We All Said, "Bring It On!"

2006-02-24T10:38:00.000-08:00

So, about a week ago, Cory comes to us with a gig opportunity for the Sr. High youth at a large church here in town. Just before we officially took it, Cory reminded us that (with the Common Ground Leadership Summit that we were committed to) it would mean 5 days of playing together in a row. Most of it in the evenings after work.

The Wednesday gig went really well. I was highly pleased with the depth of the group and the energy and freedom they felt in worship. This was certainly not their first introduction to modern worship music! I Will Not Be Silent had them hollering, clapping and jumping. Then we went right into My Hope (Your Waterfall) and the energy in the room died by about 50% or more. We then remembered that these kids were just coming off of a 3-day ski retreat. Spiritually, they were hyped! Physically, they (and their adult staff) were whupped! Even so, they all rallied at the end of the main set with Nothing But The Blood. That was nice. Over all, it was clear that the spirit of the room and energy of the room were not co-dependant. The spirit and the vibe remained regardless of the energy level. Kudos to you, Grace Community Church. Continue your work for the Kingdom!

While at the gig, Adam bumped into an old college buddy from Taylor. They chatted for a little while and obviously mutually enjoyed the meeting. I looked over just as we were finishing sound check and saw that one of their adult staff was a guy that I work with! I went over and shook his hand, then we chatted for a while. He's a bit older than me. In fact, his wife was a VBS worker when I was a kid. I had no idea that they even went to Grace, so it was a total surprise! I got a bunch of pictures from the night, and I'll put them up on the site soon.

Thursday night was practice for Sunday AM with the full choir, horns, turntables... the works! It was a good practice that ended around 9:30pm. Then band3 took a quick break and got back into some specific songs for Friday and Saturday. We were seriously dragging at the end. The creative juices were not flowing like normal. We broke up at 11pm, and then got involved with packing up the sound system to travel downtown the next morning. I left at midnight, and Adam, Kyle and Zach were still there.

Now here it is, Friday afternoon. I've got my hands full of the backup system here at work and most of my mind is already downtown. I'm doing a firmware update to the tape drives, so I took the quiet minutes to come and type. It's been a tough week for all of us. There have been spiritual attacks, and troubles for all of us. We all miss our families, even though we haven't left town. Adam told us about his wife, Christin's, great attitude. I got to thinking about Holly's, and the fact that she and Sydney will meet me down there tonight. Cory's wife, Jamie, came to the Grace gig with their daughter Isabelle. What a great community our band is becoming (see the posts from the K'zoo gig for the beginnings of that).

I'm extremely anxious to get a guitar in my hands again. For as tired as I am, there's still a mighty work ahead of us. Packing, loading, setting-up, sound-checking, leading, tearing-down, packing back up and hauling back home to unload and set back up. Notice how much of that process is actual playing time, kids.

OK. Gotta get my head around some more work again. Props to Sworty out in Seattle for asking if there was going to be a blog. There wasn't, but the request of one good man can change a lot of things. There's a sermon in there somewhere. More to come!

5 Days Straight

We All Said, "Bring It On!"