Quick Update from the middle of ‘Psycho Week’…

So far this week I’ve left my house every day by 7:50 A.M. and haven’t yet been home before 10 P.M. Who knew when I scheduled my Dad & step-mom to visit from Thursday (today) till Sunday that it would turn out to be the same week as the GP fundraiser, Worship Night, and our new church facility’s grand opening?! Buy hey – who needs sleep?

1. TONIGHT: The Gathering Place’s annual fundraiser at the Jekyll Convention Center is tonight, and I’M LEADING WORSHIP for it with a rockin’ inter-church youth band! The GP is what originally brought me to the Golden Isles and is, as a result, how I met my lovely wife, so we’ve got ‘history’, and I am very excited to be a part of this evening’s event. The speaker is Darrell Scott, and the event starts at 7 P.M.

2. TOMORROW: My church, St. Simons Community Church, is hosting a special ‘night of worship’ at 7 P.M. For most, it’ll be the ‘first taste’ of our new auditorium, and the first time corporate worship will take place in our new facility. We’ve been rehearsing all week, and Fred has not only picked a good set-list, but the new in-ear system takes things to a whole new level for us musicians – I can hear things I’ve NEVER noticed before, and it’s super cool. Tech aside, however, God is going to show up, and we want you to be there too!

Lastly, get your iTunes gift-card ready, and purchase THESE – it’s for your own good:

My Children: recent press… ;-)

So, it turns out that Kenimer was in the Georgia Times Union on Wednesday…

Friday Blog Love

Happy Friday! Just thought I’d spread some blog-love around before the weekend.

My friend (and one of my ‘bosses’, though that sounds so harsh & authoritarian), Fred McKinnon, has posted a pic of our new auditorium. It doesn’t represent the full room, but you can get a feel for it. I’m EXCITED!

I just discovered a very cool older post over at Fundamentally Reformed called THE RISE OF THE MODERN HYMN MOVEMENT, as well as a newer follow up post; MODERN HYMN WRITERS. Mandy, you should enjoy this. Being in a songwriting kick, myself, I found it fascinating.

One of my few living heroes, Tim Keller, has finished his new book THE REASON FOR GOD. Along with N.T. Wright’s SIMPLY CHRISTIAN, this may be one of the best apologetics for the Biblical faith for post-moderns written to date. Good stuff.

Rich Kirkpatrick recently posted a very though provoking blog in his ‘Worship Mythbusters’ series entitled WORSHIP IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT.

I’ll be taking a much-needed blogging break until March 3rd.  Until we meet again!

Amen…and OUT.

Excellence & Creativity in Worship

Given how many ’secular’ (I don’t actually BELIEVE in a Christian/Secular distinction, but I sometimes use it for the sake of simplicity) artists I talk about here, you may wonder why I mention them so often on a ‘Worship Blog’. Two words:

1. EXCELLENCE

2. CREATIVITY

God is great. He deserves our best – the ‘first fruit’. That is worship: giving God our best. Worship music – and all music made by Christians, which should be an act of bringing glory to God – should be original, inspiring, and – at least in some sense – cutting edge. This is one of the reasons I have been so convicted as of late to write new songs for worship, and to develop my craft as a writer: God deserves it.

God is also the creator, which is to say, He is the most creative being in the universe. We’re created in His image. Jesus is restoring us to that perfect image of God – our creator God: the creative God. Though there has been great headway made in this are the past few years, it should be the NORM, not the exception, that Christian be leading the pack in making music that is both excellent & creative, rather than creating more mediocre rip-offs of musical genres that are long passe to the culture at large.

Believe it or not, I listen to about 90% music that would be considered ‘Christian’ (as in, the artists either profess faith, and/or are on a ‘Christian label’ – whatever that means, and/or sing songs with messages primarily about Christian things – don’t fool yourself into thinking that all 3 of those must be in place in order for an artist to be labeled ‘Christian’ for marketing purposes, though), most of which is what would be called ‘worship music.’ Artists like Matt Redman, Eoghan Heaslip, Steve Jones, Jeremy Riddle, & the Sovereign Grace team encourage and inspire me: their songs are fresh, Biblical, challenging, and frankly I NEED that – I need to drink from that well. But they have their influences, and I only receive those musical influences distilled – watered-down – when I step into the stream at it’s end. I find it FAR more helpful, and far more challenging for me as a musician and a writer, to wander up-stream to it’s sources.

For instance, if you want to be the next Delirious stop sitting in your room trying to play “My Glorious”, and don’t even bother thinking you’re cutting edge by learning a U2 song – pick up My Bloody Valentine’s LOVELESS (yes, those are GUITARS). Learn “Only Shallow” or “Loomer”, which inspired U2 to make their classic “Achtung Baby”, which then inspired 1,000s of clones in both Christian and Secular markets, even many ‘worship artists’. Besides, if you can work your effects and manipulate your guitar to sound like My Bloody Valentine, you will have no problems pulling off tunes that could tie Delirious in knots if you worked at it.

