The Cruz Control

Today is my first day off in a million years. I have a gift certificate to Guitar Center and all afternoon free - yay!!!

Since high school, I remember band practice.  It was that time that musicians of varying skill get together and work for a period of time (usually hours) to get something greater than the sum of its parts (to use a cliche).

I’m about to go into band practice for the church I’m interim worship pastor at.  I’m confident tonight will go better than my first rehearsal (last week).

I also led worship at my church (Encounter) last weekend - super fun.  It’s just incredible to worship with the Family.  I’ll post some vids soon.

Anyways, back to this interim worship gig… the musicians are relatively untrained.  There’s one (our violinist) who is amazing.  She can play.  But others need quite a bit of work.  So my first dilemma is the balance of skill and heart.  What is acceptable for a worship team.  I think that largely depends on the church, but what about if the church wants to have a very ‘professional’ (for lack of a better term) service?

My thoughts keep going back to what Stuart Townsend told me at a conference last summer… I’ll share some of that later… right now I have to go to practice.

Wow. It’s July already and this summer has flown by to quickly. There are so many things I want to do before the summer ends, but there just hasn’t seemed to be enough time.

It’s funny, we are off of school and so we plan to do things. The problem is that we plan to do so many things, we actually get no time off.

Sad, isn’t it.

I still haven’t finished that summer symphony I’m writing. I haven’t actually written anything in a long time.

I haven’t read any of those books, I’ve been waiting to read.

And I still haven’t had lunch with all you people I’ve been wanting to have lunch with.

I’m tired.

No theology.

No songwriting.

Just work.

The term “summer vacation” has now become an oxymoron.

Since it’s been over a month; I figured I would post something.

I have been so busy lately… “too busy to blog?” you ask… yes.

I work 45+ hours a week at First Baptist Church, Waco for a day camp.  I’m also a worship leader at Encounter (my church), on Saturday nights.  And I’m the interim worship leader at another church in Waco on Sunday mornings.

Yes, I’m very busy.

This blog has been a reservoir of musings and questions for a long time.  But honestly, with all my craziness I haven’t had many musings as of late.  Sometimes it feels like I don’t have any time to think at all.

I wish I’d return here more often; and I’ll try.  But I’m sorry for the scarceness.

If my life would just calm down… or I would learn to say, “no” every now and then.

I’ve accepted a job as Worship Leader at George W. Truett Theological Seminary. I will lead worship for the Community Gatherings for Worship (aka: “chapel”) services. They want to move in a direction more musically “in-step” with where the students are with worship. So, they hired me.

My job is to pull together a worship team and then organize the weekly worship services for the seminary. I will also seek to incorporate various arts and sensory worship experiences into the services. I’ll keep you all updated on how things are going.

I goal is to have a worship service that not all about rocking out or about being “high church.” The goal is for us to worship God, in any way we can. So, I’ll be working at organizing this all summer. We start up in the fall.

It’s going to be awesome, and honestly a little scary.

But they have a 9 foot Steinway for me to play…
woot! woot!

Check it out HERE.

I am finished with the most difficult semester I’ve ever had.

One more paper…

And I’m done.

OK, 1 and a half more papers.
Several chapters of homework.
One more test.

Almost done.

It’s dark, so this is the only pic I would get.

Some of the hail was between quarter and golf ball size.

Anyways, the paint on my car is gone in some places.

Sometimes things just suck.