Pitch Pipecast: Episode 3

I have posted the 2nd half of the interview with Alan Beard of True Lift Ministries. You can find it at pitchpipepro.com. You'll also hear news about Rescue Ministries, Acafest, and a preview of episode 4 (I feel like George Lucas).

Or, as always, you can download the Pipecast right now directly with this link.

Excelsior!

Pitch Pipecast: Episode 2

I have just posted episode 2 of the Pitch Pipecast. I had a great conversation with Alan Beard of True Lift Ministries in Thousand Oaks, CA. Since 2003, Alan and Jeremy Johnson have joined forces to deliver a truly excellent singing ministry. True Lift has released five albums, three of which are excellent renditions of old and cherished hymns. Our conversation was right at 30 minutes, so I decided to make this Pipecast a 2-parter.

As always, you can find the Pipecast at pitchpipepro.com. Or, you can download the podcast directly from this link. Enjoy!

~Gary

Ashley of Narnia

Here's a picture of my daughter, Ashley. We're not sure, but we think she may have been one of the Ice Queen's dwarves in the Chronicles of Narnia. Either that or maybe she's actually Stumpy or Bumpy from Snow White. Or maybe she's related to the Amish folk from central Missouri where my Mom's side of the family comes from.

Or maybe she went a little haywire with her ponytails on the last day of school.

Nah.... I vote for Stumpy.

Doolittle Rant

In my opinion, the best singer of the past several seasons was voted off American Idol tonight. The two who are left, Blake Lewis and Jordin Sparks, are good singers, but they can't even touch Melinda Doolittle's heels. She stands so far above them it is laughable.

It's just another example of the lack of talent in the music industry effecting what America thinks real talent should be. The label execs have foisted so much garbage on us that we think it smells good, and anything that doesn't smell like what they throw at us must not be good either. So real talent, like Melinda Doolittle, gets tossed aside in favor of a cute 17-year old and a beat boxer who can't quite stay in tune.

It's a shame, and everyone on that show knew it. You could tell by the look on their faces. So now they can take the winner and mold him/her to look like all the other stuff out there. That's okay. Let Melinda do her own thing. Her talent will shine through whatever she does.

On the same topic, someone should vote Ryan Seacrest off the show. I'm really getting tired of his elementary antics and jabs toward Simon.

My girl's off the show. On to 24 and Heroes.

Pitch Pipecast Launch

I am using this particular entry to announce the launch of my new podcast, or in this case a pipecast. Starting today you can catch the Pitch Pipecast on a somewhat regular basis. There is a large and devoted core fan base out there for Christian a cappella music. My new podcast will deliver news, reviews and interviews of the artists who do this music well.

Eventually my own URL (pitchpipepro.com), will point to the site. But for now you can listen in at http://pitchpipecast.libsyn.com. UPDATE: The URL pitchpipepro.com now works for the new podcast home.

If all goes well, it should be available on iTunes within the next couple of weeks. Or you can listen to it right here:

Pitch Pipecast: Episode #1

There's a lot to come. I hope you enjoy it. ~Gary

GCR Missions: India

Here is an update we are showing this weekend on the work in Northeast India. I had the chance to shoot and edit this video. Our normal AV guy (who is amazing) is snowed under with tons of other things. So it falls to me.

For those of you who are familiar with the work GCR supports, this is about Gary Tate and Joe Crabtree. They reference the continued work of Dimbeswar Burman, Shyam Salam, and Dr. Tarun Mahanta.

The Price of a Ride

A few months ago, when the price of gasoline rose dramatically, there was a great outcry from the masses... so much that Congress jumped into the middle of it. Prices dropped back down.

Up to now I have believed the pundits when they stammer on about supply and demand, etc. But once again, just as vacation time rolls around, prices have jumped. Here's an article from the Santa Monica Mirror that will certainly make your conspiracy radar jump. And another from the Salem News. And yet another from the Arizona Daily Star. I could go on. Google is my friend.

All I know is that it cost my wife $35 to fill her tank in her small economy car. I'm living in the heart of oil country. You can't throw a rock in this town without hitting an oil exec and we are paying $2.95 per gallon. My feelings for the oil industry are approaching my level of ire for Microshaft. UPDATE: As of May 13, gas is now $3.09.

But then I guess I shouldn't bite the hand that feeds me (he shakes his head in slight frustration).