Similarly, if you want to explore the dreamier side of Brit-pop as a songwriter or musician, you may want to pick up “Serene Velocity” – an anthology by Stereolab, even though you’ll understand less than half the words (much of it is in France), and what little you’ll understand will primarily be political pro-socialism garbage. Yes, ahh – the music: a blend of Hip-Hop, Funk, Jazz, Chamber Pop, 50’s Lounge, Vintage Electronica, and ‘Krautrock’ – I THINK it fits somewhere in the ‘Rock’ category, but that’s debatable. I personally discovered a few of their early EPs as I was discovering the whole 4AD & Shoegazer music scenes in the 90s, and they had a long-term influence on my use of counter-melody and syncopation in many of my own songs. Here’s a good, balanced compilation of their tunes from the beginning until now. It might not be your cup of tea, but if you’re looking to expand your palette, here’s a good place to start.

And please, let’s not be derivative – good music should open our mind to the almost endless possibilities we have as songwriters and musicians…push yourselves. Remember: He deserves our BEST.

Who is this Woman?

So, last night my wife, Cyle – a woman who once, when looking at older pictures of me, stated emphatically that she was glad she met me when she did because the earlier ‘me’ wouldn’t have appealed to her – told me that I should grow my hair out “at least to your shoulders, so you can put it in a pony-tail”!!!???!!!??? What’s your name again, and where did Cyle go?!

Honestly, I’ve gotten used to having my hair shorter, but I also enjoy doing crazy things like that, so I wonder: how far is too far?

Here are a few older pics of me – I wore my hair long off and on (mostly ‘on’) from late ‘91 to early ‘02.  At it’s longest I think it was about 17 inches…anyway…enjoy these samples, and tell me: Which do you prefer?

(I’m the one with the braided dreads on the last pic – upper left-hand corner)

Welcome Justin!

Justin, one of my favorite people, and a fellow staff-member at St. Simons Community Church, just began his own blog called IN THE RAW.  He’s just beginning to roll, but already you’ll find some good stuff there.  Drop by and show him some love!

Atonement

One of the most powerful clips from Television I have ever seen. It says a lot, but I’ll let it speak for itself.

thanks to Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds for the link.

Friday Blog Love

There have been so many good blogs and new resources published this week that I can hardly keep up!

First, Mark Altrogge over at The Blazing Center posted Hope for the Sin-Stained Worshiper. Though I’m sure no worship leaders that read this blog have EVER got into a fight with their wife on the way to church (at least I NEVER do that – um, right honey?), you may still benefit from this.

Jared Wilson at Gospel-Driven Church gives a helpful critique of the idea that ‘God shows up’ in the musical aspect of a worship service in a blog worth thinking considering: Call & Response.

Jordan at Worship Trench shares some helpful thoughts that are very relevant if you are, like us, in the process of moving into a new facility, and find your congregation in the midst of great change. Check out Walking the Tightrope for his thoughts.

Lastly, we’ve really been emphasizing, among our student leaders in particular, the importance of daily Bible study and quiet time – growing really familiar with God through his self-revelation in the Word. With that in mind, it is very important to consider what translation we are using and why. In light of that, I present Tim Challies’ The Beauty of a Good Translation and Adrian Warnock’s The ESV: a Bible translation for Everyone? Both give good reason why I choose the ESV over all the other options.

Have a blessed weekend!

Amen.

Overwhelmed with New Music: have you heard?

So, I’m apparently finding it hard to keep up.

A couple of the Saint Lewis band-members had been nagging me to check out a few new worship artists, saying that they were ‘over Hillsong United’, and were now listening to Planetshakers and Generation Unleashed.  I didn’t think anything of the comment until today I stumbled across both bands on iTunes and thought I’d give them a listen.  WHOAH!  How’d I miss this?

Honestly, I’ve not yet listened all the way through, nor have I inspected their lyrics (I don’t introduce new material that is unScriptural or terribly unbalanced, no matter how good it sounds), however my interest is most definitely peaked.

Here are both bands latest available releases from iTunes.

From what little I’ve heard, I think I like Generation Unleashed better than Planetshakers, but that could easily change.

So, have any of you heard (or heard of) these folks?  What do you know?  What do you think of them?  Why have you been holding out on me?  Please comment this one…

thanks

Worship Confessio…nah, just a word on one tune…

Last night we played “Alive” by P.O.D.

Aaron ‘rapped’/sang the verses and I sang the choruses.

Given the tiny amount of prep that went into, it REALLY sounded pretty good.

I love our Youth Group.

In other strangeness, I’ve been writing a new Saint Lewis tune, which is almost finished. I re-read the lyrics after returning from INSIDE OUT and realized that they almost exactly parallel last night’s teaching by Jon…confirmation that God is doing something VERY specific among us right now. Good stuff.

Quirky Tag

I was tagged by Heather, and I enjoy these ‘tag’ things, so I’m going to give it a shot. I’ve got to name 6 quirky things about myself… that shouldn’t be hard, as I’m one huge walking breathing QUIRK…

1) In spite of what everyone else on earth might think, every personality test I’ve ever taken states that I am an introvert.

