So last weekend we took a field trip to Guitar Center, y’know, for some, ummmm, research…

Yeah - research! We’ll go with that…

Anyhoo - they’ve got this room with these fancy-shmancy expensive guitars, and some vintage ones that cost 2 arms, 2 legs, and your next of kin.

So who’s actually going to buy these? No one, I bet. At least no one in their right mind…

But they’re still fun to look at.

Dude, that’s crazy.

I’m just trying to save up for a Taylor 110e ….

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So every once in a while Ben Crawshaw or Clay Scroggins over in Student Ministries ask me to do some music tracks for them. I do the music, they write a rap, and good times are had by all.

It’s usually a “sounds-like” or “inspired-by” type of project, and they’re a ton of fun to do, even if I end up doing it at Midnight with my gear spread out across my kitchen table…

So here’s a music video they made of one song recently for camp, featuring Ben and his buddy J-Mac. The theme of the camp was Vegas, hence the blackjack theme.

(Interesting… Maybe gambling with your future depending on the decisions you make? I don’t know, or ask. I just create the music, kids…)

Anyway, this track was inspired by a Flight of the Conchords track. Enjoy…

And put on some good headphones or turn up your subwoofer, ’cause here’s a link to the higher quality track, incase you’re interested. BUT NO STEALING!!!

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Today, July 1st, is Canada Day.

And so, I invite you to join me as I celebrate my home and native land’s birthday…

And to kick it off, here’s my dad’s original “Mr Fun” license plate, which now resides on the front of my car:

And now, an assortment of overused Canadian stereotypes…

(Sorry - how’d THAT get in there???????)

OK, there you go.

Now go have some Canadian Bacon - my treat….

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Man, what a fun weekend. Jennie and I love it when Michael and Ashley come and stay with us for a few days. Although I think Ella loves it the most! She can’t get enough of those two. We’re certainly gonna have a good time when we all get together with Mom and Dad next week on vacation in Florida. Can’t wait!

So this was a no-frills Sunday. No opener. No closer. No worries, man.

Instead, we got lots of extra time for worship, and we were able to take the crowds to some great, deep places of worship that we don’t often get a chance to do. There can be a lot of power in just an extra, freeing minute or two at the end of a set to say a few words about worship, and follow it up with a few tags of intimate, personal worship. I know that’s a bit of the old Charismatic in me poking through, but it sure beats being song-regurgitating robots…

We also had double Michaels, and both were great.

East - Michael Olson

West - Mike Gleason

BUT!!!!! The week was not without controversy!!!

We started Andy’s series “Letters to the Next President” this past Sunday, and had penciled in Chris Tomlin’s “God of This City” as a closer. However, Andy indicated that the song wasn’t related to where he was ending the message, Eddie and I opted to stick it into the worship set as the 3rd and final tune.

But, we honestly didn’t think it through. Taking it from a worshippy-performancey closer to a full blown worship tune - never having done the song here at all before - was not the right call.

On Tuesday, when I was really listening and learning the song, it felt weird to me for us to be doing it as a worship tune, especially in the 3rd slot. It was lacking that personal, vertical conversation between us as worshippers and our Savior. Normally that doesn’t bug me - we do lots of songs about God. It just felt awkward, especially since we had never done it before. (We like to put new “slow” songs in the #2 slot, so that folks can still worship with a familiar tune in the #3 slot.)

Then on Wednesday, Todd and I got to talking about it, and he had been feeling the same way. Then when Michael Olson arrived, and we got talking about it, he had the same issues. We called Eddie, who was away, and he shared that he’d been feeling the same things.

And so, on Wednesday, just a couple hours before everyone was slated to arrive for rehearsal, we called an audible.

It was a bit of a pain, and a few guys had to shelve what they had been learning and do some last minute woodshedding, but in the end it was very much worth it.

We replaced it with the Starfield tune “Son of God” which Todd covered on our Louder Than Creation CD. It seemed to be a tune that got lost in the sea of tunes that have come out of that project, but it’s a really great song - and a VERY powerful and personal “vertical” song of worship to our God.

Great, great tune. And a real chance to sing personally to our Savior, especially if you freely tag the Bridge and Chorus at the end…

So you can imagine how elated I was when our big boss Julie came up and told Todd, Michael and I that she was glad we switched tunes.

Sometimes you’ve just got to follow your gut.

WORSHIP:

God Is With Us by Michael Olson

Let Me Sing by Todd Fields

Son Of God by Starfield

It was fun doing these 3 together, since Todd, Michael and I all played on these songs on Louder Than Creation .

