Chris Tomlin, Louie Giglio, & Christy Nockels will be doing a Christmas tour this year!

As you can see, they completely neglected our great state of North Carolina when they planned this thing, but I’m still tempted to try and get to Virginia Beach.

Anybody interested?

Looking for some good, new music?

Check out Kristian Stanfill’s new EP, ‘Attention’.

I downloaded it last week and I’m liking it a lot! Very worshipful lyrics with pretty cool, original music to boot.

I have no doubt that we’ll be singing some of these songs in church before long.

You can preview each song and purchase a download of the whole album from Amazon for less than five bucks here.

After much speculation, Louie recently posted this to the Passion blog:

www.PassionCityChurch.com

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmC44K0xQLE

Most of you know that I’m a huge fan of music, and especially worship music.

By far, the majority of my favorite music comes from Passion (did you know that David Crowder, Charlie Hall, and Chris Tomlin are all on the Passion record label?). I have never, ever in my life been disappointed with a new release from the Passion guys. Under the leadership of Louie Giglio, God just has his hands all over it.

So a couple of weeks ago, Chris Tomlin’s newest album, “Hello Love” was released, and K-Love played the whole album with Chris in the studio, along with Shelly Giglio. It was really cool driving in to work and hearing the new music, and also the stories behind them. One of the songs, which is also the title track from the last Passion compilation CD, “God of This City”, has an awesome story. I already loved the song, and I had heard that it wasn’t written by Tomlin, but a band he heard called “Blue Tree”, but since I’ve heard the story, it has become 10 times more refreshing and encouraging to me.

I did a quick google search and found that the folks at “Extending the Kingdom” already have it written out, so I copied part of it from this post.

Check it out (this is the band talking about the day they wrote the song while on a missions trip in Thailand):

“There was a bar called The Climax Bar -- on a street that’s about 10 metres wide, it’s a kilometre long and it’s filled with everything you can physically imagine. And I promise you, as a red-blooded male, to keep your head in the right place you’ve got to look down at the ground and walk down that street and pray because it is just so in your face. People hit you with menus about everything, flashing lights, just everything you can imagine goes on in that place. You see kids as young as eight, nine, 10, just selling themselves, you know?! You see 60-year-old guys walking down the street with two 13 or 14-year-old girls. Forget about the Christian thing, you just get raging! You properly get raging when you see that happening, you know?!”

. . . We got the chance to play in this bar, a two-hour worship set in this bar. I don’t think the people in the bar spoke a word of English but we basically got to go in. The deal was that we play and we bring a following of people with us; so we’re there, set up, really good gear! So we all set up and there was like 20 Christians all standing in front of us, and the deal was we play, they buy lots of drinks, alright? I don’t think the place has ever sold so much Coke in its whole life in one night!

And we got to play for two hours. And just the way the band set up, we like using loops, and at one point I just started singing out. I started singing “Greater Things”, something along those lines, almost prophesying over the city. And without going into the band dynamics, slowly this groove emerged from this thing. And long story short; we walked out of that Climax Bar with pretty much a nailed song, as strange as that sounds. Then we were on the way home.

We were all. . .it was that tumbleweed silence, you know? It was like, ‘What actually just happened in that time?!’ It was one of the most powerful worship experiences we’ve ever had. I actually remember looking out, and you’re looking down a wee alleyway, into the street, and it was just 50 or 60 probably British tourists and they’re just sitting there listening going, ‘What is this all about?’ Coming from The Climax Bar which is pretty much a strip club. Just, here we are singing about Jesus in the middle of this. . . It was one of the most random experiences but it was a God thing, God was there.”

Steph already mentioned today that when I go to a christian bookstore, I can be a little like a kid in a candy store. That isn’t to say that I like everything they sell in those places. In fact, I’d say at least 50% of it outright unbiblical… but even the unbiblical stuff engages me because it helps to think through what I believe and why I believe it…

So, this weekend, the stars lined up: we were at a christian bookstore AND had a few extra dollars

…And that’s when I cam across this DVD from Louie Giglio.

As far as I know, this is the ONLY DVD from Louie that I haven’t listened to at least once. And what makes it even more exciting is that there are tons of people in my life right now who could really use some hope, and I could really use a good tool to help point them at the one True Hope.

So we snatched it up and we’re looking forward to watching it tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Here’s the description from the 268 store:

Life isn’t easy. We experience problems and setbacks every day. But during the hardest parts of life, when the bottom seems to fall out, where do we turn for peace? Although God doesn’t offer any easy solutions, He does offer Himself and His cross as an anchor of hope no matter what we face in life. And more than simply enduring suffering, the hope we find in Him allows us to leverage our darkest moments for His fame. When life hurts most, the world listens most intently to our message, allowing us to broadcast through our pain the goodness of the One who loves us the most.

So, you may or may not know that David Crowder keeps a blog. It doesn’t get much attention when the band goes out on tour, but when everybody’s home, he updates it fairly often.

