My Worship Revolution

Yesterday at all three services we prayed over and comissioned our 2007 India Team.  They are currently on their way to Southern India to spend two weeks ministering to the people there.  I had the privledge of going on this trip with the first team we took over there as a church about a year and a half ago.  It was an amazing trip and I know that God is going to do amazing things in the hearts of the people who are going.

Keep track of what the team is up to while they’re there at the India team blog here.

I really miss that good southern food from Re:create.  Now it’s back to microwave pizza and milk.  I may go back next year just for the food alone!

Well friends, today was the final day of Re:create.  tomorrow there is an extra trip to EMI records, but considering the amount of sleep I’ve missed out on and the amount of work I need to do, I may very well be bailin out on that.  So here’s the highlights of day four…and what an AMAZING day it was:

Rick Dempsey
Rick is the V.P. of Disney films who has spent the past several years focusing upon character quality and the preservation and restoration of the Disney brand name.  He was there to talk with us about branding.  He shared some of the keys to branding in general and specifically at Disney.  he then transitioned to talk about the branding of the church as  whole and what we should be branded by.  Fun conversation.  here’s a few fun facts and info about Disney’s new strategies with their movies:

New Disney Movies Strategy

• Emphasizing the Disney brand
• Movie guidelines
  • No bad language
  • No gratuitous violence
  • No sexual content

2007 Movie Release Dates  the ones that interested me anyway

• Pirates 3 – May 25
• Nightmare Before Christmas…in 3D!!! – October 19
• Enchanted – November 21
• National Treasure 2 – December 21

We were able to see a trailer and a scene from the movie Enchanted.  I have to go see that movie, and  you should too.  It looks hilarious!

Leeland & Cyndi Mooring

Well you already heard a little about worshipping with Leeland.  That was an anointed time of worship and it rocked.  So was the rest of the afternoon.  Leelands mom, Cyndi, came to talk with us about what it looks like to be a good parent and raising a child, specifically one that is an artist.

This is one special family, and clearly two great parents in Cyndi and Todd.  they shared their stories of traveling full time and singing in churches around the country as a family.  They also shared the first song that Leeland ever wrote.  Check it out, and most importantly, be sure to listen at the end when they ask how old he was when he wrote this:

Man the spirit was thick in that room the whole time.  I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing several times as we took moments to worship and to be prayed over.  Here were a couple of REALLY great quotes from that session:

• They didn’t shield us from the hard times.  You can never know how mighty God is until you know how mighty a problem is that he needs to overcome.
  -Jack discussing the things he learned about faith as they prayed and trusted in God to take care of them as a family.)
• You can’t take your house to heaven, you can’t take your luggage to heaven, you can’t take your stuff to heaven, but you can take your children.
• We have an awesome responsibility to pass on what God’s done in our lives to them.  Then they will pass it on to their kids, and them to their kids, and you’ve left a legacy.

Chattin

Took some time as Re:create attenders only to chat with Randy for a while to hear about his dreams and what he is doing now as well as to discuss how the conference could be even better next year.  you will probably hear a bit more about Randy Elrod and his dreams here in the future.  this guys is an amazing visionary, artist, encourager, and all around inspiring person and I am so glad I had the opportunity to meet him here.  For a sneak peek of some really awesome things to come, check this out.

It was also really cool to be at a place where instead of having some lame evaluation form that may or may not be looked at, we were able to sit and openly and honestly share what we’d like to see more of in the future.  This is definitely a unique and special annual gathering.

Dinner and New Song Cafe

We all had dinner at someone’s house…yeah, all 100 of us!  Did I mention it was a GORGEOUS mansion?  As a sidenote, the guy who owns the house is the inventor of the evangecube!  I think that’s hilarious for some reason.  Check it out:

After an amazing dinner, we sat down all together in the main room of the house for a time of songwriters from EMI and Worship Together sharing some of their new songs.  the artists were Leeland Mooring, Matt Maher, and Brenton Brown.

After they shared some songs they wrote, which of course we got chord charts for, we decided to just finish off with like 20 minutes of worship.  Again, the worship was absolutely amazing!  I think some of the best worship times in my life have been with a bunch of friends in a packed out living room.  It was an awesome evening.  I’m sure you’ll recognize a song or two from these guys, and enjoy the tail end of our worship time:

Day four definitely turned out to be the best full day of all of them.  And there you have it.  The trip was great, and I’m sure I’ll give some closing general thoughts on the conference.  Sorry for a couple of long posts this week, but if you’re still with me, good for you.  Thanks for sharing the journey with me.  And to all you Re:create bloggers who are now reading, thanks for joining the longer journey.  I hope you stick around and hang out with us here for a while.

If nothing else, I was here this week to be here this afternoon.

That’s Leeland (18) on the guitar with his brother Jack (21) and their father on keys.  This kid has an amazing gift.  He led me into some of the deepest, most intimate worship time with Jesus that I have experienced in about as long as I can remember.  There is prophetic voice and a passion beyond his years that just flows out of him and inhabits his worship.

