Life seems more abundant when you have hope...

These were my words last night to my friend as I went to bed at half time of the Ohio State basketball game.

Ohio State was down by 19 and my friend was certain it was over. I questioned why he had such a sense of defeat and encouraged a more positive outlook. At that point somehow a wager was offered against my certainty that there was a slight chance that hope could prevail.

I awoke this morning and found this;

http://cbs.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/gamecenter/recap/NCAAB_20070322_TN@OHST

I was either reminded or gained 3 things from this:

1) Always hope... never give up.
2) A new favorite team to win it all. Go Buckeyes!!!
3) $20

Friend of mine, this was not a story with an attack on you. I love you like a brother. Maybe even a big brother. I really mean that.

This is a story of hope, strength, and a new found passion for Ohio State basketball as well as the NCAA tourney... well, and $20...

Love you all... have a great weekend!

-J

Thoughts???

So I am being challenged in how to play a role/lead our church in the area discipleship. I am convinced for the church to become all it is to become we must be sharing our giftedness, experiences, and journeys with one another. We must be pouring ourselves out for and into each other. I am wondering if anyone out there has any thoughts/books to read on discipleship and/or spiritual transformation.

Of course I am seeking our God's direction in this... This is an honest and humble question for anyone to offer their thoughts.

Love and Peace,

-J

I bought this today...

I bought this cd. The artists name is James Morrison. His CD is entitled Undiscoverd.

It is good. You should listen to him. You can get it at target or on iTunes for $7.99. For now, that is all.


Hope you make it out to Dakota Darling's CD release show tonight at the Brewery. Another one of my favortite Raleigh bands - The Motion - is also playing so try and stick around for them also. The show starts at 9pm with a Cory Branan acoustic set and American Aquarium Dakota Darling prolly goes on at 11pm and The Motion will be after that.

Cheers,

-Jason

Yet another reason why I love my (our) church...

So today I send out the "weekly email" like I do every week, only this week is the week we are supposed to set our clocks forward an hour. Well every year it seems there are quite a few people who show up an hour late to their respected "church gathering" on that sunday morning and I was reminded to remind everyone about this once a year occurance this Sunday. Seemed like a great idea (and probably was - to an extent.)

So in my head I thought - it would be comical and certainly get the message accross to not just put the message in once (or twice) but maybe four or five times. I mean how are gonna people gonna forget now.... and... it's FUNNY!!! (which is really what I was trying to do anyways)

So then I ge tan email in response that goes something like this:
"do you really think it's a good idea to make people think we care so much about setting their clocks just so they don't miss Sunday morning. I mean if we really do believe church is not just about Sunday morning and are trying to break stereo types of what church really is or really isn't then maybe we should be more careful" - I paraphrased to make this person not sound as mean. :)

So here is what I am thinking/feeling... I love that we have worked so hard to create a culture where people do realize this... Church is about so much more than Sunday morning and the thought of allowing people to think that it is just about a place you go a sit for an hour on Sunday morning is a disgrace to the gospel and to what Jesus lived and died for (and rose from the dead for - Praise God....) People care so much about this they are willing to question every decision they make and run it through the filter of "what am I really communicating?"

I understand it can get old saying "the church is a group of people, not a building..." but I got to tell you... we live in a culture that has not seen that. I fully believe that until we are more than a group of people that are known for going to bed early on Saturday so we can get up early on Sunday, we will remain largely irrelevant to to majority of our world.

So anyways... sorry for mis communicating through an unintentional message. Thank you for following and leading in a movement that I believe can help put this world back together again.

It is funny b/c I have a friend who works at a church that is trying to get the leadership and membership to understand the church has to be about more than Sundays... and I am getting an email from someone in our church reminding me... I absolutely love it... Thanks... I love you bro...

feel free to throw out your thoughts....