Movie Reviews on YouTube

As you can see from the previous post, I have already reviewed The Last Mimzy on this site. I got to thinking about it and decided to check YouTube for movie reviews from a conservative viewpoint. I found very little.

I plan to do video reviews of movies from this point on. Included below for your viewing pleasure is the first movie review by The Conservative Mostly Bald Guy. And yes, it is pretty much a video rehash of my earlier post on The Last Mimzy, but you gotta start somewhere. Enjoy.

Movie Review: The Last Mimzy

For anyone who's been around the Internet for a while and may have dropped by my site on Geocities way back in the last century, you would know that I kept a pretty exhaustive movie review section going. I thought I would start that up again here on my blog. I don't see near as many movies as I used to, but I can still comment on what I see from time to time.

I believe I will start with a movie I saw this afternoon. My children and I went to see The Last Mimzy. This PG rated film is based on the book "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett and was released by New Line Cinema. At first blush it is a delightful film, full of family values, adventure, drama and sci-fi. The fact that the tagline to the movie says "The future is trying to tell us something" should give you a clue to the nature of the movie.

When I tried to describe the feel of the movie to my wife afterwards, the closest I could come was, "It was like a modern-day Escape From Witch Mountain... but with a different storyline." It was certainly much better than Witch Mountain, but you come away with the same kind of feeling. Mimzy includes all manner of Witch Mountainy things... two kids trying to pull off an incredible feat with the help of "otherworldy" powers, older people who don't understand and try to stop them, glimpses of something out there that's not quite normal, etc.

That's as far as I will go with the comparisons because Mimzy is a much better movie overall and I don't want to drag it down. The plot involves time travel and some great sci-fi. In that regard, it is 90 minutes of engrossing fun. My 11 and 13 yr old were highly involved.

I have two problems with the movie. The first is that it is pretty heavily immersed in New Age thought. You'll find heavy doses of ESP, psychokinesis, Saganism, Indigo Children, Tibetan transcendentalism, reincarnation, and much more. It is woven skillfully into the story and often pays a major part. If you have small kids watching this movie, it will probably require some deprogramming afterwards.

Secondly, on a higher level this movie takes a pretty good swipe at the Bush administration and current policy, as well as giving a boost to Al Gore and his wild hair end-of-the-world theories. Every movie needs an antagonist. Here, they have chosen the Dept. of Homeland Defense. During one scene, Homeland Defense breaks into the house and captures the entire family. When challenged about a warrant, they reply that it is not needed under the Patriot Act. It's a well orchestrated jab at Bush's anti-terror efforts. Thank you Hollywood.

And as far as the Gore stuff is concerned, the basis of the entire movie revolves around the idea that we are polluting ourselves into the end of the world as we know it and something drastic must be done. There's even a scene in a science class that would make Mr. Gore proud.

Overall I would give this 3.5 stars out of 5. The kids will enjoy it. Parents will as well, if you can rise above the baggage.

Easter at the Snowpark

For several years now Golf Course Rd Church has held Easter at the Ballpark. It's a big city-wide Easter Service held at Citibank Ballpark where the Midlands Rockhounds play (AA Oakland A's team). We average about 4000 each year. So tomorrow is Easter. We've been praying for sunny skies and 70 degrees.

Here's a picture of what we got. It was coming down in potato chip size flakes when I took this picture. Needless to say, we will not be at the Ballpark tomorrow. If it keeps this up, we may not have many at all at church.

We've been in Midland five months now and it's snowed 3 or 4 times. Two of them were pretty good with nice ground cover. This is like being back in Tennessee, minus the trees, rolling hills and humidity. I saw this in Corpus only once while I was there, and that was a rare event for the city. This is kinda fun...

Los Mejores de la Final Four

I know mostly nothing about basketball. For me, soccer is life. But the office staff at GCR did the March Madness bracket competition thing, and so I joined in. The winner at the end would get his or her meal paid for at a restaurant of their choosing.

Again, knowing nothing about basketball, I opted for a little help. I went to ESPN.com and did a little research. They had 10 different journalist give their predictions for the brackets. I spent 30 minutes and averaged out their results. What came out were my picks for the entire bracket of 64.

