I’m lacking

was the reason I couldn’t get a new App from the App Store  

was after I thought I truly did purge a ton of stuff! I guess my iPhone and I have a difference in opinion of what ‘a ton’ is. 

So, purge #2 is happening tonight.

Youth Building PA Help

We’re building a new space for the youth next year and I have the incredible task of proposing a budget for acquiring a PA/lights/computer etc. Any and all help needed and appreciated. 

I’ll try to upload a pic but here’s the dimensions: 

32×44′ rectangle room

10′ ceilings

14×8 or 10′ stage at one end of the room looking down longways  

Youth building so the music that we do is David Crowder*Band, United, Fee, etc. I like to rock it However, I’m not beyond the acoustic worship either. 

I’m trying to get creative with the elements of the room to help the acoustics and still keep the cost down. 

What do you think? Suggestions? Advice?

Monday Music Madness!

I found a new way to post while I’m on my Holy Hangover from Sunday’s activities!

We caught VH1’s Top 20 Countdown and I was appalled by how much I was out of the loop, so if you’re like me then voila:

Chloe LOVED this song/video. We danced to it several times over the weekend and I immediately went and pre-ordered it on iTunes when I saw it came with a few bonus songs AND the video! WOOHOO!

Sorry for some reason this video won’t show. But click on it and it’ll take you to YouTube to watch it there. 

Looks like this CD is getting back into my constant rotation on my iPhone! I forgot how great this tune was!!

I absolutely LOVE Jason Wade, his song writing, and the band is KILLER live…however this video was such a letdown. It’s done well and all but it just doesn’t live up to the weight of the actual song. And…the band should stick to singing rather than acting

Sorry for some reason this video won’t show. But click on it and it’ll take you to YouTube to watch it there. 

Videos embed by The Killers: Human, Alter Bridge: Watch Over You, and Lifehouse: Broken. Enjoy.

Family Feast & Field Day Funness!

Today! @2:30! Our church gathers to celebrate Thanksgiving and the aspect of Community here at River Community Church. So, don’t miss out: 

• 2:30- Registration & Gathering games: seed spitting contest, bologna face, pumpkin hoop toss, etc.
• 3:00- Festivities begin! 4 teams wild wildly colorful names go toe to toe with our field day events.
• 4:00- Golden Turkey Leg awarded
• 4:15- Dinner begins
• 4:30- Pie eating contest where I will demolish you!
• 5:00- Dinner wraps up
• 5:15- Slatton farewell service

See you this afternoon!

FRAME TOBY!

FLENDEERRSON!!

Pam and Toby are back in the Office people! Oh man. This was just preparing me for a wonderful family gathering around Thanksgiving full of awkward fun and caprese salad! There were so many laugh out loud moments and awkward tensions…here we go: 

Recap:

Please dear Lord, may this finally be the end of Ryan and Kell…ugh…I just threw up in my mouth…

Pam’s back and is disgusted with the state of the microwave. She leaves a note which is to some (not Angela of course) more obnoxious that the state of the microwave! “Sincerely, Disappointed” was priceless. I thought this was a riot because I remember those microwaves at my old office in the Bank. All it takes is a few guys + a little time = disgustomatic! I feel her pain. And given the reality of it…you NEVER find the culprit because it’s the entire office adding to it until that one fateful Hotpocket goes kablooie and by that time it doesn’t even feel like your fault…I mean their fault  

You have Jim buying his parents house for a surprise for Pam. If there’s anything I love about this show it’s the little snapshot of the initial stages of love they help us relive. I thought this was beautiful and completely awkward for JAM. Jim making an impulsive buy. Jim unsure whether his impulsive buy would woo Pam. Pam unsure about the whole thing at first. 

The Piece De Resistance….the return of Toby Flenderson! Michael’s arch nemesis and Satan incarnate. I still remember this line when Michael was trying to explain his feeling of Toby leaving: 
If the Devil were to explode and evil were gone forever what kind of party would you have? 

So now the Devil’s back and to add insult to injury, replacing Holly. Michael’s reaction was childlike, over the top, and ridiculous but that’s Michael. What I couldn’t get over was that an entire week had gone by without Michael knowing it. UNLESS, it was the week Michael was in Canada. Otherwise, that’s just silly. 

