Must See MSN!

I saw this on Bwack’s forum. I don’t know how to actually get the video other than sending you to the link.

YOU MUST WATCH THIS! It’s hilarious. Our musical heroes become heroes over the dreaded squirrel population. It’s great, if you’ve ever seen Crowder live, you’ve most likely heard stories of the squirrels that taunt he and Toni on their massive front porch in Waco. Now you can watch it!

Foreverandever, etc. watch it here.

Scroll all the way down and look the the Left and you should be good to go!

Waking up

So today it hit me: today is THURSDAY!  Tuesday was 2 days ago! I didn’t take a look at any new music, happenings, anything! I haven’t blogged intentionally in like 3 WHOLE DAYS! The awful thing is that it’s just now hit me! This is the first time I’ve settled down enough to actually pull out the laptop and catch up with everyone and take a look at my blog. I thought of everyone today, I had some spare time and pulled into Starbucks to kill some time, unfortunately I was without technology BUT fortunately I was with Mr. C.S. Lewis and ‘Mere Christianity.’ Let’s get reacquainted:

Monday – hit up the Dunham School to listen to Wade give his story at Chapel. That evening we had an incredible time at Small Group!

Tuesday – worship planning for this weekend as well as Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday. Volleyball season started and we pulled out our first victory for our new team! Purple Monkey Dishwashers are back! I woke up with incredible allergy aggravation which is really weird. Typically it’s the whole bit: sinuses/allergies/headaches/post nasal drip/sore throat. This was just plain aggravating. Just my allergies were wigging out. Its like my nostrils had one of those Gatoraide valves that let liquid through only one way. I could breathe out but not in.

Wednesday -  woke up dog tired b/c it’s hard to sleep when you can’t breathe. Mistakenly thought the lil pink tablets I was taking all day long were daytime allergy pills…I found out that evening they were the generic Benadryl pills. No wonder I dragged butt all day long. Met further to discuss Easter. Napped that evening and prepared for Chapel the next day.

Thursday – Led worship and spoke at The Dunham School’s chapel for the Middle School. Caught up with C.S. Lewis at Starbucks before lunch. Brought Cane’s for lunch with  my Middle Schoolers and then again with the High Schoolers. Prepped for worship practice and rehearsed for Sunday. Watching an intensely cheesy Sci-Fi movie: Dog Soldiers.

Friday – Painting the trim of the kitchen to continue remodeling began last Friday then hitting the backyard! Who knows, maybe that infamous video blog will get off the back burner and get started! Nana and Deekah are taking the lil one for me and Rae so we can have a ‘date night.’ Only problem is that we haven’t gotten our finances in order, so it looks like pizza and a rental and a night of simply relaxing. I’m not one for relaxing though so we’ll see how that goes over.

I should be back to my normal blogging self this weekend. Typically I think “we” seem to take off for the weekends. That’s usually family time (I know for me it is) but I’ll work on getting things caught up so you’ll have some things to catch up on Monday back at work! Thanks for hanging in here with me!

Privileged

So my youth group doesn’t look like your typical youth group. I’m working on building a high school program and right now we only have high school functions on Sunday afternoons at 4:30. I started with 3, dropped down to 1, and then this January got up to 2 kids coming. I now have 5 or 6 coming and only 2 actually come to our Church and our members of our congregation. (And actually only 1 of those kids actually comes regularly in the mornings.) The rest are friends that the 2 ‘members’ of our church are inviting to come!

I say that to say, my youth group doesn’t look like your typical youth group!

I was given an honor today. One of the kids (who belongs to my youth group but not our church) was asked to speak at Chapel for the High School class. See this High School is a private Christian academy and there is about 400+ kids that make up the entire High School. My freshman class was 900! My senior class was about 400 alone! This is quite a different environment for me! They gather together for Chapel 2x a week and sing and have a speaker. Wade was the speaker today, a 10th grader who’s charisma, humor, minute attention span, and dedication to what I’m trying to get going impresses me each week. He was invited by Billy, one of our regulars and has been coming ever since!

