This is a song I wrote back in 2002. Read the story behind it here. This song is on the Strings EP.

Lyrics:

Fill me when I’m lonely
Fill me this I pray
Fill me when I’m lonely
Fill me today

I need your love
And I need your presence
I need you here to carry me through
I need your love
And I need your presence
It’s all I want todo

Hear me when I’m crying
Hear me this I pray
Hear me when I’m crying
Hear me today

Draw me closer to you
Draw me closer to you
Draw me closer to you
It’s all I want to do

Classic song by the Bee Gees. Also covered by Damien Rice, Ray LaMontagne, Michael Bolton, and a lot of other people.

Lyrics:

I can be bought
Persuaded and sold
With fancy pictures and marketing you can steal my soul

Greed is my god
Jealousy my lord
There is always bigger, always better, always more

My society – lies to me – tells me things and I believe
My heart it longs – and all it wants – is something that will make me complete

Look at all my things
And count all my gold
Dig a hole you can’t fill and then ask for more

Sell me your dreams
Sell me your hopes
Just make sure you tell me that it’s nothing at all

You can’t buy me – I’m not for sale – I’m not for sale
You can’t buy me – I’m not for sale – I’m not for sale
You can’t buy me – I’m not for sale – I’m not for sale…

Get the story behind this song here. Written in April 2010.

Lyrics:

In all the dark places that I can’t deny
And all the empty spaces that fill my life
In this life I’m faced with all the mistakes that I’ve made
And all the words I could say are not enough to repay

I just want to thank you
For the life you saved
And I want to tell you
That you made me the man I am today

In tomorrow lies the hope that you gave to me
With the power of our savior you set me free
Through my hardest times you never left my side
And through all my darkest nights you were always by my side

In all the dark places that I can’t deny
And all the empty spaces that fill my life

Simple little arrangement of this song with some strings and piano. Hope you like it!

“Thank You” is on the 13 Miles album.

Awakening is the title track from the Awakening album by Passion. Great song! That bridge is hard to sing – maybe I need to take it down a step.

Lyrics:

Isn’t she wonderful – Isn’t he wonderful
Aren’t they wonderful together
I’ve just got to find out what this life is all about
Before you’ll find me there

Can you look in my eyes and tell me that you think that it will be all right?

I feel wonderful but I just can’t help but notice
That it’s never enough
You go on without a doubt, you never stop to find out
All we’re missing is love

Isn’t she beautiful – Isn’t he beautiful
Aren’t the beautiful together
I’ve just got to find out what this life is all about
Before you’ll find me there

“Isn’t She Wonderful” is on the 13 Miles album. Written in 2002.

• Israel is being oppressed by the Midianites – life is not good at all.
• Gideon is hiding out in a hole. This is how bad things are.
• God approaches Gideon and informs Gideon that he is in fact a “Great Warrior”
• Gideon informs God that he must have him confused with somebody else.
• God instructs Gideon to put together an army.

So the army that Gideon gathers is about 300,000 – give or take. The Midianite army is too numerous to count. In fact, their camels are even too numerous to count. God then decides that 300K is too many soldiers, so he instructs Gideon to send people away if they are afraid. 200,000 leave. God then decides that 100,000 is too many, so he sifts them down to an army of 300 people. Against an enemy that is too numerous to count. The story ends with the Midianite army being slaughtered.

The moral of the story was that we are like Gideon. Gideon was, according to his own assessment, weak and not very useful. God had different plans for him. Gideon was afraid, and he was facing some pretty bleak odds. God still used him to do a really amazing thing. We are the same. As individuals, and as a church. At River Oaks, we are a small church, but we believe God will use us in a mighty way in our city and in our world. Thanks, Pastor Bill, for reminding us!

