Run Like The Wind

I just finished my first Half-marathon yesterday and while running yesterday I had time to think about my evolution in running.

Some ten years ago in Sweetwater, my friend Donny Allen asked me to join him in a run. I don't think I made it to the end of the block (because I was so out of shape and so heavy!) I eventually lost the weight and began to join Donny and his friends for Saturday morning runs. By the time we left Sweetwater I was leading the pack as we ran.

I ran my first 5K in December of 2001 in Dallas. The excitement of being with that many runners at one time gave me the itch to keep on going. I signed up for the Cowtown 10K in the Spring of 2002 and when I completed that race I hung up my shoes at that time and said that I had gone as far as I could.

Fast forward to 2010. One year ago I was back in my "out of shape" condition and faced some serious sickness following an emergency appendectomy in March. I started walking in April but soon the running bug hit again and I've completed 1 5K and 2 10K's previous to my half yesterday.

So, what's in store? I don't know at this point. Some are asking if I'm going for a full marathon ( and I won't rule that out) but there are defintely some more half's in the future. It's back out on the road in the morning as I get back in to shape after Saturday's run.

Worship Confessional, February 28, 2010

This post is part of Sunday Set List over on The Worship Community Blog

Today we started a new series "The ABC's of Life Change" where we are focusing on the Great Commission. Shanna Covington, local artist in our church, did these paintings for us and we're using them as graphics in our services.

Dr. David Allen, Dean of The School of Theology at Southwestern Seminary spoke today in Ed's absence. He kicked off the series.

Set List

Rising (Baloche) It's been a while since we sang this, but it's a great opener.

Welcome/Announcements/ Offering

I Will Sing (Boswell/Ferrin) This is on Matt's new album, and I sang it in the fall but we've never done it congregationally. Very easy melody and chorus to pick up and just great words. Fit very well with the series opener.

Sing Over Your Children (Maher) second week for this song--couldn't tell how it was going. I think they like it... we'll see.

Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) (Tomlin) Always a favorite...they sang on this one.

Morning Message--Dr. David Allen

Mighty To Save (Hillsong) Just the chorus and pre-chorus was all we had planned, (planning to go to something elese) but we stayed on this. Worked well.

How was your Sunday?

Beautiful Things -Accoustic Version

This is the accoustic version of GUNGOR'S new release BEAUTIFUL THINGS. It's simple, artistic and masterful!

Enjoy!

Cowtown--One Day and Counting

Well, the big day has arrived. The Cowtown Half-Marathon is 24 hours away. If feels funny not running the week of the race, but they say you must taper and save your run for race day. We'll see.

Tomorrow 13.24 miles await me in downtown Fort Worth. I've already printed the map in my mind and watched the fly-by video. I have my music ready. So I guess there's not much more to do to get ready.

What's next? Marathon? I don't know--some people have said once the bug bites you, that you have to keep going. I'll let you know Monday morning.

Alice In Wonderland Begins

The theater has only been dark one day at The Ritz and we're already beginning the next production. I had the honor to sit with 16 young people last night who are very excited to present ALICE IN WONDERLAND in April. It should be an exciting ride.

All the world will have their attention on the new Disney move ALICE IN WONDERLAND in the coming weeks, and we thought we might ride the wave with our own stage production of this classic tale. I didn't know until the other day that the ALICE story was really a collection of tales and stories made up for a little girl named ALICE. Very interesting indeed?

So, while Johnny Depp won't be on stage here in April, some of Scurry Counties finest young actors and artists will get their chance to act in this timeless story in April.

Would Shakespeare Blog?

This title isn't original with me. It's a line in Seth Godin's new book LINCHPIN that I'm currently reading. What I enjoy about Godin is his short and concise paragraphs that to me seem like he journaled these thoughts and then they become part of his books.

His point in this section is would artists of old use the modern techonolgy and methods available today if they were still around? Would the artists of old still stick to their old methods, or would their art evolve with the times?

Godin's point (and his opinion) is that a true artist (one who makes an impact and change on people) is always aware of the times and the opportunities and makes the most of the day in order for their art to be impactful. Godin says that if your art does not change people, then it's not art. That's a pretty severe definition of art, but it bears further thought and study.

