San Antonio here we come

Well, tomorrow, Summer and I leave for San Antonio. This trip serves two purposes. The first is why we are going to San Antonio in the first place which is contest. The Vocal Majority and my quartet are competeing this weekend. We are really excited about the contest. Our quartet could get as high as second place. The quartet that will get first place is way above our level. They will most likely win the international contest this year.

After the contest, Summer, the kids, and I are going to hang around San Antoino for a couple of days for some R & R.

I'm trying this.

Ok, I have a friend who has recently gotten free stuff from a referal offer like the one I'm tryiing. I'm trying to get a free iPOD. I've signed up for the BMG CD club where I get 12 CD's free and I purchase 1 CD at club price and then my commitment is over and I can cancel my account. I was going to do this anyways to keep up on my worship CD's and you end up getting your CDs cheaper than if you go to Walmart. There are other offers out there as well. If 5 of you can sign up for something under the link below, then I can get a free iPOD. It also starts your process in getting a free iPOD as well. If I get 5 people to sign up for something and I recieve the iPOD, I will tell you that it works and you can get an iPOD the same way. I thought it would be worth a try anyways. Here is the link:

Copy this link into your web browser:
http://ipods.freepay.com/?r=23983600

Thanks for participating if you do.

Zoe was awesome

I attended the worship conference last weekend in Nashville, TN. It rocked. This is probably my 5-6 year to go. It is always good to see all of my friends from around the country that come to the conference. We had around 15 people that came to the conference from our church including 2 elders and their wives. The elders loved it. We have an elders meeting tonight and one of the things on the agenda is for one of our elders to report on the conference. I'm excited.

I'm a little under the weather today. I think there is a stomach bug going around and I have it. I still came to work. My philosophy is if you are going to be a little miserable at home, you might as well be a little miserable at work. Though I probably didn't get as much done as I wish I would have, there were some productive things that came from the days work.

I'm the tech guy around here and it seems that there are some in our office that have the tech curse. It is the curse that I'm convinced plauges much of our nation. Anything a person with this curse toches seems to mess up in some way. I'm glad I don't have the curse, but it can be quite the chore to figure out why everyones computers are going haywire. That happened today to Jim's computer. His computer is in the shop getting a new screen because it went out and today his mouse and keyboard on his loaner laptop (which is better than his old one) went nuts. I was able to decipher the problem, but it took me a little while to figure it out.

Our house is so cool. My family and I are really enjoying having the space. We love the neighborhood, the school and the house. I even like the drive time I have in the morning and afternoon. The only thing I don't like is the extra gas cost.

Here is a deal of all deals. Only nerds like myself will actually get excited about this deal. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament which is a $700 10 volume set normally goes for around $399 on CBD. Right now they have it for $99. I ordered my copy the end of last week. I haven't checked, but it might be gone by now, but I got my order in. I'm so excited about having that in my library, especially because I'm getting ready to start back on my Masters at ACU and that will come in handy.

Well, that's all for now.

Cooler weather

Last night a big storm front came through and left us with cool temps. It went from the hottest day of the year yesterday at 104 to waking up to 57. Tonight it will get down to 53. That is a 50 degree difference in a hurry.

Last night the power went out at the church right after worship team rehearsal. Several of us stayed there for 15-20 minutes to wait out the storm a little. Anna was definately frightened by all the lightning and darkness. She was ready to go.

Anna has been struggling with her Exima (I don't know how to spell it) She is going to a pediactric dermotologist tomorrow. I hope they can figure out a way that we can control it. She was really bad the other night and had a hard time sleeping.

Well, it's time for me to study some more for my Sunday morning class on Genesis. Have a blessed day.

We are moved

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I've been in the middle of moving.

Summer, the kids, and I are now residents of Rockwall, Texas. We love our new house. It is the nicest house we have ever lived in. All the kids have a room and there is a 2nd living area for their toys. There is even a room for my recording and Warhammer stuff. The living room is really big so we can have groups of people over and the kitchen is huge as well. Most important is we have a 2 car garage. I love having a garage again.

I now have a commute to work, but I actually love it. It gives me quiet time that I generally don't have. I've already thought of many uses for that time.

The sound system proposal for our church has been approved. I'm so excited about getting a good sound system in our church.

Thursday all the worship ministers are coming to the church for an area wide lunch. I'm excited about being able to host all of them.