And today I got to pick the meal because I won, thank you very much. We went to Abuelo's where I ordered Los Mejores de la Casa... bacon wrapped fillet mignon and honkin' big shrimp stuffed with cheese and jalapeños and wrapped in bacon. I also had Raspberry tea and chili con queso for everyone at the table. $27 worth of winnings. Thank you Florida State!

Joyful Worship Pt.2

Here is pt. 2 of the Sunday bulletin series I am doing. This is the unprinted version. I am going to remove the "Maybe this" paragraph for print. This is sort of like the deleted scenes version. Once again, kudos to my friend Dan Morris for help on this topic.

* * *
So what is worship? How do we approach worship? Is it something that can be defined? Let’s take a quick look at history.

The Israelites had been crying out in captivity for 400 years. No response. Within a very short period of time, God makes himself known powerfully. Plague after plague strikes their captors. Release comes. Millions line up and march out of Egypt. They find themselves trapped against the Red Sea, only to see it lifted out of the way. Finally, they stand before the mountain of God, covered in fire, thunder, and lightning. The earth trembles.

What would it have been like to be there? They were instructed to erect a fence so that not even an animal would touch a single stone of the mountain. God was going to descend upon it in full view of the people and they had three days to prepare. Four hundred years of silence and now you have 72 hours to get ready. How do you approach holiness and not be changed forever? What do you say in the presence of Jehovah?

Maybe this… “Why don’t they sing that tambourine song they used to sing? I really liked it when Miriam sang that song. Why don’t they sing old songs like that again?” Or maybe, “ I wish Aaron would lead worship. I don’t really like it when Moses leads worship. Too slow. I’d just as soon go home.” How about, “All this smoke and fire and trembling, that’s too formal. I like a relaxed atmosphere. Why does it have to be so formal?” Or possibly, “Three days to get ready for worship? Doesn’t he know we have things to do? If he talks that long, I’m out’a here.”

Would you say something like that in the presence of Jehovah? And today, what do we say in the presence of the Holy? We may not have a mountain of fire, but He is here nonetheless. God has descended upon us in full view. As we worship together, God inhabits our praise. The spiritual foundations of the earth tremble as the worship of his people is lifted high. The “how” of worship takes a distant second place to the “why.” Could it be that part of true worship is in understanding His presence and reverence at the awe of his majesty?

Oh God, we come seeking your presence, your mercy and your power. Help us to have eyes that see you and hearts that reverence your holiness. May our worship honor you and you alone.

Spiritual Intimacy

I spent a good part of last weekend at the Zoe Conference in Lubbock. I was glad to go. Even though I lived in Tennessee for 15 years, I never cashed in on the opportunity to go to the Zoe event in Nashville. I intended to a couple of times, but something always came up.

It was a refreshing experience. The worship was wonderful and I got to reconnect with lots of old friends. Growing up in Lubbock, I saw a lot of people from my youth. I also got to connect with folks from my old road life, like Nathan Tillotson, Brian Randolph, Randy Gill and Jeff Walling.

While the worship was great and the messages were moving (get the CD of Jeff speaking about being "closer"), it was the small group experience where I was most challenged. I participated in the worship leaders small group, which was led by Brandon Thomas of Zoe and Rich Smith of Levi Ministries.

Rich is an amazing young man. It is obvious that the Holy Spirit has done some powerful work in his life. I'd love to know more about his background (which apparently includes some serious work), but his humility seemed to keep most of it behind him. That's cool.

Anyway, he gave me one of those "aha" moments. I have talked about John 17
many times over the course of my life. For years, it was a centerpiece of Acappella's ministry. Vs. 20-21 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me."

I've preached the unity of believers from that passage many times. It's an important message. Unfortunately, I've worked that passage so much that I missed another important element. He prays not only for unity of believers, but for unity of them with HIM. The lesson I took away from this day:

We have whatever level of intimacy with God as we will pursue, even up to the level that Jesus had with God.

I've always strived for a closer walk with God. I don't think I ever realized that I've put boundaries on that. It was certainly unintentional, but there nonetheless. Who am I to say that I can only come so close to God and no closer when Jesus himself prayed that we would be one with him as he was with God?

Again I say, "aha!" Excuse me... I have more pursuing to do. ~Gary

Ser Cris Mission Update

Tim Neale and I put together a mission update on the efforts in Campo Grande, Brazil. The preaching school there is called Ser Cris. If you are interested, I've added it here from my YouTube account.