So, do you think William Shakespeare would blog today? Would he take the methods and mediums of today and use them for his messages and points of discussion about social, political and religious concerns? I think he would. How about you?

Worship Confessional, February 21, 2010

This was a hard day for me. We were WAY down today--so many out with this and that and the lack of attenders made it hard to feel energy in the room. Maybe it was my fault for starting slow (we're not used to that). Anyway! It was difficult.

Ever had one of those days after you lead that you sit down and you're exhausted because you feel like you've been pulling an ocean liner? That was it yesterday. We scaled back the end for EAGLES WINGS to just my vocal and piano. It was simple and sweet. So it ended well.

I guess the realization that we've been without a Sr. Pastor now for 7 months is beginning to set it. The team is going out now to hear pastors, but inevitably people physically and mentally check out until that guy is here. So much to pray about!

Set List
Welcome/Announcements/Offering (I think people are still counting on the first song to get in there and they're surprised when we are already taking up the offering when they get in there)
Shine Your Light On Us (Robbie Seay Band)-- just a great song to call us back to God and to find our "rest" in him.

Prayer
Friend of God
Here I Am To Worship (Hughes)
Sing Over Your Children (Maher)--new this week. It's off his "ALIVE AGAIN" album.
I Will Sing of My Redeemer (You Set Me Free)-(Cottrell) Worship Choir

Morning Message (Conclusion of our weekend in MALACHI)

Eagles Wings (Hillsong-Morgan)

How was your Sunday?

This post is part of Sunday Set Lists over on The Worship Community Blog.

Welcome Dub To the Family

From Drop Box

So, did we not only welcome Chewy to the family today, but we went back got his brother DUB (short for Wilbur!)--He was the runt of the family and he's mine! So--maybe they'll keep themselves from being lonely. I know --we are crazy!

Welcome To The Family--Chewy!

From Drop Box

We added a new member to the Drake Family today. Welcome Chewy! He's a mix of chihuahua and rat terrier (we always go for the mixes). He's from our receptionist Shannon and she insists that his mother is the best dog!

Chewy comes to us after 2 years without a dog. Our first dog Bubbie died 2 years ago and lived to be 15. I can safely say that Chewy will probably be our last dog! I told the kids today at lunch if he lives as long as Bubbie did then they'll be old like me when that happens. Have you ever had a new puppie?

From Drop Box

Make Your Own Kind of Music

We are so adding this guy to our praise team. After seeing glockenspiel and sitar last week in the Gungor band, anything is possible.

Visual Worship--The Set Up

Timelapse - Environmental Projection setup from grateful inconvenience on Vimeo.

I've talked about the impact of visual worship before on this blog and I believe that it's only going to be bigger and more impactful in the future than I thought before. The experience with GUNGOR last week RECREATE only increased this in my heart and mind. The VJ'ing was done by GRATEFUL INCONVENIENCE, INC. It was masterful.

Look at this video and see how a room is transformed by three video projectors and a laptop. In the past this was accomplished with very expensive theatrical lighting, but now it's becoming easier. A church in East Texas is getting ready to install these video architectural projectors to transform their gym space into a worship space. They can change from street scene to solar scenes with one click of the button.

With the Beijing and Vancouver Olympics using these methods to transform spaces, just think what it could do for worship and for churches. The possibilities are endless./

Out of chaos life is being found in You!

Beautiful Things (words/music by Gungor)
All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You

You make me new, You are making me new

Genesis 2:7 (New International Version)

⁷ the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

This line struck me this morning as I'm listening to this new album of GUNGOR. I don't think we fully appreciate the enormity of life coming from chaos. Chaos is a lack of order, lack of path and direction and out of all of that chaos at the beginning of the world God stepped in and made life. We see that in Genesis where God methodically brings order to chaos and meaning to nothingness. And what more appropriate substance that we think nothing of, dust, God choses to use to form the man and to breathe life into him. Out of chaos life is being found in You. I can think of no better way to express that scripture than these words.

