FaithEngineer

I’m excited about John Waller joining us this Sunday at Cornerstone Community Church. If you saw the movie Fireproof or listen to SpiritFM, you have heard John Waller’s music. His song, While I’m Waiting is a powerful song about waiting on God’s timing. He will be joining us and leading worship for our 10am service, and then going over to First Baptist to lead them in worship at their 11am service. At 6pm on Sunday night, we are moving our evening service over to the historic Rex Theater in downtown Galax for a special concert with John.

The great thing about this concert is that it was organized by a young man in our church. Isaac Larrowe has organized and promoted the concert and has raised the funds to allow John to come minister to us. Please help us get the word out about the concert. If you haven’t heard the song, check out the video below or check out John’s website.

Earlier this week, U2 did something that would seem a little crazy.  In the middle of their 360 concert tour, they livestreamed their show from the Rose Bowl on YouTube and then made it available for viewing.  Jenni and I saw the concert in Charlottesville, and it was an incredible experience.  Here are a few thoughts.

Overall, I’m excited about how video on the internet is developing.  From internet simulcasts, to live-streaming concerts and church services, geographical boundaries are being torn down.  We recently even hosted a evangelism training service for a church in Michigan from our church here in Virginia.  This would have been impossible to even dream about 10 years ago.

Here is the complete 2 hour and 21 minute concert.  I suggest you hook up your computer to your tv and sound system, hit the full-screen button, and sit back and enjoy the concert.  You can find more videos on the U2 YouTube channel.

Over the past 13 years in ministry, I’ve heard a lot of young bands.  In the past six months, I’ve had the opportunity to hear this new band twice and I really like their music. I have a lot of blog readers in the southeast, so I wanted to let everyone know about this band from Greenville, South Carolina. I think their music is a blend of Creed, Daughtry, Todd Agnew, and Decemberadio, with a little vintage Jeremy Camp thrown in as well. They guys put on a great concert and I love their testimony and message. Check out their main website, their myspace page (with music), and their facebook page for more info.

Crashing Jericho Christian Rock Band Music Booking CD

Last week, I noticed that one of my friends on facebook had a couple of extra tickets to the U2 concert in Charlottesville.  It worked out for Jennifer and I to go, so we decided to go on a big date.  The tickets were general admission for the field and were sold during the presale for members of the fan club.  In other words, the tickets were great and inexpensive.   If you’re not familiar with the 360 tour, I’ll share a little about the stage.  You can see a picture above, but it is hard to comprehend how large and incredible it really is.  The 40 million dollar stage is 164 feet tall and takes over 100 tractor and trailers to transport. Simply amazing. You can find more info about the concert and stage from wikipedia.

The round high-tech stage was surrounded by an outer circular walkway that connected by an overhead moving bridge.  Jennifer and I were able to get in the inner ring, and we were constantly surrounded by the band as they moved around the stage.  Bono was literally inches away from us as he walked across the bridge.  The Edge was perfect as always and we were close enough to see all the guitar magic.  They played a good mix of old and new music and they were able to really engage the crowd.  U2 puts on an incredible show, and Muse was a great opener as well.  As a technology junkie, I was amazed at the stage and video and production of it all.  My only big regret was that I didn’t take a better camera. The tickets said no cameras allowed except cell phones, but they didn’t check for them and it seemed like everyone brought nice cameras in.  We were on our feet for almost 6 straight hours and we had to walk a mile and a half each way, but it was worth it.

The best part — I was able to enjoy the entire experience with Jennifer.  Simply Awesome.  Here are a few pictures from my phone for you to enjoy.

Here are some great pictures from the concert Sunday night.  I didn’t have my camera, so I grabbed these from several people at church who posted them on Facebook.  The crowd was estimated to be between 3000 and 3500 people, which is incredible for a city with a population around 6000.  We had several local bands play before Decemberadio, including our own Cornerstone praise band Scattered.  It was an incredible success, and we’re already planning on how to improve and make it even bigger and better next year.  Thanks to all the churches and sponsors who made it possible, and special thanks to all our Cornerstone members who put in a long, long day to make this such a success.  I have heard nothing but positive comments from everyone involved.

Over the past year, I have been able to work with some talented audio contractors and consultants.   If you are local to southwest Virginia, let me introduce you to some of the companies that helped Cornerstone design and implement the sound system we are currently using.

Jim Sharp at TechGnome Productions in North Carolina provided some great help in the early stages of our building renovation.  He gave us some great ideas and even provided some training for our sound techs.   Jim knows his stuff and does quality work.  His company is used to handling projects start to finish, including all design and installation.  Because of budget constraints, we wanted to have more involvement in purchasing and installing equipment.  We ended up using some of his ideas, and I appreciate his willingness to help us out.

We ended up purchasing our equipment from several companies.  Northern Sound and Light gave us some great deals on most of the equipment, and Scott Oliver from Pro Audio Solutions helped us with the rest.  Several of the guys in the church handled the installation of all the audio and video equipment and wiring.  It wasn’t much fun crawling around the attic, but we ended up saving about half of the quoted cost by doing the work ourselves.  Once we got everything installed, we met Chris Gennette from iJamUSA. He was able to build a great sound desk and then he helped us tune and setup the system.  Chris is a great guy located in Hillsville, Virginia.  He was super easy to work with and I look forward to working with him in the future.

I also have to give a shout out to my friends over at Gravel Road Entertainment.  I’ve talked with them in the past and look forward to getting their input on some future projects.

Whenever dealing with consultants and contractors, make sure you know up front how much input you can have in the project.  Some companies welcome the involvement and some companies would rather handle the job from start to finish.  You will need to find the right match for your church depending on the level of expertise in your church.  By doing most of the work ourselves, we saved half of the quoted price and we ended up with better equipment.   I would recommend any of these companies if you are considering upgrading your sound system.

Here are a few pics of our how our system turned out.  Remember we are in a small intimate worship environment.  We have seating for around 200 people.   It sounds great and we finally can control the sound in the room.  Notice the curtains behind the stage which helped.  Our mains and monitors are from QSC, and the sub is from Danley Labs.   This setup works great in this room and can easily provide enough sound for 400+ people.

I look forward to seeing the videos every year from the National Youth Ministry Conference. The guys at Saddleback put some cool videos together.  If you’re a youth worker, you want to check out this video. The announcment videos were stupid funny as well.  Check them out here and here.

thanks to Josh for sharing

I wanted to share a couple of albums that I’m looking forward to. The first is the new debut album from Fiction Family, a musical collaboration between Switchfoot front man Jon Foreman and Nickel Creek guitarist Sean Watkins. It has a cool flow and feel to the music. It is very reminiscent of Jon Foreman’s recent solo albums and I dig the guitar work from Sean Watkins. Listening to it reminds me of old British rock or solo work from Kevin Max. It’s smooth and good.

The other album that I think everyone is waiting on is the new U2 album, No Line on the Horizon, coming out in early March. You can pre-order it now on itunes and download the first song. Check it out here. They also have a deluxe version available on itunes.