He gets up there and gives his life story. The pain of his childhood, his deadbeat parents, his loving grandparents, this war between wanting to live with his Father yet struggling because it’s an awful environment, and his miracle of making it back to Baton Rouge, at this school, and where he is today. How he turned to anger, depression, and finally the words of a close friend came back to haunt him, “Give it over to Jesus.” And so one night, talking to his dog Cosmo, he decided to do that. He got down and gave it over to Jesus. A month later, somehow he ended up back in his grandparent’s custody and here in Baton Rouge where he is now. He describes this as a miracle from God and an answer to his problems with his dad. He then challenged the entire High School class to give it to Jesus, we all have problems, big and small but give it to Jesus and he can bear that load with you. It rang through the auditorium like an anvil slamming down again and again: Give it to Jesus! Whatever you have: Give it to Jesus!

I was honored because when I showed up to see Wade and cheer him on, he greeted me and in his goofy, respectable way, told me that he had a chair next to him on the front row for me to sit in. It was a chair like the rest, but we sat together on the end of the row away from the other students during the music and announcements afterwards. I felt so privileged and honored by that. I felt so challenged by his talk. I am so thankful of God’s placement in these students’ lives and what they’re teaching ME! I never clapped harder than after his talk. It was awesome!

…

There are moments in your life that change you. Experiences in your life that echo deep down to your very core. Times when you’re astounded and wish to scream out affirmations because you can’t believe that someone so passionately and eloquently revealing the things of your soul.

I have a handful of these experiences already but Saturday night adds another one. One that will resonate with me for some time. I caught wind that Donald Miller was speaking at my old stomping grounds, University Baptist Church. If Donald Miller comes within a day’s drive of your home, GO SEE HIM. I can’t even begin to describe to you what this was like. And honestly, I don’t think I’m suppose to! He spoke 2x tonight and will be preaching tomorrow. I almost called in sick from serving at my church to go see him.

I missed his first discourse on culture but saw his second message on The Gospel Message. I’m still freaked out by this man. It was as if we were sitting down in the living room having this conversation of life, gospel, literature, and culture over coffee. The man is astonishing. He proceeded to tell us how the Bible isn’t a set of ideas. Ideas won’t ‘get you to Heaven.’ There aren’t bullet points within this book that give you the meaning of life. It’s a way of establishing a relationship with a group of person we refer to as God or the Trinity. In an hour and a half he precisely unpacked: the Trinity, the fall of man, our roles as Christians, the human need, and how Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet is a beautiful depiction of the gospel story! And that hour and a half included the worst leading of ‘Come Thou Fount’ I’ve ever heard to a group of college students and 2 unworthy questions to bring this intelligent discussion to a close!

So for now, I’m speechless. I took like 3 pages of notes and that’s because my jaw hung for about 30 minutes. It’s another idea I have for a video blog. All these ideas and nothing to show for it yet, I know makes you skeptical. I’ve talked my Mom into letting me borrow their camcorder so I’m working towards it!

Have you encountered anyone like this that has rocked your world?? Have you heard Don??

Thoughts from the Zoo

So today we took the kids (my in-laws came in today, Saturday, with our 4 year old niece) to the Baton Rouge Zoo. These are my thoughts after watching my Kiddo and my niece.

•  The Baton Rouge Zoo sucks
• An 18 month old doesn’t know a crappy zoo when she’s in one
• Aquariums with giant fish with thick class to band on is a child’s dream!
• Monkeys are wildly entertaining for kids of all ages
• Elephants and Rhinos scare the bejeezums out of lil kids!
• Rhino’s take dumps without warning
• A Rhino taking a dump that looks like it weighs 40 lbs makes a grown man gag!
• Apparently, a Tapir look a whole lot like our black lab Molly!
• Once a child believes she’s looking at her play friend Molly, even if it’s a huge pig like creature, she’ll call it her play friend Molly until you drag her away
• Snow cones are messier than you could imagine

It was an awesome time! Chloe chose to walk/run mostly instead of riding in her wagon. She was toast when we got home and went down so easy it was ridiculous! I’d have pics but we got there and realized the battery was dead in the camera. Probably from trying all these videos!

Anything BUT Typical!

OK so I promised the video recap from the concert…uh…night of insane worship, and it’s coming! Unfortunately, my camera takes wretched videos I found out. So the 1st 2 takes were completely unusable. (Anyone with a spare iBook with built in camera/video capability send it my way! HAHA) But 3rd times a charm and it’ll happen sometime tonight!

Until then, one of my favorite bands, hometown Louisiana heroes from the Dirty South, MuteMath put out my NEW favorite video just yesterday! Sorry Killers, you had a short run. I think that this will go down as one of the all time greatest videos! Fun, creative, hilarious, and to an amazing song!

