conference catch-up

i intended to blog the rest of yesterday after i got home last night.  ha!  i had two things interfere with that.  one was that i was dead tired.  the second was that ups delivered my new phone, and ubercool att fuze / htc touch pro.  toys feel neglected if they’re not played with.

so for yesterday, the first breakout session i was at was with gabe allred, the current (as of this semester) worship leader from cfni.  my friend tim hoover is on the worship team and he’s been very excited to work with gabe, so i was looking forward to hearing him.  no disappointment.  ok, i could mention that gabe isn’t yet a “great speaker”.  it didn’t really matter.  everything he said was so close to the heart of god that he could have mumbled and we’d have been blessed.  in fact, before he started he said “let’s pray”, and we did, just each one of us quietly.  i’ve seldom felt god’s presence so strongly.

after that denis campos and kari jobe did a session on songwriting.  it was good.  kari’s a nut, but a very sweet nut.

the night of worship, led by kari jobe was beyond words.  quite literally i don’t know what to say about it.   what do you say about being in god’s throneroom and seeing and hearing things that can’t be described in human language?  on a more human note, daystar filmed the thing and my smiling (or possibly crying) face might be on a small screen near you.

rita springer

just being painfully honest, i haven’t ever really listened to that much of rita springer’s music.  i don’t know why.  it just hasn’t come to my attention that much.  at this moment, however, i have a tremendous admiration and respect for the woman.

she spoke in the second general session at the cfni worship conference.  i cried through half of it.  she was whatever is the opposite of “showy”.  she read almost all of john 11 about lazarus; then just spoke her heart.  she just told about her life and her walk with god.  i loved it.  one of the most inspirational things i’ve heard in a while.  some highlights (quotes are rough):

“sometimes leading worship is like a staring contest with people” (i laughed out loud)

“my job as a worship leader is to make people jealous for what i’ve got”

“when jesus wept [about lazarus] it was in preparation.  he knew the next stone that would be rolled away would be his”

“[a day is coming when the world will say to the church] give us that sound or else we die”

this wasn’t directly from something she said, but the lord was saying it to me as she was speaking:  “what god is calling people to is to go beyond what we think of as the point of no return.  it’s the call he gave to lazarus, to die so that god can be glorified in his resurrection (john 11:4)”

cfni worship conference

i’m at the annual christ for the nations worship conference today (thursday) through saturday.  our first speaker, robert madu, was stinkin awsome!  it was from romans 12 about “who you’re plugged in to”.  he’s an excellent preacher, fun to listen to and solid word.  so looking forward to the rest of the day.

find us here – long day

tracking from about 2 in the afternoon ’till 2 in the morning on the find us here project.  then ihop of course. 

got jordan’s drums on the 3 tunes that needed them, plus aaron’s guitar and vocals on all or most places we needed it.  need some brent time for electric guitar and i still need to do bass on a couple things. 

it’s getting close, and we’re all pretty excited cause it’s sounding great!  our tunes mostly run 5 or 6 minutes so it’ll be a 9 song cd with 45 minutes of music.  haven’t thought too much about a cd release party – i’d like to open for someone at live at mokah

we’re looking for weekend retreat gigs in north texas or oklahoma, btw