Some people call it crazy…

     So I am sitting at home tonight after the small group that meets in our apartment.  The air is thick with humidity but the breeze outside is keeping down the temp a little.  We have the door open and bugs are definitely taking over… but you know it could be a lot worse.  

     Anyway, I am sitting here not thinking about much but feeling that something is brewing in my head that I might not know about.  Its weird.  I mean my mind is stuff in park but somehow I feel like my mind is thinking of something without my consciousness. (some people call it crazy…)  

     So we watched the nooma video called kickball tonight.  Rob Bell tells the story of how his family was walking through the mall and his son decides that he wants this toy off of a cart in the middle of the mall.  Bell tells his son that he really doesn’t want that toy and that they are really going to get him a kickball…  Later in the video they get a kickball but I still don’t totally get how this story relates to the bigger principle that he was trying to get across but I still love his point.

     Rob starts talking about how God will sometimes tell us no when we ask for something.  We just stand by the toy cart in the mall and say hey I want this “ball on a string” even though it will probably break in a few hours.  We get so desperate for some thing/objects/descisions that we go to the extent that we NEED it.  We we see this shiny object we don’t realize that God has more in store for us than this one shiny object.  

     A couple people from the group told stories of how someone close to them had suffered greatly as they died.  They both explained how they would pray for healing and just pray endlessly and then as the person died or just got worse the frustration got higher.  Maybe in these circumstances we are looking this this new toy… we just want we have to have it almost so we need to have it.  I can’t say too much on this subject because I have never experienced a really close death but I am sure I would be the same way.  We want those people to be healthy because we don’t want them to leave our lives.  

    When was the last time we asked, “Does God want healing or do I?”  Lindi’s mom’s quote was,  ”Sometimes when you mean physical healing, God mean spiritual healing.”  This coming from someone who was being prayed for for healing…  We need to look for where God is guiding us in our decisions.  God sees the big picture… we usually don’t.  

     Well this post was totally random and probably doesn’t make any sense but I am glad I got it out of my head.

An opportunity to share!

    

     So last month I was blown away by an e-mail that came out of the blue.  I was sitting in the office and received a new e-mail in my junk folder.  Usually I quickly scan the junk mail and delete it.  This e-mail was different.  It did not include me getting any sum of money or sending my information to and bank in Barbados so I read on.  
    In this e-mail one of the directors of the WFX Conference (worship facilities conference and expo) was e-mailing to me see if I would be interested in coming to their conference.  I get probably about three e-mail a week from WFX and didn’t think much more about that but it usually doesn’t come from a personal e-mail so I read on.  The next part is from that e-mail:

     Our Friday keynote this year is described below, but is a panel discussion of technical directors from around the country and from churches of varying sizes. I spoke with Bruce Smith last week and he suggested that you would have great experiences to relay through the panel discussion. Is this something that might be of interest? WFX would gladly cover your travel expenses to/from the event to facilitate your participation. 

    Michele was in the office with me and I looked at her and just freaked out!  Bruce Smith was the Technical Director at Willow Creek Community Church who helped design their new 7,100 seat auditorium.  Bruce and a few friends started a company called Church Solutions Group which helps churches install A/V equipment and trains the volunteers.  Anyway CSG came out and helped us find the best solution for imag/second venue situation.  Bruce has become a great friend to the ARTs team at MCC.  

   Needless to say this opportunity has been on my mind A LOT!   I will be on stage with some of the tech directors of the biggest churches in the US as well as some of the tech directors from churches our size that are growing.  The tech directors from the large churches are going to give their ideas on how things worked and we (the smaller church TDs) are supposed to bring it down to the smaller experience.  We are all supposed to share what went well and mistakes we have made.  
   So, this is an amazing experience and I am totally and utterly flattered.  It is awesome because I really wanted to go to the conference and I was putting it off for budgetary reasons.  Got works in many mysterious and humorous ways.  I would never consider myself anywhere near worthy of this honor but I guess God has other plans…

A thought on Rwanda

Rwanda Stats:

Land Mass:  10,169 sq. miles
Est. Population:  10,186,063 
Gross Dom Prod:  $11.24 Billion

New Hampshire Stats:

Land Mass:  9,350 sq. miles
Est. Population:  1,315,828
Gross State Prod:  $49 Billion