May this satisfy your craving for the time being:

Oh crap, I gotta watch that again!

Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, & Uncle Louie!

Looks like we’re going to see them tonight! The past hour while awaiting the inspection of Rae’s car was spent getting info on some free tix available for the night of worship tonight, lining up a babysitter, confirming we could go, and getting super excited!

SO anticipate a great post tomorrow!

Read My Mind

I’m completely enamored by these guys. ‘Sam’s Town’ is such an incredible CD. Each single and video has canvased the band’s quirkiness and creativity musically as well as visually.

When You Were Young was raw and gritty.

Bones…utterly…yeah…just…uh…wow.

Read My Mind shows this distinctly human side to our boys the Killers. Check it out in case you happen to be living in a closet or Mom and Dad have MTV blocked at home

Thumbs UP/DOWN: 7th Day Slumber

7th Day Slumber: Finally Awake. I’m really hoping I can fairly assess the quality of this CD but I’m afraid I can’t. See 7th Day’s drummer used to drum at our church and though I’ve met Ray only a couple times, he has ties to many of the people I play with and we’ve run in the same circles. Actually, one of my very best friends (and drummer) bought Ray’s old DW kit and we use it on Sundays. So seeing a half page add for his band on the back of CCM and seeing a big write up review for them the week their new CD drops is very exciting!

Finally Awake is their sophomore release and does seem to highlight the band’s strong points: Joseph’s raspy and powerful voice, thick guitars in the vein of Pillar, story-telling lyrics, and a well produced CD. CCM compliments the band by saying this: “If you took 11 power ballads from the band Pillar, this is what it might sound like.” …I’m still puzzled as to the magnitude of that being a compliment but I suppose it works.

If this is what ‘power ballads’ are considered them I’m not sure CCM knows what a ballad is. I mean compare the first track ‘Awake’ to Pillar’s track ‘Awake’ off of “The Reckoning” and I think you might be confused on who’s the heavy hitter! I’m not confused and honestly, SDS’s music isn’t as thick as Pillar’s but I don’t think being a knock off Pillar is their intention. I’m pleased with the release, I did sense an all to familiar tone on the first listen through that scared me. I hope there’s enough change up to keep the CD fresh and interesting. I didn’t hear what I call ‘ballads’ like ‘Caroline’ and ‘Oceans from the Rain’ off their debut release. It seems they tried consistently making a step forward with this CD as far ‘rockin’ out. We’ll see how it pans out for them but I’m rooting for them all the way!

Passion Band: Celebrity Playlists. I usually don’t pay much attention to these but this is really interesting. I don’t know if it’s because I have such an interest in these people or because I rip off a ton of their music or if its simply interesting to see this family of musicians all lined up next to one another with their musical tastes for you to compare. It’s really hilarious going down the line and seeing the differences in the artists.

Obviously, Matt and Chris spend some time together, which is pretty funny seeing the similarities in their lists! From the conferences I go to, they’ve shared song writing stories together and they typically lead worship together. You’ve got Charlie’s a bit more diverse and quirky. Then there’s David’s who the typical listener is probably scratching his head going, ‘I can’t even pronounce some of these bands! Cigar who? The state of Idaho made a record? The moon is where?!?!’ You’ve gotta love that guy! (New CD in the works!)

Then there’s Uncle Louie, who, if I’m half as cool as that dude when I’m half his age I’ll be stoked beyond belief. Actually…I may be half his age? His list is great. And don’t even say things like, ‘Ah whatever he’s just trying to be cool and hip.’ If you really use the word ‘hip’ then you truly have no idea. This guy is the real deal. He’s just that cool!

So there you have it. Go check out the Christian & Gospel (gag me I hate that it’s called that) section of iTunes. You can’t miss the link to the iTunes Guide to the Passion Movement!

…just squeezed this one in didn’t I

5th Greatest Recording in Process

The best Xanga Site on the web: Emprise34’s!

Recording is underway for “O For A Thousand Tongue’s To Sing” and apparently a possible title, “Can You Feel It?” OH I CAN DAVID CROWDER! I CAN FEEL IT!! WOOHOO!

Jiggling has commenced boys! Remedy is coming!

oh…and my wife’s car accident has pushed my video blog back. I hope you understand