Recording / Something else

So we've been recording a guy named Justin Blake (a friend of Brett's) at our house today. He's finishing up a full record that we did several tracks for about six months ago. It's been really fun and good. He actually brought a grand piano into our living room to record it.

Yeah, that's right.

Of course, he's a professional piano restorer/tuner/mover . . . so he knows how to do such things. The piano he brought in has a gorgeous sound to it. I always forget how it feels to play on a real piano . . . especially one that has great action. This particular one is 100 years old, but looks like it could be almost new. It still has the original ivory keys and everything.

It was a beast to mic up right, but once we got it, it sounds awesome. He wanted me to play on one of the songs, and it was really cool to hear it in the studio monitors. It sounded goooooood.

And Justin and I got to talk for a while too, about my time at IHOP, and the common thread of themes that are popping up all around the world (but especially in America) about a re-revelation of both the holiness of God and his desire/requirement for us to be holy, and the absolute passion and intense love that He has for us.

There seems to be a sub-current of people within the church who look at the "body of Christ" and say "there has to be something more". It's not a judgmental thing. We are no better than anyone else, but merely an opening of eyes to see the truth that is written in God's Word, and actually believing it means what it says.

I don't know. It just seems to me that God's doing something in the church. Maybe He's preparing us for something. Something bigger than your average cookie-cutter, smile-and-nod, feel-good, hell-fire-and-damnation, country-club-ish, snake-bitin', seeker-sensitive, post-modern, relativistic, or whatever brand of church this country breeds that picks one thing out of the Bible and over-emphasizes it and forgets about everything else. (I personally enjoy the country-club church. . . it's nice and comfortable, and you have expensive toys to play with)

Maybe He's preparing us for something big. I mean BIG. Something like an old-time revival. I'm talkin' Book of Acts style. The problem/blessing of those kind of revivals are . . . they don't come without persecution. Or being in the midst of it.

Or maybe it's the latest Christian fad. We do have those, after all. WWJD, anyone?

But I don't think so. I think God is calling all of those of His disciples that want more of Him. That truly desire to be men/women after His heart . . . to seek only for the joy that comes from knowing Christ . . . "to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge", as it were.

Lord, let it be.

Dad, I love You!
You are so good to me.
I don't even have any idea what that means,
but I know it's true.
You are truly good to all.
And You LOVE ME.
I can't even fathom it.
Not dispassionate, sterile, cold, analytical love.
But PASSIONATE, FIERY, ZEALOUS, JEALOUS, AWE-STRIKING, HOT-AS-LAVA, COLD-AS-ICE, BEYOND LIMITATION, INFINITELY POWERFUL, STRONGER THAN DEATH LOVE!!!
Even as I write the words I don't understand.
But I want to.
And I want to love You more,
even if it is infinitely smaller
in comparison to Your love for me.
Dad, let it be! Let it be!
Let it be that I am found only in You!
That who I am is lost and is only found in Christ.
That I become worthy of my name.
Thank You, Dad.
You are so good to me.
I love You!
So Be it.

4th on Broadway

So I got to help with running sound for one of the tents during Lubbock's annual free "4th on Broadway" celebration. It was fun. Dolf, the drummer for the Dallas Stevens Band, also is a partner in Runway Productions, which does small venue sound reinforcement.

So anyway, he asked me to help him. It was fun. We were on the "eclectic" stage . . . which is the stage that gets the acts that don't fit in any of the other stages (country, rock, tejano, etc). So we had a wide gamut of jazz, experimental acoustic, singer-songwriter, funk, soul/blues, etc. It was pretty cool. We had to be there at about 7AM, and by the time we finally loaded everything into our trailer it was about 5PM . . . then we had to go unload the trailer.

Then, 'cause I didn't feel like going home, and there were still more festivities for the "4th on Broadway" . . . the BIG show down at the park . . . I call up my roommate Justin to go find him at the park. He'd been setting up this show since Monday (He organized the whole thing, too, since he's the production boss guy at Miller Pro Audio), and it was pretty impressive. He let me have a backstage pass and I hung out with him and the Miller Pro crew either at the Front-of-House area or backstage at "Moniter-World" the whole time.

The show was . . . . interesting. The singers and musicians were all very talented . . . but everything seemed to lack any substance. It was all fluff.

Oh well.

So then, after the fireworks show at the very end, they needed to tear down and load out all of the audio and lighting because it needed to be on its way to Austin the net morning. I didn't feel like fighting the masses to leave (there were probably about 8,000 people there) . . . so I decide to help. 

Wow. I had never seen such a mass of power, lighting and audio cables. It was impressive.

It took us about 2 1/2 hours to wind up all the cables. There had to have been 30 or more people working.  Then we had to load up everything in the trucks.

So Justin and I got home around 3AM. It was a long day . . . but fun. 

Forging our own trail

So Dallas (the frontman and namesake of the Dallas Stevens Band) and I made a fun little trip tonight. We just had one of the most fun (albeit sloppy) sets we've had since I've played with them, and it was really a tiring set.

Then, since we can't get cell phone coverage in the camp, we all decided to take a hike. Apparently, if you go up a certain trail, a little way up you can get spotty cell phone coverage. They neglected to mention that AT&T doesn't really work. So Dallas and I made the trip all the way to the top, thinking maybe, just maybe, we'd be able to get some coverage. 