Dry Bones

Dry Bones
my soul cries out
my soul cries out for you

these bones cry out
these dry bones cry for you
to live and move
only You
can raise the dead
lift my head up

Jesus, You’re the one who saves us
Constantly creates us into something new
Jesus You’re the one who finds us
Surely our Messiah will make all things new

This haunting lyric has been playing in my office all morning as I process the week just passed in Tennessee at RECREATE. Michael Gungor's band released their album BEAUTIFUL THINGS today and I've been blaring it in my office (literally I went to another part of the building and I could hear the subwoofer going to town--good thing I'm on the other side of the complex)

I am grateful this morning that I have scriptures that lament and mourn and talk about the times in life that aren't so easily answered. Wouldn't it be a shame if all we had was a "lollipop" bible that only said good things? What would we do? We would fall apart--I know that for sure.

“The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ” So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.”

Ezekiel 37:1-10

"Yet again--these dry bones will praise you"

A Prayer of Discernment (Thomas Merton)

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"

Ian Morgan Cron read this prayer last week at RECREATE. It immediately struck a chord with all of us in the room. By virtue of the internet, I googled it and posted it to my Facebook account. Within minutes, I had comments and affirmations from friends back home and around the world. It struck a chord with them too.

To top that off Audrey Assad and Matt Maher sang a new song they've written called "Restless" based upon the writing of St. Augustine (Restless I am restless 'til I rest in you) that seemed to flow along the same lines. The combination of this prayer and that song were the highlights of the week for me.

I certainly feel that most of the world seems very restless at the moment. Something is stirring and we don't know what it is. We as believers have the Holy Spirit to be our discerning light and my prayer since then has been for complete surrender to Him and let this restlessness be the beginning of something new and fresh in my life.

What are you restless about these days?

Michael Gunger "Beautiful Things"

I experienced something last week at RECREATE that I honestly can say was a "once in a lifetime" experience. Gungor (formerly The Michael Gungor Band) did a live concert/experience for all of us at the conference. They played their entire new album from start to finish and to compliment it we were treated to a visual art show by Grateful Inconvenience, Inc. and Nate Griffin using PRO VIDEO PLAYER. to accompany the experience. It was breathtaking.

Gungor says that this album represents "liturgical rock" styles and he wasn't joking. I described it to a friend as a fusion of musical styles (classical, folk, rock, jazz and praise and worship) and even those descriptions are inadequate to describe what we experienced.

I've long known that visual worship is a coming thing for the church, but what I experienced that afternoon was like walking through an art gallery of heaven with a chorus of angels singing the most sincere and passionate music of heaven. It was incredible.

Earlier in the day we had heard from Dan Cathy of Chik-Fil-A and how they're trying to provide a remarkable experience for each customer each time they come into their stores. That's exactly what Gungor did for us.

Their album releases today and I would urge you to go and get this album. I plan to have it in my ears as I run my half marathon in a couple of weeks. It's that good.

They are coming to Austin in April and if I didn't already have something planned for that day that I couldn't get out of, I'd be there. If you can go--go see this experience.

9 Things A Leader Must Do

Another book I recently picked up at Mardels in the bargain area was this short little leadership book by Henry Cloud. When I say short, I mean short. You could knock it out in one evening. But short doesn't always mean easy or fast. You'll find in this book, especially the 9 things, that you'll want to dig deeper into each area and work through the teachings of Dr. Cloud. That's my action plan for this book.

Another blogger has boiled it down to these things:

A leader must…

• Discover and invest in your inner desires and drives
• Not allow a sense of negativity to take up space in your mind and life
• Evaluate your decisions in the present based on how they will affect the future
• Continually ask yourself, “What can I do to make this situation better?”
• Achieve big goals by taking small steps over time
• Develop the ability to hate the right things well
• Give more and better than you are given
• Not strive to be or to appear more than you really are—but really embrace your own identity
• Make decisions without fear of other people’s reactions

What leadership books have you read lately?

MapMyRun.com | View Cowtown Half Marathon 2010 in Fort Worth, Texas

MapMyRun.com | View Cowtown Half Marathon 2010 in Fort Worth, Texas

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Worship Confessional, February 14, 2010

This post is part of Sunday Set List over on The Worship Community's blog site:

Back in the saddle again, I led worship today for the first time since Jan. 24. With our DNOW service and me being gone for RECREATE last week, it's been a nice break and one that is needed from time to time in order to rest my voice and my spirit. It's hard to go at it 50 weeks out of the year and there are some needed resting spots to keep going at this. I've been doing this 23 years now!

