People from all over the U.S. are joining us in the high country for a great weekend of meeting, hugging, and encouraging each other in our journey together with Jesus…and when we say from all over we mean: Minnesota, Georgia, Kentucky, Texas, Alabama, Montana, Colorado, Washington, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming,  North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Michigan, and Tennessee!  Wow.  Congratulations people!

The good news is we have plenty of space available for our one day outdoor worship music festival on July 19th, 2009 called Worship@8500!  You can buy discount tickets online here, or even deeper discounted group tickets here.  Make your plans…see you there!  P.S.  We have designated six camping spaces on the festival grounds for Sunday night camping only, departing Monday by 11am for $20, first come first serve.

Don’t forget:  Karla will be a featured performer at Worship@8500 this summer, July 19th.  More details? Want to register now?

Register for the whole weekend called Gathering@8500 on July 17-19th and receive some awesome teaching and ministry from the Worship Circle team on the Kingdom, worship ministry, building the family, and maturing in Christ.  Only 100 slots available for $75 each.  More details here.

OR Register for just Worship@8500 on Sunday, July 19th!  This 10-7 day will be full of your favorite Worship Circle artists, a big band stage, a view of Pike’s Peak from the 40 acre private ranch, food, fun for the kids, and plenty of room to spread out and enjoy an all day picnic while bathing in the presence of the Lord.  It’s a worship music festival!  More info here.

It is so important to get registered now.  Hotels in Woodland Park are crazy scarce so check Cripple Creek and Colorado Springs, tons of local parks are available for camping, and we have some camping available on the festival grounds.  We also have group discounts! See www.worshipat8500.com for even more details.

We love them because we can build faster relational bridges with 30-60 people.  We can speak about the Kingdom Family of God and give it illustration in the room rather than just in the world of ideas.  Oh, and if you have kids…house concerts are awesome as an artist because you don’t have to leave your family to play a concert.

Here are some great links to check out and learn more.  First, we have a section in our store with house concert recordings over an hour long for you to download.  Get this one for free with the store coupon code:  houseconcert Secondly, check out our new concert booking page to learn about which Worship Circle artist could be available to perform a house concert for you.  And, finally, we just launched a site designed to engage this conversation and help new house concert artists.  Come see the new site and connect with us at the ground floor and talk to us about your experiences or interests in house worship concerts.

Many of you have purchased Ben’s first book Enter The Worship Circle and enjoyed the creative, unconventional style and themes. Well, we wanted you to be the first to know that Ben has announced his intent to self publish three small works inside of 2009! The first book called “Tom and the Goldfish Bowl” is scheduled for a late Spring release.  The first third of the book–in its early draft form–is available for free at Churchthink.com!  This handy, dandy widget (above) can be downloaded to your computer’s desktop, sent via email, or pasted to most any web location to display the podcast updates to Churchthink.com. Just click the “Options” button at the bottom.

Get 50% off of the single issue price of the Worship Circle book when you put theyloveme in the coupon code through March.

The gathering dates are July 17, 18, and 19th. Festivities will begin on the morning of the 17th.  Sunday the 19th is the first of, hopefully, many more summer music festivals to come in Woodland Park.  There will be some registration cost to attend so we can cover things like cookout food and musicians, but it will be light, and lodging options would include hotels, camping, RV’ing, and host homes in the region that you secure.  Mark the calendar!

No elk were harmed in the taking of this picture.

“Tired worship music gets much-needed rejuvenation through the thoughtful, inventive approach of Todd Berger’s solo worship project “And Have Not Love.” In addition to substantive lyrics, there’s plenty of musical style that ultimately makes it a rewarding, inspiring listening experience.”
- Christa Ann Banister, music critic for CCM Magazine (Jan. 29, 2009)

Download “Simple” for free. Put simpletodd in the checkout coupon box.

• 1. We publish only one blog now (rather than one for the store and one for the front page here) and include a store coupon in every post!
• 2. Our audio podcast is now firmly focused on the kinds of “you can do it” materials to help you write, record, and enjoy worship music.
• 3. Our single videocast (the TechCast is now absorbed into the single Vidcast) will provide worship leading tools and training, and a sincere focus this year on how to book and present house concerts (new post Feb. 11th!)

