i’ve tweeted about cover songs…

a few times, i even asked people their favorite on facebook.  so i thought i would post cool covers on here for a bit.  Ryan Adams doing Wonderwall is already up and now one of my other favorites.

now if only Wilco would do some covers….

today is the last full day of camp here…

it’s been fun.  i wish you could have heard the 4th and 5th graders sing All Because of Jesus last night.  it was incredible.

i love the way children have no qualms about learning a new song and will often sing with abandon, not even knowing which way the melody may go.  they are not afraid to sing, or afraid to be vulnerable in that moment.  oh how i wish adults were like that.  that they would sing with all of their hearts.  that they would run with great wrecklessness into the arms of God.  we care so much what others think of us, but so often forget that we are trying to please the One who loves us and created us to worship Him and Him alone.  What an amazing God.  Thanks Lord for letting me hear the children sing.

so I’m at Lakeview Camp this week…

it’s near Palestine, TX.

it’s a little different than camps i’ve done in the past.  i’m leading worship with my buddy Jinx at the elementary camp.  last night those little kiddos sang their hearts out.  i love to hear children sing.  i think God smiles when they do.  there are two more nights to go, and then i head home on Friday to close on our house.  then i do laundry on Saturday.  lead worship on Sunday and then get in my car with Kenedy and head to Rock Haven camp in Hasty, Arkansas for a week.

btw, it’s super hot here.

i thought i’d throw you one of my favorite cover songs ever.  so here you go.

since it is my birthday today

i thought i would post a couple of songs that kindof exemplify the 4th.

Ryan Adams performing before 9/11

Hendrix….nuff said!!

just so you know.  i would never subject you to Lee Greenwood on my blog.

a video from UMArmy

the pics were all taken around College Station by my buddy Justin Jinkins.  or Jinx as he is known by his friends.  we thought God of This City was appropriate.

haven’t blogged much as of late

for one i’ve been really busy and i haven’t had much to say.  i promised myself i would make time for it, but i haven’t.

i’m going to try and do better.  the irony is…i had 222 hits the first month that i kicked off this blog a year ago.  this June I had over 2000 hits and i blogged once.

thank you to Eddie Van Halen and Christopher Walken!!!  I think I’ll tag you again.

btw UM Army rocked and so did the band we took.

hoping to play some more music with these guys.

Sunday Setlist

wow, it’s been a bit since I posted one of these.

this post is a part of Fred McKinnon’s Sunday Setlists over at his blog!

We had a joint service in our sanctuary on Sunday with the traditional service.  It was our new Senior Pastor, the Rev Nick Sholar’s first service.

my team got to do two songs in the service.  so we did…

God of This City (Passion arr.) & Jesus Paid it All(Kristian Stanfill style)

the choir sang an anthem called The Glory and Majesty of Your Name that was really beautiful.  There were several other hymns along with scripture readings, responsive readings, the Doxology, and the Gloria Patri.

it was an interesting Sunday because we scaled down our band to acoustic guitars, piano and djembe.  we used a Bose gig rig.  it sounded great. 

the service was awesome except that my battery ran down in my BK and it wasn’t in the h0use for God of This City, the good thing is I got to play a Schwartz Acoustic  for the last song as Danny Brevard was playing Mandolin.  I’ve never even touched a guitar that cost near 10k, much less played one.  Amazing.

our new pastor preached an amazing sermon.  he challenged the church (which was packed btw)

overall an amazing Sunday culminating with a fried chicken lunch on the lawn.

time to blog

it’s been  a wild few weeks.

we moved…

we had vbs…

we have our new senior pastor starting sunday…

we are getting ready for the summer…

it’s saturday so i’m blogging.  it’s not much, but hopefully it will kickstart a series from me.

i will say this…i’ve got some new books that i’m reading and i’m really excited about “The Divine Commodity” by Skye Jethani

hoping to get some time to delve into it.  i’ll let you know how it goes.

btw, i’m excited about Nick Sholars our new Senior Pastor.  please pray for his ministry to the  First United Methodist Church of Lufkin.  pray especially for the people who are relying on him to “fix” things.  pray that they would see that only God can fix things.

amazing…

i haven’t blogged, and for that i apologize.  it hasn’t seemed a priority as of late.  a lot going on, but i will blog in the future.  lots of camps and mission trips coming up and lots of stories and imformation to impart.  until then.  i leave you with this.

