Jason is an amazing guitar player and teacher who explains songs on acoustic/electric guitar easily so that people can learn to play their favorite worship songs. You can check out his site here. His explainations of both acoustic guitar and electric parts go into great detail from strum pattern to guitar tone to solo.

If you have a worship team, this is definitely something to turn them on to, and the best part is that it’s cheap. I bought the 3 people for $15/month and gifted the other two to my electric player and an acoustic player. Both love it and are always on there learning their instrument, shaping what they do, and always telling me and others about it. Check it out. if you are trying to build better musicians in your worship teams, this is a great start. Here’s one of my current favorite lessons:

I’m well prepared whenever I introduce a song. Always. I practice and practice and then I bring it to the congregation. When i intro it to the congregation I follow these steps: first I sing the chorus, and then I repeat it and have the congregation sing it with me. After that, I usually sing the verse and have the band start the song with me as i repeat the verse asking the congregation to join me again, and then when we get to the chorus everybody can sing.

Today was a different story. I think I drank too much coffee before the service, because I totally blanked and at one part of the song I actually stopped. I didn’t start over or anything, I just went back into the song without missing a beat. I kept going, but UGH! I couldn’t believe that I stopped. It was like, total brain fart time. Man, I hate that.

The upside is that whenever I intro a new song to the congregation, I always play it twice (we play it again after the sermon during communion). When this happens, the congregation leaves singing the song usually, and I won’t have to intro it again the next week when I play it again. In this case, it also allowed for a chance at redemption!

The takeaway was this: Train Wrecks happen; we all make mistakes! It happens all the time. Capos are forgotten, time signatures are unknown, BPM’s are off the chart. It’s all happened. We can’t let these things annoy us. Our face will probably communicate our frustration, but really all we can do is laugh. When a trainwreck happens we just have to grin and bear it, and wait for another chance to kill the song…uh, I mean murder…the…ugh. You know what I’m trying to say.

Hey Christians. Insulting the president makes it harder for you to pray for him, which is what the bible calls us to do.

I loved it. My Facebook feed is so inundated with anti Obama news and comments, that this was very refreshing to read. A reminder for me that if a man who I don’t generally agree with is in power I need to remember to pray for him/her.

I remember praying with a worship team when G.W. was in office, but not agreeing with the prayers. Prayers thanking God for a Christian in office, but no prayers to get us out of war. Prayers of antiabortion intention, but not prayers of for single mothers in the world. Prayers for a Christian Nation, not prayers for a peaceful nation.

What are our intentions when we pray for our President? We should pray for wisdom with the tough decisions he/she is faced with. But maybe we pray for the idea of peace that God has for His people – a nation that looks to remove the Yoke of Oppression. A compassionate nation who welcomes the alien and feeds the hungry – all in the name of Jesus.

It seems that the reasons that people are leaving the church all boil down to this: a lack of Grace and Love in the Church. The church seems to be continually divided right down the middle with the Right and the Left. I have talked many different times about the need for a seperation of Church and State. I still fully support it, because I feel that it takes out the idea of grace and love from our Christianity and instead leads to what would benefit our needs and beliefs rather than the need of others. The Jesus I have met and continue to follow would never look down on somebody for their religion or faith. The God I worship would not wish death on people even if they did the most horrible thing imaginable. Instead, I am led by the Holy Spirit to Love.

But this is difficult for us to understand. This is idea of “a lot of room in God’s Kingdom” may sound like awful theology to us, because we live in America. This is the land of Justice – a land where people get what they deserve – it’s an Eye for an Eye. Here in America, if a person slaps you in the face, you don’t turn the other cheek. Instead, you sue them. If someone asks for your clothes, you tell them to get a job and don’t take advantage of the welfare system that is set up for them. Strange theology indeed. It’s strange justice in my opinion.

This idea of strange justice was seen at the end of Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son. The older son looks in the window and sees his younger brother at a party thrown for him; a younger brother who had just returned from a life of debauchery and silliness only to be met by the love and grace of his Father. The younger son deserved to be with the pigs, but instead they threw a huge rager for him. How peculiar indeed.

