Brian Hale-Yeah!'s blog

Good reminder

From Brennan Manning:

The Rabbi implores, "don't you understand that discipleship is not about being right or being perfect or being efficient? It's all about the way you live with one another." the success or failure of a given day is measures by the quality of our interest and compassion toward those around us. We define ourselves by our response to human need. The question is not how we feel about our neighbor but what we have done for him or her. We reveal out heart in the way we listen to a child, speak to the person who delivers mail, bear an injury, and share our resources with the indigent.

My Morning @ River Valley

This morning was great. Jacinda and I got to lead worship for the first time at our church today (RVC). And, our pastor, Gordon Hall, had me in my high-pitched laugh I was going so good. You can listen to the podcast on the website linked above. 

Lots of friends and family came out to come see us which made it really cool for me. In the past, we've played with the worship team, but this was different because we got to pick all the songs and kind of direct everything. This was actually pretty hard because we've only been attending the church for about 6 months so we aren't really familiar with it's history, especially worship. I met with Luke Mundy, who leads a lot there and we talked over the dilemna of the different traditions of worship which exist at RVC. There are the Calvary Chapel people, the people from other churches, and the people who are newer to church, so I tried to pick a very diverse song list. So, here's how the morning went:

-marvelous light by charlie hall

-glory to god, forever by steve fee and vicky beeching

-one pure and holy passion by mark altrogge

-better is one day by matt redman merged with

-everything by lifehouse

-came to my rescue by hillsong united

Like I said, the morning was great, but not just because we got to worship, but because I got to see my church worship. I gotta tell you, one of the best things ever is to look out into a congregation filled with friends, family, new friends, and others that I can't wait to meet and to see them excited about worshipping God. Awesome.

How was your Sunday?

better picture of Buckhead from the director ' s booth

Pre-Service

We hiked up Stone Mountain this afternoon. It was freezing and steep but we all made it okay. Carlos and I had the little kids in the car with us so we drove home and dropped them off, changed, and drove straight back to church. 

They are now doing all of their pre-service "working out the kinks" kind of stuff. The whole process from cameras, to sound, producing, set design, music and worship leading is top notch. 

The guy leading today is Seth Condrey. He's great at leading others to God. He's very laid back and seems very in control and comfortable. I don't know what that "x" factor is that some worship leaders have (anointing?favor?), but he's got it. It was great to just connect with God this morning.

Sometimes, when I come into situations like this, my head and heart are so torn open to God, that I can't even sing. I know, I lead worship myself, but If I do, the emotions take over and it's hard to keep it together. It just happens sometimes, not all the time, but when it does I cherish it. 

Churches often take for granted what they have right in front of them. This church is blessed with many great worship leaders, pastors and ministries. I'm loving our church more and more each day, but sometimes it's just nice to sit under someone else's leadership and soak it all in. 

(I took pictures w/ my Nikon too, but didn't have the cable to transfer them to my Mac. That was from the little camera on my laptop!)

This is amazing

I know this video has been around for awhile, but I've never posted it here. Actually, until tonight, I haven't watched the whole thing. It's worth it though. Go sit down somewhere by yourself that's quiet and just breathe it in.
I miss worship like this. I miss being part of a room full of people enveloped in the moment. That place where life doesn't matter, where all that matters is Him. Who cares what you look like, what you sound like...it's what you're giving...your all...to Him. And that is what He desires:

Our All

Check it out:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoC1ec-lYps&hl=en&fs=1]

office debate

One of my buddies at work today, wandered into my office and was looking through the books in my bookshelf. Along with my finance-aimed books I have some C.S. Lewis, John Piper, and more. He picked up a John Piper book and said, "you know this guy is all calvinistic" with kind of a disgusted tone. I said, "yeah I know, that's one of the reasons I like him". 