After worshipping there was some speaking by his parents and the family that I will tell you more about tonight in a recap of the day.  They sang together and encouraged us and prayed for us at the end.  I came unglued.  Man I needed this afternoon.  Thanks Jesus.

I was already missing my wife and son when I got the picture of them missin me:

Then I got to iChat with Rachel and she had Caleb with her.  It was great to see him, but it really just made me miss him even more cause I wanted to reach through the screen and touch him.  I think I didn’t really realize how much I missed him till I saw him and couldn’t touch him.  Hey, as a baby that’s the best part about him, it’s not like he can do anything else! 

I can’t wait to hold my baby and kiss my other baby when I get home!

So, clearly I have inundated you all with a whole lot of music the last several days.  if you are re:create attender, you’ve heard even more music over the last several days.  But since we already have the theme going, I figured I’d roll with the southern Christian rock thing and talk about an old friend, Nate Davis.

Nate lives in South Carolina.  He’s an old friend of mine from the Young American days.  When we hung out back then, neither of us were really Christ followers (I pretended and tried to convince myself I was).  Since that time, we’ve both given ourselves over to Christ.  Nate just recently released a CD and the few songs I have heard rock.  Please, head over here and check him out…and let him know you like him!  And let us know, what do ya think?

Whew…another day down and I am WIPED!  i have got to find some time to sleep.  i guess now would be good, but I can’t sacrifice the update, so I’ll just have to blaze through it. 

Food

All I can say about that is WOW…they know how to feed us well here!  I’ve pretty much been in a constant state of fullness since the first meal (see picture below).  Today was no different.  Big home cooked style southern meal and an old jail turned restaurant.  And by the way, I love being in the south for the sweet tea, too.

Dinner was at a really nice restaurant at a golf club.  Again…lots of good food!

Music

I think today it was a good idea having music right after lunch rather than a really mellow guy talking.  When we got back, a band called 33 Miles played.  I actually really enjoyed them.  They can definitely sing.  The back up singer/guitar player especially.  Check it out:

Tonight during dinner we heard some music from some songwriters at Lifeway Music Group, Jeremy and Mary Beth Johnson and Paul Marino.  Not bad, but probably not one of my favorites fom the weekend.  Then again, the musics been pretty mazing, so maybe it’s not fair to compare.

Sharing

We heard some great sharing from a guy by the name of Louis Marcos.  Just for the record, this guy has got to be one of the smartest Christians alive.  Dude is ridiculous.  And a great speaker too.  He’s a teacher and a writer with tons of knowledge in…well…tons of stuff.  Just read the bio.

I wan’t make too much of an attempt to really take you through everything he talked about cause I don’t know that I could if I wanted to.  The idea of his information was "The Slipperiness Of Words."  He started with comparing Saussure and his structuring of words and communication in the modern age to the development of Derrida and his deconstruction of language and the ushering in of a postmodern mindset, and then moved toward our stories and the mysteries of Jesus – fully God, fully human – and the meaning and beauty that gives to art for Christians because it is proof of the spiritual being able to inhabit the phsical.  I told you he was smart.  And it sounded a whole lot better and made a whole lot more sense when he communicated it.  you know, words are slippery.  Anyway, here’s a couple  (loose) quotables from Lou:

• Sometimes Christians are Muslims without realizing it.
  •    Iconoclasts – destroying any images under religious pretense.
  •    they act as if the bible is the scientific dictated word of God.  This is what Quran means – dictated.
  The complete and perfect word of God is Jesus.  The Bible points to Jesus.  We don’t believe in Jesus because we believe in the Bible, we believe in the Bible because we believe in Jesus.
• The Bible is like Jesus – 100% God and 100% human.  Fully inspired and fully human.
• God created three types of beings.  Angels – fully spiritual.  Animals – fully physical.  And humans are some sort of amphibian.  People are fully spiritual and fully physical.  You are not half soul and half body.

Have fun with that.  And oh yeah, here I am listening at the back of the room:

Connection

I think something really cicked in a good way for me tonight in the way of connecting.  truth is, as much as I have loved being here, I haven’t had as much opportunity to interact with others during the sessions as I had hoped.  i think that has been the case for a couple of reasons, but that’s not important now.  Also, even for a guy who’s number 1 strength is "woo," it can be slightly intimidating coming to something like this all alone, when most others have a spouse or a companion from their church along.  It’s been good though, in a way forcing me to connect even more.

Tonight I had several great conversations, really getting to hear some guys stories and learn bout them, their journeys, their souls, and some not so important but fun stuff too.  On the bus I was able to connect with Mark and pray together as well.  Then tonight I spent a couple hours in the bar connecting with several other worship leaders and learning their stories.  there are some great people around me and God is doing some great stuff in their lives. 

