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I could write for a long time about the symposium this weekend. There was a lot that happened and a lot of things to think about that I need to process. Instead of spending my precious time here at work doing that, I will just share a few pictures. This is Gabriel. He's from Venezuela, and he was fun to play with this weekend. He has great blues, R&B, and rock chops, so it was a lot of fun to experiment with the 2 guitar sound without just defaulting to the lead/rhythm roles.

Tanya and Chioma came from St Louis as well as our friends, Parker and Nicole, who just moved from St Louis to Athens, GA. We had a great time hanging out with these friends and getting to know them better. It's funny how sometimes you have get out of town with someone in order to get to know them better.

I miss worshiping at NCF Chattanooga. It will always be the standard by which I judge all other experiences because it was the place where I first experienced the joy of worshiping the Lord using my music gifts. However, I came home refreshed and excited about what God is doing here in St Louis. I can't wait to share some of the new songs that we learned there, and I can't wait until the musicians on our team can host a symposium so that they can inspire, encourage, and refresh others.

For a taste of the symposium, you can hear the "Panel Discussion" from Sunday morning in which Michelle Higgins-Loftin, Renae Higgins, Randy Nabors, my dad and I share some off the cuff remarks about crossing cultures, embracing changes, getting out of the box, and keeping people ahead of vision. Listen here on Skip's podcast.

You can also here a board-mix of my song "Rejoice In The Lord" here.

My friend, Tanya found a website that has a bunch of song lyrics and mp3s for a ministry in Uganda. The site features some favorites at our church like "Baraka Za Mungu", "Yesu Azali Awa" and "Kwake Yesu Nasimama". It also has a few songs that I had never heard before including one that I would like to add into our repertoire called "Nitamwimbia Bwana" which means "I will sing to God."

I get a number of recordings or web links from the African members of our church that have songs that they would like to incorporate into our worship. Often, I listen to the recording and determine that it's not a song that we will be able to use. Here's the different criteria that I use to determine if it will work for our worship:

Lots of repetition. We are in America and so we can't realistically expect the Americans in our congregation to be able to handle singing a song that requires us to be able to sing a lot of new Swahili, French or Lingala. Repetition means that we can learn the basic hook like "Yesu Azali awa" and then sing it 4 times in a row.

Can I lead the song? Sometimes I get a song that has very complicated lead part sung by a skilled African worship leader. We have a few really good African lead singers in our congregation, but if a song can only be led by one of them, then it will not be sung very often unless they are willing to always be available to lead it. Instead, if the song has a simple lead part that I can learn, then we can do it whenever I am there which is almost every Sunday. I have a ton of excellent Congolese music that we will not be able to do until we get a really skilled Congolese song leader who will be able to lead them. (Maybe if we could lure Perpetue back to U City...hmmmmm.)

Does the song have anything to say of value? This is always an issue for a song of any tradition, but it is particularly hard to find simple, repetitive songs that have anything of value to say. Sometimes, I will hear a song that I really like, but when I read the translation, I find that it has a very bland message or sometimes says things that are doctrinally suspect.

With those things in mind, I get really excited when I hear a song like "Nitamwimbia Bwana" because it meets all three criteria.

For an example of a song that I really like, but we will not be able to do in church because it is too complicated click here. The song starts about a minute into the video with a very syncopated, non-repetitive, lead part that is sung by two men in harmony! I think it is a very fun sounding song, and I am sure that the words express a lot more than most of our usual "Jesus is great" songs, but I can't imagine how long it would take me to learn to sing the Lingala with all the same inflections and rhythms. I wish I could sing it; I love how the lead seems to just float over the dance beat with such freedom.

Last night, our church had one of our Reconciliation Meetings and the turn out was pretty poor. Not many staff, not many elders, very few "non-anglos", and very few of the core membership. Per capita there was actually a lot of single white female students. What happened?

I have some theories:
-It's mid-May when young people are swamped with exams and projects and parents are bound to their kid's needs. If that's true then why were there so many students there?
-Poor communication. Our church tells people about events, but it is told in a way that never really communicates the true meaning. In our church, an announcement could be in the bulletin, mentioned during the announcements, and displayed on the screen during the service and it is still missed by most of the congregation or ignored. What can we do to communicate the value of events and programs in our church?
-South was not there. The South city congregation shows up. They are really committed to the church because it is a smaller community there. This meeting was U City only. You would not expect that a congregation that's maybe 60% larger would not be there for a meeting.

If you were there, what made you want to come? If you were not there, what was lacking in the meetings planning that might have helped you to be there?

I just read this cool interview on Christianity Today about the marriage of Jaci Velasquez to Salvador's Nic Gonzalez. It seems a little too perfect doesn't it. You can almost imagine the marketing execs in the bowels of the Nashville hit-machine sitting around dreaming up a crazy sham marriage scheme like when Troy McClure married Marge's sister, Selma in this one episode of the Simpsons.

I enjoyed reading the interview because it really showed the normal, real-life marriage and relationship issues that they have. I especially liked reading this response from Nic about how marriage has affected his songwriting:

Gonzalez: The impact of marriage was an amazing thing for me, as well the impact of my wife being pregnant during the writing of [Salvador's] record. Personally, I found I had become a little less interested in giving God thanks for the everyday things, like my health, the health of my wife, and the fact that we had food to eat. I kind of took those things for granted for a while. I was so used to working hard, and by the labor of your own hands you feel like you can accomplish anything. I don't know if it's the blood or just something in me that says I can make things happen; I just have to work hard at it to do it. But at the same time, God has allotted these things for me. God has allowed me to have these things. So I realized I don't want to be ungrateful. Instead, I wanted to be the guy that says, "You know what, God? I'm going to take a step back and write songs that honor You and tell You I'm glad where I am."

I can totally relate to Nic here. As a single guy, I wrote a lot of heady songs about theological concepts. Being married and having kids has made me much more conscious of God's daily portion of grace to meet my basic needs. The songs I've been writing lately have been very practical and real.

This video is pretty cool.

I have tamed the Cakewalk beast and finally completed my first ever demo. It's pretty rough, but it gives a decent idea of how the tune goes.

The song was written as an obvious nod to the African gospel music that I have spent the past 3+ years trying to understand. It is intended for corporate worship and so it has pretty simple form, but I think it would be great with horns and full percussion and 3 guitars. Yes, Paul Simon did it first, but Africa is the wave of the future as far as the Christian church goes, so we should get used to it, right?

The message of "New Creation" is that faith in Jesus comes with a promise: the old is gone and the new has come. So it's a promise that can encourage us when we feel defeated, but it can also be a warning for us to examine our hearts. The ending vamp goes through a long list of old/new characteristics. It will play a lot better live as it builds and builds to a climax.

You can check out the demo on my myspace page.