From the Mind of MandoRon

First I want to clear things up… this isn’t a doomsday post.  (I don’t like those, in general.)

It’s just that I read two articles in the last two days that pointed to the same thing, but for different reasons.  It intrigued me.

Monday, I read this article “Cell Phone Mania Forces Scramble for More Airwaves” which discusses the bandwidth/spectrum issues that cell phone providers are facing.  As more cell phone users are needing more bandwidth for their cell phones, providers are running out of usable bandwidth.  One potential solution is to free up the spectrum used by broadcast television.

Then this morning, I read this article “Broadcaster’s Woes Could Spell Trouble for Free TV“.  Apparently the 4 networks are having financial woes because their historical business model has collapsed.  (I guess somebody moved their cheese…)  Faced with less ad revenues, some industry experts think that the networks will eventually give up broadcasting for free and switch solely to a pay-TV (cable, satellite, etc…) business model.

Both articles are worth reading.

Is the end of free TV in sight?  Maybe…  I hope it takes a while, though, because we cancelled our DirecTV service several years ago and I really like not having a cable or satellite bill.  (Sorry Denny.)

Interesting consequences for HD also.  We don’t have an HDTV yet, but I’m told that the local broadcasts are higher quality than what you get from Cox Cable, DirecTV, etc…

Thoughts?  Are we the only household in America that still relies on the free airwaves?

Here we are… the last Sunday of 2009!

Ed put together a fabulous video recapping the last year at GracePoint with footage from many of the different series and outreach events.  It’s a great idea to sit back sometimes and reflect on what God has done for each of us.  We don’t do it enough.  It can be way too easy to always be caught up in the moment…

To match the “Flashbacks” video, I tried to pick some songs that tied in with different message series this year. 

• So What by P!nk (walk-in)
• My Redeemer Lives by Reuben Morgan/Hillsong
• Broadcast by Fee
• Born Again by Third Day
• How He Loves by John Mark McMillan
• Elevation by U2 (offering)

So What showed up in the RockStar series this spring.  It’s not the sweetest song in the world, but it’s fun.

My Redeemer Lives is always fun for us.  It’s a relatively old song and I know some churches have retired it, but we funkified it and gave it new life.  I always love hearing Rod’s reed organ mojo on this one.

Broadcast is a great song from Fee.  We’ve been using it for a few years now.

Born Again was played during the two weeks of baptisms this summer.  Today was the first time that we had actually used it during worship time.  Powerful lyrics!  (Note:  Awakening was the actual theme song for the baptism series, and in hindsight, probably should have used it today too…)  And yes, I botched the intro in the second service.  I forgot to unmute my guitar and then played the chord progression for How He Loves as the intro…

How He Loves … It didn’t occur to me until practice yesterday that Born Again and How He Loves are the exact same tempo…  It was a little on the mellow side, but these two songs fit together really well.

Elevation was the theme song from the Elevate series. 

The band: 2 female vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar and electric mandolin (me!), bass, keys, and drums.

A few minor blips, but a great day nonetheless! 

I don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to 2010!  Hope to see you there!

This post is part of the Sunday Setlist blog carnival over at FredMcKinnon.com.

Like most young boys, my six-year old has developed a fascination with guns.  It occurred to me that it might be best if he understood how to safely handle a gun rather than guns being a complete mystery to him.  A while back, I told him that I would bring my .22 rifle when we went to my in-law’s farm at Christmas. 

I showed it to him for the first time a few days ago, and all he has talked about since then is guns.  He has told everyone he’s seen that he was going to shoot daddy’s gun at the farm.  It’s been pretty comical actually…  He’s been asking all kinds of questions about rifles, handguns, machine guns - even cannons!

So today we went out to the farm and shot up some cans and water bottles.  We went through about 25o rounds between my .22 semi-auto rifle, my brother-in-law’s .22 semi-auto pistol that he loaned me, my father-in-law’s .22 revolver, and his  .357 revolver.

I taught Jett to shoot the .22  rifle and pistol.  He had a blast and we had a great time bonding.  (I had fun too…)  At the end, he actually hit  some cans at about 40~50 feet!

Interestingly, I think Jett is the fifth-generation to shoot the .22 rifle.  My grandfather originally bought it for my  great-grandmother so she could shoot squirrels from her porch.  Apparently, she like to eat squirrel…  Now I’m not actually certain the my dad has shot it but I’m pretty sure that he had the opportunity when I was a kid.

I offered to teach Jada too, but she didn’t  want anything to do with the guns.  Maybe another day…

What a series!  This was the last Sunday of our U2-themed Christmas series, “In the Name of Love”.  The upcoming GracePoint Christmas Eve services at the Orpheum will be the end of this journey.  Today’s message was titled “When Love Comes to Town”.

This is going to be more abbreviated than normal as I have a very busy day planned…  As always, this blog post is part of the Sunday Setlist Extravaganza over at FredMcKinnon.com.

The music:

• Pride (In the Name of Love) by U2 (walk-in)
• Little Drummer Boy Instrumental
• Take My Life by Jeremy Camp
• Mystery by Living Anthem
• God With Us by MercyMe
• When Love Comes to Town by U2 and B.B. King
• Pride (offering)
• When Love Comes to Town (exit)

The band: 1 male and 1 female vocalist, electric guitar, electric mandolin (me), bass, keys, and drums.

Have a Merry Christmas!

This was recorded last Sunday at GracePoint Church.

Where the Streets Have No Name Performed gracepointchurch.tv from @ednewby on Vimeo.