My mom and sister came to Dallas to help with the move. It was great to see them. I hope that us putting them to work doesn't keep them from coming back. Of course I know that when I go in to visit, my mom will likely put me to work moving furniture. My mom and my wife are notorious for wanting to move furniture every 2 weeks. I don't know if it is a girl thing or my family thing. If it is a family thing then my wife has been infected. I love you mom and Summer. :)

We had a new members dinner last night. We have some great new members becoming a part of our church. I'm excited to see how their gifts will be used.

Yesterday, the elders presented the plans for a new building. I think the plans look great. I'm excited to see how everyone responds and to see how things continue to develop in this building project.

Well that is just a little of what is going on. I'll post later. Blessings.

Bret

We're moving

Well, we move on Friday. We are so excited. We close on the house on Friday morning and then we will start moving stuff in. I think this will be great for the family. We will finally be settling into a community where the kids will go to school. It is such a neat area in Rockwall.

Things at PRCC are going well. Saturday there were about 20 of us that showed up for breakfast at Barbec's. There beer battered biscuts were awesome.

The Zoe conference is less than a month away. I can't wait. It looks like we have about 17 of us going.

Our church is hosting the worship ministers for lunch towards the end of this month. I can't wait. We haven't had an area wide worship minister lunch in a while.

We have about 32 displaced people from New Orleans that are in our church apartments. There has been so much given to help them and others out. The people are really nice and it is such an honor to be able to serve in this way.

Summer got back from Gatlinburg last night. It is good having them back home after not seeing them from a week. I know that they had a great time with her parents. Rebeckah is now waving and saying "Hi." She is so cute.

Well I guess that is the short of most everything. Have a blessed day.

Bret

Phone troubles, hurricanes, holidays, and shaving

The past couple of days, our office has been without phone and internet. I didn't realize how much we rely on technology until a couple of days ago. It was like our office came to a sudden hault. How would we function if we were to lose power for a month like many have from the hurricane? What if we no longer were able to buy gas for our cars, because of world events? What if all electronic devices just stopped working? Our lives and our country would be in real danger. The are such great things about technology, but as soon as you rely on it, it becomes a nightmare to suddenly lose it.

We need to be praying for the hurricane victims. What a terrible tragedy. It is hard to believe that a storm can do that much damage and be so far reaching. I can't imagine not only losing my house, but my job and my city. New Orleans is 80% flooded. That means that just about everything is in some ways is ruined.

Summer has gone to Gatlinburg with her family. What a brave woman to brave a 10-12 hour trip with 3 children in a van, then get up the next day and drive another 4 hours to get to Gatlinburg. I wouldn't want to do it, but I know she will enjoy seeing all 14 of her family that will be there.

My friend Stephen Lamb will be coming in on Friday and we will hanging out for the holidays.

Well, I got up this morning and decided to shave my gotee. It is gone. I wonder how everyone will react. I guess I'll have to give a report on that in the next couple of days.

We are really close to closing on the house. I would say in about a week or so we will be closing. I'm excited to move.

Well that's it for now. Have a blessed day.

House Hunting

Well, we are house hunting. We have officailly put down an offer on a house in Rockwall. We are excited. The house is awesome. It is more of a house than we thought we could afford, but this house is a neat find. It is in a great neighborhood with great schools for the kids. We probably looked at every house in our price range and specs in the area. Rockwall is a smaller community just east of Dallas. One of our other ministers lives in Rockwall as well, so we're excited to be closer to them.

I guess this will be three times we've moved in a year and a half. I think I want to be done moving for a while.

We should hear the counter offer back today. I think we should be able to get the house for what we are wanting it for. Time will tell.

Worship team rehearsals have been going well the past 3 weeks. They have been extra good. I love my worship team. They rock!!!! I couldn't ask for a better group of people. I have to brag a little today. Every Wednesday, they pray over me before rehearsal, they do the same on Sunday morning, and they have individually committed to praying for me everyday. I have just been overwhelmed.

Thank you God, for the worship team. They are a blessing in so many ways.

Ever Changing Worship

Last night, Cheryl, one of our praise team members invited us over to her house to watch a video of Jeff Walling and his son. They were talking about passing the baton to our children in worship.

Worship is such a complicated mess, not because God created it that way, but because we have made it that way. Worship has always been about God, but we so easily make it about us and our preferences.

One of the things that struck me from the video was about blended worship. Jeff was saying that the big problem with blended worship is that most people are going to dislike at least part of the service. And you know, he is right. It doesn't matter how I weight our service. If it is on the contemporary side, then I get complaints from those who like more traditional. If I weight it traditional, I get complaints that there was not enough contemporary. If I don't sing enough presentational songs, then there are complaints. It seems that no matter which way I turn, there is no way to make everyone happy.

