning worship service resembles the work that goes into a production, the difference is that we're not just out to keep people entertained we aim to change lives by taking people who are far from God and letting them experience God's plan for their lives through the Saving grace of Jesus... Sorry I was talking about Kristen not preaching, though her passion for God is about the same as that, she's awesome to work with, and gets the most amazing teas....

Leigh - Our other new vocalist, I have a confession to make, when I met Leigh at last years try-out and found out she had a choir-us (?) background I was mentally thinking, oh great... HOWEVER, once she got up and sang I was more like, oh Sweet! Yup had to eat crow (at least mentally). Leigh's been a great addition to the team, and get this she helped at Christmas eve service the entire prep time just to throw oh her greens, (err blues?) and head to the hospital (she's a nurse).

Mia - One of the most fun people that I know is "Mama Mia" (rather appropriate now that she and Josh have little Caedmon) She also has one of the most amazing voices I've ever heard. Seriously she and Tammie should cut a record.

Ronnie - When we ran auditions the first time I was desperate for another guitarist. I wanted to be able to put 2 electric guitars on stage on any given Sunday. Ronnie wasn't able to make tryout due to a scheduling conflict. Instead he hands Jeremy a Cd, a week (I think) later we met with him and were wowed.

Tammie - My Vocal director, (and our Pastor's wife) who along with being an incredible pianist is also blessed with an amazing voice. (See Mia's post above).

Tom - aka the voice, When I first met Tom he had long hair, Sandals and an amazing voice. Now he has much shorter hair, bright orange accented sneakers (at least at yesterday's practice), the amazing voice hasn't changed though. Neither has his heart or passion for worship.