I’ve had a couple weird blog days this past week. There was also the fact that my posts were posting later than I actually posted them. Weird times…anyway I hope that we’ll get back on track this week. I’m starting the week off with a doozy! Yesterday, I was reading my Bible (it was Sunday) and ran across this gem of a chapter in the Psalms. For those of you that don’t know, I have been dealing with quite a lot lately in life. I feel as if I’m in a constant state of transition, not knowing what the next step is going to be. I have been praying that God would show me what I’m supposed to be doing. I feel like I should know something because we have been walking this same road for so long. I’ve almost felt entitled. “Why won’t God just answer me? He knows this situation and He knows what we need. SERIOUSLY!” That was a statement of mine from an actual conversation. All that to say that I’ve been quite frustrated with life as of late.  There are some things that I want to do, and some things that I don’t want to do. There are some things that I’m hoping God will work through and my brain has been through a million scenarios.

In getting ready for the SpiritWing 25th Anniversary Reunion (more on that later), I was listening to the song Psalm 40 by Newsong. This was one of the songs that I led during the year I was in SpiritWing and we are singing it again. That song and passage came to my mind yesterday morning before service because I was a little discouraged about things. The chapter starts out talking about how David waited patiently for the Lord to do what He was going to do. That immediately struck home. But I think took a glance at a passage I had marked from chapter 39. It simply floored me.

You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro…

Psalm 39:5-6a

The thought that I’m just a breath, a phantom completely blew me away. I’ve been sitting here wondering what God is waiting on and then I saw that He doesn’t have to tell me anything and that in a blink I could be gone. That was a quick pick me up before service started. This world is NOT about me or you. It’s about God working in and through us. I got completely and utterly blasted by this passage. I immediately started writing a song based on this passage. It’s coming soon and I will do my best to bring the fire that the words speak. However, (you should read this chapter, btw), the rest of this chapter is beautiful. I can’t wait to weave this thing into a song. I’m excited about it!!!

Did you need to know this week that you’re a phantom man? I know I did…

That sounds SOOOOO horrible, doesn’t? Especially when you think about what a mutt is. You may even have one in your home. A mixed breed. They automatically get looked down on. People see one running around the neighborhood and automatically think, “Oh that’s just a mutt. No one wants him.” Or at least it used to be that way. Now it seems that people are purposefully mix breeding dogs looking for combinations of dogs that will be the strongest or the prettiest. Now it’s not so bad to be a mixed breed evidently. Except for dog shows…they still want pure or nothing at all.

I feel like sometimes worship gets looked at the same way. Everyone has their opinions about how worship music is supposed to look or sound or feel. You either have to move forward and be progressive as the music is progressing. Or you can only be musically pure in the church if you stick with the standards and the traditional. That’s when music was at it’s best. I’m not saying that I’ve heard ANY of these things said before (hehehe), well maybe I am… but the truth of that matter is, people are rarely going for the mix. The question is why?

The mix is hard. The mix walks a fine, fine line that I believe worship/song leaders of the day don’t really want to walk. By the way, I am writing this as more of a discussion starter because I constantly deal with this myself. The whole concept of blended worship is one that continues to change, making it hard to get a grasp on. By everyday terms in the church, blended worship basically says “We don’t want to make anyone mad, and we want to keep everyone here happy so let’s do our best to make each week and safe, even mixture of music for everyone. We know we can’t continue to do hymns forever because we are losing our kids by the second. But we don’t want to make the elder people mad because they have helped build and sustain this church. And their name is on that pew…” So at best, we’re asking our worship leaders to be diplomats on a weekly basis. It’s not easy to feel led by the Spirit and be a diplomat. Let me tell you that from experience. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing the idea of a blended worship gathering. But a lot of times, my present situation included, a blended service is only a means to and end. Over a short period of time, people eventually move toward multiple services where those who want traditional hymns and things of that nature get to wake up earlier and come here the sleepy sounding, not as cool, energy-less “old people music. Then the later service is the hip, ultra cool, contemporary, “the only way the music could be this cool is if you wake up later and can drink coffee in the sanctuary” music. There is NO division in those two families of thought, right?