We were mistaken.

Ah well. It was a nice view. . . the stars were really cool in between all the clouds. . . I could almost forget the burning in my lungs that told me how out-of-shape I am.

Then, we decided to head down, except down the other trail (there were apparently two trails that led up there. 

Yeah. We couldn't find it.

It was dark.

So we made our own trail. It was fun. 

First day of camp

So, leaving IHOP has come and gone, and Curtis is now blissfully married.

So, it's time for camp. I'm in Sacramento, NM this week playing keys in the Dallas Stevens Band as we lead worship.

It's fun . . . but I'm really really really tired.

I've actually been drifting off as I write this. So, yeah, sleepy time.

It begins . . .

Tonight's the last night with one of the guys in our apartment. Josh is going back to Lousiana tomorrow, and it's really starting to hit me that I'll be home in just a few days.

I didn't really think that it would be that big of a deal, but it's crazy how much I'm really going to miss these guys. For 7 guys to live in a small apartment together for 3 months, you really have two choices, fight or become best friends. Then, add that to "relational wholeness"(crying in front of each other), and you take it up a notch.

So it's going to be hard. I honestly was pretty broken up about it tonight in the prayer room. These guys know me in some ways better than anyone, strangely enough, and I know them in the same way. We've all grown a lot in the last 3 months. We've all grown together.

{sigh} Sentimentality. Poo.

Dad, I love You.

Help me to lean on You when things hurt.

Help me to know You are there when I need You.

Help me to know myself as "Kris whom Jesus loves."

Help me to know I am not really alone.

Thank You, Dad.

I love You.

So be it.

One week left

Crazy. This time next week I'll be back in Lubbock. 

I can't wait, and/or am very apprehensive about going home. It's strange, really.

I really miss everyone, and can't wait to hang out . . . but I know God has called me to some probably very "radical" life changes that may or may not be very palatable to some people . . . and that will most likely cause some friction . . . . :(

I don't know . . . we'll see.

It's been an interesting week, with a lovely night with Stuart Greeves on Sunday night, which we have come to call "Weekly Conviction with Uncle Stewie", followed by some lovely times of offending my mind with healings on Tuesday, and many interesting conversations about who our "6:01" is . . . a peculiar tradition among Fire in the Night . . . it relates to the time when the track is over when the "dating" rule no longer applies.

So . . . yeah. It's been an interesting week. It will be good to be home. No doubt different, I'm sure, but good.

Dad, I love You.

You've given me a lot to think about lately.

I honestly get very tired of thinking, sometimes

but I know I need to . . . so thank You.

Please help me to work through these things

that You have been talking to me about.

Please help me to dive into Your Word

and into . . . You.

Thank You. I love You.

So be it.

Encouragement / Mandatory "Fun" Day

So last night was really cool. I had the most fun so far playing a set. It was in the JPR, and we had a good team . . . albeit, a lot of subs. We had two acoustics, electric, keyboard, bass and drums. It was a blast. And everyone was really encouraging afterwards . . . it was cool . . . Sometimes I don't like such things, because I don't want to get a big head, but sometimes it's nice to be encouraged.

Then there was today . . . Mandatory "Fun" Day, as my buddy Josiah and I call it. It was actually the "Fire In the Night Outing". . . a required time of "fun" at the park early in the "morning" . . . 3 pm . . . which is usually when we are getting up. The park was pretty and all, and the sky was overcast and there was a cool breeze blowing, which was nice . . . but potato sack races and organized games? C'mon! Bleagh!

All of these memories kept floating to the surface the whole time . . . none of them good ones. I don't think I've ever liked those kind of games. Or organized sports in general. Even when I played soccer as a kid, I never really enjoyed it as much as everyone else. I always played the kid back by the goalie that just had to kick the ball as hard as he could so that all the players would run away down the field after it. We called it "fullback" back then . . . I think it's just "defender" now. Then there was the memory of dad making me join little league when I was a kid, and I didn't want to. I remember the first game, when they tried to get me to go bat, and I just sat in the dugout and cried, because I didn't want to be singled out like that and fail in front of everyone. I didn't mind playing outfield . . . I just didn't want the pressure of being at bat. I quit after that game. . . . actually in the middle of it, I think. 

That whole thing translated itself into an intense distaste for any competitive sports after that, because the only message I've ever received while attempting to play is one of anger or frustration at me because I'm not as good at it as they are. . . so I've, for the most part, avoided such things, and stuck to things I knew I could do. . . music, academics, etc.

Wow . . . fun revelation times . . . just so anyone knows, I'm not asking for pity or encouragement about this whole thing . . . I'm just talking about how something so simple brought up issues that I had completely forgotten about. . . Most people seems to not have the same issues with sports that I do. I have almost never found them encouraging in the slightest though . . . it's all about performance-based affection . . . I probably need to get over this, though . . . . it was strange, though, I reverted to old habits, today, though, in that while a bunch of people with whom I normally can have good conversations with and hang out and whatever, I just wanted to have nothing to do with them when they started playing sports. . . it was weird.

Anyway, enough with the rambling. blah.

Dad, I love You.

I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with all this.

Today made we want to just curl up in a corner

Or run away.

I felt no kinship with anyone.

I don't know.

Help me understand what You're wanting of me

by showing me these parts of me.

Thank You. I love You.

So be it.