Headed to Florida!

Right now! I'm headed to the airport and flying to Florida with my wife for some fun in the sun! See you in a week! They'll be lots of pictures!

175 BPM

Summer

The voltage beat me

I've been electrocuted 3 times today. And all three times I thought, almost know, the power was off. Pots lights should not be installed by home owners. My skin is itching from the pink stuff all over my attic and I couldn't breathe anyways while I was up there. I'm giving up and calling a electrician when we get back from FL. Thank God for electricians.

it's kinda like that

Quick set up: Young kid calls in to local Christian radio show and says the following...

real friends buy friends coldplay tix

The other night I was up late talking with my wife and mom and got a text from a good friend asking saying this "coldplay, you in?" -immediately my heart jumped with joy. Tickets in Toronto for shows like this sell out in literally seconds from hitting the box office. Erin and I were fortunate to be 12th row at the last Coldplay show in the T-dot and because of the sweet love of Ryan R were headed again this year. Thanks Ryan!

Weekend Review

This weekend was our official ministry year end service. We had the choir on stage with us, and Ted Duncan co-led the weekend with me. After the services we have a massive BBQ out on the front campus with bouncing games for all the kids (and young at heart). Because the BBQ follows the 11:15 am service everyone wants to come to that one so it was PACKED, but the energy was great and people were there to worship.

Call to Worship: Psalm 33:1-9
E All the Earth will sing your Praises (I found a 2nd verse online for this song, I didn't know of it until this weekend but its so good and we're going to keep it).
G Hosanna (Praise is Rising)
C Crown Him with many Crowns
D The First Place
Announcements/Prayer
Choir Special: Bb God of the Ages
Sermon: Pastor Robbie
Close: D The First Place (Again, with new meaning)

Erin and I have the next two weekends off and are going to down to spend it with some family and friends in Miami. We're going to attend Bob Coy's church while we're there and I'm really looking forward to that.

New Music- Jesus Messiah

Chris Tomlin just released his new single "Jesus Messiah". Do yourself a favor and pick it up on itunes.

Pre-Order Now

I love God's Word

I had lunch with our churches executive pastor today. He said something that I thought about all day, one of those quotes you can't wait to blog about.
Here it is.

"Don't make life fit in to ministry, make ministry fit in to life."

Isn't that great, and I'd add, "make your life a living ministry." Don't think that just because you don't work at a church you can't have a fruitful ministry. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." This is the great end of all religion, and directs us where express rules are wanting. A holy, peaceable, and benevolent spirit, will disarm the greatest enemies. That means your boring job at the cell phone booth, or the drive through window you're working, or even the high paying coorperate America job where you look out at all the other cement buildings and wonder why you get paid so much to play solitaire on your computer.

As I skated around the rink tonight playing hockey I thought to myself, how can this right here, me playing hockey bring God glory? Worshiping God isn't always how we think it looks (hands raised, singing "how great is our God"). Giving God glory in all you do is giving him the attention He deserves in all you, and looking to him for the strength, patience, and His spirit to lead you in whatever you're doing. If the Bible says, "whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." It means it's possible or else Paul wouldn't command us to do so. So that means we've just got to discipline ourselves to do so. Try it, wake up and begin your day by fully relying on the Lord, praising the Lord and thanking the Lord for every step you take, meal you eat, sport you play, solitaire game you win.

Ignite was on fire!

Just got back from an amazing weekend. Ignite was prayed up, planned up and reay for registrants and God provided! We had Pastor Robbie Symons' and worship leader Jeremy Riddle with us for the entire weekend. I'm already hearing how God used this time in different peoples lives and am excited to hear more! Here are some shots from the weekend!

Brilliant.

Jonathan found this. Its absolutely brilliant.

Pray for the Ignite Conference

I leave tomorrow for Ignite. I can't believe its here. It started as a small idea in my heart and now it is a full out conference with one the best worship leaders and passionate preachers tag teaming the sessions. The closer it gets, the more I've prayed, really wanting people's lives to be changed by this weekend away.
Young adults hold a special place in my heart, mainly because I am one, but more so because its the age when everything important happens. marriage, career, serious about Christ, first home, kids, do you need more examples? With all that must come a tonne more of the other stuff (crap) so I'm praying that this weekend would bring clarity and passion to each person who truly seeks him.
If you want to, pray for 3 things....

1. The truth found in God's word would be heard clearly and responded to.
   
2. People would worship the Lord with a passionate heart seeking to glorify Him.
   
3. That true community and friendships would strengthen and birth.
   

clickstation

As a follow up to Chris' comment regarding click tracks, this is the unit that Carl used when we recorded last week. I'm going to test it our with our drummer and see how he likes it.

Meet Steve Busch

My Steve bio:

• Worship Pastor at Grace church Harvest Bible Chapel

• Steve writes songs that stick in your head for days! "...with arms held high, be glorified"
  

• Steve has one of the nicest wives in the world who would go out of her way by even giving you her Diet Coke.
• Is the only person I know who can rock a piano center stage, while standing, better than smitty.
  