Set List:

Welcome/Announcements/Offering--moved all of this to the front this week. Sometimes sticking it in the middle of the service seems to break our flow. So, as they say in baseball--time for a switch up!

Video--Prayer emphasis-Argentina

Love The Lord (Lincoln Brewster)

Holy Is The Lord (Tomlin)

How He Loves

Worship Choir--Revelation Song/Holy, Holy

Morning Message--End of our Love Series

I Stand Amazed In The Presence

How He Loves (Chorus)

Enough (Tomlin)

How was your Sunday?

In Praise of the Contemporary Psalmist

Having spent a week in Nashville (the hub of most if not all of Christian music today) I have an idea that has been running around in my mind this week and I think I have to say something.

We've been blessed this week to be exposed to some of today's best song writers and psalmist. This guy and this girl led us this week in worship and I would consider them some of the best at modern psalmnody.

Webster defines "psalmist" as: a writer or composer of especially biblical psalms.

And therein lies my issues with some of what I've heard this week here in Nashville. Those that have stood out in my mind are those that hone in on the truths of scripture and steer clear of the more experiential lines and phrases which so quickly come to be "cliche". Simple lines like "I am restless until I rest in you (taken from the writings of St. Augustine) found a resonance this week because they are scriptural in nature (if not down right rephrasing of scripture verses themselves). These are the timeless things that modern day psalmist must immerse themselves in.

Instead the music industry is cranking out more and more music than Fanny Crosby could ever have imagined in her lifetime, and to be honest some of it is not good and some of it very forgettable.

If I could have said anything to these young writers this week I would have said: "Sit on it for a while--let it begin in your soul and then sing it and write it." I'm afraid that it's been the other way around--write it, sing it and then let it sit on your soul. It just doesn't work that way.

Some of the music industry has caught on to this and they're not telling, but I see their watchful eye on some of these artists. They are the shining jewels in modern Christian writing.

This blog is written in praise of the contemporary psalmist. May your tribe increase.

RECREATE '10--Wrapping It All Up

Recreate 2010 has come to an end and in true RECREATE fashion it ended on a pinnacle note yesterday. We began with outstanding worship led by Matt Maher and Audrey Assad who stole the week with their new song "Restless" and the highlights of Matt's ALIVE AGAIN album. I'll have to say that having Matt sing in my ears while I ran this week only heightened the sense of worship and depth that he brings to the table as a fellow worship leader and a masterful song writer.

We were then treated to a "mini" Women of Faith with the likes of Patsy Clairmont, Shelia Walsh, Mandisa and Luci Swindoll. It was a great morning.

In the afternoon I got to see my friend, Pete Wilson, who pastors at Crosspoint Church here in Nashville. I call Pete my virtual pastor since he's also in my ears as I run. We've connected through Twitter, Facebook and now twice while here in Nashville. I truly love Pete and his heart for the church.



In the afternoon we were treated to a talk by Dan Cathy, president of Chik-Fil-A. What a marvelous organization this is and has always been based upon Christian principles. It's exciting to see an organization that is so based upon family and Christian beliefs. Made me want to go work for Chik-fil-a. This clip is of their #1 fan who attends all of their grand openings. By the way, Mr. Cathy told me that their Lubbock location is the top one in the nation! Way to go Lubbock!



The day ended with a performance by the Michael Gungor band (Gungor). All I can say is that it was an art "experience" with a live performance of their latest album (with three string instruments, keys, guitars, drums, banjo, sitar) With the visuals provided by Media Shout, we were in sensory overload by the end of the performance.

Last night the conference came to an end with a concert by Laura Story (Indescribable) and Jars of Clay! What a way to end the day.

More than just the performances and top notch speakers, I'm always blessed to be with people from all over the US and the world. Though we are apart 51 weeks out of the year, this one week, we are all here and "present" together with the Holy spirit to have a true artistic revival amongst the creatives.

Review of Gungor's "Beautiful Things"