Arise Worship Internship

So I made a quick mention in my last post that I have been incredibly busy over the last few weeks. Well now I am finally ready to announce to the world the one primary thing that has been the focus of most of my hours over the past month: The Arise Worship Internship!

The Arise Worship Internship is going to be an amazing 9 week program that produces earth-shaking, culture-shaping worship warriors. The entire purpose of this internship is to raise up and hone people who have a burning desire to use their musical abilities to affect things for the Kingdom. We are going to pour into, and release, an army of revolutionaries that are sold out to the cause of Christ and are also musically excellent. This internship gives everybody 18 years of age and up the chance to come be a part of what’s going on here, get sharpened up, learn, and grow and THEN go back out and take everything they’ve acquired and infect their corner of the world. It’s going to be incredible!

So tell all your friends, tell your family, tell everybody about the Arise Worship Internship!! I have absolutely no doubt that the Lord is going to do some truly remarkable, new things through this program and the people who come to be a part of it. Bring it on, Lord, we’re ready!! In Jesus’ Mighty Loving and Awesome Name, Amen and Amen!!!!!

Song of the Week #38

"You're Beautiful" by Michael Ketterer.

United Pursuit Presents: Michael Ketterer from United Pursuit on Vimeo.

Gotta Know

Man, I’ve been so crazy busy over the past few weeks that my blog has seen little love. The product of my invisibility will soon be shared on here, but it’s got a few more touch-ups and final tweaks before I can post it. You guys will be among the first to know once it’s done :)

One thing I have squeezed in over the past few weeks has been a few basketball games. It’s March Madness—what am I supposed to do?! Since I do have a crazy schedule though, some of these games have been relegated to watching far after they actually take place (via the magic of DVR). Now, this usually isn’t a big deal, but when it comes to college basketball games in March, it’s hard to keep from catching a score even when you’re trying not to listen. And what’s even harder is not hearing a UK score when you live in the great state of Kentucky. Next to impossible.

But in my quest to actually watch the game and sit in suspense just like I was watching it live, I go out of my way in doing lots of things: I turn my head from looking at any TV with sports on it, I don’t look at texts from my UK-loving friends (or my UK-hating friends), I announce to everyone I’m hanging with that I haven’t seen the game and not to spoil it for me, and I avoid looking at Facebook. I actually alter the course of the rest of my day to make sure I can watch the game and not have the ending ruined.

Obviously, if I knew the ending going in, then I wouldn’t get near as much enjoyment from watching it. All of the twists and turns of the game don’t pack as much as excitement because I’m not left wondering at any point how it will end. In fact, it can get boring enough that I’ll just turn it off and go do something else.

Why then do we all try so hard to know the outcome of everything in our lives before it happens? Why can’t we be ok with not knowing how things are going to turn out?

We have promises from God in the Bible that tells us we’ll be taken care of. We may even have words that have been spoken to us by the Lord through revelation, dreams, or other people. If we know enough of the ending to know that it’s good, then why do we need more!?

We all need to get more comfortable with not knowing the answers to everything. Peace amidst uncertainty is something that all believers in Christ should have. Let us pray for and attain to new levels of faith and trust in the Lord and just let God do what He does: make things so great for us beyond all of our wildest imaginations and dreams. Let it come, Lord, let it come! May it be done in Your Name!

In Jesus Christ of Nazareth’s Mighty Comforting and Holy Name, Amen.

Song of the Week #37

BIG DEAL TODAY!! This week's "Song of the Week" is the first song I'm posting on here that I wrote! It's called "Who We Are". It's totally rough...and for those of you that know me and my music at all, you know that I don't like letting people hear something before it's completely finished and perfected. But I'm making an exception today -- yall are getting the roughly recorded, flat-singing-in-parts, no-post-production version of this song. It's raw, but I love it. Hope you enjoy.

Song of the Week #36

This is the album version of yet another incredible song by John Mark McMillan. This just shows that worship and Christian music doesn't have to sound any certain way. I pray the kind of creativity that is driving Mr. McMillan will be grasped by believers all over the place.