And now, everyone’s favorite feature: Candid Stage Shots (during the Welcome from the West Auditorium)…

Danny Grady

Michael Olson tuning…

(or staring at his shoes. I don’t know…)

Todd Fields on Rhythm electric/BGV, Wayne Viar on drums, Richard Meeder on bass, Andy on the screen…

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East Band - Michael Olson, Todd Fields, Danny Grady, Wayne Viar, Richard Meeder, Me

West Band - Mike Gleason, Danny Howes, Daryl Lecroy, Chris Arias, Guy Strauss, Earl South, Rachael Gillis

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POD X3 Live count: 4

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Did you personally worship YOUR God this week?

I did, and that makes a world of difference…

Young worship leader and faithful reader Cam from Auckland, New Zealand sent in a very thought provoking question:

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“Do you think it is ethically right to pay for worship?

I’m not talking about paying the musicians or the speaker, which are issues in themselves, but I’m talking about copyright. Obviously you dont need to play copyrighted music to create effective worship, but for practical purposes this is often the case. My problem is, as an outsider, I see CCLI as charging my church, and almost every other, to worship.

Shouldn’t bands creating popular worship music take out a creative commons licence, meaning we can play their songs in our church free of charge?

It just doesnt seem fair, the way it is right now. My background, uh, I’m 19, a new worship leader at a small church called hillside in Auckland, New Zealand.

Any opinions, information, details, ANYTHING is appreciated, I just want to know more about what I’m talking about.

Keen to hear from you,

Cam”

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Cam - thanks for the question!

At first, the answer seemed easy: It is important to pay if you use someone else’s intellectual property.

But then, as Eddie, Michael and I began to discuss it yesterday, some deeper points arose.

What, essentially, does copyright do? Yeah, there’s a ton of legal mumbo jumbo associated with that term, but I think it exists so that someone cannot earn money from someone else’s work. That’s stealing.

That’s why one pays to buy CD’s or downloads from iTunes. That’s why one obtains and secures mechanical licenses to rerecord a song to put on their own project. That’s why one obtains and secures a synch license to put the song on a video (yep, even a worship tune under a youth camp highlight video…).

I only took Copyright 101 in University, and that was more than a decade ago (and forgot most of it) but I do know that one of the primary issues for the existence of copyright is to protect the creator (or copyright owner) of the intellectual property.

Intellectual property is a funny thing. It’s something someone has created, but is not tangible. You wouldn’t steal a loaf of bread from the store, or even a created work like a piece of art. You also wouldn’t steal a CD from the store, nor should you share files (MP3’s, etc.) that are covered by copyright protection.

But what about the heart of your question - playing the song yourself (not the original recording) in a church setting, leading a congregation in worship. Why do you have to pay for that?

This brings up some strong questions:

“Doesn’t the writer want us to lead others in worship with their songs? Don’t they have a heart for the Kingdom? Why are they so greedy? I don’t feel right about paying TO worship…”

There are some deeper issues that will hopefully resolve these questions for you…

After being involved in the Christian music industry for the last decade, I believe with all my heart that paying for what we use, especially worship music, is integral for the health of the Christian creative community.

99% of the people that create the content we rely on for the health and furthering of our churches are not rich or greedy. They’re just trying to survive in this crazy world, yet still being faithful to the creative passions they have been entrusted with by God. They have kids, mortgages, bills, and life to deal with. Many of them rely on live gigs and bookings for their day-to-day livelihood, and pray for residual income to help carry them through the rest of life.

CCLI exists to help make sure that happens. So that churches can perform songs in a live environment, while still honoring the individuals who have used their long-developed skills and abilities to assist us in facilitating great worship through their songs.

Without their songs, the church as we know it would be up a creek without a paddle.

Truth is, CCLI is a brilliant, easy and effective way to distribute royalties to the copyright owners. CCLI charges fees based on the size of a church and global region, collects reports from all churches, and distributes those fees - now royalties - based on a song’s activity. The more popular a song, the higher a percentage of the collected fees it earns. Pretty simple. I’d really advise everyone to spend some time at www.CCLI.com . They’ve got a TON of great info there.

In conclusion, Cam, it’s not wrong for you to question this topic (or any, for that matter). You really make a great argument for “Why do we have to pay to worship”.

My answer is that it ultimately honors God by honoring those that created it, allowing them a realistic livelihood, and the furthering of creativity in the Christian community for the future.

But that’s just my first instinct - what do the rest of you think?

