Quick update and Windy Gap 09

Last week we were booked to be the worship band up at Windy Gap, near Asheville, NC,  for two Christian Middle Schools.What a great time of worship that was.

Impressions of Five Stones Church “soft launch”

So yesterday we had a “Soft launch” or dress rehearsal, basically it was a pretend this is the real thing type of day and we invited some families from Carmel to come to the service as our guinea pigs.

I was amazed at how things went, of course there were things that need to be tweaked but overall the day was excellent. Set up happened in a reasonable time, sound check went well and Greg’s message was great. Dress rehearsal or not God moved and that is what matters!

We had a great turnout from volunteers…

Getting closer

Well, we have about 24 days until the official launch of Five Stones Church and I put a countdown on the website so we can count down together! Last Sunday was the first attempt at training and setting up with the volunteers and to our happy surprise it took about an hour and a half which for the first time we thought was a great start.

Five Stones Church Training

Tonight begins the new journey of Five Stones Church for us, it is the first volunteer training night. Tonight’s focus will be on Preschool, Children, and Student teams to go through format and curriculum, not to mention show people around since most have not been to Cuthbertson Middle School in Waxhaw where our new church home will be.

Aside from that myself and a few others are going through set up of all the audio and video equipment and lighting. This will allow us to label things and work out some kinks before we train the set up team on Sunday morning. It will be a busy but fun night!

Unleash 2010 has been announced!

If you are not familiar with Unleash it is a church leader conference down at Newspring church in Anderson, SC. Newspring Church in Anderson, SC for those of you that just said “Where?!” It is one of the fastest growing churches in the country w/ average weekly attendance of about 10,000 in Anderson, a suburb of Greenville, SC and about 2.5 hrs from Charlotte. Why should you care?

The Sky is falling!

Or so it would have seemed yesterday. So Twitter went down for a few hours yesterday,  and is still in some recovery mode I think. Facebook had some issues also. How did you handle it? Where were you? Did a “social network” outage make you less social? Really?

Easier to steer a speed boat than a battleship

Ever heard that? The first time I heard it was in regard to a worship band. I was at a band practice when a new worship leader was brought on (he is since long gone) He discussed how less, very often is more. That you can, especially while in the midst of playing, make changes if needed on the fly when you have a good small tight band. I happen to agree 100%, I always prefer a small band very few ( if any) back up singers I just think it makes it much easier to sound tight.

Now take that thought and move it over to a business or better yet a church…

Bass playing- the start and finish to a season of life

When we first joined Carmel it was when it sat on Carmel Rd. in Charlotte back in late 95′, we actually went to Country Day School across the street for the contemporary service called Sunday Celebration. Wanting to get involved I asked if they wanted an electric guitar player for the band, they said no they did not think they were ready for that (how far we have come!) but their bass player was moving and they asked if I could play bass. I said yes, (one of my best friends was a bass player and taught me some things) I just did not have a bass. They did have one for me to use and so I did, and it was critical in my growth, here is why…

Great post by Perry Noble, go check it out

Sometimes in reading other blogs things jump out as me as encouraging or thought provoking or even just funny. Well, Perry Noble of NewSpring Church posted a great read  5 questions we should ask ourselves as he talked to some newly ordained men at the church. Go check it out, if you are unfamiliar with Perry he is a character but definitely a Spirit filled character.

All messed up @ Five Stones

My original title was “Welcome to Five Stones Church, we are all screwed up, make yourself comfortable.” I probably should have stuck with it but did not want to cause any unnecessary ruffled feathers. (there will be plenty of opportunity for that.)

As a musician in a band, no matter what instrument you play (happens to be guitar for me), you learn with experience how to cover up mistakes. That partially depends on how big of a mistake, but you learn. Typically the average person will not even notice, if you are good enough you may even get past other musicians. I have come to believe even non musicians learn that “trick” with experience in many parts of our lives.