12.25.06

Greetings from Richmond, KY...

I got to see my mother today. She looks pretty frail. We had a good time with my sisters. After we ate, we gave my mother 4 dolls. She had a big collection before she burned her house down. It was fun to see her open them, she is like a child now and gets excited.

We will stay here tonight, then drive to London in the morning, to see Jenny's mom. I haven't been there in a long time, and it will be good to see her and my brother in law. I am now stuck in a really small hotel room with my boys. I love my boys, but...

I better go. I will post again soon.

See you in His presence...

12.24.06

Good evening,

What a great day we had today. It started with a really sweet time of worship this morning. I am normally not a Christmas song person, but the stuff we did this morning was especially good for me. After Church I got a Christmas present from my friend Jennifer Coomer, a CD that I had been looking at for a while (Leeland, after listening to it twice today, I highly recommend it).

The day wasn't over there, at the 4:30 service this evening, my friend Mike Strautman, who is the best sax player that I have ever heard, came and we had a jazz Christmas.

I just finished leading worship in Celebrate Recovery, and I must say that I am looking forward to the drive to Lexington tomorrow to see my mother and sisters.

I will talk to you soon,

Have a great Christmas day, and don't forget to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus in the morning.

See you in His presence...

12.22.06

Good morning,

As I sit here in Panera, trying not to get my keys sticky from my cinnamon crunch bagel, I find myself oddly rested. For those of you that don't know, I have been running at 100 mph for that last few weeks without a day off, and I was a lot more run down than I thought. Yesterday, I took most of the day off and spent it with my boys and my adopted daughter (Drew's girlfriend, Gracie). We went to eat and to a movie. It was a great day, and now I am feeling much more rested. This weekend doesn't look as daunting after yesterday.

Speaking of this weekend, I am excited that my friend Jennifer ( http://jennycoomer.blogspot.com/ ) is moving here membership to the church that I serve. She and her family are some of the special folks that make my job a blast, and it will be fun welcoming her.

Well, I better get home and start the day. I will talk to you soon.

See you in His presence...

12.8.06 part 2

Good evening all,

I just got home from our staff Christmas party. I just want to say that I love the people that I work with. They are the most genuine group of people that I know. There is no pretense and no show with any of them. I just wanted to say that.

See you in His presence...

12.8.06

Good morning,

I know it has been a while since my last post, but it is always really busy around the first 2 weeks of Advent. Decorating a church the size of Broadway is a daunting task even with great help like I have. I think it will look fine, but I am exhausted. I have never been a big Christmas decoration fan, mostly because I was charged with it at the last place I worked and it was, to put it mildly, and big task, espescially for someone who doesn't like to decorate for Christmas and doesn't see a great need to make things look like Macy's.

Anyway, I think we are about done with that part, thank the Lord. Next I turn my attention to Christmas Eve service. This year I am excited to have my friend Mike Strautman playing his style of Christmas music (jazz saxophone). I think it will be a great time for something a little different.

I better get to work. I hope all is well wherever you are.

See you in His presence...

11.26.06

I just got home from leading worship in Celebrate Recovery. For those of you that don't know, CR is a worship service that we have at Broadway every Sunday night. It is based on the 12 steps and step studies, but filtered through Christ being the pathway to recovery. Let me tell you that we had CHURCH tonight. The songs that we did were well received, and the congregation worshipped and sang. It was absolutely beautiful. I love this service more and more every time we get to worship with them. I better go to bed now. I must recover before I start again tomorrow.

See you in His presence...

11.23.06

Good morning,

Happy Thanksgiving. About a month ago, we were led in devotion by our Financial secretary Mary Ann. During this devotion she had us write down some of the things that we are thankful for. She took them up, and yesterday she put them back in our mailboxes. As I looked at them, I was struck by what I wrote. I truly am thankful for my wife, and my children. I have a loving wife who puts up with me in all my stupid-ness and children who actually enjoy being around me. What else could I ask for. The other thing on my list was my work. I couldn't have a better job. I get to work in what is my call, with people who I adore and are passionate about seeing people connected to Jesus. I enjoy going to work. I know that not many people can say that, and for that I am blessed.

I am so excited about this Sunday in Worship for 2 reasons. First, a young man that I think a lot of is going to be helping me lead worship. His name is Tyler and he is a great young man. He will be doing the Call to Worship and the offering as well. The songs that he will be doing are new to the congregation, but are very worshipful and I think that they will be received well. The second thing I am excited about is that we have a new acoustic guitar player this weekend. It is our lead pastor, Rick. He is not preaching, and asked if he could play with us. Now, I knew that he could play guitar, but I had no idea that he was as good as he is. He is what I call a "Picker" which is a good thing. It will be fun to have him up there with us, and worshiping with him.

Well, I better get the turkey basted (sp?). Have a great turkey day.

See you in His presence...

11.19.06

Today was a pretty good day. Worship was good, we had a couple of new singers up and they did a good job. The highlight of the day for me was the video and song that was played underneath it. Jon Baldwin, the piano man for the praise team, played a song from "The Lord of the Rings". it was a perfect selection, and having someone like Jon on the team makes the rest of us look good. He is extremely talented, but more than that, he has the heart of a worshipper, and that is translated into his playing. He has the ability to move me even with the simplest songs.