Thoughts and Quotes:

…NOOO GOD! NO GOD PLEASE NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOO – Michael

I have cause… it is because I hate him! – Michael

Mr. Kurt Russell you are about to be served. – Michael

That is like tryiing to be friends with an evil snail! I feel like I’m dying inside. I feel like Neve Cambell in Scream 2. – Michael

Reach your arms out. – Pam
Swing and a miss! – Jim

Son of a b!#ch! – I swear Michael says it and it made me laugh out loud  

Seems awfully mean, but sometimes the ends justify the mean. – Michael

Welcome back Jerky Jerk Face. – Michael

With that last line, and our 2 man Talking Head, it looks like we’ve solidified the return of Toby. Michael took the entire episode to ‘throw his temper tantrum’ but his final submission and welcome of Toby signifies him accepting Toby’s return. It’s disappointing to me because I LOVED HOLLY. But I don’t write the show, I just critique it. What’d you think?

PostSecret, a Secret No Longer!

I’m still just a bit dizzy from attending LSU’s sold out PostSecret event! If I can be honest here, which…isn’t that the whole point? I really went to see what the big fuss was all about! I’d been hearing/seeing glimpses of PostSecret here: 

and various places online and even modified for different church events I’d heard about and seen online. It wasn’t until walking through the art exhibit at LSU’s Union that I thought I just HAD to attend this event! It sounds tremendously silly trying to explain how reading a bunch of strangers’ secrets that they’ve written down on postcards truly is moving…but it is! Then tonight with Frank Warren walking us through the experience and what this movement has become was just wild! 

Unfortunately, I’ve had to take some pretty powerful medicine that is attempting to knock me out so I will give you my notes from tonight’s event: 

• This was the Largest Event put on by the blah blah blah at LSU! Yeah it was sold out! There were like 1,000 of us there in the Cox building!
• PostSecret has been a tremendous supporter of the National Suicide Hotline.
• When All American Rejects approached Frank, they offered him $1k to showcase the postcard secrets for their video ‘Dirty Little Secret.’ Frank turned them down but countered that it’d cost them $2k but to make the check out to the National Suicide Hotline. 
• “Suicide” is America’s secret. 
• It seemed like Frank gets “church” better than some churches! He’s found that it appears people are simply seeking “grace and authenticity” through the telling of their stories! That he seeks to create a “safe, nonjudgemental place where people feel safe sharing their hopes and dreams and where they can connect with other people.” AMEN BROTHER! 
• He receives over 1,000 secrets a week. All sent to his physical, home address. All opened and read by him. 
• The amount of times he kept skirting the Gospel was crazy. 

The Q&A was extremely beneficial as well. More on that and coherent thoughts tomorrow! 

Go check out PostSecret and find out what the secrets all about

Desired Destinations

We had a great little exercise Sunday afternoon at Youth that I’d thought I’d share with you. It was the culmination of our series called Road Signs where we discussed a simple principle: The Path Principle. Briefly, it means that our direction determines our destination. I’m finding Youth ministry is some of the most interesting work I’ve ever done.

This is a mixed sample from Middle and High schoolers:

Question: My Desired Destination with God and the choices to put me on the right path: 

• Heaven – believe in my heart and confess with my mouth
• To be a woman after God’s own heart – put aside the wants & desires of my selfishness
• Heaven – go to church and don’t sit
• Heaven – not doing drugs or having sex before marriage. Obeying the 10 Commandments
• Heaven – pray to God, read the Bible, and go to Church
• Heaven – not sinning
• Heaven – obey His commands and read the Bible

Q: My Desired Destination with my friends: 

• have Godly friends – stay within a youth group
• lifelong relationships – don’t talk about them behind their back and keep in touch with them
• to have alot of them – be a friend of God like being nice to one another and if they don’t know about God, teach them
• make friends here – try talking to other girls
• more friends – live above the influence and be kind to others
• more friends – don’t smoke pot and be kind to others
• be more comfortable around them – trust them more
• to have a community Christ would approve of – seek the Lord as to His direction to whom I should spend my time and share my heart with
• to have good ones – choose friends that will have a good influence on me

Q: My Desired Destination with my parents and siblings: 

• to be respected – practice good things
• to love and be loved – listen to and obey the rules of my parents and respect them at all times. Go above and beyond helping out
• have a stronger relationship – obey them, do chores, and don’t argue with them
• being respected – listen to what they say and show them respect (there were actually several of these.)