     These stats are from wikipedia…  Maybe not the most credible source but none the less, the are a bit staggering.  To think that Rwanda has 10 times the people in a very similar land mass and the gross product is a quarter of the product of the 9 smallest state in the united states…  My mind is blown.  
      Just for a quick “up to date” on why I am talking about Rwanda.  Manchester Christian Church (where I call home) just sent a team to Kilgali, Rwanda on a discovery trip.  This discovery trip wasn’t to go over and “save” the Rwandan people or to preach the God’s grace.  It was a trip to totally see what is going on in Rwanda and to see if there is a way we can partner with any one over there.  This team went just to see if this is where God wants our church, our local body to reach out to the ends to the end of the Earth. (Acts 1:8, 13:47)  Our team came back and told said these are the people.  This is the people group who we want to share life with.  We want to learn from them and we want to teach them.  We want to pray with them and we want them to pray with us.
     This team met up with a minister there who blew them away with his dedication to the people.  The church he started there, The Harvest Church, has a bunch of different churches all over Rwanda.  I think there are over 100 but I can’t remember.  Anyway, the team was able to really meet up with them and realize that these people had real joy.  They had a real love for the Lord!
     So back to the stats.  I don’t want to guilt trip anyone or give the idea that I think any one person is better than anyone else.  I just want to bring up points to be thought about.  My friend John who went to Africa explained it to me well.  During their visit to a church, the highlight was meeting people and the church’s youth choir.  He said that when the Rwandans made music it was their joy.  It was their time to kind of turn off the pain or at least get away from it for a little bit.  He said their joy during this time was so amazingly high.  Putting into my own words I would imagine that their joy during their times of worship were higher than our highest highs.  But when they get out of this setting, these people have to deal with life.  They deal with pains worse than we can imagine.  Maybe not for all of us but for the majority of us in the US we could never imagine.  
     John was saying that it seems like their lives have a much wider perspective of emotion.  That maybe here in the US we are living on a scale that might be a little narrower…  For example, maybe on a day our emotions swing and inch.  Maybe we wake up to an alarm that might not exactly excite us. Lets say on our emotion yard stick we are at negative one inch.  Well then you wake up go to work/school not really enjoying that too much and a boss/teacher yells at you.  You then think, “my day is horrible.”  and the yardstick goes to  negative 3 inches.  But then we go to a Sunday morning service the next day and we get that emotional high at positive 5 inches….  
     To me that is great, we have a swings and maybe you have already tuned out but think about in Rwanda…  Someone wakes up, they may or may not have anything to eat.  They get up to maybe work in a job that might pay them $.50 a day maybe.  They work and maybe live beside someone who ten years ago may have killed their entire family in the genocide.  But then they get to church, they go to practice for the choir and they get to turn all of that off for a little while and praise a God who made them and gives them every thing they have.  They are able to forgive those around them who caused them pain in the past because God forgave them first.  
   Sorry about the ramblings but I just have to say… let’s go to Rwanda and really learn how to live.  Let’s go to Rwanda and learn how to worship the Lord.  Let’s go to Rwanda to commune with God and his people!  Let’s go out into the world and be God’s hands and feet but also his ears, eyes and nose!

Yamaha M7CL…. drool

So yesterday I was able to go to a training seminar put on by Yamaha on the M7CL.  To most it looks really cool.  That was part of the reason I went but mostly because I wanted to learn the capabilities of this new sound board.  Man was I amazed at the astounding features of this sound board.  

I believe this console can really change the most stanch analog boardsman… (I think I just coined a new term).  The ability to see all of the channels of the sound board in one glance is a huge step forward for digital boards.  It would be nice to have a second layer of faders if possible but I do love the fact that it is simple.  

The touch screen concept is amazing.  It is one thing I wish we had on our 02R96.  You don’t have to worry about lining up buttons below the screen with the on screen buttons.  All labeling is done by an on screen, touch screen keyboard.  No more searching around a keyboard with arrow keys.  The ability to have 16 aux sends as well as 8 matrixes, totally patchable is amazing.  Another feature that really struck me as useful was the attenuation on the direct outs.  During practice a lot of times we have people on stage who need more feed in their avioms from certain instruments.  Do give them more we have to change our entire gain structure.  So with this new gain we can allow the line level gain does not have to change.  

The Centrologic area in the middle of the board has it plusses and minuses but I really enjoyed being able to access any channel on the board from that central panel.  Anyway, I was thoroughly impressed by this machine.  It is both useful and aesthetically pleasing.  As I always say, Sound is 50% looking cool.

Global Warming and you…

So I was watching a Discovery channel program called “Project Earth”.  It was really quite amazing what some people have thought up to “save” the Earth from us.  Many things go through my mind as I listen and read about this issue of global warming.  One, how in the world could we cause this to our planet, our only life source and we are letting it get out of hand.  On the other hand, is this something we caused or is it a natural life cycle of Earth.  I have heard some say that God would not allow us to destroy the planet that he created for us but look at how we handled being living in the utopia of Eden.  

Really every time I hear this I can’t help but have that twinge that I know I should be doing something about the waste that I produce and it some way I want to help but every day I stand by and do nothing.  Will my contribution really help the planet or would it just be for a good case of the feel goods.  Also to what point to I try to aid in this earth recovery.  Do I let it consume my life or do I merely stop at saving gas and separating my trash.    

I know there is no answer to this but I it seems like something that will be more and more important as we move into further into the life of this Earth.

Never thought the day would come…

So I was somewhat inspired when Jim decided to blog… I probably should have started this a long time ago.  Anyway, I am just getting back from Vacation with my parents today and I am really looking forward into diving back in.  There are a lot of exciting things on the horizon for myself and MCC this fall.  

This blog probably isn’t going to be the deepest thing you have ever read but I would really like put a few things out there that I have been thinking about lately.  Last night I was reading Matt 7:1-5:

1“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

This hit so hard on my heart.  I have been thinking about this a lot lately and realize that I judge people so much without even thinking about it.  Most of the time I don’t even realize I have done it.  We were at the beach yesterday and I grouped and entire people group who are diverse and in many stages in their life.  These people whom I don’t know and I have never met just became things to me.  I classified them as less than me and when I was in bed last night reading my heart was broken.  Because I saw them as less than me I would probably never have given them a chance to know the God of this world.  Well I need to go for now but that is just a thought for this morning….  ”Who have you judged today?”