(PS - I just read this to Michael, and he dug it. He mentioned that what we need to do is get a few of us in a room and record our discussions on these type of topics. That’d be cool. Well, there’s always the future….)

…

Michael and Ashley (my sister) are in town this week. Michael’s leading worship on Sunday, and so he and Ashley came down for rehearsal last night and are hanging for the weekend.

So you get the four of us sitting in our microscopic living room late at night (WAY past our bedtime!) watching SNL reruns on the DVR, add in some of our favorite YouTube clips, Ashley’s under-baked ginger snaps, giant bars of dark chocolate, RM, Spicy Guacamole Pringles, and some long-day-delirium and you’ve got the recipe for a good time.

So check out a few of our new favorite funny YouTube clips:

Dramatic Hamster:

Dramatic Lemur:

Hitler sings “The Jeffersons” theme:

Kiss - A special, rare performance:

Les, at one of our international partner churches, is doing some hiring, and asked about job descriptions for Music staff.

You might be interested in my answer… (Or not - I don’t know!)

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Les,

Hope that helps!

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Saw this on a Middle School small group room.

You’ll only find this amusing if you’re a true classic rock fan…

Sure, the spelling’s off a tad, but it’s still funny…

And for those of you who don’t have a sweet clue as to what I’m talking about, here’s a cute pic of Cooper getting a bath at Yaya and Papa’s for your enjoyment…

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In our evaluation meeting this morning, we had a rare consensus:

Everyone thought that, even in its simplicity, that it was a great service - top to bottom.

That’s rare, considering the 10 strong opinions around the table.

We found this kind of odd, since this was essentially a “filler” service. It was a one-off by Andy before he starts his “Letters To The Next President” series next week. There weren’t any special elements. In fact - we were running so short that we were given the (wonderfully exciting!!!) task of picking a great, engaging opener - just for the heck of it!

Actually, this is a great chance to talk about the role of the elements of the service. The first thing we want to happen is to ENGAGE the audience. To grab their attention and set them up for the rest of the service. Sometimes that’s a great song performed very well, or just an effective, engaging communicator to welcome folks, give 2 or 3 key announcements, and set them up for worship.

OK kids, today’s word is ENGAGE. Can you say that with me? ENGAGE.

I knew you could

OPENER:

Stop and Stare by OneRepublic

Since we were short on time and didn’t want to reinvent the wheel, we chose a tune that Eddie (who was leading in East) had already done. It turned out that he’d done that tune last month at the ORANGE Conference - and with 4 of the 6 guys who were going to be on East! Sweet!

And Eddie and the boys did an amazing job. And I’m not just saying that. It was fantastic. Really proud of them on that one.

WORSHIP:

We chose to do worship a little different, starting out with a really familiar song that set up a worshipful attitude, then introduce a great new tune, and finish the set with a big song of celebration. So we did:

Holy Is The Lord

Hands of the Healer by Eddie Kirkland

- This is a great tune that the bands really dug and the crowds really seemed to latch on to. We edited the arrangement from the original to eliminate some of the instrumental parts in order to make it a little more corporate-worship-friendly. We’ll do it a few more times over the next month and continue the arrangement refinements, but it’ll definitely a new fave.

All Because Of Jesus by Fee

SPANISH:

This was also the 3rd and final week of our Spanish Service pilot services. It actually was pretty good, as the team has refined some of the different rehearsal and service elements.

We also welcomed Seth Condrey who lead the Spanish worship for us. Seth’s great, and actually even won a Dove award for his Spanish-language album. Very Cool!

Well, thar she blows. Now, some pictures…

Eddie and the East band being fed to the West:

East:

Julio Gonzalez doing the welcome for the Spanish service:

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East Band - Eddie Kirkland, Steve Thomason, Scott Meeder, Danny Grady, Pat Malone, Mike Bielenberg, Karyn List

West Band - Todd Fields, Seth Condrey, Joe Lee, Earl South, Trammell Starks, Mike Hines, Daryl Lecroy, Jennifer Young.

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What led YOU to worship this week?

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Yes, this is one of those “take this personality test - it’s cool!” applications on Facebook…

My buddy David “invited” me to do it ages ago and I had been putting it off.

But if you’re a musician, or think you are ( ), this one’s kind of fun….

It’s the “What Kind of Rock God Are You?” quiz.

Turns out it’s pretty accurate - here’s my result:

Yep - I’d say that’d be me. Strat or a Les Paul, Marshall Plexi stack…

Now all I have to do is learn more than my current 6 chords on the guitar…