How do we treat the concept of a blended (or later named converged) worship experience from becoming ‘mutt worship’? I know from experience that doing this on a weekly basis can be terribly hard to maintain. I’m not saying that it is really easy to do either of the extremes. However, it seems to take an extra bit of planning because you have to keep everyone’s musical taste in your thoughts each week. You have to remember that Ms. Whatsherface thinks that new fancy song you played last week had too much of a beat and she felt like she was at a club. You also have to remember the group of young college kids that told you how lame that second song was and that if they have to hear that one one more time they may just lose it (with a couple OMG’s thrown in cause they sent this to you via text message). Then you think, “shouldn’t worship be about the one we’re worshiping anyway?” Hmmmm…

Well, I don’t know the last time I’ve written one of these, but I’m rather excited about where things are right now. This has been a busy week for me. Not only are things moving along with the SpiritWing 25th Anniversary Reunion, but as well with music a little closer to home. I mentioned earlier this week (I think) that I was starting to put together some pieces that would allow me to record some music at home. That actually happened this week. I was able to purchase the music software for my computer and I was able to purchase the hardware that I needed to be able to use my keyboard to input the music and sounds that I’ve come to love. What does this all mean? It pretty much means that I finally am able to start the recording and producing process. I am so very excited to finally be working on a CD! There’s a bit of a buzz in our house right now as this starts to come together. I will definitely keep everyone posted, but this is big news for us. I also hope to take a writing day in the near future to write some new stuff as well. Thanks to everyone for your support as we’ve tried to get to this point. I would love your prayers as we try to make this work. I even bought a printer today that prints directly on CDs. This means that I need some of my graphic designing friends to help me come up with some cool designs. This is getting SO big in my brain!!!

I can only imagine how fun this is really going to be. I know it’s going to be tough too because I’ve never done this before. It’ll be a big learning process for me. I’ll try to post my progress for you. Once I get some good recordings I’ll be sure to put them here first. So thanks to all of you readers. I hope to reward you all soon.

I’m a pretty mainstream guy musically, I’ll admit that flaw in myself. I usually find out about music from a commercial on TV or if it’s on the radio or because someone else sang it first. I wish I was that guy that read music blogs all the time and learned about the hot new group before they make it to that point, but I don’t. So when I was asked by a friend to go to a concert at a local bar club thingy to hear this group, I jumped on the chance to be cool.

So we jumped in the car to go to The Firebird, a music lounge in Downtown St. Louis to hear a group called Paper Route. I didn’t know what to expect because I had never heard of them. But I love music and so I was game. What happened next was simply amazing! This group was a visual stimulation unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It was unreal how much energy this group had! I was immediately drawn in by that energy. After getting over how entertaining they were, I was amazed by the music. I’m not a (I don’t even really know what type of music to call it officially) fan. But this group is the truth! Their CD, Absence, is amazing from start to finish. Again, you have to remember that I don’t listen to this particular style of music on a regular basis. That does not stop me from being a fan of this group. This CD is still in heavy rotation in my car from over the summer.  My favorite song on the CD is probably “Enemy Among Us”. Such a great feel and the lyrics are loaded. Please click on the link and give them a listen.

Okay, so this one is more of a whole CD, but it’s my blog and my rules so therefore this is how I’m doing it. Now that my power trip is over, back to the music.

I was introduced to this group on the weekend of my anniversary. Our good friends Jim and Alisha invited us to come and hear this group that Jim’s nephew is in called the Fundamental Elements. I hadn’t heard of them before, but they were local and supposedly pretty good. What happened next was a thing of beauty. They put on quite a show even in a room that wasn’t that great for a concert. I didn’t know what to expect, so I was going in with a completely open mind. I was not disappointed. I won’t recap that whole thing again for I have already done that here. But I have a couple favorites from that CD titled Cycle We’re Living In. The whole CD is a favorite and if you want to give a few of the songs a listen, you should go to their website. 2 favorites that I have to hear if I’m listening to this CD are Don’t Say. I LOVE the way the beat starts the song. I also love the energy of the song from start to finish. It really enhances the words. It could have been a sappy, sad begging song, but they decided that it was more song with a  sense of urgency I tend to agree (“Don’t say this is my last day with you…”).

My other favorite song on the CD is ‘All I Need’. That one isn’t on the website for you to listen like the other one is, so you’ll have to take my word for it. This song is my favorite for a couple reasons. My buddy who is the guitarist for the band, plays a beautiful line throughout this song which is the first thing that I noticed. My other completely favorite part happens after the bridge. Some awesome poetry that’s ‘straight butta’. A couple people should get a kick out of that line. Anyway, if you ever want to hear that one, come find me. It’s usually in my car or on my iPod. It was much later that I found out that Joe, the aforementioned amazing guitarist, wrote this song. Making it even MORE cool.

