An encouragement!

Well I found it encouraging or inspiring, maybe you will too! I am an instant fan of the show Studio 60. I really liked West Wing for the most part, and have really enjoyed the stylized kind of TV that Aaron Sorkin has put out. I have not personally ever experienced that intensely cool of a work environment, but then again I have never worked in a premier studio in all of the world, or the White House - so it makes sense. I get that may never be my reality in terms resources and environment, but one verbal exchange from the show was very inspiring.

One of the characters was slightly at odds with another character regarding some historic issues between them. It was crunch time and the one wanted to make sure with the other that they were good. Paraphrased it went:

"Hey about yesterday"
"Forget it, let's work"

So many things in life, so many successes and failures, and challenges. Sometimes so many "good things to do", or tensions. Too often they are distractions from the cause.

Jesus faced this too. I am still processing the learning I did from this within the last couple of years, but really early in Jesus' ministry (Luke 4:38-44) He was healing people and the people did not want Him to leave. His response, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." Surely you can stay a while and heal Jesus, I mean that's good stuff right. Nope, got to work, at the right thing, not just the good things.

So what's the encouragement? Simply I think it is to stay focused on the mission of Christ. The other stuff will happen, but we must keep it from defining us. Jesus was known for His ability to heal, but His legacy is His message of the kingdom of God. We can know God through Christ. To be like Jesus, that needs to be what I am about. So back to work.

Shoulder to the Wheel

Someone asked me what's new today. I have to admit I kind of felt refreshingly boring. I have my CD project to work on and a whole lot of things to do at work, home and with the family. I pretty much have th next 8 months mapped out if God wills it.

Tomorrow shoul be a day of good progress on the pre-production on the CD. Gigs are copming in November and Deember and I anticipate a couple of more bookings as well.

See you early next week on the blog. Until then. Peace.

Work and Play

One of my personal goals for this year at work is to makes some gains in my use of both technology for worship and make better use of the actual space that we have. I simply write that to write it. The things that I could do are immense. Use of moving graphics in worship, more video production and more use of others video production. Adding more lights to our rig etc.

Well that's work.

I have been reflecting on the past four plus years at my current church. One of the things that has brought a great amount of satisfaction is thinking of the people that I have been able to work with that whole time. There have been busy seasons and hard seasons and dry seasons, but years later we are still doing it and better for it. This morning was a great morning working with some of those people, and of course some of the new ones who are joining in and I hope feeling the positive vibe.

Ultimately we do life with people. When relationships are good, life is good. I gather Jesus thought the same thing when he told us we have to love each other. John seemed to agree when he said you don't really know God if you don't love your brother. I know I need to get better at loving, well everybody, but it is encouraging to see the harvest of friendships growing. Life would be very empty without it.

So Much To Learn

The last few years have been ones of intensive growth. Thankfully, the majority of that learning has originated from the Bible, but I have found the experiences of others interaction with scripture has helped me learn more, and hopefully faster, than if I stared at the Bible in a vacuum. You can look at my book list for some of my reading, I have several more books I am into that I need to add to that list.

One thing I read last night was a monograph by Jim Collins on leading in the social sectors. In essence it was an extrapolation of his Good to Great book for organizations like churches, hospitals etc. His end conclusions were not changed from his book just tweaked. Rather than really do a poor job of summarizing a 30 page monograph, I suggest a quick read if this subject is of interest.

One of the hardest things I have had to learn over the past few years is the [un]-importance of being right.

The one exception I will make to this is the importance of defending Biblical truth, but the how to and what is a very long and intensely dense discussion that this blog would trivialize.

So what do I mean? I suppose I continue to learn more, and realize the brilliance (or lack thereof) of many people. Some whom I know and many of who I look to to learn, read, etc. A lesson that Jim Collins learned in writing his book was that the qualities of greatness in a great leader are humility and an uncompromising desire to see the mission accomplished.

I think humility is so important, and I have had to learn that on issues not involving biblical truth that it is my pride that drives me to be right. It is arrogance and a desire to be seen as superior or worthy that causes me to defend myself or my decisions. Leadership requires a response to some things - it just does. But other times it requires a trust that God is in control and may, in fact, defend you to others. If you let Him He may actually correct you too. I think I have experienced both sides of that learning, but the Bible says that God disciplines those he loves. Let's just say I feel loved!

As with other very personal, very public issues of how you are to others in a public arena, I think your reputation precedes you most places you go. Moreover, these things can positively change as you let God take hold of you, to transform you. I am so thankful that others have seen growth in my life and that I too have experienced growth. The great part about it is that I attribute the positive change to God, because I have looked to God to help, and then the change has occurred. It is part of how I express God, by identifying the work He has done in my life through specific interaction with Him and His Son Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

Anyway, I haven't written a learning blog for a while. I hope this helps. One thing I know is that I need to keep growing in humility. I think to encourage any of my readers to do the same is a safe bit of Biblical advice. I know it is an endearing quality on earth, and I also know that God loves it too!

Looking Ahead

So I have three Christmas type gigs confirmed going into the winter season, and I will be warming up for and playing for Ali Matthews for FTC Canada awarenss concerts. It should be great time. I need to add them to the appearance page, but for now they are:

Thursday, November 30th at the Royal Botanical Gardens in HAMILTON
Sunday, December 3rd at the Lamplighter Inn, Crystal Ballroom in LONDON
Sunday, December 17th at the Church Restaurant in STRATFORD

I am anticipating an amazing time with these. It would be great to see many of you readers come out and catch the show nearest you!

Running the Race

So I am taking this Sunday off, and in fact the next couple of days. I think I have done a very poor job of relaxing for some time now. And by relaxing I do not mean to say sitting on the couch and trying to take a load off. I do mean spending quality time with God, my wife and kids and doing the the things that keep all aspects of who I am as healthy as possible. Last January I started eating better and running and managed to lose 20 pounds and felt way better. Well that took me until May, and since then I have not been discipined in either area. I have managed, by the skin of my teeth, to keep at the weight I got to - so now I need to go to the next phase - another 20 pounds before Christmas. Although I am no where close to as cool as my buddy Sven
(http://svenwalther.blogspot.com/) I am trying to motivate myself anyway I can to run more and improve. The chart below is where I am starting from the last couple of days. Tomorrow will be an improvement I would think, and then the chart will be more interesting to look at over time.

Anyway, thought I would bring some of the mundane into the blogsphere!!

On the Horizon

Well as you know I have begun the pre-production of my next CD. Things are coming along. I have no way of knowing how long it is going to take to get this CD done, but I know I won't release it until I am incredibly happy with the songs and the production. Pre-production is a long way from that, but am having a tonne of fun adding bones to the songs I have written. I am almost 4 songs into the pre-production process and I think I will pre-produce ay least 14 to choose from. After that the process gets more exprensive as I hire musicians to put in the real deal.

On a side not I have been using the stuff I bought to enhance ministry at Valley View the church I am music pastor at. I have done a whole service with the drums and bass "programmed" into Logic, and I roughly did some production to a tune I wrote specifically for a sermon last week.

It has been fun to learn and experiment and create. I am looking forward to much more of the same.