(Then the light bulb starts to glow)

Then I am reminded that worship is about God and not about anything else. I am convicted that we need to teach our churches better on the subject of worship. We fail to tackle the preference issue because we are afraid we will step on toes. Jesus was not afraid to step on a few toes. My toes need to be stepped on. Your toes need to be stepped on. It is not just those who like the old songs, but also those who like the new songs. To be honest, if we are truly trying to reach the younger generation, most of the church would be uncomfortable with worship including myself.

What do we do? Pray. Pray for boldness to speak when we need to speak and pray for wisdom to keep our mouths shut when we need to. Pray that the heart of our people are focused on God so much that they don't notice how many of this song or another is being sung. Pray that if the do notice that they imediately think of all the people that are worshipping God because of that song even if it doesn't help them personally.

Humans are selfish beings. Every sin that we can committ, roots itself in our selfishness. I pray for forgiveness all the times that I have sinned by demanding my preference in worship. I pray that all of our churches can pray for forgiveness for demanding our preference and failing to pass the baton to our younger generation.

Father, we need your Spirit to guide us. May our worship be about You and You alone. Forgive us when our selfishness takes over. Give us the wisdom and the courage to step out of our comfort zones so that the younger generation can be involved in our worship. Help us to teach the younger generation that thier way of worshipping is important, but that the way thier grandmothers worship is important as well. In all things may you be praised and honored. Through Jesus, Amen.

Awesome Sunday

Yesterday was a great Sunday. Class was held in our worship center with me as the teacher. The praise team stood up there with me which was awesome. We talked about how being a missional church affects our worship. It went really well. This was the first time I've had the opportunity to be in that kind of setting with the church and I really enjoyed the time.

Worship was great. We had a couple of video testimonies about how certain songs had healed people in a time of hurt. We also had a couple of our members to speak on "Worship that Heals our Hurts."

At 3:00 the worship team met at Main Event for bowling and pizza. Micah San Juan gets my vote for "Gutter King." At one point I looked up and he had 11 gutters in one game. Around 7 of them were in a row. Ouch. Valerie Hawkins had the high score of the day and in a long skirt that she wore to church.

Last night I finished the new Harry Potter book. Wow. What a read. I'm not going to give any details out, but you find out lots of good stuff in this book. I'm excited to see how the story will unfold in the last book.

A time for silence

Yesterday in worship, we had a moment where the whole church was silent. The purpose of the silence was for people to find rest in God. I think we often times struggle to find quiet times to find rest in God. There is so much on everyone's plates. There is always something else to be acomplished or some project that needs to be started or another book to be read, etc.

I want to put out a challenge. This is a five minute challenge. Take 5 minutes of everyday and find a quiet place or a place that you can meditate on God. Maybe it will be before you go to bed or before everyone wakes up, or maybe in the middle of the day. This 5 minutes needs to be such that you are not doing anything else (i.e. driving, eating, working). It is important to give God every bit of your attention. In this time, seek God's rest. Nothing more. To get this rest all you need do is come near to God and He will give it to you.

Matt 11:28-30

28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
NIV

We're back from vacation!

Well we got back late last night. I won't recount all that we did because Summer did a nice job of that in her blog. Just click on her blog from my links section and you can read all about our vacation.

One thing I will say about our vacation is that Summer and I were able to define some things in our lives. It happens to everyone. You get so caught up into the here and now and sometimes you don't have the time to sit back from everything and figure things out.

This trip provided that for us. There were some things that both of us had feeling that we haven't been able to just contemplate and work out without the distraction of children. Most of it pertains to adjusting to Dallas life, a new church, and being so far from family. What this time of reflection has done for us is to help us see where we need to focus in our ministry.

It is good to be back in Dallas. I hate living out of a suitcase. I love the vacation, but not all the bags.

Bret

Gone on Vacation

Well, Summer and I are headed to KY. We will be back on the 12th. Summer and I are dropping the kids off at my moms house and then are headed to St. Louis for some much needed R&R. We are excited about our trip. Pray for our safe travel. 10 hours there, 3 hours to St. Louis and back, 2 hours to Summer's mom's house, 10 hours back to Dallas. That's 28 hours on the road. 22 of them with young children in their car seats. Ok, especially pray for the kids to be content on the trip. We just bought one of those DVD players with two screens that attach to the back of the headrest. Dora and Disney movies to the rescue. Have a blessed week and I'll post when we get back.

