New Graphic

We are starting a new 3 week series this weekend called "Big Promises", and of course my beautiful graphics designer, (by beautiful graphics designer, I mean my beautiful wife) has climbed inside the head of our Pastor, and created a very cool graphic.

Enjoy...

This post is part of the Creative Chaos @ Ragamuffinsoul.com

Water Cooler Wednesday

This post is part of Randy Elrod's Blog, and his weekly "WCW"
The question today is who is your favorite band? That is a lot tougher than I thought it would be. I mean, I grew up listening to Journey and Heart, and they were fun, but I would have to say that Billy Joel was and still is my favorite. There is barely a day that goes by that I don't ask my 14 year-old to play "piano man" for me, and every time I hear "New York State of Mind" I get a little misty- eyed. He makes remember my favorite city in the world.

Later kids...

Bishops and paint

Yesterday was a really interesting and fun day. It started with what should have been a nerve racking time getting ready for the Bishop to visit our Greenwood campus. Now, I know that a lot of people get nervous about hosting someone of leadership importance, but I don't get nervous, I get excited. I rather enjoy hosting people in our facilities. Bishop Davis just began his stint as Kentucky's bishop 2 or 3 weeks ago, but he didn't waste any time getting out into the state and meeting all of the pastors under his leadership.

I wondered what he would be like, but I learned very quickly that I think I will enjoy him and his style. As I was standing at the front door of our Greenwood Campus, watching all the pastors come in, saying good morning and exchanging pleasantries, one man came in and put out his hand and said, "Good morning, I'm Lindsey." Not, "I'm the Bishop." He didn't have an entourage. Just plain Lindsey. As he spoke to the room of pastors, I got the same impression. He said at one point, "Where I grew up, you either owned horses, or cleaned up after them, and I came from a long line of people who cleaned up after them."

My favorite quote of our time with the Bishop came, not in a funny moment, but in a very serious moment. He was talking about reaching out to folks that don't yet know how much God loves them, and said, "a church that goes a whole year without 1 profession of faith should consider taking the word 'church' off their sign." I almost had a pentecostal moment.

After a good lunch and good conversation with my friend Ben, our ministry staff went to the Family Enrichment Center to paint a couple of their offices. This was part of our Staff's journey through Soul Life. This was our time of serving our community. The Family Enrichment Center provides help to families that need parenting help, and other needs that relate to children and the family.

I discovered several things during our time together there. The first is that I suck at painting. I know why my wife won't let me paint much. Second is that I love being around our staff. They are great people and great ministers. Whenever we are together, we laugh at each other and with each other. I never fail to learn something new about them.

Well, my fingers are tired and I am sure you are tired of reading so...

Later kids.

My son the animator

For Christmas, we gave our son, Joey, a Wacom tablet. This is essentially a pencil mouse. It is used for drawing things by hand in photoshop. Joey called me into his room to show me his latest drawing, and i wanted to share it with you. But it is more than a drawing, it is an animation of a rough sketch that he has been working on.




Joey also works on the website at Bowling Green High, and one of the pages that he edits features artwork from several students, including some of his own works. There are some very talented students at BGHS. Check them out here.

I love being around artists. Whether they use a pen, pencil, mouse or keyboard, their art is one of God's greatest gifts. I, for one am blessed.

Later kids...

9.21.08 setlist

Today we finished our sermon series, Soul Life, with an opportunity to live into the spiritual practice of "Service". It was a shortened service, in order to give everyone time to visit our ministry fair, and to meet the ministers and volunteers that help in that ministry. Our set list looked like this...

Beautiful One
Here I Am to Worship

You Are My King (offering)

I told you it was shortened. Even so, I thought that it was a good morning of worship. The congregation sang along with us, and was very attentive to Rick's sermon. Afterward, we had a lot of people come to the fair, and several new people signed in to get involved. I thought Cindy did a great job putting it together. We even had a visit from "Broadway" the clown to attract and play with the children, and make lots of great balloon animals and such. (Broadway the Clown is a local guy, Nick Wilkins, that actually went to clown college and runs a costume shop here, and he doesn't attend Broadway UMC, he just happens to have the same name... Clowns)


I’m posting my Sunday Setlist in collaboration with other worshipers at the Sunday Setlists blog carnival at FredMcKinnon.com Check out how others worshipped the King @ http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2008/09/21/sunday-setlists-9

Today

Did you know that today is "National Talk Like a Pirate" day? Well, it is. In honor of that, I give you the art of Jeff Dehut. I have talked about Jeff's artwork before. Jeff works at my Starbucks, and brings his own brand of art to the store. You can check out more of his stuff here and here. I have commissioned Jeff to do my office sign, and as soon as I get off my lazy butt and get him a picture, my office will be done.


Go out today and bust into work and yell, "Avast, ye land lubbers"


Later all...

I love the Muppets

Beaker is one of my favorite Muppets. He doesn't speak, he just makes beeping noises. Here is a video that I saw on Jason Bedel's blog and had to share.

Enjoy...


Ode To Joy from Beaker on Vimeo.

The new and improved MAC

Last week I told you that I was going to post the finished facelift. Well here we go. I have pictures from several different people who were here on Friday, or Sunday. This has been a great process, and I have learned a lot. Here are some of the the pictures... Enjoy.

MAC 1 week before

This is Russell. He and his crew of artists did an amazing job transforming the MAC.


This is the coolest thing I saw them do all week. You can see that there is a hard, straight line around the top of the MAC where the color stops and the black starts. This guy painted that line BY HAND.

