Christmas is a Time of Giving

I know it has been forever since my last blog. It has been a busy, but fruitful holiday season.
The sayings, "Better to give than to receive" and "Christmas is a time for giving," are not just a cliche. They are nuggents of truth that should be explored. We, as a family, decided to invest in others this Christmas season in two ways.
The first way was to participate as a family in COTT. This was the third year in which New Life has taken our Christmas music program to the streets. "Christmas on the Town" (COTT) is taking the choir to businesses in our community offering free "entertainment" with two goals, to first make a positive impression of Christ and New Life by giving away a free gift to shoppers, and next to bring authentic worship to the streets and businesses.
This year, we decided that God was leading us to share a candy cane attached to a pocket Gospel of John from Pocket Testament League with 3000 shoppers in 7 venues in our community. In the first 5 venues, we shared 2800 gospels. In total, we shared 3000 gospel (all that we had) and 4500 candy canes. We saw teared-filled eyes as the Holy Spirit moved listeners' hearts as we sang. At one view, God orchestrated almost 70 people to listen and worship Jesus with us as we sang. Our team ministered and prayed for others at several venues. Click here or on small picture to see COTT 2006 picture album.
The second way was to minister to the homeless of our community. Our friends, Bill & Brenda, have a ministry of preparing backpacks to distribute to the needy at Christmas. We met on Saturday, December 23, and saw the smiles of adults and kids. It did the Herrells good to serve and befriend those who need it.

Friends

Good friends don't skip time, when you are reunited it seems like the next day instead of a year or even two later. We had a chance to see some of those friends lately. Some of these relationships are many years old and some just a few months old but all are precious to my family. They are a journal of sorts that makes us think of times past a what God had us a part of. Click HERE or on the picture to see some more of my friends.

40 Years of Service

A few days ago I had the opportunity to be part of a celebration of the 40th year anniversary of University Baptist Church of Middletown Ohio. I served as Minister of Music there from 1993 - 2000. There are many churches that have had 40 years of existence but UBC is different than most because they have had the same pastor for all forty years. Pastor Nolan Phillips came to Middletown Ohio forty years ago to plant a church and became its pastor. Why don't you see more long term pastors? Is it the church or is it the pastor? All churches have problems and difficulties as do even the best pastors. I think it takes a special person to lead a group of people through the discouragement that forces some to look for a new place of ministry.
At the celebration many of those who Pastor Nolan Phillips had led to the Lord or had been mentored in ministry were present to honor and thank God for such a long tenure. The testimonies were numorous and touching. It amazed me how many lives were touched by this one life. It urged me to continue to invest in people that I might follow in the same way. All done for the cause of Christ . Thank you Lord for models of consistancy and intergrity like Nolan Phillips. Salute

Creeping in Virginia

I am not what you would call an athlete, but I have found an enjoyable activity in southwest Virginia called the Virginia Creeper. The Creeper is 32 miles of abandoned railway that has been converted into a bike trail. The wonderful thing about the Creeper is that 17.2 miles of this trail is a coast downhill from White Top Station to Damascus with hardly any peddling. It is a great day trip for the whole family. Even small kids can coast through the beautiful countryside and scenery of Mt. Rodgers National Forest. We used a shuttle service "The Bike Station" with good equipment and a friendly driver. The 17.2 mile portion takes about 2 1/2 to 4 hours, depending on how much time you spend soaking up the sights. A good break can be taken about half way at the Creeper Trail Cafe. I hear that their chocolate cake has been in the Southern Living magazine. If it looks rainy at all, remember to bring an extra change of clothes. You will get splattered with the mud as you zoom through the puddles.

Another Tech Tip

Have you ever had to get a computer file to someone else but it was to big to be attached to an email? Most email servers will allow up to 10 mb attachments. Yousendit.com is a service that will allow you to upload and share one file of up to 1 gb in size. The free portion of this service allows 3 downloads during a 7 day period. If you have several files that you need to share you can zip them into one file and share them as an archived file. Great for music or video files!

