Sometimes things just work out. Most of the time they don't "just work out," so you really take notice when they do. You notice God is up to something. This is one of those times.
Our community pastor, Brad, is teaching Sunday on the topic of "the power of a second chance." In his preparation he came across a guy named Carlos Whittaker, who happens to have recently written a song called "God of Second Chances." The song isn't even out yet. We only knew it existed because Carlos sang part of the song on this amazing YouTube video. He was shooting video in a park in Atlanta for his upcoming CD release, and a homeless guy named Danny showed up and started singing with him. Worshiping with him. I don't guess angels generally look like homeless Rastafarians, but you be the judge.
You can read Carlos' take on the whole episode here.
As it turns out, Carlos is preparing to move to Chicago to plant a church with a guy Brad and I both know (not personally, but are aware of and have met) named Jarrett Stevens. The church is called Soul City Church, it looks like an awesome God thing, and at this point I'm starting to feel a bond with this guy I've never met named Carlos. And I like his song, and Brad and I really want to sing it with the Springs on Sunday. So I take a shot. I email Carlos and say, "we would really like to sing your song at our church on Sunday, but your CD isn't out yet, and you only sing part of it on the video. Any chance you could send me the whole song so we could worship with it on Sunday?" By the next morning I have it in my inbox. I love this guy.
I think this is how people act when they understand grace. People of the Second Chance. Springs, when we sing it on Sunday, I hope we give it a little extra. The song speaks for itself, but there's something behind the song that gives it even more meaning.
Oh, BTW I promised Carlos that we would all buy his CD when it comes out.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Charlie Brown Christmas in the Bathroom
A few years ago I was working on music for a Christmas Eve service, and I chose a personal favorite for a kids' group to sing: "Christmas Time Is Here," from the soundtrack for "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Instead of openly objecting to the song (which I now know everyone hated except me), my colleagues allowed it, then made fun of it (and me) throughout the holidays. The kidding culminated in a gift I have cherished ever since: a plastic display of all the Peanuts characters from the Christmas special. Since it doesn't meet my wife's standards of impeccable taste in Christmas decorating, it is relegated to the upstairs bathroom this year, next to my home office. The bathroom is now my favorite room of the house this Christmas (notwithstanding the gingerbread man soap dispenser who crashed the party).
Forty-four years after its TV debut, I still think Charlie Brown and his gang effectively remind us of the best reason to celebrate at Christmas, and expose our worst efforts to ruin it. I love to laugh at Lucy as she complains that what she really wants for Christmas is not toys, but real estate; or Snoopy, obsessed with winning the local Christmas lighting contest with his doghouse. And I relate personally to Charlie, striving to find some significance in what has become not just a commercial event, but an economic necessity for the American retail industry.
But there is more than meets the eye in this little cartoon. The scrawny tree that becomes the object of Charlie's affection happens to be the only living tree on the lot--a far cry from the pink aluminum tree Lucy was hoping for. It's special to Charlie, but he doesn't know why until Linus makes his famous speech.
Luke 2:8-14, King James version. Underneath all the mountains of wrapping paper, lights, musical extravaganzas, cookies, parties, and shopping malls, there is still only one place in Christmas where there is life. And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. I hope you find Jesus, humble and unassuming and unadorned, God and Savior and Prince of Peace, this and every Christmas, and every day of the year.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
My First iPhone Recording
I remember when I didn't have an iPhone, and I would watch those "there's an app for that" commercials with relative disinterest. It's a phone, after all. A phone's a phone. You make calls, you text, maybe you surf the internet. Like most people who don't have iPhones, I didn't have a clue.
I don't even consider my iPhone a phone. Making calls might be the least important of its amazing abilities. It helps me through Houston traffic. It tells me the weather. I read books on it with the Amazon Kindle app, and carry the Bible in my pocket in my favorite translation. I actually read Psalm 136 from my iPhone at my family's Thanksgiving gathering, which I'm pretty sure freaked my dad out. I buy stuff on ebay with it. I plan church services on it that are uploaded to the internet and keep all our volunteers informed. The list goes on an on: games, YouTube, songs, camera, etc. I even find myself using it as a flashlight to find my way to bed at night. But without a doubt, my favorite apps are the music apps. My iPhone is a guitar tuner, a metronome, a chord finder, a drum machine, and even a pretty decent 4-track recorder. I have more technology in my pocket to record music than the Beatles used to record the White album. On one hand that's incredibly cool; on the other, I feel very exposed and without any excuses as to why I haven't recorded more and better music. But you have to start somewhere, and I recently recorded my first song on the iPhone: take a listen to my version of a little Christmas song I came across recently.
Like most categories of apps, there is now a large list of available apps to record music, and you have to figure out which ones are the best. In the recording category, FourTrack by Sonoma Wire Works is my hands-down favorite, and the one I used to record "All That I Want." It's straightforward and easy to use, but still has all the most important features of a multitrack recorder: volume and pan on each track; listening to recorded tracks with earphones while recording a new track with the iPhone's mic. You can even combine recorded tracks together, freeing up available space to record additional tracks if 4 isn't enough.
My recording is completely raw -- I just recorded the tracks and saved the resulting song as a .wav file. But you can save tracks individually, transfer them to more sophisticated software on your computer, and produce something more professional. A band called The 88 went all the way with this and produced a commercially-viable song recorded completely on an iPhone. Check out this amazing video where they show how they did it!
I don't even consider my iPhone a phone. Making calls might be the least important of its amazing abilities. It helps me through Houston traffic. It tells me the weather. I read books on it with the Amazon Kindle app, and carry the Bible in my pocket in my favorite translation. I actually read Psalm 136 from my iPhone at my family's Thanksgiving gathering, which I'm pretty sure freaked my dad out. I buy stuff on ebay with it. I plan church services on it that are uploaded to the internet and keep all our volunteers informed. The list goes on an on: games, YouTube, songs, camera, etc. I even find myself using it as a flashlight to find my way to bed at night. But without a doubt, my favorite apps are the music apps. My iPhone is a guitar tuner, a metronome, a chord finder, a drum machine, and even a pretty decent 4-track recorder. I have more technology in my pocket to record music than the Beatles used to record the White album. On one hand that's incredibly cool; on the other, I feel very exposed and without any excuses as to why I haven't recorded more and better music. But you have to start somewhere, and I recently recorded my first song on the iPhone: take a listen to my version of a little Christmas song I came across recently.Like most categories of apps, there is now a large list of available apps to record music, and you have to figure out which ones are the best. In the recording category, FourTrack by Sonoma Wire Works is my hands-down favorite, and the one I used to record "All That I Want." It's straightforward and easy to use, but still has all the most important features of a multitrack recorder: volume and pan on each track; listening to recorded tracks with earphones while recording a new track with the iPhone's mic. You can even combine recorded tracks together, freeing up available space to record additional tracks if 4 isn't enough.
My recording is completely raw -- I just recorded the tracks and saved the resulting song as a .wav file. But you can save tracks individually, transfer them to more sophisticated software on your computer, and produce something more professional. A band called The 88 went all the way with this and produced a commercially-viable song recorded completely on an iPhone. Check out this amazing video where they show how they did it!
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