Here is Russell putting the beginning touches on the black part of the stage.

This is my friend, and fellow worship leader, Jeremy helping me dry fit the Truss on the stage.


This was just a cool picture that Don took when Jeremy and I were getting ready for Soul Life on Wednesday.



And Finally, Friday...

When Sunday came, you might think that we would have a bit of an anti-climax, but not so. The band and choir came out strong and brought it home. I don't think that we have ever sounded so good.

Thank you all for a great week.


This post is part of the Creative Chaos @ Ragamuffinsoul.com

Thanks Carlos.

Went to a rehearsal...

and Church broke out. That is right, last night we had a rehearsal with our mini-choir to prepare for worship on Sunday, and right in the middle of PRACTICE, we found ourselves in the middle of a worship moment that took us over. It is amazing what scripture from the mouth of a child, plus an incredible song, and a group of people that love to worship a great God can do. The song started out with Paige reading Psalm 1oo:4-5 while John David played the intro to Glorious One lightly.























As she finished, we started to sing and the spirit took over and we had a very personal time with God. It was beautiful. I love it when God takes over let's us know how much he loves us.

Another cool thing was that Paige just stepped back and started to sing with us. It was really cool to hear her sing praises.

Later...

MAC facelift days 5 & 6

Good evening all. This has been an incredible week. The facelift has been exhausting, but I think that you will agree that it has been well worth it.

Day 5

When we started this, I posted a video of Andrew taking the cloth down off the walls. Here is another one, this time it is Ted and I putting the cloth and truss up on stage. We had a really good time getting this ready.




Day 6

Also a couple of days ago, I posted pictures from the MAC before we started the facelift. Well here is what it looked like right before I left tonight...



This is just one shot, there are many others that I will post in the next few days. We are very excited about the new look and I cannot say enough about all the people that it took to, as my friend Jason would say, "Make the magic happen." People like Ted, and Dean, and Jeremy, who worked really hard lugging stuff, folding stuff and building stuff, to help us get here. Also, a huge thanks goes to Russell Simpson and his crew of incredible painters. They took us from empty old room to all the walls covered in time for Soul Life in just 2 1/2 days, and finished the room in under 5. They were truly amazing.

That is all for now. Maybe more later...

Facelift day 3

Have you ever had one of those days where you couldn't wipe the goofy grin off your face? That was my day today. I got to see the painters completely change the look of the MAC today. I am giving you some pictures of the old look for the MAC stage, and if you want a glimpse of what the new look will be, you will have to come to Soul Life tomorrow night.






























Another reason that I was smiling today was because I got to go see an old friend that I haven't seen in a long time. His name is Chris Carter, and he is a brilliant young lighting designer. Chris is the lighting director at Hillvue Heights Church We got together because I had told him that I was looking for some PAR cans, and he said that he had a few that the leadership at Hillvue told him he could give to me. It was really good to see him and hear about what is going on in his life. Chris will always be special to me.

Now I am getting ready to get something to eat and then spend some time with my boys, and my beautiful wife. Tomorrow is another early day that will end very late. Tomorrow, our greenroom gets shown some makeover love, with the help of one of the guys that is on our praise team, Dean Allen.

later kids...

And the facelift begins...

OK, so I have been kind of quiet the last week or so. Partly because I was exhausted and was taking some down time, and partly because I passed a kidney stone on Friday. Yes, that's right, I said I passed a kidney stone. It sucked and I don't want to ever have to do that again. So I have to start drinking a gallon of water a day.

The other reason that I have been quiet this week is because we are preparing for a big facelift the MAC (where we have our contemporary services). I will be posting pictures and stories along the way.

The first thing that had to be done was taking the cloth that decorated the side walls of the room down. I have a new program on my mac that allows my video camera to do a time-lapse video. I hope to make a video of the entire process when we are done. Below is said video of my son, (and indispensable right hand), striking the cloth on one side of the room.



Now, I am off to bed. I will start tomorrow at 6:30am with a bike ride to the church and start un-boxing the new LED lights and such.

Later kids...

Happy Birthday Ninja

OK, so I know this post is a little late. I had a long day yesterday. Anyway... Yesterday was my friend Jason's birthday. Jason is the MediaShout king at Broadway. He makes all the scripts, around 5 to 6 completely different ones every week. He runs the scripts on Sunday mornings, and sometimes runs 2 machines at the same time for 2 different venues. He is an amazing young man. He doesn't say much, but he is always there. Jason is the most quiet guy I know. We call him the Ninja around the tech ministry, because the only way you find out that Jason is around is when he walks up behind you and pops the top on his always present Dr Pepper. The first hundred times he did it to me I nearly jumped out of my skin.

And Dr. Pepper brings us to the theme of the day for Jason. Every one around Broadway knows about Jason and his DP. So when we arrived at the church at our normal 6am, there was already 2 cases of DP in the refrigerator in the booth under his desk, 2 at the tech booth in the Sanctuary, and 1 sitting on the stage in the MAC. It was at this point, my son Andrew brought out the ultimate Dr. Pepper gift... DP Cupcakes. Below you will see pictures and a video of what came next for him. I hope the rest of his day was great. His church family came together to let him know that he is important to us

The aforementioned Dr. Pepper Cupcakes...
.

Jason... scarfing


For all you Pyro's out there, here is the fire section of the post. Andrew placed 25 candles on a single, Dr. Pepper cupcake.


And finally, a serenade in G (really) FLAT


Happy Birthday my Friend. I hope it was great.