Michael Kelsey continues to blow my mind.

as i listened to some GnR last night, i remembered reading this…

by John Voe from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Attention,
Mr. Axl Rose:
We Did Not Feel Welcome
in the Jungle.

- – - -

Dear Mr. Rose,

I am writing on behalf of my wife, Thelma, and myself to demand a full refund of the $6,500 paid for our recent “Welcome to the Jungle” safari. I know you sensed our unhappiness during the trip, but I bet you wondered if we’d actually demand our money back. Oh, yes, we certainly are, mister. You bet we are.

I must admit we had our doubts when we first signed up. But the price was dramatically lower than any other safari we looked into and, since we’re seniors on a fixed income, we figured this would be our best chance to see rhinos and the like. You and your colleagues, particularly Mr. Slash, were cagey about where specifically we’d be traveling. Thelma says she thinks some of the assistant tour guides might even have been on the drugs. You might want to look into that.

Just as I did at the time, I object to your blindfolding us for the entire trip to Africa. It was uncomfortable and frightening. After looking into it and calling some other tour companies, I’ve learned that you were wrong about everyone doing it that way. In fact, nobody does it that way, Mr. Rose. Nobody!

The trip was a disaster from almost the beginning. True, you welcomed us to the jungle. And that was hospitable. And right off the bat you promised fun and games. But there were never any fun and games! Would it have been so hard to put together a bingo or a quick trivia thing? Then you promised that you and the other fellows could find whatever we might need. Well, we needed food and somewhere to lie down for a while. And all you offered was some stale pretzels and an old futon. Your offer to somehow acquire new diseases in exchange for extra money was very unsettling. I don’t know if that’s what the kids do these days, catch new diseases for fun, but that’s not our idea of a good time! If anything, we were going to need extra medicine, not diseases.

Thelma and I thought right then that we should try to get out of there, but we didn’t know how to get around in the jungles of Africa. You were all we had, Mr. Rose! Well, we should have just left anyway. Any encounter with a hippo or lion or monkey would have been better than staying with you. Your “learn to live like an animal” program was very hard on Thelma and me. And painful. I still don’t understand why, if we were really in the jungle, we couldn’t just see real animals instead of having to live like them. Also, I love my wife very much, Mr. Rose, but she is not “a very sexy girl.” She is an elderly woman! And I don’t think she is very hard to please; she just wants a pleasant vacation and some water occasionally.

Of course, then things got out of hand. All that business about us getting on our knees? Why, Mr. Rose? And why were you saying you were going to make us bleed? That was horrible! And I absolutely can’t imagine why you would tell people in the jungle that they’re going to die! That was mean and frightening! And through it all you kept saying, “Welcome to the jungle.” Screaming it, really. But, frankly, I came to doubt your sincerity. I don’t think you were really welcoming us at all. It was like you were trying to threaten and seduce us at the same time. That’s not welcoming, and that’s not what we signed up for, Mr. Rose!

One more thing: We have shown pictures of our safari to friends and relatives back here in Minnesota. And they think we were never in the jungle at all but rather in Los Angeles the whole time! It’s not just the lack of animals (how could they all be sleeping, Mr. Rose?) that makes people think this; it’s all the buildings, the cars with California license plates, and the people at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go nightclub. We suspect that those weren’t native people dancing to tribal music, as you claimed, but “heavy-metal supporters” at a “rock show.”

Please send us a full refund immediately. My best to Mr. Stradlin, Mr. Slash, Mr. McKagan, and Mr. Adler.

William Brownstone
Fergus Falls, MN