(If you want a live version of "My Only", click here)

11:50pm

One of my goals for 2011 is to write more music—worship music, music for my band, music for me. As far as worship music goes, I put a very specific measurement on myself to make sure that I keep on top of things: I must write and have ready to present to our worship team at least 1 song per month.

January was pretty easy. I wrote “Who We Are” (which I will post on here once we get a good recording) in basically 2 or 3 days. It was one of those songs that just came quickly and wouldn’t leave my head until it was completed. Gotta love those kind :) And it seemed like February was gonna be easy, too, because I had already gotten a good start on a song that had lots of potential. In fact, I had started working on this song before composing “Who We Are”. But as the month wore on, no real progress was made on it. Every time I sat down to write, I would just replay what I already had done…then just sit there, stuck. Even when I sat down very deliberately a week ago to hammer something out (which is what this post was about), nothing substantial ever came.

So February 28^th rolls around and the song still isn’t done. I’m still lacking an entire bridge, and at least half of the 2^nd verse. Plus, I still haven’t determined the exact structure of the song…. Does it need a bridge? If so, should there be the 3^rd verse? Where should the buildups be? 8 or 16 measures for the guitar solo? Should there even be a guitar solo? Ha. You music people know what I’m talking about.

Anyways, since I’m determined to meet my goal of finishing one song per month, I made sure to schedule lots of time on the 28^th dedicated to completing “Your Name is Love”. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I didn’t get started until around 5 in the evening...not good. Then when I finally do get started, it’s not exactly with a bang; just more of the same—replaying things I had already done, and not coming up with anything I want to keep. But then I start to get pieces here and there that I begin to weave together: the chord structure for the bridge (and a melody to go with it!), the topic of the material that will become the 2^nd verse, and snippets of the lyrics for the bridge and 2^nd verse. Looks like it just might happen!

…11pm, and I’m still not done. I’ve stopped to eat, and just take a break. I’m hoping that clearing my mind for a little while will help me when I attack it again. But when I sit back down nothing new comes immediately. I consider calling it a night because I had truthfully made some real progress—2 or 3 lyrical ideas that I was pretty sure could become half of the 2^nd verse, and I had definitely finished the first half of the bridge lyrics. Plus, I didn’t want to “force” myself to write something if it just wasn’t right, ya know?

But instead of giving into the urge to do the easy thing and quit for the night, I told myself at the very least I would sit there until midnight and see if anything would come. I prayed for more words to come. And they did. Out of the muck in my mind, actual phrases that I could use in the song started to form and piece together. The first half of the 2^nd verse rolled out and fit together with another lyrical idea I had written out earlier. Then, it hit me to let the 2^nd half of the bridge wrap back around to lyrics from the 1^st verse. Far beyond just “filling the gap” in the song, wrapping it back to those specific words was a perfect fit and made for a great transition to then go straight back into the chorus; thus, solving the structural question as well. BAM! Song complete!

All of this got done around 11:50pm. So I did, indeed, get my song done by my self-imposed deadline.

* * * * *

I believe the Lord helped me honor my commitment to Him and myself because I chose to stick it out. I really do think that since I consciously chose to at least put forth the effort in trying to meet the demands I put on myself (which, in fact, were designed to make sure I was nourishing that aspect of my life, gifting, and calling), God came in at the last second and helped me make it to the finish line.

Making promises to God, yourself, and others is a big deal. Following through with your commitment is a big deal. I want you to know that God does care about what you care about—after all, He put a lot of those things in you. I also want you to know that you’ve got to make a decision to go after what you care about; it won’t always fall into your lap without any effort. But I have first-hand experience that says when you make a choice to push through the hard stuff and ask God to help you with what you’ve made a commitment to (when what you’re doing is inside of His will, of course), He is faithful to show up and help you out.

He will do the same thing for you that He’s done for me. God is no respecter of persons, and He loves us all. Go do YOUR thing. In Jesus' Mighty Name, Amen.