A Christmas to remember

Well, it looks like the press has gotten wind of the project I am secretly involved in. Nestled away in upstate South Carolina I had taken part in creating the most wonderful Christmas album ever to be created. If you are a person who likes musical perfection, vocals that sound like they were taken straight from heaven, beats that pulsate the very fiber of your being, and tales of Christmas lore that you may not be familiar with, then this album is for you. Featuring guest stars from all walks of life each with a different take on Christmas, this album is sure to warm your heart. Myself and one Nathan “Star Status” Heffington form the backbone of the album with friends such as Kevin Oedipus Keigley and Jamal “Gospel Thunder” Quattlebaum. Check back soon to see where you can pick up this holiday adventure for the whole family.

Music Again

So I have been on a big music kick today, just basically nonstop listening to all sorts of things. I have more things that you need to hear.

Great band called The Thermals, especially the song Now We Can See off the album by the same name.

Another sweet new band called Company of Thieves, lead singer sounds Regina Spektor-esque, and they just have a really cool sound. Oscar Wilde is the best song of theirs I have heard so far. The whole album Ordinary Riches seems pretty good at first glance though.

For something a little different and funky and retro I really am digging Electric Feel by MGMT. Its such a 70’s sound and so catchy.

Another kinda different sounding item, listen to Staring at the Sun by TV On The Radio.

I know I mentioned U2 yesterday, but today I listened to Ultra Violet (Light My Way) on repeat for a while. It’s pretty great.

Wake Up by Arcade Fire is the song from the trailer of Where The Wild Things Are. I love it for several reasons. Reason #1 is because it is the song for the trailer of Where The Wild Things Are and it makes me so excited for the movie. Reason #2 is it makes me feel like I am doing something epic and unforgettable even when I am just driving to get gas. Reason#3 is if I am ever in a big time band that gets to come out to some cool song before we play our set, that would be the song I would choose to come out to. Well maybe not, because that song is better than anything I could ever produce.

That’s all the time I have at the moment. I will continue soon.

Total Rip-Off

So I am going to copy Nate’s idea to try and infuse the world with some quality music and things like that. Here is what I have been listening to, viewing, and reading as of late.

Albums:

Fearless by Taylor Swift (Yeah, I know.)

Only by the Night by Kings of Leon (Don’t just listen to the radio hits, the rest are as good or better)

Church Music by The David Crowder* Band (Different but very good, SMS (Shine), Oh Happiness and God Almighty None Compares are my favorites)

Diamonds on the Inside by Ben Harper (My favorite music to relax to)

Fashion Nugget by Cake (No best tracks, it’s just all good)

The Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow (Great British group, One Day Like This, Grounds for Divorce, and The Bones of You are the best tracks)

Good News for People Who Love Bad News by Modest Mouse (Just never gets old)

Fight With Tools by Flobots (Really deep stuff, very politically/socially charged message)

Artists:

U2 (even though after seeing them live it just doesn’t compare)

Owl City (I challenge you to listen to Owl City and not smile. You will fail)

Songs:

The Sharing Song by Jack Johnson (Again, I dare you to listen and not smile)

Mess of Me by Switchfoot (First single of the new album makes me excited about the album itself)

Readings:

Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin

Crazy Love by Francis Chan

I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek

TV:

The Office (Not for much longer though. Seriously, end the show.)

The Office (The British version. It took me a while to warm up to it since it takes some deciphering of accents, but it’s incredible)

Flash Forward (Great stuff)

Movies:

500 Days of Summer (Great soundtrack, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are great as well. Very good, quirky movie)

King of Kong (If you haven’t seen this, find it and watch it)

Yeah, so I’m done. I’m bored now.

Hmm…

I think God is really hammering some things in to this thick skull of mine, so maybe if I write them out in blog form they will start to make more sense and become a bit more clear. A friend of mine was talking about the idea that we dont have to be in a “good” place to to be used by God.Regardless of how broken and messed up I am God still wants to use me and has plans for me. Even when I feel totally filthy, God still has a purpose for me and has work for me to do.  That was part A of the equation. Part B is the song “How He Loves”  which has literally been on repeat for me for the past week. I had been focused on the lyrics focused on how much God loves me, which this song expresses in a better way than I had ever heard. But one line stuck out to me all day today.

“I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us.”

That line coincides exactly with these thoughts of being useful to God even in my broken state. If I am truly focused on who God is and his character and the perfect love He has for me. My sin problem should not hold me back from fully embracing God. If I am truly recognizing the depth of God’s love for me then certainly I want to improve and work to bear more spiritual fruit. But that work is being done within me already by the Spirit. I have become a new creature and the Spirit lives in me and is constantly working on me.  I have a hand in that and responsibility falls to me to consciously work against the sin in my life. That, however, should in no way prohibit me from wholeheartedly embracing everything that God has for me. When Creator God brings work for me to do and purpose for my life, for me to tell Him to wait until I get myself together is laughable. I will never be together enough to do His work alone. But as a believer I am merely the vessel which carries out the work.

“All of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory/And I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.”

Upon considering the beauty of God and his love for me, his unconditional perfect love for someone in my broken, fallen, messy condition, the afflictions associated with that condition fade away. The hard stuff of life pales in comparison to the knowledge that my Creator loves me so deeply. A quote I heard a while back ties in to this thought process as well.

“This life is a present possession that has also a glorious future fruition.”

The way I have come to understand this is that life would be unlivable without the knowledge of what is to come in the future. If I didn’t know what was waiting for me on the other side of this fallen world, I don’t know that I could get up every morning. I struggle too much with life as it is. If the future hope provided by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was not there to look forward to, life would just be too hard. Don’t get me wrong there is absolutely good in this earth. There is beauty to be found. It’s found in people for me. In seeing someone else love others. In people doing selfless things for others. And in creation itself. There are things that keep me going within this earth itself. But the overwhelming majority of joy in my life comes from knowing that eternity spent with God is waiting. I will stay here and do my best to be an effective servant as long as I am meant to. And I want to try and love as well as I can while I am here. But this world is temporary and broken. The promise of eternal life with God brings me joy that I can’t describe.

