We are currently in the process of putting together a song for the California Missions Video, which highlights many of the mission opportunities here in the Golden State.  I’ve been asked to write a song for it and decided that it would be fun to put together this little video diary of how it all comes together.

 Part 1 is here, and this is part 2, which is Dana adding in drums.

Normally, Dana would be ripping away on the kit for all to see, but as his wrist is currently injured, it’s all computerised.  take a look.

Last week, the Huffman’s had their 2nd kid, Hailey.  Dustin is our pastor of children’s and family ministries and he and his wife Nichole have become friends of ours. 

On Saturday we visitied them and took some pics.

 Now, these are not pictures of Hailey, but rather of Nichole’s ginormously swollen feet (don’t worry, I got permission to post them here).

posted from iPhoneSlide.com

the blog might be a little quiet over the next two days as I’m heading out with most of our worship and arts team to take a solitude/songwriting retreat.  It’s going to be cold and rainy at the beach which is perfect wheather for me.

 I’ll try and update with pictures as we go, but who knows what internet is like.  huh, I’m getting away for two days, so maybe I shouldn’t blog…nah.

Daniel Rhoten is putting together a video for the Southern Baptist Convention that will go out to all the churches in the state.  The video is designed to highlight opportunities within California for missions.  As a part of this video, I’ve been asked to write a song.

 So over the next several weeks I’ll be recording a lot and last night was the first opportunity to do that. 

I went over to Dana’s and we worked out some structural parts of the song, and then recorded a “scratch” recording of vocals and acoustic guitar.  From here, I’ll give it to some of the peeps here to develop bass lines, drum parts, lead parts, keyboard parts and background vocals.  In May we’ll go into the studio and record the final product. 

It’s a fun process, collaborating with all of these talented people and it’s always fun to go over to Cool-mo-Dee’s place and laying stuff down.  Last night he shot some video and I thought I’d share it with you.

This is Frank.

Frank shreds the guitar. He’s like Shreddy Krueger (but in a good way).

Frank just played 4 weekends in a row; that’s four straight Thursdays, four straight Saturday nights and four straight Sunday mornings.

Frank is tired.

Frank is awesome.

We had a little gathering on Saturday for the Worship and Arts team here on Saturday that was a time of vision casting (or recasting as the case may be) and sharing about our trip to Africa this past January.  I gotta tell you, seeing the pictures and video, hearing the story of one of our team members got me thinking about what an amazing time we had.

I posted a video about the trip about a month ago that was designed to be a recap, but I remember on Saturday that aside from all of the “stuff” we did there, we also had a really fun time; many of those fun times were caught on video, so I thought I share with all of you.

Enjoy…

Carlos over at Ragamuffinsoul is getting the ball rolling on this thing called Creative Chaos.  He’s asked us to share some creative things that we’ve been doing.  Here’s my take.

I’m reaching back a little far, but last summer we did a six week series called, “Heroes.”  It was a series on the Holy Spirit, who He is and what He does, and we based it around the idea of the TV show; ordinary people with an extraordinary power inside them. 

Our Video/Dram director, Kevin wrote a 6 week miniseries where we were able to watch people grow and change as they embraced the Holy Spirit in their lives.  We built and entire city on stage and watched it change and become renewed over the course of the series and I wrote a song to end the series. 

The coolest thing about the series was that it was one of the times where our department got to completely work together.  Instead of bringing seperate elements, we all had to be on the same page and we all worked together to make this thing happen.  Actors, set designers, musicians and Dave and Kimberly MacNeill who did the preaching.  It was one of the toughest, and at the same time creatively fulfilling things we’ve done since I’ve been here.  

So on Arpil 6th, we had our first ever worship night here at Clovis Hills.  It was amazing!  All of us who were there were moved in a really special way by God.  We’re doing another one on Sunday night, June 22nd.  If you missed it, you will not want to miss the next one!

 Here’s a little sample of what went down.

Thanks to Deanna Pellerin for putting this together.

We start a new series this weekend called Simple, and preparing for it has been anything but.  Two of our drummers have gone down with injury, which means we’ve had to do some flip flopping, we’re down three guitar players due to vacation, job and/or family stuff and to top it all off, my voice is gone, which wouldn’t be a huge deal except that I’m singing a song this week that is incredibly high and currently, I can’t do it.

I’ve been taking some advice though from a book I’ve been reading, and trying to really focus in on what this song and this series are all about.  I think, in the end, the next few weeks are about saying that the filler in our lives; the stuff we run to or get involved in, good or bad, means nothing, unless Jesus is at the center of it.  The Christian life can get messy and hard to understand at times, and the truth of it is, that it’s not easy.  It is, however, Simple.

I’m looking forward to a chance to dive into the simple truth that Jesus loves me, and just asks that I love him in return.  Everything else, I think, will take care of itself.  It seems perfect, that the song I’m singing is called, “Meaningless.”  So pray for me, that my voice comes back and that rehearsal goes smoothly tonight, but more than that, pray that our church would be drawn closer to Jesus.