This group rocks for many, many reasons. One of the coolest is that they are local and supporting local music is always good. How local are they, you ask? Well, the lead singer lives on my street (so he says, I’ve never seen him though LOL). The keyboard player SUPPOSEDLY stays a couple streets over from me. Again, either they never come outside, or they are always traveling with the band because they’re EXTREMELY popular. I do know where to find the guitar player, though. So I guess that’s a plus. Anyway, look these guys up. They are THAT good. They have a new CD coming out soon and they have a show this Friday night that I’m hoping to see. There should be a whole bunch of new stuff playing which is good. I’m gonna go ahead and put in my request for my 2 favorite songs and hope that one of them reads this. Also, I’m kinda hoping that ‘How Quickly’ made it on the new CD…

I have decided this week that I’m going to share a couple of my favorite songs. I thought it would be something a little different and a little dive into my mind. I like all kinds of music and so this should be fun. Please weigh in and let me know what you think. Share with me some of your favorite songs as well.

This first one is called Sing and it’s from Martha Munizzi. I love this song for many reasons. One of the biggest ones is the fact that I got to play this with an amazing band at Christian Life Cathedral when I was living in Fayetteville. That was just such an awesome experience in my life and every time I hear this song somewhere I think about how much fun that was. It was a praise team and church favorite there for awhile and whenever it was dialed up for a particular Sunday everyone was happy.

Now people may have their own thoughts and ideas about Martha as a person or singer or whatever, but I totally love this song. Actually, this CD (The Best is Yet to Come) is one of my favorites. Great from top to bottom. Anyway, there was such an air of worship during this song and I fell it love with it from first listen. Even though it came out a few years ago, it’s still a favorite of mine and I thought I’d share it with you first. If you haven’t heard it before, here’s a link to it. Check it out and let me know what you think about this song. Keep checking in this week because there’s gonna be some fun songs to pop up. I may even throw up more than one a couple days.

I have been playing piano for 26 years now. That always baffles me when I say it because I’m 29. That also means that I’ve played in a few different places. For any of you who play piano, you know that unlike a guitar that you can carry with you wherever you go, you’re kinda subject to whatever a church has. That means that sometimes you can go to a church and see some pretty rough stuff. I remember one time in particular that my dad was preaching at a church on the North Side (That’s north St. Louis City for those that don’t know or aren’t from here) and as was dad’s custom, he asked me to come up and play a song before he started preaching. Now I was only about 12 or 13, so nothing special by any means. However, when I sat down to play whatever song he had asked me to play (probably Amazing Grace, the standard ‘before the sermon’ song), I noticed a couple things. First off, some of the keys weren’t even ivory anymore. The tops were gone! That’s okay as long as they play though. But this piano was all kinds of jacked up. The middle C didn’t work (BUMMER!) and The D above the C above middle C (that was a lot, but musicians know what I’m talking about. I guess I could have put D4). The song I was playing was in G and that means that my D was completely NOT there. I totally remember singing that D out loud when I got to it so it wouldn’t be lost in the music. But that was what I was given and so I played that piano to the best of my ability, which again wasn’t the best.

Now, I thought about taking the simple road and going into how God uses us as His broken instruments and uses us for His glory all the time, but I think that was something that EVERYONE could see coming. So I’ve decided to take a different approach. My question is this. Why is it that when things are working well we can say things like this, but when we are in the midst of trials we seem to forget that God loves us and continues to work in and through us? I have been dealing with a lot of struggles in my life over the past few days and I’ve felt useless. However, I’m the same one who is constantly trying to help others realize that God loves them no matter what. Sometimes it feels hypocritical to say when sometimes I find difficulty in believing it myself.

I think what I and we have to realize is that we are ALWAYS broken instruments. Surely, there are times that we are more broken than others, but at the end of the day, we’re still broken because we’re still flawed. At our best we still have a major defect. The difference between us and that piano that I played over 16 years ago was the one making up the difference. I know that I did the best I could with that old upright Hamilton, and I know for sure I could have worked around it even better today. But even now, there is only so much I can do in my own power. My life is way more jacked up than that piano sometimes and God uses this life of mine and makes it look so much better because He is filling in the gaps.

So what brought on this whole thought for me? Well simply enough, I got to lead worship in chapel at Missouri Baptist yesterday and the drool producing Yamaha that is in the auditorium. That piano is ALWAYS right and I love it. I started thinking about all the bad pianos I’ve played and the rest is written up there. Have you ever played an instrument that was so bad that you didn’t know what to do with it? Has anyone given you their guitar to play and when you started you felt like it had never been tuned before? Share with me your bad instrument stories.

There may be some of you who read this and will have NO idea what that title means until I explain it later. Some of you will read this and got a warm, fuzzy feeling and went and grabbed your guitar just to play one. I had to pour through my music just now to find a good one to get in the right mood to write this. (Hosanna, Christy Nockels GREAT example)

You’re listening to a song for the first time and trying to get a feel for it and it gets to the end of a phrase and you think, “here comes 1. That makes sense…” But what do they do? They throw in that chord that automatically makes you want to close your eyes and throw up your hands in total worship. THAT, my friends, is the power 6th. That chord that you don’t expect to be there, but it just changes the feel of what’s happening. And we LOVE it. At first it felt so awkward to add that chord, almost taboo. Now today it seems that we look for it to be it certain places and when it’s not we are disappointed.