Thanks, blog, for being an effective space to vent and get things out in the open. You have served your purpose well this night. Love you all.

Oh How He Loves Us

I am sitting here in awe of our Beautiful Savior, Creator and God. I am small and insignificant. I neglect Him often. I choose the ways of my sinful flesh and prideful will more often than His perfect plan for my life. Yet he still loves me. More than anyone on the face of the earth. He loves me perfectly and unconditionally. Wow. To the legions of faithful readers I apologize for my long absence, but life got kinda crazy here recently. Just returned home from Look Up Lodge and it was just an incredible week. I am so excited about the potential I see in our youth group. There are kids stepping up all over the place looking for opportunities to make a difference. Kids who truly desire to know God and make Him known by attempting to reflect His love as best as they can. I hope that this week of camp will jump start the efforts being made to revolutionize the way we treat our high school ministry. God is working powerfully and quickly and I can not believe how lucky I am to be witness to it. Some of the kids this week seemed like they were really wrestling with the teachings, and I hope and pray that God reveals himself to them. It was a lot of fun being around this years crew of summer staffers. It seems like a great group of Godly men and women. I didn’t get a whole lot of time to see them, but the few conversations I did get to have were life-giving. I am home for another day and then Sunday gear back up to take the middle schoolers down to Look Up. I am looking forward to spending some time with these guys too. Being at Look Up somehow refreshes my spirit and gives me a renewed outlook on what I am doing with my life right now.  Hopefully I will post again soon, stay updated on camp happenings at http://twitter.com/TCCYouth. Kevin will be updating The page regularly while we are away. Love y’all.

1 p.m. at a bagel shop

Tomorrow at 1 p.m. in a bagel shop is where I think the future of the youth in the Raleigh area may be organized and discussed. The ideas are there, now we have to put the ideas and people into place. I think it’s going to be HUGE. If you are a TCC student or leader and read this, GET EXCITED!!! Be praying that God will guide us through the planning stages and reveal Himself to us in the plan itself.

In other news, I am feeling like a hipocrite in a way. I so badly want to become less relient on technology and stuff like that and yet I am writing that in a blog. Its just so darn useful. I definitely wish that the church could be less dependent on technology. But there are so many cool things you can do with it. Its a tough thing to manage. My ideal setting for a church service is outside with no powerpoints or cool lights or amps or sound system. I like feeling like there is absolutely nothing other than the people in that room and the presence of God. But its so hard to do things that way. People dont know the words to lots of songs so they cant sing along as well without words on the screen which can cause a disconnect. People like lights and sound and stuff like that. How do you balance being organic and independent of those things while still incorporating them? Thats something I’m struggling with.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is fasting. I never really got it or understood why people did it until recently.  I was reading some of Aaron Keyes’ stuff on worship (incredible stuff which I would be happy to loan to you) and he talked about how fasting was something he did as a worship leader to show God that you wanted him to move through his worship leading more than he wanted food. I had never thought of fasting in that way. I think I’m going to try it soon.

It’s coming…

So these big things coming for the summer that I was talking about… they ar e happening. It only took me writing it in this blog to make it happen apparently. I can’t disclose the nature of what is coming, but I fully believe that this is going to be God’s tool to really cause some drastic change in the Raleigh area youth. I am so excited to be a part of this and can only imagine how far it can go. Please pray for the TCC youth ministry team, the greater Raleigh youth, and anyone else who might become involved. This could be HUGE. More to come soon.

Where I’m At

You like that heading ending in a preposition? Yeah me too. Nothing like starting out a post with grammatical errors. So here is where I am in life… I am in an amazing, wonderful place. Things are changing in every way around me, but I feel like its making me take notice of how consistent God is. Working at church essentially alone now has been a really good thing (no offense to Nate or CeCe). I have a lot of time to really think and meditate and pray about what I am doiung with this church. My heart is becoming more and more in tune with serving the guys and girls of TCC as well as I can in any way I can. I love hanging out with them and just trying to get a feel for how I can be best used in their lives. I have had conversations with several people about this summer being a breaking point for this youth group, and as much as I wish I could be at Look Up, I feel like God has huge plans for TCC this summer. I can see it coming. I can see the changes in their early stages. And I can’t wait. So that is where I’m at. Like that post ending in a preposition? Yeah, me too.

Time Warner Cable

So here I am, just finished up taking an exam and I come home wanting what every blue collar American college student wants: to watch some mindless, valueless television. I scroll down the guide looking for something that would fit the bill. I see some French Open tennis, some mid 90’s sitcoms, random informational television (haha yeah right!), and then I come to the Daily Show. Exactly what I need. Something to tickle my funny bone that requires absolutely no mental involvement on my end. I choose that channel and nothing happens. Again I press the select button… and nothing happens. I am stuck on the local news channel. Instead of receiving funny fake news, I am stuck with real local news about craft festivals and road work. Thats why we have laptops… so mindless television is at our fingertips at all times. Hulu and Arrested Development here I come!

Foiled already

Well I have already been given my come-uppance by this blog. I posted my first post (a monumental occasion) and I look to see that it is my second post on the site. Apparently wordpress has a mind of its own and posted  “Hello World!” I am not amused and this will not be tolerated. I have smited (smote? smitten? smated? smashed? strawberry shortcake?) this post and it will never be heard from again. On the positive side, I am currently blogging at a historic rate. Soon I will be the most powerful blogger known to man.