I enjoy reading his whit and humor, so I’ve enjoyed the recent increase in posts…

Today I read a post from one week ago that I thought was especially interesting. The title of the post is ‘questions answered‘. It’s mostly silly answers to questions submitted to the band through the website, blogs, myspace, etc…

But one question is particularly interesting, and Crowder’s response is pretty strong. Have a look:

question 6: “i went to the show in cincinatti and there was alcohol being served. i was shocked that it was being served at a christian concert. can you tell me why it was being served?”

yes. i’m pretty sure that the bar was selling alcohol because it is a bar and that’s what bars sell. they typically like to make money and so they buy things, such as beers, from a distributor for a certain price and then mark it up to sell to people so that they will get a profit and get to pay their employees and get to stay open and such. alcohol is usually a pretty big seller for bars. i am sorry this was shocking.

i might add, both historically and currently, there are many people who love jesus, and follow him, that also enjoy alcohol regularly. if you have not encountered these people first hand, you should attempt to enlarge your peer circle and i think you’ll get a clearer picture of the diversity of the body of christ. there are denominations and traditions that denounce alcohol, and there are those that condone it. these beliefs are typically culturally specific and attached to a particular sect’s interpretations of a few particular passages in scripture. i should state here that we, as a band and as individuals, do not, in any way, condone drunkenness, as it is stupid, nor under-aged drinking as it is also stupid and against the law, and trust that those in attendance at various dates on our club tour are intelligent enough to arrive at both of these conclusions as well. it is not very difficult to observe the damaging effects of abusing alcohol. it is simple that way; abuse it, it abuses you back, most of the time immediately.

(an aside: in my experience, most conversations about alcohol with those who adamantly reject it as a possible beverage choice, present that it could cause a brother to stumble. this is awful logic. apply this logic to various food items ordered at your next public meal. there will doubtlessly be present various numbers of people who struggle with obesity or high cholesterol or heart disease, who would really love one of your cheesesticks. there will also be those present who are vegetarian, myself included, who are attempting to not ingest meat. i’m sure you see the trouble with this line of thinking. this was the very argument that peter and paul were having regarding idol meat. i will not attempt further argument here since there is plenty to find out there, if one were truly curious, that would present things in a much more scholarly and organized manner than i could hope to present it. i will also state here that i shall not require you to cease your carnivorous ways while sharing a restaurant with me.)

and finally, i should state the reasons we went on a tour that had as its venues bars and clubs exclusively. we wished for the story of god to be experienced beyond the safety of our cloistered church environments. it was our deep hope that many who would not frequent a bar would come join us and experience the reality of the presence of god in an environment that they might not typically suspect to experience such a thing in. we believe, if we are reading scripture correctly, that once the veil was torn, that in an instant, suddenly, god was everywhere. the symbolism and consequences of this moment are epic! the way human beings access the maker of heaven and earth were forever changed. suddenly, once and for all, through the ultimate sacrificial offering, suddenly, he is everywhere. every second is lived in the very presence of god. there is no moment that is not holy. there is no space that is not sacred. it is the awareness of our reality that shifts, not this reality. therefore, all that is needed is for our awareness to change and we begin to view spaces and people and cultures and music and art and eating and drinking and sleeping and waking as moments and spaces and places where god is already active and present. our hope on this tour was to give people a physical, tangible experience of this reality.

What do you think?

This is my desktop… sort of.

We whined enough to get dual 22″ monitors at work, so I had to shrink it quite a bit.

Click on the image to enlarge it :0)

Just about a year ago, Steph and I went to the last major Passion Conference: Passion ‘07.

For weeks afterwards, they promised that some of the new music would be coming out via iTunes in the near future, but then they went and decided to do a world tour, so a full year later, it’s here:

Passion: God of This City

Here’s the track listing:

Let God Arise – Chris Tomlin
You Are God – Charlie hall
God Of This City – Chris Tomlin
O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing – David Crowder*Band
Hosanna – Christy Nockels
Sing Sing Sing – Chris Tomlin
Beautiful Jesus – Kristian Stanfill
Walk This World – Charlie Hall
We Shine – Steve Fee
God Of Our Yesterdays – Matt Redman
Glory Of It All – David Crowder*Band
Shine – Matt Redman
Dancing Generation – Matt Redman
Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) – Chris Tomlin

At a glance, I’m most looking forward to live versions of ‘We Shine’ by Steve Fee and ‘Beautiful Jesus‘ by Kristian Stanfill, and finally having a high-quality recording of ‘Walk This World’ by Charlie Hall (I ripped the live video feed from the conference, but it’s pretty poor quality :0)

How ’bout you?

I’m so glad that Stephen accepted my request for him to come and lead a worship set to begin our wedding ceremony. It will always be a good memory. And that him and Jennifer were willing to come hang out with us for a couple of days before our wedding. Getting pulled over for running a red light on the way to pick up my tux, and then being let off with a warning because I was getting married is another great memory…

Besides being one of my best friends, Stephen is also a student at Southern Seminary, and a lead worshiper at Crossing Church in Louisville, KY.

Someday, dadgummit, we’re going to work together in ministry :0)

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Yeah, we know. It’s a sickness. Pray for us.

The best 20-or-so percent of them are posted over at http://photos.therieslands.com, but that’s still a whole lot of pictures.

So for the next two weeks, I hope to be posting a series of favorite shots from 2007.

Today, it’s my favorite shots from January, when we went to Passion ‘07.

One of my favorite things about Passion is their heavy emphasis on world missions. The ‘go center’ was amazing, and they had a whole corner dedicated to Central Asia. That’s me pointing to my once home…

That’s my honey, about a month before we got married. The theme of the conference was ’shine’, which sounds cheesy, but it really affected me…

The banner from Passion ‘06 was on display

This photo is really special to us… it represents a day when we stood up in front of thousands of people and committed ourselves to pray and seek the Lord about committing our lives together to the fulfillment of the Great Commission overseas… That hasn’t changed :0)

Here are a couple more from January that didn’t get included in the original post:

Walking down the streets of Atlanta…

More artwork…

It features snippets from the ‘How Great Is Our God’ DVD by Louie Giglio, and the song ‘Never Let Go’ from the David Crowder Band’s ‘Remedy’ album.

I wish I had more time to do stuff like this :0)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/NRfcARM8OwI&rel=1]