This lack of Grace and Love, this is why people are leaving the church. We hear and read words spoken from the mouth of Jesus, but we hardly see them lived out. Let’s revisit the overall theme of Jesus’ thesis: Love God, Love neighbor. There is nothing there about judging. There is nothing about American justice. There is nothing about politics and who and what to vote for. There is only love – acceptance of people. The acceptance of sinners. Not sin, of course, but sinners. Not the act, but the person.

Now comes the arguement of what about if people keep returning to sin. I say forgive them 77 times. well, not me, but Jesus told us this, and I believe that the number would have kept getting higher and higher if people gave a rebuttal.

And finally, let’s get real: this idea of Grace and Love isn’t easy. There are a lot of people that I really have a hard time with (I sling coffee in the PNW, for crying out loud). But if we are to call ourselves Christ Followers, it is essential. Though our church has become very Pauline in nature (preaching from the epistles more than the words of Jesus), I have a feeling that even Paul may have sided on this side of the arguement.

So, yeah, I see it. I see people leaving the church. I’ve heard the arguments of “isn’t this church that we are having here in my living room with ‘two or more gathered?’” I’ve seen people leave because they felt forgotten, lost, abused, judged, or “insert feeling here”. These people have lost their faith in the Church and it’s leadership and people, but all we can do is hope that they haven’t lost their faith in the Grace and Love of Jesus. The grace and love that he so freely gave all of us when he died on a cross, only to resurrect for the sins of the most dispicable among us: the human race.

On top of the SAD, my skin reacts horribly to the weather. I have an extreme case of eczema where it is all over my body, mostly behind my knees and the inside of my elbows. This year has been horrible. Absolutely horrible. The eczema has been on my face, around my eyes, on my hands. Ugh.

The thing is, I try to keep a positive attitude about it. Positive speak is what gets me through this season. I tell myself things like, “this is better than a tornado or tsunami”. It works a little, but it still sucks.

I find myself crying out to God. I know he has bigger fish to fry really. I know that my skin will heal and the sun will come, but still. Cut a brother a break. Then I saw this…

God hears the cries of his people. Throughout the Bible we are reminded of this. God answers. Even if it rains, I know that God heard me and others who are affected by SAD. This sunset was a reminder that he gave right out my back door. Thank you Jesus. I needed it.

The thing that I loved was the idea of worship leaders leading prophetically. Not in a predict the future sense of the word, but instead speaking to the church; leading the church with God’s calling that is placed on their heart. The amazing thing is this: if we as artists are called to lead as a Prophetic Voice, then how do we do so? Prophets were often ignored. Prophets looked pretty crazy. They were silly.

What is it then, that the church needs to hear? What is the prophetic message? Is it mercy and justice? Is it a song about love and compassion? is it a poem regarding race relations? What does your church need to hear? Who is writing these songs and are they written for personal worship or corporate?

Scott’s letter truly made me start thinking even more so through an artistic lens, but even more so through a prophetic filter. What does my congregation need to hear? What does God have for the church – for our neighbors outside of the church? Love.

But there is something inside that says this is wrong. Does testing for welfare take away from any american rights? More so, does it not take away human rights and dignity? Let’s take a minute to look at this, because I believe that it does take away from a person’s dignity. I know that there are people who take advantage of the system, but whenever there is a system made, someone will always take advantage of it.

So i guess my question is this –  Drug Testing for Welfare: is it helping or taking away from people? Also, as a Christian, how does one stand on this issue? Do we simply support the masses who are saying that it’s a great thing, or do we lean on the side of dignity?

Last time I did this run, It took about 5 minutes less than I did today, and I could run without stopping. Good news: I ran. It took a little encouraging and positive self talk from me, but it happened. While I was running I decided to put on Pandora’s “Foo Fighters” channel because it was a rocker, right? I was wrong.

The Foo Fighters channel will play 90′s music like Soundgarden, the Foos (naturally), Nirvana, etc. The problem is that it was their slower songs being played: Man Who Sold the World (Acoustic), The Best of You (Live at Wembley Acoustic), Blackhole Sun, and the coup de gras was finishing up my run with Wonderwall by Oasis. Not exactly the Power music that I would usually listen to. By the end of the run, I just couldn’t change the channel. I thought it would just interupt my run.

Hey. at least I got it done. But the thing that keeps me going on this run is the pay off at the turnaround: