Filed under: Ramblings | Tags: charleston sc, great white shark, morris island, south carolina
Who knew? Not me. I had no idea Great Whites ever came around this way. It’s obviously a rare occurence, but check out this article. This is the area where I always went in college and it’s a great place to fish. For those not familiar, it’s the area at the end of Folly Beach near where the lighthouse is. Morris Island is on the other side of the inlet.
Great White Washes Ashore Lowcountry Beach
Dead on Beach: Jaws – Article from The Post and Courier
Photo By: Josh Loefer SCDNR
Filed under: Sunday Night Music | Tags: midtown fellowship, shane and shane, steve fee, tim hughes, worship music
Here were the tunes that we were singing on Sunday night::
Burn For You – Fee
Before The Throne – Shane and Shane
Grace Will Be My Song – Fee
Jesus Paid It All – The Baptist Hymnal
You Never Let Go- Matt Redman
**If you want to be ahead of the game, take a listen to the song called Everything by Tim Hughes. It’s a great song and you may hear it at Midtown sometime soon.**
I don’t remember being this tired in an extremely long time. I didn’t seem to sleep very well last week, and I went to bed somewhat later than normal on Thursday night. Friday night, I left work at noon, and headed to Asheville for what used to be called The Cove Retreat with Northeast Pres. The retreat was awesome. It was a blast to be a part of a worship band and not have to lead anything. D-Gibbs did a great job.
We didn’t get a lot of sleep over the weekend. Who knows when I finally shut my eyes on Friday night. All I know is that they opened again way too soon from the sound of the 25 middle schoolers above our cabin running around their cabin. Not to mention our cabin was around 30* when we woke up.
Saturday night didn’t fare much better. I went to sleep around midnight, but didn’t sleep very well due to a nasty old migraine. I woke up for good at 5, stood in a hot shower for forever, went to McD’s, and then had the last session.
On the drive home from Asheville, I don’t believe I remember any part of it. The whole thing seems like a blur. I don’t remember listening to the music that I was listening to. I got to Midtown at 2:30, passed out in my car for 30 minutes, and then loaded in.
Finally, at 11:30, I was home and in bed.
Today, the first sign of not having enough sleep has finally showed up.
I was sitting at my desk at work and remembered my space-heater was in the car. Well, I couldn’t find my keys. So I walked to the car to look inside, and my keys are still in the ignition with the door locked (with the radio on). Yup, it’s going to be a long day.
**This now concludes what may be the most pointless, boring, and uninteresting blog post ever**
Filed under: music, Religion | Tags: jonathan edwards, martin luther, psalm 47:6, worship leader
I have spent a good bit of time lately reading about what it means to be a “worship leader.” I’ve never been especially fond of the term, but it’s what has seemed to stick in today’s church culture. Anyway, I came across this quote from Martin Luther today and I thought it was awesome (most of it at least). Try to wade through the old english talk, and decipher what he’s trying to say. This quote was from something he wrote in 1538. He’s a little over the top, but extremely passionate about what he’s saying here.
“Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits…This precious gift has been given to man alone that he might thereby remind himself that God has created man for the express purpose of praising and extolling God. However, when man’s natural musical ability is whetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then do we note with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music, which is, after all, His product and His gift; we marvel when we hear music in which one voice sings a simple melody, while three, four, or five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings its simple melody and adorn this simple melody wonderfully with artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance, where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress and embrace. A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.”
For some reason, I had never heard this amazing story until today. I read about 2 guys, James Hooper and Rob Gauntlett, in the latest National Geographic Adventure Magazine. These 2 British teens, were the youngest from England to summit Mt. Everest. They did so at the age of 19.
Soon after they finished their Everest expedition, they started a 26,000 mile journey from the North Pole to the South Pole using only bikes, their own 2 legs, and sailboats. Everything was man-powered…no cars and no fancy boats. Here are just a couple of the highlights from their trip.
- they started in a blizzard behind dogsleds in Greenland just trying to find the official “north pole”
- once they found the official starting point, they dropped the dogs because that would be too easy and put on skis for the next 250 miles pulling sleds behind them
- then they climed over glaciers without good maps or the right equipment – they had planned on going over the coastal sea ice, but the ice was too thin
- after 21 days of this, they called back the dog teams
- Gauntlett fell in through the ice and spent 4 minutes in the 28* water and was unconscious for 4 hours. He was taken out by a helicopter, but they picked right back up where they left off a few days later.
- They sailed through “Iceberg Alley” to New York
- They rode bikes 11,000 miels from New York to the tip of South America
- They were broke when they hit Panama, so they gave inspirational speeches and made T-shirts to raise the money needed to finish the journey.