• Has a huge heart for seeing people connect with God through music.
• Just started a new blog HERE
  

Weekend Review

All day Friday I kept saying to my wife "it feels like Monday". I got back late afternoon Friday and then took a nap, ate some Thai and then vegged for the rest of the night catching up with my bride.
The weekend came fast but then felt like forever. All three services were great but I'd say we all felt a humbling sensation as there were tempo battles, and some messed up lines. We don't play with a click track normally, and having come from click track central (Chicago live project) it probably through me off. Anyways, I can say that for the most part we rarely deal with stuff like that (I've got a great team) but sometimes it's good, because it brings us back to the reality that we are not professionals, just broken people trying to meet with the Lord (and lead Gods church there too in the process). the front set was for the most part a da dada da da da type beat (Adam can explain better). We had a new worship team member shadow the entire weekend to get a feel for what a weekend looks like before putting them in the rotation. It serves two fold. 1. Gets us acquainted with his/her heart for the Lord 2. Gives them a taste of what and how we run our weekends.

Here's the set

D Our God Saves
D Holy Holy (Lift up his name)
D Before the Throne
G Beautiful Jesus

Announcements/Prayer: I tied Romans 12:1-2 in to the "offering" prayer trying to hammer that God wants our hearts more than our weekly "donation". I love when Paul talks about our lives being a living sacrifice (as our spiritual act of worship)

Special: E Most Holy Father
Messge:Pastor Robbie Symons: Daniel Chapter.4
Communion: Craig Turnbull

D Jesus You are Worthy
Bb Lord of All

Word of the Day

Jump start your weekend by reading THIS

I'm praying that I could see things the way David saw them!

Love this....
9How can^(L) a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
10^(M) With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not^(N) wander from your commandments!

Im running for president

When Im not singing.... Harvest Live Day three

Im not singing on all the tracks....so in the mean time I like to sit and observe. Enjoy.

Harvest Live Day Three vlog

In a couple hour's we are going to record the first night with all the songs. We ran through some tracks this morning to get levels for our ears and hear it in the house. The stage looks great, the band sounds great and the songs are really awesome. I'm really looking forward to hearing it tonight! Pray that God uses the night to receive all the glory he is do.

Harvest Live Day Two vlog

Harvest Live Day One Vlog

Hi from HBC Chicago. We're all here, working on arrangements and tempo's for the past little bit.

Harvest Live Day One

So here’s the plan…I’m going to try and blog and vlog as much as possible and then post them as soon as I get some wi-fi juices. Right now though, I’m sitting at the airport (too cheap to buy the available wi-fi) and am watching about 40 red shirted wal-mart workers or something (there must be a convention…sounds like fun.) already I’m only 3 sentences in, and have used the common way too much. Anyways, I’ve got my ipod on listen to the Joel Auge album; he’s a local boy from Hamilton and just got a record deal with integrity music. So on our way here my wife and I plotted ways to run the cars that were driving in the commuter lane but driving solo. Then, because I read my boarding pass wrong I got dropped off at Terminal one- it was suppose to be terminal three. I got to ride a special subway roller coaster though to get to the right terminal so that was fun. I am eating a vanilla yogurt with berries and sipping a green tea, I never liked green tea until I saw my friend Ted drinking them all the time and so I decided I would learn to like them. The benefits of tea are 2 fold. It doesn’t dry out my throat, and it has more caffeine then coffee. ☺
Fact: The people across from me are going to Alaska, they are wearing shorts and t-shirts.
See you in Chicago

Weekend Review

I don't have much time before we have to go back out to end the service but I wanted to blog before tonight (the rest of my day consists of rehearsing for harvestsongs project) and Young Adults. Last night, after the service I got to spend some time with some worship team members from another church in Pickering who were visiting our church looking for some ideas about how to run their worship ministry. I had to tell them that nothing I was going to tell them was original nor would it promise and growth or development. God really reminded me through them and their hearts just how blessed we are in Oakville at HBC. I'm thankful for our team and those who serve so faithfully and forget that many churches don't have that. I'm going to blog again about this exact topic because I think a lot of churches are in that spot;
"What do you do when you don't have any musicians or people who are "good enough" to lead a congregation in worship?"

It can probably be debated which is harder: Doing a large church ministry with multiple teams and services, OR not having enough people and having a volunteer ran ministry with little to no help or growth. I dont know the answer to that, what I do know though is that both are equally important to the Lord and for God's Kingdom!

Here's our weekend-

Welcome: Shake a friends hand, shake a hand next to you

G Awesome is the Lord most High (Tomlin)
B How Great thou Art (Baloche)
B You Never let Go (Redman)
E Open the Eyes of my heart (Baloche)

Announcements/Offering

Special: D He's Got the whole world in his hands (Tim Hughes)

Sermon: Pastor Robbie Symons

Close: One Pure and Holy Passion