The rest of today has been spent at home, which for those who know me, is not something that happens a lot... I am a bit of a work-a-holic. I have really enjoyed being home today though.

I start technical rehearsals on monday and tuesday for the play, "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever". I am doing the sound design for this show, which entails putting together all the sound effects along with all the music used both on stage and during the pre and post show times. It is going to be a great play loaded with kids. It will go up at Public Theatre of Kentucky starting the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Have a great week.

See you in His presence

11.18.06

Good morning,

I just got back from getting coffee and breakfast fixin's with Andrew. It is amazing how grown up he is. Less and less he is a boy and more and more he is a man. Anyway, I wanted to give a little time to the Mercy Me and Audio A show that we went to on Thursday night. It was the first time that all 5 of us have gone to a concert before. It was a big hit. I wasn't sure if it would be as we pulled up to Lipscomb's campus in Nashville. It was a parking nightmare. We drove in circles in a parking lot for what seemed like forever until I got creative and found a spot (we won't talk about what that entailed, let's just say, we got parked). When we got to the line to get in, we noticed that you weren't allowed to take any food into the arena, which wasn't bad for us, but evidently a bunch of people brought supper with them, because there was a table filled with the bones of fast food. It was kind of funny, it looked like a buffet. My middle son Joey, always with something to say, asked if he could file through and eat on the way in... they said no, he was disappointed.

As for the concert, it was a really good show. Audio A came out and it was a great big old fashioned rock show. They were loud and a lot of fun. They did the classics, like Get Down and Big House, and it was rather emotional for them, because it was their last show in their hometown. Very cool farewell. When Mercy Me came out, they started with a bang by doing "No More, No Less" and just flew into 5 straight songs back to back. After doing most of their hits they settled into time for Bart Millard to preach just a little, and did it through and in and out of the song, Because He Lives. It was a great moment, that I hope I can get some stuff to use in worship. They ended the night with I Can Only Imagine, the crowd went nuts and then they just stuck around. It was interesting, it was like no one really wanted to go home.

BIG PROPS to the production designer for the tour, they did a great job of giving Audio A their own space, and still making it huge for Mercy Me. I would see them again. They were a lot of fun.

I better go... I have to start getting myself mentally ready for tomorrow's worship.

See you in His presence...

11.15.06

Well tonight was our third installment of Kid's Zone Live. What a great night. I am glad that I am typing and not having to sing any more, because I have no voice left. We had over 100 kids and parents and they were Rockin'! I can't wait for the next one in December. My son Joey and I introduced a new character to the kid's Zone kids. His name is "Luigi, the worlds smallest giant". Tonight, in an effort to illustrate cooperation, Luigi with the help of Michelle, attempted to eat 12 krystal hamburgers in 1 minute. I should tell you that Luigi is my head, Joey's hands and my hands are actually luigi's feet. It was really funny.

Well, I am exhausted and I am going to bed.

See you in His presence...

11.14.06

Good morning,

Today is my planning day and I have a lot on my list O' stuff. Christmas eve services to plan, a launch plan for a new video element called 10B4 and work on a video for this weekend.

Yesterday was a frustrating day. It was filled with meetings and I don't do meetings very well. I am glad to have my planning day today so I can meet with myself and the meeting can go in 200 directions if I want. I will let you know how it went. I better get to it.

See you in His presence

11.13.06

Good morning,

It is 6AM. I should still be asleep, but for some reason I have been up since 5. Anyway, Yesterday was one of those odd days at church. I always find it interesting what people notice in church. For the first time that I can remember, I tucked in my shirt. I don't know why, but I did. I got more comments about that then I did about the music! What does that say? Either the music was bad, and they wanted to say something and that was the only thing they could think to say. Really weird.

The service went well, although I had a really hard time getting in sync for some reason. That was not the case last night at CR (celebrate recovery). Last night we were all on the same page and it was like when 2 old friends shake hands and just naturally go into a hug. Not necessarily expected but welcomed. We got to hear 2 testimonies intertwined as Adam and Glenda, a husband and wife team that have been coming to CR for several months, told their story. It was a powerful testimony and a real word from God. In the middle of the testimony, I felt that the song that we had picked out for the offering was not going to work after the testimony, so God gave me another song to do, and with the help of my trusted guitar player Wendell, we changed directions and it fit pretty well. I love it when God tells us that our plans don't line up this time and then sends us somewhere else. The blessings are amazing.

Well, I better get started on waking my children. Have a great day and I will see you tomorrow.

See you in His presence,

Louis

11.10.06

Well, here is my first post to my brand new blog. I am still reeling from my trip to Atlanta this week. I attended a leadership conference at Northpoint Community Church. In case you don't know, that is the church where Andy Stanley is the pastor. All I can say is, WOW. It was a great blessing to get to go to several times of worship and get to just worship. No worries about sound or lighting or video, just me and my God. I learned a lot about designing worship that I will share in the coming days. Right now, I going to get to work on my worship sets for December and beyond.

See you in His presence.