We went on discussing some of the differences between Calvinism and Arminism. He was arguing the point that God "chooses" or doesn't "choose". I challenged him saying, "If you can find one place in the Bible where it says that we "choose" then I'll change my opinion. Then we watched a video that Mark Driscoll did on "Free Will". I ended up loaning him my book, "The Pleasures of God" by John Piper and we'll see what kind of discussions that will dredge up!

I immediately called my Sovereigntist friend, Daniel Temple, and we laughed about how much we love arguing theological points of view. 

another great quote from B. Manning

Jesus remains Lord by being a servant.
The beloved disciple presents a mind-bending image of God, blowing away all previous conceptions of who the Messiah is and what discipleship is all about. What a scandalous reversal of the world's values! To prefer to be the servant rather than the lord of the household is the path of downward mobility in an upwardly mobile culture. To taunt the idols of prestige, honor, and recognition, to refuse to take oneself seriously or to take seriously others who take themselves seriously, and to freely embrace the servant lifestyle--these are the attitudes that bear the stamp of authentic discipleship.
The stark realism of John's portrait of Christ leaves no room for romanticized idealism or sloppy sentimentality. Servanthood is not an emotion or mood or feeling; it is a decision to live like Jesus. It has nothing to do with what we feel; it has everything to do with what we do--humble service. To listen obediently to Jesus--"If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other's feet"--is to hear the heartbeat of the Rabbi John knew and loved.
When being is divorced from doing, pious thoughts become and adequate substitute for washing dirty feet.

We went to Passion in LA!

I'm posting mainly to just get that hideous picture off the front of my site. Geez, what is that he/she thing?
I can't believe I didn't say anything about it earlier, but Jacinda and I made the trip down to LA last weekend to attend the Passion Regionals Tour Conference. It was so amazing and refreshing.
During every break we had, we would just talk about what God was doing in us. How we felt, what we were thinking, what touched us the most...it was amazing. Just going to a "church" event and having something to talk about was nice. We were definitely stretched in more ways than one. The rawness of the conference speakers coupled with the worship...amazing.
They had 3 "Justice" causes that I'd love to talk about later, but for now I just want to know if anyone else was there?

...a hope and a future!

Jacinda and I just got home from a meeting we had at church tonight. I gotta say, I am pretty amped right now. Like our pastor quoted from Popeye, " I can't stanz it no mo" and we are changing! I could write this whole post with exclamation points after each sentence because of how excited I am!!! We are looking to God for Revelation and putting words to it. I won't say what we got so far because I think it's still a work in progress, but I love it.
Apart from the meeting tonight, I met with 4 other worship leaders today for lunch and we hashed out some ideas on what we want to look at doing in the future. We are going to collaborate together as leaders, blend styles, be support for each other, and the community building just between us has been very refreshing. I can't wait to see how it unravels.

New styles of Worship Music

I found this over at Tim Hughes' blog. If you don't know Tim Hughes, then I don't like you. He wrote songs like, "Here I am to worship", "beautiful one", and "Consuming Fire". His songs get covered by other bands a lot and people don't know that he actually wrote them. I always call/email my local station complaining that they don't play redman or hughes enough, instead they're playing the cover by Newsboys or jeremy camp or whatever. That's my rant. Here's the quote from his site about a newspaper review about new worship music:

Below is an extract from an American Newspaper objecting to new trends in church music.

“There are several reasons for opposing it. One, it’s too new. Two, it’s often worldly, even blasphemous. The new Christian music is not as pleasant as the more established style. Because there are so many new songs, you can’t learn them all. It puts too much emphasis on instrumental music rather than godly lyrics. This new music creates disturbances making people act indecently and disorderly. The preceding generation got along without it. It’s a money making scam and some of these new music upstarts are lewd and loose.”

Who were they attacking? It wasn't Delirious? or Matt Redman. They were attacking the hymn writer Isaac Watts, famous for writing ‘When I survey,’ in 1723! The old hymns once upon a time were radical and cutting edge. Our music and our songs must also always be pushing new ground. Let's go for it.