Bret

Who are you praying for?

Prayer is something that for me has been difficult in my life. It seems that for me without some structure, my prayers are very unfocused. When my prayers become unfocused, my prayer life suffers. I have decided to do something about that because I am convicted that my prayer life is vital to my ministry.

I now have a prayer list that sits on my desk. I decided to type everything I need to be praying for on a regular basis on a Word Document. I left space at the end for special needs that as they come up I can write them in.

What I have found is that I have so much that I feel I need to pray about. If you saw my list, it might look pretty overwhelming. It seems that the list continues to grow everyday too. I'm having to break the list up in sections because I think if I prayed for everyone on the list like I think I should, it might take a couple of hours to do.

If you are reading my blog, you are most likely on my prayer list. I do want you to know that I am praying for you and that I as a worship minister am trying to be more commited to being a prayer warrior as the foundation of my ministry instead of just a part of my ministry.

I pray that the peace of God will be with you all today.

Bret

VBS is Over

VBS is always fun, but it is always good when it is over. The thing I have realized about VBS here in Texas is that everyone has a different idea of how children's songs go. They generally are not on paper anywhere, so that means from one part of the country to another they are sung differently. That puts me as the singing guy at a huge disadvantage, cause I only know my version and it may not be the one they are used to. Examples include "I'm in the Lord's Army," "The Butterfly Song," "12 Men Went to Spy," and "Who's the King of the Jungle." Some have different words and some have different tunes. Why can't people just teach the correct version. (the one I know of course) :)

And of course when it comes to music, people are pretty stubborn about how it is sung. It is more than just children's songs. When I rehearse the worship team, if it isn't the arrangement they are used to or if they are used to doing something that is not in the music, then they let me know about it. Not in bad way, but it is obvious that when people sing something a certain way, they don't like to change it. It is kind of like big hits. I love the song "You Raise Me Up" by Josh Groban. That is the first person I heard do it and I love it. You can't top what he has already done. To have a girl sing the second verse just doesn't do the song justice to me. Now some of you first heard it when Selah did it and you can't imagine the song any different than the way they do it. It is funny how stubborn we get about music. It seems to be a universal thing with most people. That fact alone makes worship ministry a difficult job, because everyone has a view on how things need to be sung or what needs to be sung. I'm stubborn too. I like what I like, but as a worship minister, I don't have the luxury to just do it my way all the time.

What is about music that makes us so stubborn? I think I have an idea. Music touches a part of us that not many other things in life touch. When music touches us we associate the way it is done with the feelings we have. When we hear a song sung differntly it throws up immediate red flags. ("Wait, that is not the way that goes.") Is the new way bad, no, but it is different and in the case of music, different is in many cases bad.

There are times when it is easy to change a piece of music because the way it has been done in the past has not been effective. But if a group of people are touched by a song, it is not worth the fight to change it.

An example at PRCC is the song "There's a Stirring." PRCC sings it differently than I learned it at Lipscomb. When I first put it in the order, they didn't sing it to the music and added a different descant line than I was used to. When I changed it I got several phone calls and emails disapproving of my changes. I then sent out an infamous email to the praise team entitled "There's a Stirring in the worship team."

I guess you could say that music has the tendancy to bring out our selfishness, yet God says that our singing needs to be about others not about ourselves.

I do think there comes a time when a song has been done so many times the same way that most everyone welcomes a change in the song. I think that is why you are seeing the old hymns revitalized throuh different arrangements. "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" is a great hymn and means a lot the way it has always been done, but there is something fresh about some of the new praise bands putting a new twist to the music.

I don't claim to know how all this works, but so far these are some of my insights. What I do know for sure is that music is powerful and because of that people hold "their" music very near to their hearts and are more than willing to speak up if it is done too differently.

Sorry for the ramble.

Bret

Happy Birthday Summer

It is the first day of summer and Summer.

(imagine me sining) Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Summer. Happy Birthday to wonderful, marvelous, beautiful you.

Just in case you forgot, sweetie, 27 is far from old.

We are getting ready to head to Six Flags for her birthday. The kids will have childcare and Summer and I can ride all the rides we have been wanting to ride. I'm excited. There is nothing like going to the park on a day that very few people are there and the lines will be relatively small.

Everyone give Summer a happy birthday over on her blog.

Bret

VBS and Sudan

VBS has started. We are doing Group's Serengeti Trek. Our church looks like a jungle, especially in our worship center. Volunteers have spent weeks preparing the decorations on this event. When we decorate for VBS, we decorate. There is no half doing anything. I will try to get a picture and post it.