So that’s it for now.  Probably a bit disjointed cause it’s really late and I haven’t slept much.  And I don’t feel like proof reading it now either.  Day 4 is a-comin!  (Actually, it’s technically here I guess.)

Short clip, but enjoy.  I sure did!

Day two is over…here’s what it looked like:

Morning worship with Mark Roach

Dang it…i couldn’t get out of bed.  I’m sure it was great.

Dean Batali

Dean Batali hosted the first session this morning that lasted til lunch.  Dean is a writer in Hollywood who has worked on "That 70’s Show" and "Buffy" as well as some other shows.  Check out his bio to get more info.  As a Christian working on shows like these, you can see under his bio on the re:create blog that he catches some heat from Christians.  What was interesting is that he doesn’t fully disagree.  He says he doesn’t like these shows and in fact sees them as damaging to our culture, however he’d rather be there making some sort of difference rather than not. 

Dean is clearly very passionate about being a missionary in Hollywood as well as the need for us to reclaim the arts as Christians.  he points out that in order for us to make an impact in culture, we need to have somewhat of a voice in an industry that is responsible for shaping our culture.  We need to not throw out our televisions because there’s filth, rather we need to be knowledgeable about what others are watching.  And just about every story out there has a redeeming truth, although you may need to find your way past some of the crap to get to it.  The question becomes, "Where is the line of what is worth sifting through and what isn’t?"  (Great question, by the way.)

Before coming to Revolution I worked for a couple years in the entertainment industry.  Every time I have come to a crossroads in my life I have wrestled between a call to full time ministry and a passion to be a professional artist, rubbing shoulders with other artists who need Jesus, too.  I have several friends who work in Hollywood, many of who I now only have minimal My Space contact with.  Point it, I too have a strong desire to see Christ followers in the field more and nore, despite how difficult it can be, and much of what he had to say resonated deep with me.

Here’s a couple of good quotes from our conversation with Dean (keep in mind these are loose quotes cause I can only type so fast…and besides, I’m not a journalist.  You’ll get the point):

• Go to where the damage to the culture is being done and be a part of damaging that culture so that it may be redeemed or preserved.
• Salt is not meant to preserve or restore something, but rather to slow down the decay.
• “Compromise” is another word Christians need to reclaim.  It isn’t always such a dirty, horrible word.
• We seem to think that unless we’re getting these big victories we’re not being effective, but we can at least help to stop the decay.
• Where is the "Christian" Vagina monologues?  We need to go out into the culture and tell our stories in the arts.  (That one probably sounds a bit odd out of context, but I think you’ll get it.  If not, we can talk in the comments.)
• I like to ask groups, "How many people of you have watched something in the past month in TV or film that offended you?"  Then I’ll ask them, "How many of you prayed for Hollywood after seeing that?"

Good stuff.  Moving on.

Tim Hodge

Just in case you’re wondering, that isn’t him, it’s a picture he drew.  Tim Hodge is an illustrator who has worked with Disney and now with Big Idea.  He came to share with us the basics of storyboarding and how we could use that in our creative projects and meetings.

He had some interesting stuff and some good practical practices to share.  Unfortunately, he was right after lunch and a pretty mellow guy, and that combo made for a difficult time of sitting for a while.  Regardless though, i think I can come away with a couple of good rules to be thinking about in the future when we do video.

As a side note, I love modern technology!  Look at this picture and see how many computers you can find:

Correct answer is 6 (a few of them are tough to find, but they’re there.)  Of course, half of them are probably iChatting and e-mailing.

Dinner

Yup MORE food…and GOOD!!  We had dinner at a place called Saffire.  Cool vibe good food.

And here’s me and Bobby.  Yeah, B squared, Bobby to the second power, Boobbies, whatever.  (Partial credit for name ideas going to John Voelz.)

What’s even crazier?  He is the pastor of Revolution at The Crossing Church.  Coincidence?

Tonight there were two awesome worship artists that played.  Check out a quick clip of Bebo Norman:

After Bebo was Jon Abel.  Jon’s written some great stuff, at least one of which you may have heard Chris Tomlin play, Awesome Is The Lord.

One thing that listening to these guys worship has definitely done is once again inspired me to really want to try writing something again.  I’ve wanted to in the past, but never really written anything cause for some reason it scares me to death.  One way I know I’ve been listening to a great singer/songwriter is it makes me want to go home and pour my own heart out into a song.

Anyway…day two rocked!  now I’m gonna go iChat with my wife and kid, watch last nights episode of 24 online, and go to bed so I don’t miss out on Mac Powell tomorrow morning.

Good News:

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about losing weight.  I’ve even heard some questions and some complaints from some of you that I haven’t posted.  The good news is I’ve been planning on starting up with the dieting again, and I’ll definitely be filling you in.  The bad news…

Bad News:

is I don’t think I’ll be losing any weight this week.

I love the south!

I’ll recap the day later on.  In the meantime, check out the re:create list in the sidebar to see what some other people are sayin.