As my friend put it recently – “You coming up for air?   You’ve been pretty silent lately.”

Yep.

Over the past few months my wife and I began conversation about the potential of me looking for another job.  She’s been working full time and providing for our family, which has been amazing and for which I haven’t been grateful enough – but it’s time for that to change.  With the addition of our daughter, her mommy desires have definitely kicked in and she would love to spend more time with our little one – which I think is awesome.

So, I’ve been on a job search for the past month or so.  I have been working part time for some time, and finally looking for full time work.  I would love to be a full time worship and music director someday, but the truth is, many churches find it hard to swing that as a fulltime job.  So I will be joining Billy Chia as a bivocational worship leader.

So, in the midst of my job search, this blog went pretty silent as I had begun building a portfolio site to display my graphic design work in order to get a job.

I have one offer and I’m waiting on another offer right now that I think would be a better fit for me.  I still want to continue to be involved in worship leading and in writing this blog and participating in The Worship Community – but life is crazy and I’m still trying to figure out some schedule issues.

In the meantime – I would appreciate prayer, you can check out my portfolio site and I’m hoping to get back to blogging on worship and music regularly very soon.

Thanks for the listen – enjoy the rest of the week!

Just wanted to give some simple updates:

• Thanks so much to those of you who commented/tweeted about missing me blogging – much appreciated!
• I will be blogging regularly again soon.
• Life is in a bit of a transition right now and I’m trying to figure out how to manage some things wisely.
• Ministry at Living Word is happening big time, and I’m excited to see where some recent conversations and plans will bring us.

More to come…next week…

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

There are so many ways to offer our worship to God.  One of them is to support those who really can’t support themselves.  On October 15th, 2008 – Blog Action Day, bloggers from across the world will be blogging about poverty.  We have an opportunity and a responsibility to join in the conversation and to speak on this important issue from a Christian perspective.  After all, James 1:27 says this:

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this:  to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

The Bible has a lot more to say about poverty.  We’ll take a look at these things and what we can do about them on October 15th.

Yesterday’s service was great.  Especially the message.  Man was it hard-hitting and necessarily so.  I love how our pastor will constantly challenge men in the church and cause us to think hard and fast about what we’re really doing to lead our families.

Some highlights for me were that “some things you just can’t do in the recliner.  You have to get up, turn off the TV and do them.”  I’m not much of a recliner and TV sort of guy, but the concept applies to whatever area of life has become “your lazy” area if you will.  Pastor Wade also gave us the challenge that if we have problems with daydreaming/fantasizing we should focus that energy on how to make our marriage better and how to honor our wives and families more instead.  What a great concept!

We are also held accountable for making sure we talk to our daughters about modesty.  Men, we understand how these things work – we were (and maybe are) all there at one point or another.  We need to teach our daughters especially how their dress affects other men.  Great challenges yesterday.

The songlist (posted in collaboration with other worship leaders at Fred McKinnon’s Sunday Setlists)

• Wonderful Grace of Jesus – gathering song.  Being a fan of Southern Gospel music and in particular The Cathedral Quartet, I’ve always loved this song.  It was a great way to remind us of what God has done for us in Jesus.  The only problem with this song is that it can get a bit too high at some points for your average singer.
• The Name of The Lord (Strong Tower) – hadn’t sung this for awhile so it was fun to sing it again.  The congregation seemed to lack a little energy and I was wishing so much that we had some hand-clapping or some percussion involved on this one.  I suppose I could have started the hand-clapping.  Whoops.  Leading worship from the congregation didn’t work on that one from me this week!  Guilty!
• When I look into Your Holiness – I had only sung this song a couple times but for some reason the words really struck me yesterday and drew me into worship.  Such a simple song, but so effective.  “When all things that surround become shadows in the light of You – I worship You!”  What can help us to make the things that surround become shadows so that His light shines brighter in our lives?
• Oh the Glory of Your Presence – I had never heard this song before.  I’m not sure if it was because my heart was already very open to worship or if the song was just well-written, but I was able to really enjoy worshiping through this song as well.
• ‘Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus – closing hymn.  Another classic.  However, this one also gets a little high.  I love the fact that our pastor also knows how to lead worship, though, because he had us repeat the chorus after his closing thoughts – but he brought the song a few keys down.  Nice work!

We also had the experience of hearing from my friend Tara who shared about her time as a missionary in Sudan.  It’s exciting to hear the work that God is doing throug her.

The rest of the day was filled with eating with friends and family and watching lots of olympics.  And boy am I glad we stayed up to watch the men’s swimming relay race.  What a race! Our men certainly represented our country well – both in how they swam and how they handled the interview afterward.

Yesterday was week #2 of guest teachers at Living Word.  We were blessed to have a message from a guy that I actually counseled at camp once who’s now helping with the youth at our church.  He’s grown a lot and it’s been really amazing to see.  He shared from Hebrews 10, continuing where I left off last week. There are five great encouragements in Hebrews 10 that I’d definitely encourage you to check out.  We sang:

• Soon and Very Soon (traditional hymn)
• Beautiful One (Tim Hughes)
• Before the Throne of God Above (hymn reworked by Vikki Cook)
• Victory in Jesus (hymn)
• These songs are part of the Sunday Setlists post from Fred McKinnon.

Yesterday was also a complete sabbath from any computer time from me and boy, I didn’t know how much I needed that!  Lately, God has been opening my eyes to some ways I need to remanage my time and it’s already beginning to pay big dividends.  More on that to come.  Enjoy your week!