My fried Stephen is leaving for Sudan today. Please stop and pray right now for him. The Sudan can be a very dangerous place. They are doing some survey work for the mission field. This trip could be crucial in getting missionaries into Sudan where that has not been possible until recently.

Summer and I will be heading to Paducah on July 3rd. We are going to leave the kids with my folks and we are going to get away for a couple of days. I'm so excited. I don't even care where we go. Just to be away for a couple of days will be excellent.

Tomorrow is Summer's birthday. Everyone be sure and wish her a happy 27th birthday. Summer have you thought about it? You are only 27 and you have been married 8 years and have 3 children. You are awesome and I love you.

Blessings,


Bret

Help fight poverty

Did you know that child dies every 3 seconds from poverty? In the time that you have taken to read to read my blog today, several children will have died. What can we do about it? There is something that we can do. Rick Warren has done something that we can all do. Instead of tell you about it, I will just post a link that will tell you all about it. Mike Cope also talks about it on his blog as well. Please join the effort help those who are in poverty.

Fight Poverty

A few days ago I found out that my vocal coach has 2 tumors on his liver. They did a biopsy yesterday and he will know results in a couple of days. Please pray for him. Generally, the liver doesn't just get tumors, they generally come from somewhere else. He has been jaundas and has lost quite a bit of weight in a short period of time. His name is Jim. Keep him in your prayers.

Also pray for Ed. He passed out while driving to work on Saturday and had a wreck. He fractured a vertebre and will have to wear a back brace for 3-6 months.

Won by One came and performed at our church on Sunday night. They were awesome. I've had the privalige of hearing many of the college groups and even singing in one when I was at Lipscomb, but Won by One has the best sound out of all of them. Their arrangements are top notch and the singers, especially the girls, are some of the best. If you haven't heard them, you need to. They are awesome.

Won By One

One of the girl's dad is a barbershopper and a really good one. He has been in the top ten quartets in the world. I thought that was really neat. John, Crysty, and I took them to lunch yesterday. They are really a neat group of people.

I went to half price books for the first time yesterday. It it huge. They have tons of books at half price. I picked up a couple of commentaries and a couple of magazines for my hobby. If you haven't been there, it is a great place to find books at a cheaper price.

That's all for now. Have a great day.

Bret

My wife took all my stories

Now that my sweet wife is blogging, I have no more family stories to tell. She tells them all much better than I ever could on her blog. If you want to know about what is going on in my family, read her blog.

We got our couch in which means that we have to do something with the old couch. It is now in my office. When I finally got it in there under the florescent lights, it looked terrible from all the abuse my kids gave it. I took the fabric off of the cusions last night and washed them. It faded the color a little, but it got most of the nasty stuff off so in all it does look beter. It still may be the best bet to get a slip cover though I really don't like the way they look.

Because our couch is so big, we are going to have to move the toys. There are only a certain number of places that they can go, but unfortunately for me the best place is where I have my hobby set up which means my hobby goes to a closet. Isn't it funny how things happen? I used to have a room for my recording studio and hobby stuff. When we had Rebekah, Micah moved into my old room, my hobby stuff took a little cubby hole in the living room and my studio came to the church. Now that we have this toy problem I get a small space in a closet. From a whole room to a little closet. Gotta love it. When we run out of space in that closet I'm sure the next place for my hobby stuff will be the out building. A family of 5 sure can fill up a 3 bedroom house in a hurry. Especially when you have kids toys that you don't want to put in their rooms, but in a central location so Summer can keep an eye on them when they are playing.

Well, enough of that for now. Have a blessed day.

We couched

We bought a couch. It will be delivered next Wed. I'm excited about it. It is probably the nicest piece of furniture we have ever owned. What is cool is that we got it so cheap. The greatest things in life you get on sale. (I feel a sermon coming on)

New Leather Couch... Retail: $3200
Sale: $810

New Kawai Keyboard... Retail: $2000
Sale: $1250

New Clothes... Retail: $too much
Sale: 66% off at Dillard's

Perfect Wife... Retail: Way more than the richest person can afford
Sale: A poor worship minister got a perfect wife.

Sin.... Retail: Death
Sale: Forgiven


Though we can get almost everything on sale, God paid full retail price for our sin, the death of His Son. Don't take for granted the things we recieve on sale. Some of the spiritual bargains we recieve in life were paid at retail price so that we might have life.

Have a blessed day.