A Range Mint (say it fast and altogether)

I suppose it's time to begin another new foray into the wilderness. This one's not so wild though. I've been arranging music for a while now. So it's not so new.

When I was in college, I spent a lot of time arranging vocal music for a new group we had formed called "Best Friends." Most of the stuff I did was luck of the draw, at best. I was more interested in following the rules of theory that were being pounded into me daily than I was in putting out good music.

But, fortune favors the foolish I suppose. Most of the arrangements worked out. I believe they were even using some of them still up to about 5 years ago. 15 year shelf life is not bad for a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants piece of music.

Later, I spent 15 years working with Acappella Ministries and did a TON of arranging there. Unfortunately most of it never made it to paper. But my ear was being perfected during that time.

Sometime around 2002 (I think), an old friend from Tyler approached me to do some arranging for his LTC choir. At this point, I was able to combine the skills of theory with the experience of the studio. Now I could do arranging and know what I was putting on paper as I was doing it. I could hear it before it went to the page. I had the arrangement done before the writing.

I could finally understand the quote by Mozart from the 1984 movie Amadeus, "It's all right here in my noodle. The rest is just scribbling. Scribbling and bibbling, bibbling and scribbling."

I have done more than 20 songs for Chuck, my friend in Tyler. And I seem to be knocking them out pretty regularly here in Midland. He and his wife Lisa have been encouraging me to publish my arrangements for years now. I suppose it's time.

So, sometime in the next six months I hope to be making my stuff available. Look for more information coming soon. For now, I've got to figure out how to go about this legally, easily and still make it worth the effort. I'm certainly no Mozart, but maybe God can use me to help other singing groups out there.

Joyful Worship Pt. 1

Here is an article that I wrote for Family Matters, our weekly Sunday bulletin. It is the first in a series that I will be writing. I'll post each one here as they come up. Kudos to my friend Dan Morris. I got a wealth of material from his sermon of the same title.

Somewhat recently, the National Constitution Center surveyed American teenagers. The intent was to discern their level of knowledge and understanding of the Constitution and our history. The results were very interesting.

They found that only 41% could name all three branches of the government, but 50% could name all three stooges. 74% knew that Bart Simpson was from Springfield, Illinois but only 12% knew that Abraham Lincoln grew up there. 75% knew what city laid claim to the zip code 90210, but only 25% could name the city where the Constitution was written. A surprisingly high 74% knew the name of the Vice-President, but 90% knew the names of the stars in the movie Titanic.

This prompted the director of the National Constitution Center to comment, “…the Constitution does not work by itself. It depends on active and informed citizens.”

The same can be said of our worship. We need active and informed people who understand worship. How can we make it work if we don’t know what it is? Most of us would not do very well in a survey that describes and defines worship. This is a sobering thought when you realize that the Bible tells us we are created to worship. We are worshipful beings. What does that mean? Have we lost that identity?

Over the next few months, we will explore the meaning of “joyful worship.” Who are we worshiping? Why do we do it? When do we worship? And how? Let us pray that God will lead us to a better understanding of the meaning behind “worshiping in spirit and truth.”

Re-Construction Pt. 2

Here is a layout of the new worship center floor plan. I had to keep it somewhat small so that it would be easy to download.

Notice that this arrangement seats 1323 people comfortably. Our current seating is 1100, and when full it is uncomfortable at best. As far as actual design is concerned, this is an older drawing and some things have changed. But overall, this is pretty close.

All of the seating on the floor (the inner circle) will be movable. I will post more pictures later with alternate seating plans. The upper tiers will be theater seating. The north tier will also be movable so that it can be transformed into a stage.

Sound will be flown over the stage with circular rigging. Stage lights will be placed on bars throughout the room and aimed accordingly. Six hi-def video screens will extend from the ceiling, two on the east and west sides, and one on the north and south.

One of the neatest things I see about this room is in the flow of traffic. There are four main entrances into the room. As you enter, you are coming in beside the raised tier seating. This means that the first chance you will get to choose a seat is after you've already moved halfway to the stage. No more sneaking into the back row. If you want the back row, you have to double back and go up the steps. The flow of traffic will automatically push you toward the front of the room!

