The singer/song writer Zac Seif is the front-man for the new Texas based Satellites.  I’m not ashamed to admit that I keep singing their mellow/catchy tunes.  They have now made their CD free to the world.  What a nice early Christmas present.   

Get Satellites first CD for free!

Our church started a new series last week call Eharmony.God.  The central concept is love God for who he is.  I had the opportunity to open the series up with a sermon called When God Catches Your Eye. Check it out.

I have anticipated the release of The Rocket Summer’s new CD since his last release in the summer of 07.  Since the new CD release has been delayed, a 4 song EP is now available on iTunes to help tidy everyone over.  Bryce Avery is the brains behind The Rocket Summer.  Every sound you hear on the CD is played by Bryce Avery. I have seen The Rocket Summer live many times and each time it has been a new experience.  In one year, I saw them live in 4 different states [Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio].  Needless to say, I dig The Rocket Summer and I dig the new tracks.  Check it out and buy the new EP for $2.99!

Hellogoodbye released their new EP for free!  Hellogoodbye is on tour with Sherwood (the band I posted last week) and Hanson?.  I have listened to these guys for a couple years now and I’m excited to get some new tunes for free.  All you have to do is go to their website and sign up for their newsletter.  As a thank you, they send you a link for a free CD.

Enjoy!

Social Networks have changed the world of communication.  One way it has changed is in advertisements.  It is now easy for us to get a real testimony of a product.  I feel that no matter what is being sold, reviews and testimonies from the common person give the most accurate description of the product.  Example…If my friends are posting positive updates on Facebook or Twitter about a new movie they saw, it makes me want to go watch it.  It does much more for me than a 30sec commercial.

I received an interesting email a couple days ago that shows retailers are catching on.  I simply mentioned a musician called Brooke Waggoner on my blog and Facebook.  I saw her live at Off Broadway [in STL] and she was awesome.  So I posted her on a couple of my weekly mixes.  I then received an email from the band that thanked me for mentioning them.  As a thanks, they sent me a link to a song that was not released to the public yet.

I really think that the world is starting to pay more attention to what other people say on their personal sites and blogs.  I know I am.  This will greatly help some people/companies and destroy others.

What are your thoughts?  What is more appealing to you, comments/reviews from a normal person or a 30 sec commercial?

I have been listening to Sherwood for a couple years now and I have been anticipating their newest CD.  It is now out and Amazon has it on sell for $2.99.  Check it out and buy it!  Great tunes, Great price.

A week ago, I took my students to a weekend retreat at a local camp.  The weekend event was called Ignite and it was organized by seven local student ministers.  It was a great opportunity for me to get to know other ministers in the area so I jumped on the planning team.

During our debrief meetings, the reoccurring theme was “save camp”.  The ministers around our table of Mexican food and salt water were hoping our weekend of Ignite would spark some momentum for the camp (pun intended).  Christian camps have been suffering a bit.  Our younger generation of students are into flashy technology, organization, modern entertainment, and large groups of people, none of which describe a traditional Christian camp.  To help out local camps, it’s not uncommon for churches to drop bigger conferences and pour their resources and students into camp.  All the other ministers at the table decided to do the same for the next year.

I know great things can happen at camp.  It played a key role in my decision to pursue ministry as my career.  But I don’t know if I agree with the “save camp” campaign.  To me, it’s not an issue about saving something.  It’s about what is most beneficial to students.  If it happens to be camp, then great.  If it happens to be something other than camp, great.  It just seems like a lot of unnecessary work.

Any thoughts?

Although I have gotten out of the Pop Punk genre, I just stumbled onto a band called Mathletes that is giving away their debut EP for free.  Although it’s not much my style, it is free and free is good.  Check it out.

Mathletes EP

Fulfilling a need in a community is a great way for growth in a church.  My first couple months in Indiana, I observed and listened to the needs of students in our community.  Sure I had a lot of ideas, but what did the students need?  As I listened to them talk, I saw their desire to have a place to “hang out.”  They wanted a place to invite friends and meet new people.

A small, rural community, doesn’t have much to offer.  Outside of Wal-Mart and corn hole, the students don’t do much here.  I was surprised to see that even football games weren’t well attended.  People just didn’t seem to hang out in large groups.  After noticing this, a couple of my volunteers and I started thinking through ways to provide a place for students to hang out and have fun.

We decided to recreate what other people call 5th Quarter and have a party after the Friday night home games.  I’m too prideful to call it what other people call it so we came up with Overtime!  The purpose is to give students a chance to hang out at church on Friday nights after football games.  We also encouraged them to go to the game with their friends.

To gear up for the night, we gave students flyers to pass out to friends and to hang up at their schools.  The church and school touch properties, which is an advantage for us.  Everyone invited their friends and it was great to see tons of students walking across the two properties to hang out at our church.  We didn’t do anything special, we had basketball, dodgeball, corn hole, video games, food, and skate ramps. But students came and loved it.

Everyone calls our church, “the church next to school.”  I think there is a lot of potential with our location.

I really think things like this are important for a Student Ministry.  Although we are only having fun and not teaching anything, my intent is that they have a good time and start looking at our church as a comfortable place.  Hopefully now when a student invites them to come to our Wednesday night program, they will feel comfortable enough to come.

As a student minister, finding ways to get into the area schools is always a good thing.  My church happens to touch properties with the local Jr./Sr. High School.  So students already know the church exists because they see it everyday.  We are known as the “church next to the school,” which I think is a good thing.

I have been in communication with the FCA Leader and he asked me to lead See You at the Pole.  See You at the Pole is a student lead, annual event where students meet before school at the flagpole to pray.  Getting up early and making a circle around an American flag never was appealing to me in High School so I never went.  And I was a little confused as to why they wanted an adult leading a “student lead” event but I did it anyways.

It turned out to be a good time.  Tons of students came to eat donuts, drink milk, and pray.  Although I thought it was silly when I was in High School and I’m still not completely crazy about praying around a flagpole, I’m glad I did it.  Any chance I get to pray with students, I’ll take it.

I had a feeling that everyone was there because they felt praying in front of the school would make a difference.  I told them that what they are doing is a good thing, but they can be doing more.  I don’t see anyone changing because they saw a bunch of people praying at 7:30 in the morning one time a year.  But if the people outside the prayer circle had people inside the circle that cared about them and talked about real life with them and was a friend, that might do something.  Prayer is important and real, but it must be backed by an action.