From the Mind of MandoRon

I’ve been reading the book of Genesis the last few weeks, and I wanted to share something I read yesterday.  Check out Genesis 29:13-30. 

In these verses, Jacob agrees to work seven years for his uncle Laban in order to marry Laban’s daughter Rachel.  After 7 years, Laban tricks him into marrying his oldest daughter Leah and tells Jacob that their custom is that the oldest daughter marries first.  So Jacob has to work another 7 years in order to finally marry Rachel. 

That’s a long time and a lot of energy to get something you want!   The Old Testament is full of stories of people who had to wait a while to get what they promised or desired. 

Today was week 2 of the series “Now Is The Time” at GracePoint.

This morning seemed to prove the old proverb… “the worse soundcheck goes, the better the service is!”  Lots of weird technical glitches this morning.  A squealing guitar amp.  Two (yes, I said two) mic’s that weren’t working properly.

But none of it matters in the end.  God proved once again that He doesn’t let these silly things stand in His way!

The setlist…

• The Climb by Miley Cyrus (walk-in)
• Let God Arise by Chris Tomlin
• The Time Has Come by Joel Houston/Hillsong
• See His Love by Kim Walker-Smith
• Times Like These by Foo Fighters
• We Are Broken by Paramore (offering)

The original plan was to use We Are Broken during the worship set and play Times Like These as the offering song.  During practice yesterday, we just didn’t like the transitions in and out of We Are Broken (due to tempo) and didn’t want to end the worship set on a mellow note.  After practicing Times Like These, it seemed to make sense to move it right before the message and We Are Broken to the offering.  It worked really well, in my opinion.

The Climb… Yes, we really played some Miley Cyrus!  There was an unusual amount of interest in the song, and it’s got a great message. 

Let God Arise, as I’ve said before, is one of my favorite Tomlin songs.  A great song to kick off the worship set.

The Time Has Come is a great, upbeat worship song.  We use the Melissa How version of the song, but shorten it a bit.

See His Love seems to be a GP favorite.  It was great to see everybody singing their lungs out this morning! 

Times Like These fit with the message perfectly this morning.  It’s a very tricky song because the intro and an instrumental section in the middle switch to 7/4 time.  And it’s especially tough to count the beats in your head without looking like you’re having to count the beats in your head…  Tough song to pull off, but very rewarding.

We Are Broken, like I said, was first planned to be in the worship set.  Although it wasn’t written as a worship song, it actually works great.  That is… unless you have a bunch of really upbeat songs before and after it, as we discovered in practice…

The transitions were particularly tight this morning…

The band: 1 male and 2 female vocals, electric guitar, electric mandolin (me!), bass, keys, and drums.

For more Sunday Setlists, check out the Sunday Setlists Blog Carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com.

Hello good people of Wichita and surrounding areas!

One week from today, Edge of Grace invites you to come out to the first (of many, hopefully) GracePoint Worship Night.

For a while now, some of us have been wanting to give people (ourselves included) the opportunity to gather together and just spend time worshipping God through music and prayer.  We get to do this in small doses on Sunday mornings at GracePoint, but sometimes we just crave more.

So our hope is that the GracePoint Worship Night will help us all draw closer to God and connect with Him like never before.  There will be a lot of music, as well as a time for prayer and communion and a short message from Pastor Mike.

No fancy lights.  No stage props.  Just you and me and God.

The band has been rehearsing, and we’ve got a couple of new songs to share that I think you’re really going to like.

Here’s the vitals:

• What? GracePoint Worship Night 
• Where? @ the GracePoint Activity Center (21st and 135th Street West)
• When? Friday, January 15 7:00-9:00
• Kids? Bring ‘em!  Childcare is available.
• Facebook Event page? Check it out

I hope to see you there!

Since he was very small, Jett has shown some natural rhythm and is constantly building drum kits out of pots and pans.  He even makes his own kick drums by using a book and a plastic lego tub laying on it’s side.  When he steps on the book, it hits the plastic tub with a thump.  What has really impressed me, though, is the complex, syncopated rhythms that he comes up with.

We finally broken down and bought a junior-sized drum kit for his 6th birthday last month.  It’s got a snare, kick, 2 toms, hi-hat, and a crash/ride cymbal.  He’s been banging around on the kit trying different rhythms on different combinations of drums/cymbals.

The last few days, he’s been trying to incorporate 3 or 4 or more drums/cymbals into his rhythyms.

He’s very shy about it and stops playing when you walk in the room.  I covertly took this video last night.  You’ll notice that about 20 seconds in, he notices my phone and hides.

He starts lessons next week, and I keep reminding him that he will have to play in front of the teacher.

After somehow ending up on the Dr. Martens website yesterday, I clicked on their “history” page out of curiousity.  (Note: I did a buy a pair recently so it wasn’t totally random…)

This is clearly a company with a vision.  And they have created a corporate culture that they are proud of.  Interestingly, the vision and culture has changed over time as their customer base shifted from working class people to rebellious youth.  They have come to embrace the rebelliousness and individualism of their customers.

I recommend reading the Dr. Martens history.  A small part of it describes where they came from, the rest lays out their vision in a very creative, very passionate manner.  (Warning: there is an f-bomb buried in there.)  There is no doubt that they know what kind of company they want to be and how they want to impact the world.

This is something that other companies, as well as individuals, can learn from. 

Understand who you are, understand who you want to be, and understand how you want to impact others.