The new layout also frees up some space for new classrooms. We will gain nine new classrooms overall. Two of them will be quite big. You can see them in the lower corners of this image. Another set of rooms that I am excited about: in the upper right top of this image you see three rooms side by side - the video suite, the recording studio, and the sound booth/green room. The possibilities are endless....

Because of the nature of the room, it does not allow for a baptistery. We have solved that by building a family-styled living water area in the upper left portion of the picture. A nature-themed running water pool will be just above ground level and open to the massive atrium area in the west wing. Everyone can gather together and witness the baptisms that will surely come. I can't wait.

More later....

Re-Construction Pt. 1

Last Oct 14, I blogged about going out to Midland to be a part of the initial talks concerning the refit of the worship center at GCR. This morning, three months later, it all came to fruition. We presented the new plan for the worship center to the church during class time today. It was an impressive presentation. I can say that because I had very little to do with it. Ok, nothing to do with it.

The re-do of the center will give us a state-of-the-art facility, easily one the of the best in Midland and I believe in West Texas. We wanted a facility that worked well not only for us, but for future generations. Visionary people put a stake in the ground in the countryside of Midland County 40+ years ago with a vision for a grace-oriented church. The facility that was built to house that church was far-sighted and has lasted well. We want to do the same thing for our children’s children. I believe this new plan is just that.

Our new facility will be “in the round.” When the family gathers for supper, we gather around a table and see each other’s faces. Church should be the same way. 80% of the seats in the new building will be within 60 ft of the stage. As we experience worship, we will experience each other… not the back of someone’s head.

I will post pictures at a later time, but they will show that this new facility will be extremely flexible. While the upper tier seating will be permanent with theatre-style chairs, the lower section will be individual chairs. These can be placed in any fashion. The stage will be movable as well. It can be moved to the north end of the floor to provide a tiered stage for weddings while the floor can be fixed with a center aisle. Perfect for weddings. The north end tier can be cleared in combination with the moved stage to provide a very big stage, easily large enough for the Midland Symphony. Or the floor can be cleared and set with tables to seat 200+ people for banquets… banquets with a state-of-the-art sound and video system.

I’ll tell you more later, but here’s one little goodie. All the flat surfaces of the room will be painted white. The trim around each surface will be lined with multicolor LEDs that will wash the wall with color. From the control room, we will be able to choose from 19 million different shades of color. The walls can change colors with the touch of a switch. Wedding planners may now get in line…

Snowstorm Nostorm

I've not posted in a few days. That's because I've A) not really had much to say or 2). was busy messing with the massive snow storm we didn't have. It's was nuts. I didn't shovel 5 inches of snow off my driveway. Our city sort of came to a stand-still on Thursday night, after everyone had gone to the store and bought everything that was there.

The grocery stores reported that sales on Thursday and Friday were larger than the entire Christmas season. And then it was all a non-event. Today it's 50 degrees. I may still try and shovel a little more snow just for the fun of it. We didn't make this real big snow man. Life size and everything. Our neighbors front yard is sloped at a 30 degree angle and we didn't sled down it.

All in all, lots of fun.

Enough for today. GO COLTS!

Homecoming and Arranging

Homecoming is a little over a month away. Homecoming for Lubbock Christian University.

I was in the graduating class of '86, the last class to walk the stage under the LCC moniker. Problem was, I still needed 4 hours of foreign language when I did the graduation ceremony. It took me a year to finish a Spanish correspondence course from UT. By the time I had done it, I was booted back to the class of '87 and my diploma arrived with the wrong major. It said LCC, but wrong major. So I contacted them and they sent a replacement with the correct major, but it now said LCU.

So, I have a diploma from LCC for a Bachelor of Science, and a diploma from LCU for a Bachelor of Music Education.

Anyway, I will be making the trek up to Lubbock for that weekend. They've asked me to lead worship at the Alumni Chapel. I assume that means sans guitar. Not that I'm using it anymore...

On that note, pun intended, I have been adding new arrangements to our praise team portfolio. If you've read any of my earlier posts, you may have seen the discussion over the new song of the month and the problems with licensing. We have forged ahead, just without recording. Just so you'll know (and in case you are interested in seeing it), the first song we added was Everlasting God by Brenton Brown. It went very well. The arrangement works great for church and it's been well received. This Wednesday we introduce I Will Boast by Paul Baloche. I'll let you know how it goes.