My Worship Revolution

So today is a day of catching up and updates.  The first update…Ragamuffin Top weight loss challenge.

I know it’s supposed to be on Saturday.
I did record this on Saturday though.
And yeah, week 3 is now the lost episode.
Better late than never. Record up till now:

Weigh in: 171.6
Week 1:  168.4
Week 2:  169.8
Week 3:  169.4
Week 4:  …

Wrong direction.
Back on track next week…I hope!
That Triathlon is creepin up quickly!!

If you haven’t been following along, Royal Family Kids Camp is a national camp for abused and neglected kids in the foster care system.  Our church hosts the Monterey Bay camp.  So I’ll finish the RFKC stories with this one.

An organization called Soles for Souls offered to provide 2 pairs of shoes for every camper.  Pretty awesome!  Unfortunately though, through a series of events, we ran out and 9 kids were left without shoes.  Chris, the camp director, was not OK with this and started calling around to find a local shoes store that might be willing to donate some shoes.

Aptos Shoes and Apparel stepped up big time!  Thank you to them so much!!  Chris talked to them at 3pm and someone was driving away from their store with shoes at 6:30.  That’s unheard of!

Chris of course went around to get sizes from the kids who didn’t get shoes.  He asked one boy his size, and he didn’t know.  He was wearing sandals, so Chris asked him if he knew what size his other shoes were.  He said he thought a 3.  Chris looked at his feet, and they sure didn’t look like 3’s.  After comparing the foot with another kid’s, he ended up getting 7’s and they fit great!

As he was giving him the shoes, Chris asked if he could see his old shoes.  Sure enough, they were a size 3!  Who knows how long he had been walking around in shoes 4 sizes too small!  The picture is a shot of him in his new shoes.

To end on a somewhat funny note, his counselor shared at our “Welcome Home Dinner” for staff that the kid was convinced that his feet had actually grown four sizes overnight.

This past Sunday we opened up Craig Groeschel’s One Prayer message, Make Us One, by playing One by U2.  There is a pretty cool music video for it which they also played during concerts.

So I downloaded the video to play while we did the song.  Some of the lyrics match up pretty nicely with the video, so I created a click track to go with it.  It was the first time we’ve ever done any sort of click track, and Dave Clarke did an awesome job playing with it.

To make the click track, I first downloaded the video from YouTube.  I exported it as an audio file and dropped it into Soundtrack Pro.
They have a woodblock loop that works well for a click track.  It hits on 1 and 3, so the key is to find the right tempo, then double it to get all four beats.  Change the tempo of the project and it will change the loop, but keep the song the same.
Funny thing about One is I had a lot of trouble figuring out where it was at, and couldn’t figure it out.  For one thing, I’m not sure it stays consistent the whole time, but it was somewhere around 90.  So I doubled it, and I’m pretty sure it’s 90.5 cause it worked REALLY close at 181.
I then added 8 counts lead in, and put a beep on the 1, the 5, and the 1 so we’d know right where to start it.

It worked out really well and it was a blast to play a U2 tune at Church!
I’ve embedded a YouTube view of the click track.  If anyone wants the higher res version to use, let me know and I’ll hook you up to save you the work!

Here’s the video with music.

This post has been part of Creative Chaos.  Go by Los’ blog and get all sorts of great creative ideas for ministry!

2pm-4pm.
That’s now.
Come see Delirious live at my Mogulus page.
Let’s worship!

*UPDATE – Delirious? is looping along with Brenton Brown now.  Enjoy!

On the last day of Royal Family Kids Camp, I was getting things
ready for the final object lesson and Bible story at the amphitheater. 
I was walking by the basketball when one of the kids started to talk to
me.  He went on to say he didn't want to go home, and I knew it was
time to stop and sit down.

He told me that in the past year he
had moved five times.  Every time he loses all of his friends, and it
feels like that is just happening all over again this week.  He said
he's moved about five times every year.
My heart sank.
He didn't
think he could come next year cause he wouldn't be in the foster care
system anymore.  I understand it takes awhile to get out even if you're
adopted or return home, so we still might see him.

He shared a
few other things too.  But that was the stuff that really got me.  The
idea of uprooting and leaving all the friends and family you know every
2-3 months.  It really is painful.  It really does affect them.  And
this situation isn't uncommon.

It's hard to know what to say to
that.  He admitted that he was glad that he came.  But that gives you a
little glimpse into the heart of a ten year old little foster boy.

Could it be?
Here's how we started the day here on Tuesday.

It started with this great "Behind the Music" video:

Soon after, this is what ensued:

Comeback tour?
Who's in?

There have been some great times of worship at the Purpose Driven Worship Conference.
And in many of those worship times, my mind keeps coming back to the same thought.
Several times I have found myself moved to tears as I think about Caleb. And about our unborn child.
As I think about Ryan and Noah.
As I think about Zach and Zoey.
I think about the day that I could see them choose to worship Jesus with this passion and excitement.
And then I start praying for them.

I thought of this picture of Caleb and Ryan with their arms up playing.
I look forward to the picture of them older, side by side, with their arms up worshiping their maker together.

Jesus, I lift up the next generation of our family to you.
Please make them worshipers.  Passionate, world changing worshipers.
Prepare them to surrender every day of their lives in worship to You.
Help us as parents, aunts, and uncles to love them and teach them how to worship.
Thank you in advance for the day I get to lead worship alongside Caleb.
In Jesus name,
AMEN!

Sitting in “Leading Your Team Through Social Media” breakout right now.  I’d tell you who’s leading it, but you probably already know, and if you don’t it will give away an answer.

I was hanging out at Saddleback between sessions and noticed that the group I was hanging with contained several bloggers.  So, just for fun for you blog addicts, I wanna see if anyone can name all 5 bloggers in this picture.  I thought about offering a prize, but I can’t think of anything good.  Maybe I’ll send you a CD with chord charts we got.

Anyone?

At Royal Family Kids Camp, I had the honor of sharing with the kids and leading our campfire time on our last day.  It is a time if sharing our favorite memories, then talking to the kids about hurts, pains, and disappointment.  They each get a piece of wood and are invited to bring it down to the fire and throw it in when they were ready as a sign of trusting their hurts to God.  During this time we play a song they know, "Lay It Down", by Jana Alayra, on the guitar.  It's a profound night for these kids, and the emotion that night is pretty intense.

I gave a short talk to set up the time of giving our hurts up to God.  We talked about going back home to the lives that were down the mountain, staff and campers alike.  As part of that, I shared some of my own story with them.  I started by telling them about my parents being divorced when I was two years old.  What I wasn't expecting was a response.  When I shared that, a voice came from the crowd that said,

"Mine too!"

Following that, there must have been 15-20 kids who raised hands and shouted that out as well.  It kinda blew me away.  I stopped for a minute and looked to the right where I caught Chris's eyes while I composed myself quickly before moving on.

All these kids sitting here from broken homes.  In reality I was pretty lucky with parts of my story.  Already many of these kids have lived through things more horrific than I can imagine, or want to.  It reinforced in me a passion to see healthy marriages in our communities to keep these situations from happening over and over again.

*Bonus Story: To lighten the mood a bit, we had lots of great songs to sing at camp.  I had a good time belting them out at random times in the not-so-prettiest of voices.  One time a kid shouted out, "Don't quit your day job!"  To which I then replied, "Actually…that is my day job."

Guess I might need to be job hunting soon!

I was gonna drop in some music.
I was gonna edit it a little bit.
I don't have time this week.
So nothing fancy.  Here it is.

I do think that is the last time I film from the side.
My nose looks freaking huge!

How was Sunday for you?