-J

ps
my disclaimer
I honestly was just trying to remind people. I know people love to come and worship and learn from one another on Sundays so I wanted to help them not over sleep. And I wanted to be funny. I should learn to be more careful in the messages we send... Whether we know it or not we are communicating something...

pss
Let me communicate this clearly... anymore demanding emails and you get a drop kick!

Have a good weekend!!!

Texas - Day 2 (Waco)

I made it to Waco. Got in Friday morning about 1:30am. Checked into my room but couldnt fall asleep until 3am. It was possibly the coffee that was consumed in route from Austin to Waco.

Yesterday was a fun day. The conference/intesives began. www.beepcon.com So much to learn. There are a few people here who are genuises (genius to me probably means a much bigger nerd to you.)

Info from Yesterday
The Workings of Synthesizers - What Tone Ocilators are, what Filters do, how the Amplifier fits into the signal path, the purpose and abilities of Envelope generators, how to use their attack, delay, sustain, and release (you can also assign Envelope generators to the filters if you're interested.) Then we got a bit into LFO's (low frequency modulators) which are really sweet, then onto Low Pass and Hi Pass filters and Filter resonance. We concluded this session ended with us combining different ocilators and creating some of our own sounds. A lot of fun.

Reason (session 1)- Reason is basically a software prgram emulating a lot of rack MIDI gear. A lot of rack MIDI gear is expensive and takes up a lot of room. With reason, you don’t run out of gear or space (unless you overload your CPU.) It allows you to create loops, use samples, and make a lot of cool sounds that would cost a lot of money to make if you didn't have the software capabilitie. This is a cool program.

Building your sound library - This session was listening to 4 really smart* people (*see genius in paragraph 2) talk through how they build their sound library that they use for creating the music. All 4 of these guys had a lot to say. Great ideas... dont want to bore you...

Dinner - had dinner with Jack from David Crowder Band. Very nice guy. Extremely laid back.

Ableton Live - Program similar to reason. I have never used it before but I think I could like it more than Reason. Seems to have a bit more features I would use and it also will run"with" Reason and work inside of it (or vice versa - did I spell that right - i have nevr typed it before)

51 moments in the history of the keyboard - this was way cool. We were basically ran through the history of the keyboard and took a survey view of how the keyboard has developed since the first musical telegraph in 1874 (invented by Elisha Grey - in case you were wondering.)

Ended the night with a survey of microphones but that didnt start til 10pm and I was wiped so I don't have much from that. I sing into microphones... and they work.

Sleep - sleep was good. I like rest. The 3 guys in my room are cool and they dont smell bad so all is well.

Maybe more later.

Shannon, I haven't gotten any thumbs up yet but I feel like today is the day.

Diana, I love you.

Jeff, well, I love you too...

until next time,

-Jason

Texas - Day 1 (Austin)

So I have come to Texas for a few days... I am primarily here for a conference in Waco indulging those of us who have an interest (shamed hobby) in electronic music. www.beepcon.com

I flew into Austin today however because it is a good friend of mines birthday (Happy Birthday again Mr. Marlow - thanks for showing me around your wonderful town - get to Raleigh soon!) and I kinda wanted to surprise him... we have spent the evening kicking around Austin... such a cool vibe in this town.... music everywhere.

For the rest of the weekend I am staying in a hotel room with 4 other guys that I have never met before (except for the forum of this conference - ok that seems weird... we shall see) The only problem is that starts tomorrow night and I kinda forgot to work out sleeping arrangements for tonight... (along with some other things I forgot - more on this later) I think I am about to drive to Waco now and look for a hotel. I am now in a coffee shop in Austin. It's only an hour and a half drive (it is midnight now... oh well)


Some pics...
Dinner at Shady Grove...

Cigars after dinner... hand rolled on site... wow!!! Don't worry Jeff, I bought plenty to bring home...


Night life in Austin... The Famous 6th St.

See above...

Finish the night off with a cup of coffee...

and now for the drive...

catchya tomorrow...

love and peace,

-J