Set list/service flow:

• Forever (Chris Tomlin) – this is a favorite of ours.
• Break – welcome/announcements/birthdays/anniversaries
• Everything Glorious (David Crowder Band) – love this song, and I get to play a cool little acoustic riff on the guitar.
• Grace Like Rain (Todd Agnew) – another favorite
• Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) (Chris Tomlin) – I really enjoy leading this song. Mike and Jenny do an awesome job on the keyboards, and I don’t play much – I just get to sing it out. Bill came and led us in a time of reflecting on the words of the song at the end.
• Message
• Amazing Love (You Are My King) (Billy Foote) – Bill concluded the message with a time of prayer, and we played this song during this time. It was a very worshipful moment, as members of the congregation were on their knees in prayer. To conclude the song, we sang the tag “You are my king” line over and over.

The band was Mike and Jenny on keys, Angel on vocals, I sang and played acoustic guitar. Jim was running sound. As usual, they did an awesome job.

I am the worship leader at River Oaks Community Church in Raleigh, NC. Listen to this Sunday’s message here.

My 30th year was an eventful one. In August of 2009, my wife and I packed up our home in Oklahoma City and moved to North Carolina. She had graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a Ph.D. in Microbiology, and she accepted a position as a Post-Doc at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. We moved to Durham. South Durham, actually, which looks and feels nothing like the rest of Durham. If you’re from around here you know what I’m talking about. I was working as a Youth Pastor in Oklahoma, and I was pretty sad to leave. But, I love my wife more than I loved my job, so I came along.

For several months I didn’t have a job. I tried to find work in the months before we moved, but the job market a year ago was not exactly the best it’s ever been. I was able to find work teaching test prep for the SAT – a job that I’d had years ago in Oklahoma. I also got a part-time job at the mall working at Express. I folded a lot of clothes. Bought a lot of clothes, too. Eventually I found a church that was looking for a worship leader. We met. They offered me the job. I accepted. We make sweet worship music now. It’s been an awesome experience. The church is young (church plant), and I’d never been involved in a church plant before. Note: Make sure you feel called to be involved in a church plant before you get involved in a church plant. The worship job is part-time, and luckily I was able to secure a great full-time job working as a Research Associate. I quit my job at the mall. Our company does science and math educational research (I was a science major in college). It’s challenging and rewarding work.

I haven’t been home (to Oklahoma) in over a year, and I miss it. I talked to my Mom for a while on the phone the other day, and I think maybe for the first time I realized how far away from home I really am. I’ve never lived this far from where I grew up, and where most of my family lives. We’re going back to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, and I’m really looking forward to it.

About two months ago (June 24), my wife Angela and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. There was not much fanfare. It fell on a Thursday, so we didn’t do anything exciting. Angela was out of town for work that weekend, so we didn’t do anything exciting then, either. It doesn’t matter, I’m still pretty stoked that she thought it would be a good idea to marry me. I married up, by the way.

I think I’m going to celebrate my birthday by doing something I’ve wanted to do for years now: join a Crossfit gym. Even if it’s only a month long membership. There is something about working out with like-minded people toward a similar goal that is inspiring. I can’t wait to work out there – I’m going to participate in the free workout tomorrow – they do one every Saturday. If I like it, I think I’ll sign a one month contract.

So, to recap, here are a few things I’ve learned that I think are important:

• Your job does not define who you are. I have two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree. In the last year, I worked for a while folding clothes for minimum wage. Many people find fulfillment in their work, and that’s fine, but what you do does not define who you are. At all. Whatever it is you do, do it to the best of your ability, and take pride in it. But, worry more about relationships than the work you do, because relationships are so much more important.
• When you make important life decisions, check your priorities. I really loved my job in Oklahoma. I really, really love my wife. I didn’t want to leave my job, but I did. This is a simple example that exemplifies a very profound truth. How many stories have you heard of people that come to the end of their life and wish they had lived it differently. Don’t be one of those people.
• Do what you are passionate about. I was a Chemistry and Biology major in college. I worked for a while in biomedical research, but I realized that I was really passionate about ministry and music. I left the research field and took a job as a youth pastor, and when I moved I found a job as a worship leader. Could I make more money in research? Yeah. Would I be as happy? Doubt it. Happiness trumps money.
• Find and become a part of a community. I said it before, and I’ll say at again – relationships are really one of the most important things in life. Find a group of people that will love and support you, and then love and support them back. Be totally self-less. I choose to do this in the community of the local church. I’m also seeking to find this type of community in the realm of fitness. This single truth will bring you more joy and fulfillment in life than probably anything else.