Power 6th, what have you done to us? We long for you, we sing you in our sleep. When we write music, we get super excited about knowing that you’re going to be there for us at the end of the measure. Nothing is the same anymore now that you’ve come into our lives forever. I don’t know if there are any worship songs out there today that you aren’t a part of in some integral way. Never leave us, Power 6th. Your light shines when all else fades (sorry, that song came on and I sacreligiously threw that in there. Forgive me, Hillsongians). Sincerely, worship leaders and musicians all over the place.

Today I am working through a couple new ideas. For a while now I’ve been wanting to really branch out and do some things with other people. I have been a musical loner for quite a while and I’m thinking that doesn’t have to be. I know so many people that are so talented and I’ve been working on ways to get connected with them. One of the things that I’ve realized is that you just have to ask.  That is hard sometimes, though. I have such a fear of being rejected by people who do what I do that I never want to ask people to work with me. The last thing I want to hear is “You’re okay, but you’re not good enough to work with us.” I hear that statement in my dreams. But at the same time, I know that I’m not growing because I’m not interacting with other good musicians. Who knows what cool things I could have accomplished by now if I had just decided to ask?

So whether it’s personal music or stuff you do for you churches, do you ever stop to run through ideas with other people? Or do you just keep them to yourself all the time? I am totally guilty of keeping to myself and not spending time outside of myself. Lately, I’ve been writing a song with my friend, Brittany Howard, and I’ve greatly enjoyed that and wondered why I haven’t done it more often. The other thing that I realize is that I’m not doing my part to further the kingdom. I am supposed to be in relationship with other Christians and that’s not happening either. I have this idea in my head of the way I think things should happen and if it doesn’t look like that will be the case then I’m quick to run away from the idea. That’s me trying to control a situation that God could be wanting to really work through.

So my pracical goal is to start reaching out and trying to work with some of my musical friends a little more. I’d love to see what we could come up with. I’m anticipating some fun things, kinda like a V7 chord right before it resolves so beautifully to the I in the next measure.

I’m sitting in my kitchen right now at 8:10 on Thursday morning. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve been sitting here since before 6 o’clock this morning. That’s probably a little bad. Waking up isn’t a bad thing. I have been trying to do that a little more consistently (not quite THIS early though…). Here’s the bad thing for me, and I know I’m not alone. Musicians are quirky creatures. We like things to be a certain way and we seem to not work as well when they don’t work out. As a result, we obsess about things and hope that they go well. No matter what they say, musicians always obsess about music and concerts and upcoming shows.

Just in case you didn’t know, I am a musician. I am a musician who has a concert coming tomorrow night. If you haven’t heard the news, here’s the info. I am really excited about this concert because I love this aspect of being a musician. I love sitting on a stage and being able to interact with the people that are in the audience. It’s not an easy thing to do, and I love watching people that make it look effortless. And it’s something that I strive for when I do shows as well. Also, for those of you who know me, you know my heart and passion for music and worship. If you haven’t read it before now, here it is here. So trying to make sure that all of these things are portrayed in one evening is a big deal for me. How does that play out in my head? It plays out like this…

I tried to go to bed around 11:30 or midnight last night. I laid there and sort of slept for about 6 minutes. I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning. I had one of the most retarded dreams I’ve ever had. Something on the lines of going to an outdoor church service where the whole thing was sponsored by Bud Light and they had this HUGE holographic display. Then halfway through the sermon time, someone screamed that the piano player (not me) had JUST caught H1N1. Everyone ran off screaming and it just got more and more awkward from there. Anyway, around 5:30 I couldn’t take it anymore so I got out of the bed. I had been laying there thinking about intros and breaks and chord changes and harmonies and what I’m going to say and what the lights should look like and if the recording will work and how many people will show up and if any one will enjoy it…

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I started writing out song structures and laying out how the night will look. All I can say is that I’m in full obsession mode. Will it matter? Probably not as much as I think it will. Either way, it’s where I am. I hope that many of you can make it tomorrow night. My friend Liz Hitt is opening for me and she’s pretty good. This should be a fun night and I’m excited for it. I am blessed to be surrounded by some great friends and musicians and can’t wait to share this music with them and you if you show up. For information about the church and where it is, here’s a link to the church.

Pray for me that I can get some sleep between now and tonight’s rehearsal and tomorrow’s show. Did I mention that I am jumping on the highway Sunday after this CRAZY weekend? Yeah, I’m nuts!! Oh well…