- Once in Chile, they needed a boat to sail 9,000 miles to the south pole off the coast of Antarctica. So they borrowed $90,000 from family and people they met along their trip who were inspired by their journey. They ended up with a 67 foot aluminum schooner.
- They battled 70 to 80 foot waves and stared death in the eye numerous times. The boat went all the way over at one point, but eventually righted itself back up.
- They sailed through the south pole into Australia 409 days after starting.
- Now they are inspirational speakers at schools around the country.
This story really just amazes me, so I had to share. They’ve got a website, but I can’t seem to get it to work on my end – probably because of the amount of traffic that they have had since this article came out. They’ve had over 10 million hits since their journey began according to the article, but see if you can check it out.
Filed under: Sunday Night Music | Tags: midtown fellowship, Sunday Night Music
Last night Dustin preached on forgiveness – something we all need to do more often . Here were the songs chosen.
Beautiful The Blood – Fee
Hosanna - Hillsong
Carried To The Table - Leeland
Mystery - Charlie Hall
Majesty - Charlie Hall *3rd service only*
Oh Praise Him – David Crowder
Filed under: The Great Outdoors | Tags: black balsam mountains, camping, cold mountain, flat laurel creek, north carolina mountains, outdoors, sams knob, shining rock
I had Tuesday off of work this week thanks to Veterans Day, and I got off work at 3:15 on Monday. So since Ash had Bible Study with High School girls on Monday night and work on Tuesday, I decided to take my first ever solo camping trip. I camped on the Big East Fork Trail kind of in between Brevard and Waynesville off of Hwy 276. It was cold (overnight low of 30*) but it could’ve been much colder. At least it was dry. That’s all you can ask for.
I stayed at the campsite until 2:30 in the afternoon reading “The Shack” from cover to cover. It was a very interesting book that challenges the way that believers think of “Christianity.” I know it’s been somewhat controversial, and I can see why some people could have some problems with it, but I really enjoyed reading it.
After I packed everything out, I headed up to the Black Balsam parking area and hiked up to Sam’s Knob and then looped back around on the Flat Laurel Creek Trail back to where I started from. There wasn’t a lot of sun, but I could see for miles all around, so it was an amazing experience. I hardly saw anyone the whole time except for the 30 or so bear hunters driving their trucks on the parkway and Hwy 276. They were everywhere trying to track their dogs who were trying to flush out the bears. Here are some pics from the campsite and then from the trail and Sam’s Knob/Flat Laurel Creek area.
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- 1 man tents are too small for 1 man
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- east fork of pigeon river
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- early morning sun
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- Sam’s Knob
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- Cold Mountain and Shining Rock
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- field below Sams Knob
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- flat laurel creek crossing
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- sunset off the parkway
I was the biggest Caedmon’s Call fan that you could find 10 years ago. I was in the fan club (The Guild) for a few years, and to this date it’s the only fan club I’ve ever been in. I think being in 1 fan club is still 1 too many. I literally learned to play the guitar by listening to every Caedmon’s song over and over. Jeff and I played their songs all the time wherever and whenver we could.
I rarely listen to Caedmon’s anymore. I never listen to Derek Webb. I loved the stuff he did with Caedmon’s. Then he went kind of crazy and I just didn’t like his music nearly as much. He even came to Columbia numerous times and I didn’t buy a ticket. Hard to believe.
Someone gave me 2 Derek Webb songs awhile ago to try to get me back into it (I Want A Broken Heart and What Is Not Love). I’ve listened to these songs a lot over the last few days, and I really do love them. I guess I’m starting to like Derek Webb again. Maybe it’s just a short term thing, but we’ll see.
Anyway, I went to his website and ran across to the lyrics of the song called “I Repent.” I haven’t heard the song, but the lyrics are right on the spot, so I will share them with you.
| I Repent |
| i repent, i repent of my pursuit of america’s dream i repent, i repent of living like i deserve anything of my house, my fence, my kids, my wife in our suburb where we’re safe and white i am wrong and of these things i repent i repent, i repent of parading my liberty bridge i repent, i repent of trading truth for false unity |
Christmas is right around the corner and will be here before you know it. My wife is already listening to Christmas music.
So just for fun – join in and cast your vote. What type of tree do you like best? Real or fake?
I’ve debated doing this for some time, and I had decided not to do this until now. I’ve had enough people ask me recently, that I will now post the songs we do Sunday night here on the good old blog.
November 9, 2008
Till I See You – Hillsong
Stronger – Hillsong
To Know Your Name – Hillsong
Mystery – Charlie Hall
Salvation Is Here – Hillsong