Here at Brian Wahl Band, one might assume that everything will be about music, but the blog is more about faith and other stuff. I guess this blog is about the things that I am passionate about – music, faith, tech and gadgets, etc.

These days there are way too many ways to put information out there . I’ve decided to categorize blogging into three things:

1. Micro-blogging
2. Mini-blogging
3. Blogging

Micro Blogging:

This would be Twitter. One might consider Facebook a micro-blogging medium as well, thinking of status updates. This is also where the largest social network aspect seems to live. In my opinion, this can be utilized for two purposes. 1: to let people know what you are up to at any given moment. And 2: to promote something to your network.

Mini Blogging:

Mini blogging seems to be the newest thing on the scene. I think of this as the ability to publish content that is a bit more mature than Twitter, and a bit less mature than a full-on blog article. Things like photos, audio, video, and longer-than-140 character updates. I see two main competitors in this field: Tumblr and Posterous. I’ve been trying both of them out, and I’ll post some final impressions later.

Strategy

I believe the strategy you should take when blogging ultimately depends on what your purposes are, and here are my objectives:

Be in contact with my social network – both receiving and sending updates. It’s cool to see what people are up to, and I’d like to think those people might care to know what I’m up to.

This is where I see the micro-blogging sphere being utilized. Think: twitter.

Share things that I find interesting, whether they are created by me, or something I come across that was created by somebody else.

Here is the mini-blogging approach.

Write more in-depth and engaging articles about the things that I really care about.

Enter the full-sized blog.

The multi-tiered approach is making them all work together in harmony. My plan is to use one service to update the other, which is a delicate and potentially annoying endeavor (annoying to those who “follow” you if you end up double and triple updating them about everything you post). My plan is to use mini- and full-on blogging to power all three mediums. Things like “status updates” and anything I find interesting, I’m going to post to either Tumblr or Posterous. Both of those then feed Twitter, which in turn feeds Facebook, where the bulk of my social network lives and interacts with me.

So that leaves this blog – my main full-on blog. It is reserved for my more in-depth articles, but I still want to update that social network whenever I post anything, so I’ve got it set to update Twitter whenever I post something, which then goes to Facebook. The question that is left is what about the people who subscribe to this site and none of my other outlets? Solution: a LiveBlog recap. (I’m calling my mini-blog a LiveBlog). Once a week or so I’m planning to post the highlights of everything I posted to Twitter/Tumblr/Posterous/Facebook/YouTube/Flickr/etc. It’s a solution that I think will work for me, and will keep this blog reserved for more meaningful posts.

So, you can keep up with me here:
Twitter – this will capture pretty much everything. Every post, update, photo, etc will get filtered here.
Tumblr – I’m calling this my LiveBlog. More detailed stuff about what I’m doing and what I find interesting.
Brian Wahl Band – More detailed and in-depth posts.

So, what is your strategy?

I watched this thing via GDGT’s liveblog (which was cool), and it basically went like this:

• We are Apple. We love our customers.
• We have sold a ton of phones.
• Hardly anybody has complained about them.
• Everybody else’s smartphones do the same thing.
• But, we love our customers, so we’re going to take care of them.
• Free bumpers! (or other case of your choice)

In other news, I was expecting delivery of an iPhone 4 today. It didn’t come. Interestingly, it shipped straight from China, and I suppose flying from China to Durham, NC is not always without bumps. No big deal – it’ll get here eventually.

So how do I feel about Apple’s position? Well, I think they’re trying to do the best thing, but in a way that impacts them in the least negative way. Free bumper cases is a lot cheaper (and easier) than doing a 100% recall on the phone. I’m sure I’ll enjoy my phone when I get it. I’ve totally loved my iPhone 3G for the last two years.