God of Second Chances

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.

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!

Back In Black

I have a handful of students who take guitar lessons from me at the studio (FYI I have a second job as manager of MiracleSound Productions -- check it out at http://www.miracle-sound.com/).  One of my beginner students is around 12 years old--we'll call him Angus--and is a fan of AC/DC and several other hard rock bands whose members are old enough to be his father.  Last week at his lesson, his actual father announced that they were on their way to the AC/DC concert for some father-son bonding.  So for this week's lesson, I broke out the song "Back In Black," which just happens to incorporate several of the things I had been teaching little Angus in his lessons.  I fired up the virtual drummer on my iPhone, cranked up the overdrive on the guitar amps, and away we went.

I know, I know.  This is all horribly wrong.  I am a pastor, for crying out loud.  Am I even allowed to play AC/DC songs, let alone encourage a very impressionable youth to play them?  All I know is this: circa 1982, my garage band mates and I were playing "Back In Black" at the First Methodist Church's 5th quarter party on Friday night after the high school football game.  For an encore, we wanted to play my favorite song at the time: an awesome instrumental piece on Boston's new album called, "Foreplay."  My mother said no.  I couldn't figure out what was inappropriate about the song, it didn't even have words!

At some point I'll have to save my now-tarnished reputation and introduce young Angus to something more wholesome.  How about "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" by Guns N Roses?