Making Musical Memories

This week has been an exciting exercise, and I mean exercise, in recording some God-inspired songs written by a good friend. Now, I know that I don't know many things that a beginning Studio Producer and Sound Engineer should know. I realize that it is more than knowing your equipment (which I failed at miserably -lots of waiting by patient musicians), or knowing the process, or knowing how to place a microphone or what pickup pattern to use. It is knowing people. Knowing who should play or sing what part and when. Knowing how much to push for the perfect take without getting diminishing returns.
The things that I have made note of that seemed to go fairly well are; always use a click track that has subdivisions of the beat (in some cases, a drum loop), take good notes of edits that need to be made, always compress Kick Drum and Bass Guitar, have a prerecorded sync point (like a rap of a snare) recorded on every track to align tracks that have to be moved from recorder to recorder before you begin tracking. I never understood how time-consuming the whole task can be. I am about 1/3 of the way through, but I feel very positive about the future completion of "The Risen Lamb" and "Lonely Night in Heaven." I hope to share the original tracks with readers in the future. I am sure I have plenty more to learn in the mixing and mastering of this project. For those interested in equipment, here is a partial list; Win XP computer with Protools LE 6.04, Livedesign, Event TXL8 Powered Monitors, Roland DAW 880, Rode NT2, Audix mics, Headphones by Shure, AKG, and Koss, Headphone amp by Ross, and PodXTLive. Instruments include Pearl Drums, Sabian cymbals, Kawai Digital Piano, (2) Martin guitars, Shecter Bass guitar, Fender Squier Telecaster (amazing sound without the price - it's the only one I have heard that sounds like a real Fender Telecaster), and God's instrument, the human voice.
I want to conclude this post by expressing my thanks to Pastor Steve Clark for seeing the vision of this week and allowing some time for it to happen.

A Day Away

Our routine may have us, and we don't even know it. Recently I had the joy (thanks to some new and great friends) to get away from the familiar environment and spend the day with the ones I love up in the mountains beyond the Blue Ridge Parkway. The first thing that caught my attention was the sweet smell of cool air, almost like autumn, except fresher. Then I noticed the wonderful absence of the sounds from cars, humming lights, lawn mowers, and even the fans that try to keep everything cool (like this computer). It was replaced by a simple breeze with a background whisper of a trickling stream. The sights were as different as the sounds. I substituted the things that man makes (like billboards, four lane highways, and even backyard goldfish ponds) for clouds washing over 4,000 feet ridge tops and the shiny leaves and bursting blooms of wild rhododendron and mountain laurel. The things I touched were different too; the feel of prickly, but soft boughs of a growing Christmas tree 2 to 10 feet tall and the doorknob of a neighbor's cabin that was freely left unlocked for friends and family to enjoy. My thoughts were more about what species of trees we were discovering on our walk, and when could we find more time to return to this place than thoughts of the high price of gasoline or running over on our allotted cellphone minutes (which, by the way, will do you little good unless you walk to the top of the next hill). Yes, the pace is slower. It makes me wonder if God wanted it that way so that we might have a volume of time to spend with Him. He walked with Adam in the cool of the day. So, if you have a chance and know someone beyond the Parkway, take a day. It might serve your spirit as well as it did mine.

Blogging by Email

I don't know if this will work but I'm giving it a try. Posting from an email. It works especially well when you don't need to add graphics. Just send an email to your blogger email address and bingo - it appears on the blog. Easier and convenient! Isn't it great that not a day goes by that God doesn't teach or show you something new.

Tech Tip

This week I ran accross a useful tool for anyone using more than one computer. You can remotely control any computer you setup from any internet enable computer. Similar to software like PCAnywhere but Logmemin is free for connecting to one computer. I works great and you can't beat the price. I might even upgrade to the pro version for more features.

Worship Lifestyle - Prayer

I have never felt the need for more prayer and more praying people in my life as I did Tuesday. Two different but equally urgent prayer request came through my life. I began to pray but the need for others to pray also sweeped over be like a wave. I was moved to use tecnology to alert people to pray. We created a prayer link on our church website that will blast an email message to our praying people with the click of one button. I continue to pray for these request but it gives me great assurance that we have a vehicle to effectively get any prayer request to the right people. I know I will use the Prayer Request link at www.nlbcs.org and the email prayer@nlbcs.org often. I invite you to have your request prayed for in the same way.

Getting Started

The world of blogging. - I have read blogs for years but never thought that I would have much worth writing for others to read. On second or third thought I was urged to share life with others over the net through a blog. So here we go through the adventure of my life.