My sister is better than yours!

This is my sister getting her high school diploma... She rocks, I love
you jessica!

*Posted from my iPhone

ONE atlanta music

have you heard the buzz about ONE atlanta music?

Over the last 2 years, a vision has been incubating here in Atlanta within a community of singers, musicians, and record producers. The vision involves exporting songs of love and redemption to the world, through this network of Atlanta artists who write together, dream together, and “do life” together. It also involves discovering new talent in our city to pull into the ranks. After many a “think tank” by some of its core members, the decision was made to brand this community and set up shop under the name ONE Atlanta Music.

ONE Atlanta Music is made up of artists, writers, and producers with diverse musical backgrounds creating music for this generation and those to come – music that crosses genres, addresses multi-cultural challenges, and connects with a culture that is looking for something timeless. Atlanta is brimming with something worth sharing, and it’s time to create an avenue for it

so go check out their blog here and be prepared for a brand new major influence on the atlanta music scene.

FREE MUSIC MONDAY: josh bayne EP

so this is pretty cool... my good friend josh bayne is celebrating the 1 year anniversary of his grace changes everything ep by giving it away for the next week! now through sunday all you have to do is send him an email (bayne.josh@gmail.com) with the subject "FREE CD" and he will send you an MP3 download of the complete album!

so go send him an email, let your friends know and post it on your blog... make sure to tell him you saw it here first!

sunday thoughts

• i went to buckhead church with my family today. steve fee was leading and andy finished up the series "faith hope and luck"


• i had a chance to catch up with eddie kirkland and carlos which is always a blast.


• last night when my family and i were discussing when we were going to go to church, i laid down the smack down. i said "since we are not inviting any unchurched friends this week we shouldn't go to the 11, the empty seats at optimal times are more important then our enjoyment..."


• on friday we moved all of our stuff out of our apartment in greenville. a huge thanks to jake, casey, greg, my dad & mike for helping. having all of these guys help carry boxes and furniture up and down from a 3rd floor apartment was a life saver!


• right now all of our stuff is sitting in a trailer. we are hoping to have an apartment in the next few weeks and worked it out where we could leave it in the trailer for a few weeks so hopefully we only have to move it once...


• it kind of all sunk in for courtney and me yesterday when we realized we are both unemployed and homeless. that was a weird feeling.

how you can pray for courtney and me:

• pray that God would provide an awesome apartment community that we are really excited about being a part of.


• that God would show us a little more clarity as to why atlanta is the next place he is putting us.


• that God would give us favor as we send emails incurring about potential opportunities.

hippo eats dwarf

(h/t: one+infinity swissmiss)

one prayer - revolution church

last week i had the opportunity to shoot and edit gary lamb's one prayer message at the revolution offices. it was great to get to be around these guys again. we had a lot of great laughs and we had the opportunity to hear gary's one prayer for the church: make us revolutionaries. God is doing some amazing things up there in canton and in/through gary right now. i count it a blessing every time i get to spend time around revolution.

happy mothers day

this is my mom. she is awesome.

my mom came up to greenville with courtney and me to help us pack this weekend. this will be the first time in years that i have spent mothers day with my mom. one of the weirdest parts of that is we won't be going to church, but this is the first mothers day she has ever really hated that... you see about 11 months ago my parents started attending buckhead church. while they both grew up in church and were always very active, this is the first time in their lives that they actually can't wait to go to church on sunday. to see a passion reignited in my parents for creating irresistible environments that they can invite their unchurched friends to has been just one more reason that i am completely sold out to doing church this way.

mom, thank you for all that you have ever done for me. i pray that your renewed passion manifests itself into all of your relationships... i love you.

drive

i don't know how you crazy conference bloggers do it... i can barely stay awake during my down time, much-less blog... drive 08 ends today and i will be back to blogging soon there after...

see you soon!

sunday thoughts

• i spent most of my sunday at southside church, the strategic partner south of atlanta in peachtree city. i kind of just played a utility roll doing everything from troubleshooting propresenter in upstreet to moving the center screen up and down during family birthday celebration. i had tons of fun and i hope to be back down there soon to work with martin(SPD) and chris(LP) some more.


• after leaving southside i headed over to buckhead church to catch the 6:00 service. i met up with my wife courtney, josh & michelle, joe & miranda, & jake. this was actually my first time watching andy on the HD screen at the new buckhead building, absolutely brilliant.


• following the service we all went to dinner at ihop and my boy carlos joined us. always a treat to get to hang out with him.


• while at buckhead jake and i saw this live. it was brutal. danny stephens is such a pro for never missing a beat...


• i am so pumped about the next 3 days at drive conference. more than anything the opportunity to develop more relationships with npmi staff and other partner staff will be a huge win!


• speaking of drive if you are a production type or just curious about a great "survival guide" provided by audio engineer genius dave stagl click here; or for a recommended roundtable/break out schedule by production director extraordinaire micah stevens click here.


• i don't know about you but the tragedy at churchill downs on saturday just kinda makes me feel funny... read here


• and one last shout out to my childhood schoolmate josh smith and the hawks. you guys have made atlanta proud, hold your heads high!

planning center

one of the best service programming resources i discovered while at catalyst was planning center. planning center brought together multiple tasks into 1 interface that everyone could access as needed. while it did take us a while to get the right templates and structure within planning center set up, the time we spent getting it ready way paid off for all of our end users. we were still working towards getting all of our musicians on there, but the benefits it brought to my volunteers and our staff really allowed a new level of preparedness for sunday. i knew the person running pro had listened to any new songs and had the comfort of knowing every volunteer accepted or declined officially for that sunday. if you can be intentional about using it to its full potential the value it adds to service programming is huge.

planning center will completely streamline your service planning systems, from the easy drag & drop interface for service order, to the ability to schedule musicians/volunteers, planning center will allow you and your team to take your service to the next level.