2) As evidence for #1, there was a small tree named “Shannon” in the corner of a friend’s living room in college – behind their couch. It was placed there to keep me from occupying that space during parties.

3) Related to point 1 & 2, at one time my stage fright was so bad that a.) I turned my back to the audience and walked to the back of the stage during any and all instrumental breaks, b.) I kept my eyes closed throughout whole concerts, & c.) I grew my hair out almost to my belly-button, usually keeping it in front of my eyes, so if I did open my eyes I couldn’t really see anyone in the room. That was about the only way I could have any peace while on stage.

4) For some reason the numbers 2 & 5 both make me think of the color Blue, the number 3 makes me think of Yellow, and number 1 white, yet no number makes me think of one of my favorite colors: green. I have no idea why…for ANY of it. Apparently, I’m NUTS.

5) BLUE (wishing I were thinking of Green, though). Did I mention that God has convicted me as of late that I need to be writing more songs than I do? Yeah – that.

6) Unlike Heather, who tagged me, I think feet are very cool. All feet, even pretty feet, are still pretty goofy looking. I’ve never seen ’sexy’ feet. Hence, at least as it regards our feet, we’re all equal. That’s pretty cool.

tagging: OUR TECH DEPARTMENT - Chris, Bo, & Travis!

New R.E.M. Alert!

Alert!  Alert!  R.E.M., arguably the 2nd ‘biggest’ band in the world in the past 25 years (behind only U2), who have one of the highest paying record deals in history ($80,000,000!!!), and who have not only been one of my major musical influences through the years (their c.d. GREEN is untouchable in my book), but is also my ONLY major musical influence for whom I have spilled their lead singer’s coffee – R.E.M. has a new c.d. out, and what I’ve heard of it is SMOKIN’!

Here’s the new single…revel in it’s awesomeness:

Blog-Nub fo February ‘08 so far…

First and foremost, get yourself over to 9Marks and read Greg Gilbert’s post criticizing ‘Worship Music’ and Bob Kauflin’s excellent response. It’s a worthy discussion to enter into.

Also be sure to sign up for a free account and check out CCLITV, a showcase for new, independent worship artists and songs, as well as articles and other helpful information. A good sample of the sort of new songs you might find are this one, which I enjoyed.

And here’s an older THOUGHT FOR SONGWRITERS from Matt Redman, which has been convicting me as of late, particularly after the vision God gave me this weekend at Brian Johnson’s conference locally at Bethel. Maybe I’ll post more on that later.

And lastly, this is one KILLER rendition of “Smoke on the Water” – seriously, it’s pretty amazing:

Smoke on the Water Everyone`s heard the Deep Purple rock classic, but have you heard it played by a full Japanese orchestra?

A good new tune from a promising young artist…

Be sure to check out Leeland’s new single. I’m really digging it.

Thinking about the Gospel: Heaven or the Kingdom of God? (or both?)

Confession: this will be no surprise to most of you, but I – though a card-holding Bible-believing Evangelical Christian – have a few contentions with the American church at large, at least as the Christian faith is often imagined/understood/expressed here (I can’t speak as clearly to European Christianity as I not only don’t find myself in that scene, but haven’t even yet visited – it is possible that my contention may be even more universal in nature, I suppose). That’s not to say that I necessarily believe that Christians who disagree with me are ‘lost’ – only that, at this point, I think they’re mistaken.

IHOP – Immersed (a short review)

I’ve known about IHOP (International House of Prayer, KC) since they were about a year old. I discovered them around the same time that God so kindly reminded me that He was NOT a duality, but a Trinity (Hello Holy Spirit!), thanks, in part, to my friend Don Williams‘ book The Person & Work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, one of my ‘living heros’, Sam Storms, is connected to their ministry in many ways since the beginning.  I didn’t listen to any IHOP music until Misty Edwards debut, Eternity, was released in ‘03. Since then a number of my friends have gone to IHOP for various periods of time, I’ve explored a lot of their music, alleviated a few of my more serious doctrinal concerns (which, I found also were quite justified in their early days), and found that Mike Bickle’s view of the end-times is quite interesting and attractive, even to a ‘partial-preterist‘-leaning fellow like myself.

Well, though IHOP related artists have released some very powerful c.d.s in the past few years (see the fore-mentioned Misty Edwards, Jason Upton, or Isa Couvertier), much of which I LOVE for times of personal worship, most IHOP material is simply not practical for even the most adventurous contemporary congregation. That being said, I think IHOP may be moving in the right direction with their newest release, IMMERSED.

Heather, our Youth Vocal Coordinator, who – I believe – I may have introduced to Misty Edwards’ music myself a number of years back, has done a great job at keeping me up-to-date on all-things IHOP. This week to dropped into my hands a few samples from IMMERSED and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing – it was CLEARLY IHOP, yet with corporate worship potential! My absolute favorite was “Stir up the Flame”, but another stand-out was “Shine on Us”. The songs are singable, melodic, & Scripture-based, and the music is captivating. Thank you Heather – now I need to buy the whole disc!

Be encouraged to follow the above links to explore this new release, which should also be available on iTunes soon. I think it’ll be worth it if you do.