So, it seems I have some work cut out for me with some of these students  
Overall, however I was really pleased with the outcome and the time the students took with it!

Aim Lower, Think Smaller, Give Up, and Go Have a Cup of Coffee

I thought this was great. The last part seems a little silly but given our cultural climate, right on!

Anyone up for a cup of coffee? First one’s on me!

PostSecret this Thursday

There’s this ridiculously powerful movement that started called PostSecret by Frank Warren. The concept is simple:

1. Get a post card
2. Tell your secret
3. Mail it in

It was birthed from a dream Frank Warren had in his hotel room in France and has had an impact  as far reaching as well. There are now 4 books that include the various post cards Fred has received and he visits college campuses all across the US holding art exhibitions and speaking engagements.

This week he is at LSU’s campus here in Baton Rouge, LA. I visited the art exhibit last week with a friend of mine and was leveled by the weight in the room. Maybe a hundred or so postcards around the room revealing secrets from a broken son, from a hurt wife, a celebrating daughter, a humble executive, a hateful student, on and on and on around the room. I’m not sure exactly what the appeal is but I was struck by the humanity of it all. The full range of emotions is almost overwhelming. Fair warning: there is no censorship. This is free speech at it’s core I suppose. I don’t know the condition of Fred’s heart or whether or not he’s even a believer. I do know that he offers Wellness Resources since many of the secrets he receives deal with abuse or suicidal thoughts and such.

I’m interested in going this Thursday night to hear him speak. Any other locals in the area want to come? The Facebook page is found here.

All you out of towners feel free to check out his blog

and

Sunday Setlist Nov. 16th – Youth Style!

Tonight we had another Youth worship service and it was wicked sweetness!!! Here we go: 

• Tell the World – Hillsong United
• We Won’t Be Quiet – David Crowder*Band
• Never Let Go – Crowder
• activity to wrap up our Road Signs series
• Marvelous Light – Charlie Hall
• How He Loves – John Mark McMillan

Today was just super special in so many ways but for the purpose of this post, I’ll restrict it to these songs  

I’m beginning to think that not all Youth led worship services require the most boisterous and wild and crazy songs there are. I’m finding we have as much, probably more, on the mid to low tempo songs. I think it’s because we’re in the adult sanctuary and it kind of gobbles us up and it just seems silly to go bananas in there…or I just don’t have alot of wild and crazy students…but I find that hard to believe. 

The special songs of the night were the last 3. 
It was our first time playing Crowder’s Never Let Go but after I intro-ed it, I heard a student go, “HEY! They play this song on KLove!” It was pretty funny. This is a special song for me and most of us here. I heard Crowder wrote this in response to Hurricane Katrina. Well that’s a subject near and dear to our hearts here in Louisiana and I’ve been dying to play this tune. I gave it the feel off the live Remedy Club Tour CD, but picked it on the guitar rather than on the piano.

I’m SO GLAD I don’t play Marvelous Light for the adults and that I do have some semblance of crazy students. They love ‘lifting their hands and spinning around!’ It’s my most favorite thing to do! However, note to anyone leading this song on guitar and spinning around in the process: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS pay attention to where your guitar cable is. Otherwise you come dangerously close to ripping your guitar off your shoulder or wrenching the cable right out of the guitar  

How He Loves…So much to say about this song that I’m leaving it for another post. It’s beautiful, it fit my ‘hurricane theme’ for the night! HAHAHA. And the students responded. I blew out my voice on “When I think about the waaaaay!” going into the last Chorus but I did NOT CARE! It was crazy awesome. 

I absolutely love doing worship with students. It’s much more raw and it’s so cool to see students trying to figure out how to worship! However, I did realize that I need to approach this with as much diligence as our morning adult services. We’re doing some pretty complicated stuff and I’ve taken for granted the quality of musicianship from my few “adult” musicians that step in. My goal has been a way to engage the students IN and WITH worship. And I’m resting on the crutches of some of the adults for the sake of busyness and laziness on my part. I need to remedy that for next time. 

How was yours? 

Fred’s carnival is already underway! Get involved!