The most recent podcast features Robin and Ben writing a song together from Psalm 42…little pieces throughout the day of their creation journey.  If you want to download the fully produced song, well, that is reserved for TRIBAL members!

Enjoy 20% Off of a 10 Pack of the Worship Circle book when you enter bookdeal into the checkout coupon box in the next 7 days!

We are so thankful you are part of the Worship Circle as we move into 2009. To celebrate you, and the recent improvement in our store function, we want to offer this store coupon worth one free MP3 download of your choice.  It will last for one week from this post (this will be our custom in all our blogposts in 2009!).  Coupon: oneforfree

We met for a worship and ministry time at this little home fellowship.  We didn’t meet in the home but we sat out on the front porch on makeshift benches and chairs under a rickety dripping roof, listened to some music from a radio hotwired through a window with tattered wires, and prayed for and encourage each other for a couple of hours.  I sang a few improvisational worship songs in my terrible Spanish.  I brought a guitar to play on the trip with the intent to give it away–it is my usual custom when going to the Third World where folks just can’t get much of anything.  The young man holding the guitar was the only person who answered “yes” when I gathered the key worshipers and singers and asked, “Who would practice every day and learn worship songs if they had a guitar like this one?”  I gave it to him.

Now, I thought this post would be about looking around for ways to be a sporting giver this year, but now I think I am more impressed with the young man who stood up and said, “yes,” more than I am with my small gift.  This could be your year to hear God speaking to you about an opportunity to serve, a chance to work hard and love…maybe this year is your year to say, “yes!”  For inspiration, if you are of age, go see Jim Carey’s new film “Yes, Man” for inspiration.

We will be shipping every day from now until noon December 23th to help you get everything you order as fast as possible.  (Please be careful with shipping methods and ship dates if you plan to have product reach you before Christmas day.)

The store will be closed, and will not be shipping any physical products through the mail from December 24th to January 2nd (digital downloads are always available!)  Christmas Vacation!  Merry Christmas everyone!

We just put all four of the primary Enter The Worship Circle albums in a single Circle Collection that saves you 25%!

And we have all three of the Chair and Microphone series also at a 25% discount in the Chair and Mic Collection Pack!

With so many people moving their music collection to digital players…don’t forget that you can buy and send a Gift Card to someone for Christmas and they can visit the store and download or purchase anything including MP3 downloads!

Most all of our music have been charted by hand and are available absolutely free for anyone in the world.  Here is a link to the charts and helps area of the store.  We also recommend just using the Search box in the upper left of the store to look for resources for any song…here is a quick link to the title track, “You Are Mine.”

This very first video is for “Crown Him” from Chair and Microphone, Vol. 1.Enjoy!

Not only are there huge, deep articles at CHURCHTHINK, but there is also a regular podcast where Ben sits down and discusses each article at length with a friend.  You can subscribe at iTunes.  You can subscribe to the blog.  You can even have the post delivered via email.

We still look forward to repackaging the work for future release, but we have to move all the old stock.  Check out the product and the great reviews here in our online store!  Just enter crazyhats in the checkout coupon box and get this special deal for the next 14 days!

First, you can make a tax deductible donation to Ben and Robin’s work.  We have fired up the one time or monthly giving tools for almost any payment method.

Second, we will post a broad stroke update on our life and work there only quarterly, but it is a nice place to see a bit more about us, and to recommend friends who want to learn more or partner with us.

We would be so honored if you would consider becoming a giving partner, or a prayer partner!  We spend a lot of time helping people, equipping people for ministry, and even going overseas and donations, especially regular ones (even if small) can really help and encourage us.

Those of you recently participating in the Village Thrift remix…hang on.  We have adjusted the direction of that fabulous experiment, but the end results will be fun! Thanks for every single submission!

Ben and Robin, along with a team of overqualified film and video friends, will be recording (in the next few days) the first ever set of Worship Circle video tutorials just for you!  Ten years ago when we first dreamed of the Worship Circle series we wanted to do everything we could to help others worship with simple instruments and simple words.  This is just another way to say to you, “You can do it!”

We know this is a bit of a teaser…look for these videos to go up online in our store–for free–in September!