Awesome.

I'm excited for this movie. Just watching the trailer brought me back to my childhood. This wasn't my favorite book, but I loved it just the same.

When Fear Strikes...

This past Sunday was my first Sunday at my new church - Miamisburg Christian Church in...Miamisburg, OH. The day started off inauspiciously, practice went decently and despite my microphone not working during the first song of the first service, everything went pretty smoothly. At the end of the first service, someone came forward at the invitation and knelt down at the stage, which I thought was pretty cool, not seeing that happen in a long time (most of the churches I've been at don't really do "come forward during invitation time" parts of the service, and I don't think MCC does much of that as well, but there is always a decision song and stuff).

Then second service started and I broke a string during the second song - which prompted me to try and figure out a way to get a new guitar without any money - when this same person who came forward last service starts walking down the front aisle again. Not during the decision time, but during a song. And all of a sudden, memories of church shootings in Texas, Illinois, Colorado and Alabama start popping in my head. According to my wife, the shooter in Alabama came forward the week before he did the shootings, because he wanted to see how close he could get to the front. So unfortunately I'm thinking all of these things, and at the same time a couple of elders must be thinking the same thing, because they come up to this man as he's kneeling at the front to talk to him a little bit.

We found out that he's a cousin of someone who goes to the church, and he was just needing some prayer and wanted to come forward to kneel and sing, which is pretty neat and all, but it's really got me thinking about what I'm afraid of. As the economy goes down the toilet, and there are more bank robberies and thefts and such, churches are not immune to desperate people who are looking for money. MCC is in the process of putting together a safety and security plan so that we are prepared for what's coming down the pike. In this world, what's the fine line between trust and making sure that complete protection is in place? I don't know, but for one moment on Sunday, I think I crossed the line.

Awesome...

So I decided to upgrade my blogger account, and it deleted all of my sidebar stuff. All my links...gone. Why is it that in most cases when you "upgrade", you end up angry?

Phil Wickham

I think Phil Wickham has become my new favorite worship artist. To be honest, I had never heard of him until my friend Rochelle talked about him on her blog. And it still didn't motivate me to really listen to him until I went to the Christ in Youth Conference last summer, and the worship band did a song of Phil's called "Cannons." We started playing that song in our worship services at Life Church and it became an instant favorite.

The last few days, I've been playing Phil Wickham's CD "Singalong" constantly. I believe if you go to his website, you can still get it for free, which is awesome. The CD reminds me of what early Dashboard Confessional would have been like if Chris Carrabba was a worship artist or something. Passionate acoustic guitar playing, high male vocals, yep I think I got it pegged. Anyway, my favorites on this CD are:

Cannons (of course)
Beautiful
Jesus Lord of Heaven
Come Thou Fount

I am going to paint my new office this week, and I had an idea about what to do on the big wall. The whole office is going to be painted "Chipotle Red" (yes, the red paint you will see when you go into a Chipotle restaurant), and on that wall, I'm going to paint a blue "night sky" area with the moon and stars, and underneath will be the chorus for Cannons:

You are holy, great and mighty
The moon and the stars declare who You are
I'm so unworthy, but still You love me
Forever my heart will sing of how great You are

I'll post a picture when I'm done. If it looks good, of course. :^)