Dave Ferguson is bemoaning the technical difficulties of his precious Twitter today. Sounds like a personal problem to me. Not sure it's exactly blog-worthy...
Oh wait, I see that Mark Batterson is blogging about it too.
Well then, I stand corrected. I'm sure it's very important.
Apparently our staff is intimidating, just found that out during our lunch break today from a marathon day of meetings. Anyway apparently newbies who come in are intimidated by us. i mean really - look at this picture- how intimidating could I possibly be?
Brainstorming and coming up with ideas and trying to decide which one is the best idea is maybe the most absurd routine a group can be involved with.
For some reason I just felt like saying that.
Just starting a list that I have a feeling will grow with time, so I thought I'd start by numbering them. Here's #1, just occured this weekend...
You know you're getting old when... your wife changes her admonition from "Have fun!" to "Don't get hurt!" when you head out to play tennis with a friend...
So Day One has concluded, and the sessions were very good. As I mentioned earlier, I hosted (co-hosted, actually, with Tony Biaggne) the "Rock Band" competition. It was pretty great if I do say so myself. And the blogosphere, so far, agrees with me. At least I think they do, in that they seemed to be surprised that they managed to like the idea at all.
This guy says "It was actually pretty entertaining", while the Man of Depravity speaks of it as "the fun that was Rock Band"... We'll see as the critics continue their reviews...
Nancy did a great job in her opening session, and Willow introduced a new website for their stuff called "toward wonder." I like the iTunes-esque menu.
The dude from Cirque was French and all, would have been cool if some of their artists could have joined him. Brian McLaren was great, though by the early afternoon it's kind of a tired part of the day to be in a theology seminar. I did think the content was fantastic and something that every artist needed to hear.
Robbie Seay Band was very good too.
The numbers are off from last year, and Nancy pointed to the economy. Which makes sense, and yet, it was amazing to me how many people raised their hand as first time attenders to the conference. I hope they all come back next year and that the economy is better and we totally sell out the place.
Tomorrow are the breakouts, and I'm having a "conversation" about the Big Idea with a few people who will join me over lunch. Should be fun.
This weekend I had the pleasure of leading worship at NNHS, one of our campus locations, which also happens to be two blocks away from my house. And if you've been keeping track, I was also doing so while my wife was in Florida, which means that I brought the kids with me to the rehearsal, which started at 7am. Yikes!
It went really well, they were very well behaved, and a good time was had by all. But the best part was during the rehearsal for "Hosanna." You know the one, says over and over again "Hosanna". Now we're from Chicago so we say "HosANna" with a "hard a", not with an "auhh".
So while sitting on my lap, as I'm rehearsing the song, my daughter Anna (age 3) says to me "Dad... is this song about me?"
"who's Anna, Who's Anna... Who's Anna in the Highest..."
Here's a picture of Anna from Halloween this year, just so you can get a handle on how ridiculously cute this moment was...
Heading to the multiplex this afternoon to see Prince Caspian. Looking forward to it, as Dillon and I just finished reading the book. But this morning, across the street, our local coyote was stolling through the neighborhood. Yes, that's right, in suburban Naperville, a wild coyote moves around the neighborhood like he owns the place. Very strange indeed.
What is one supposed to do when confronted by a coyote? I'm guessing running isn't a good idea, but is it like a bear or a cougar where you're supposed to act as "big" as you can and scare the animal into indifference? Just curious in case Wile E. wants a ride to soccer practice...
Today is my son Dillon's birthday, and for his seventh, I took him to see Blue Man Group. As you can see from this picture, he totally loved it. And of course, I did too! Happy Birthday Dillon!
I'm in Orlando getting ready to produce the Exponential Conference. It's a rock and roll thrill ride for church planters, and as the producer and chief creative type for the main sessions, I get to make some funny videos and then get the heck out of the way for some heavy hitter speakers. We're talking A-list baby: Alan Hirsch, whose accent is enough to get him straight to the top, Andy Stanley, who quarterly shames me into spending more time with my family through his podcasts, Rick Warren, who made a googillion dollars and gave it all away, Tim Keller, whose brain is biggerish and smarterish than most of us, and Dave Ferguson, who is the president of this thing. What does a president do at an Exponential Conference? I'm sure he'll be blogging all about what hard decisions he's making as a president of a conference. Me, I'll be working on my material as I am co-hosting with another heavy hitter, Efrem Smith. Good stuff baby. More to come...
Here we go again. This week's American Idol gets an extra day as Idol gives back tomorrow night. But tonight, Inspirational Songs is the theme. Let's give back and get from eight to seven!
Michael - Dream On - Yeah baby - hit those high notes and make em bleed. Love it.
Syesha - I Believe - Did she learn any lesson from trying to imitate Whitney? Now she's going to try to imitate Fantasia?
Jason - Somewhere over the Rainbow - Seriously? This guy must be cute because he's gonna stay in the competition by sitting on a stool with a ukelele and butchering one of the great songs of our day. (even if he stole the arrangement)
Kristy - Anyway - They'll love me if I'm glittery! ...Won't they? Anyway?
David C - Innocent - He's gonna get murdered for doing this song that NO ONE has ever heard before. I'm not sure I heard a song in there even after he was done.
Carly - The Show Must Go On - Pat Benatar wants her outfit back. Freddie wants his song back. I thought it was an eighties train wreck, and I loved the eighties.
David A - Angels - Hasn't he run out of inspirational songs to select? He doesn't know how to not do one. Good off the beaten path choice.
Brooke - You've Got a Friend - She needs a friend to tell her not to wear the drapes as a dress again... Clap clap clap-clap-clap - let's-go-Bo-Ring. (and if you won't be her friend, she'll stalk you until you come around, crying the whole time as she strangles you with the piano strings she ripped out with her fingers... while singing that song...fade to black)
Random Notes: Michael needs to take the note. It's one thing to get into it with Simon, but Randy? Syesha - any song written specifically for American Idol is automatically disqualified from the "Inspirational" category... I think the fact that the judges are bored with Syesha is indicting of them being bored with their own formula. Syesha is playing the part as well as anyone could, and they can't figure out why they don't like it. For them to the turn right around and give Jason props for imitating that version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow proves that this is becoming an "arrangement" competition, and not a "singing" competition. Pretend that it doesn't matter, but when Simon compliments you (Kristy Lee), you feel good! Why? Because when he critiques, he's right 90% of the time. David C wrote on his hand and I feel dirty inside. Who does he think he is, Prince?
