Alex's Video Thoughts....

Grace... A Look at Romans 6

2009-04-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

If you want to listen to Brian's Sermon you can listen to the podcast at my church's website... Moviechurch.com.

Adventureland Review feat. Nick Danger Weingartner

2009-04-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Sorry there is no video. The audio and video got all mixed up so i'm just posting the audio. Enjoy!

Nick's Blog

Some frustration...

2009-04-05T21:47:00.000-07:00

Meyers Briggs... Do it...

2009-04-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

Meyers Briggs Test

I'm back baby...

2009-03-29T14:34:00.000-07:00

Album Review: Today is the Day - Lincoln Brewster

2008-10-09T07:42:00.000-07:00

So there is a new album out...

Lincoln Brewster just put out his sixth album, Today is the Day. When the single came out (cleverly named after the album) I said to myself "oh cool... another LB tune". I was excited enough to pre-order the album but was hardly jumping out of my seat.

Then I got the full album... and was like "Daaanngggggg"

I mean the single was pretty good, but there were songs on the album that made me sit back in my seat and just say "Daaaaaannnnggggg". Lincoln has always played with such passion with his guitar talents, but he added something in this album that I think was missing in a good part of his other songs... SOUL!

His guitar skills on this album has just album has just absolutely blown me away. The intro and main guitar riff for his final song "Let Your Glory Shine" was worthy of putting him on the G3 tour.

The thing that really impressed me with this album is his vocals and overall creativity. He seriously steps it up in this album and adds so much soul in his voice. In "The Arms of my Savior" he lets out this line right before he rips a bangin guitar solo that almost made me weep.

My favorite song on the album is "Give Him Praise". This song just oozes soul. He's got a full choir behind him just rockin' out. He plays with another vocalists that takes the lead on a couple of the verses and adlibs through out the whole song. It's quite fresh...

Something that Lincoln showed in this album as well is a global conciseness. In his songs called "The Power of Your Name" he talks about things such as war, poverty, and child abandonment. The song is amazing. He sings about how as christians he are supposed to carry God's compassion to change the world because God's name has the power to change it. Incredible song.

Overall this album is great. It's not only a sweet jam to listen and rock out to, but it makes me worship by the amount of soul that is in this album. That mixed with the overall song dynamics and lyrics behind the songs, it is a great worship album. I seriously recommend that you pick it up.

If you want more info on Lincoln here's his website:

http://www.lincolnbrewster.com/

Checkit.

Our Vision

2008-10-06T21:12:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about something during worship team practice tonight and through a conversation with my good friend Riggs Jr.
Everyone needs a vision. I don't care if your in ministry or if you work a 9-5, vision is something that God calls all of us to have. And I don't believe that ones vision will ever be complete.
A lot of people think that getting the vision is the hard part but that’s not true. Everyone has one, the hard part is being able to articulate ones vision. Not only to others but to themselves.

What do I want in life? What direction am I going in? Is this the direction I should be going in?
After that we can break it down even more specific. For me it’s How do I improve my ministry? How do I improve the bands? The tech team? The overall production? These are all questions that I ask myself on regular basis.

But the most important question I ask to articulate my vision is What am I doing to improve myself to improve my ministry? How am I improving my organization skills? Speaking skills? How do I continue to increase my leadership skills? Our vision never meets us where we are. God gives us our vision to challenge us. To improve ourselves. To turn us into the person God wants us to be. Fulfilling our vision is the final product but I think what God is really after is to improve us. To give us dreams and challenges that we could not possibly conquer at our current physical/emotional/spiritual state.
I've always had a vision for my ministry and my life, but it wasn't until I could articulate it to myself and to others that I was really able to take it to the next level. It's constant evaluation. Never being content. Always bringing our vision to the next level. WORK for your vision. Don’t think it’s come true naturally. And as always let God take you there.

ObaCain for President

2008-09-29T12:17:00.000-07:00

This Presidential campaign is very exciting for me for a couple reasons.

1. It's the first presidential campaign that I'm able to exercise my right vote. Sweet.
2. I've been fairly disappointed in Bush the past few years and think we're in need of a change.
3. I love both of the candidates. And their selections of running mates.

The third reason is good because I get to pick between two candidates that I like instead of two that I don't. I love both of the candidates and I would not be very disappointed if the one I voted for lost because that meant that the other one won.
I like McCain for his experience for his Conservative stance on a small, un-intrusive government which I am all about. I like McCain for his pro-life stance. I like McCain for his wanting to have off-shore drilling. I like the fact that even though he supports big business (which I do not like) he seems very intent on stomping on corruption which is often the side-effect of the conservative support of big business. I like McCain for not being so star crazy and focusing on business. And I really like his choice for VP.
I like Obama for his ability to lead people and his boldness. I like Obama's emphasis on the middle class and care for the individual person rather than big business. I like that he promises no tax increases for 95% of the working families. I like his emphasis on Afghanistan and not Iraq (even though I think we need to finish the job in Iraq). I like Obama because everyone says that he doesn't have enough experience and that he can't protect our country and it reminds me of JFK who was said to have too little experience and dealt with the one of the biggest security threats America ever faced.
Now I'm not saying that both candidates are perfect. There are many things that I don't like about each candidate but I'm not going to list them all out. My dislikes are basically the antonym of my likes for the opposite candidate.
So I can't decide who to vote for. If you would have asked me a month ago I would have said "Obama all the way!" but I think that was the Obama star power that grabbed a hold of me. And even though I am still leaning Obama, McCain is making me rethink some things and I'm starting to look at this more objectively.
I'm not a political guru. I don't like politics at all. I think the whole game is whack. But I do care who runs this country. So I'm looking for some more facts from some political guru's who can help me figure out which candidate to vote for. I don't want opinions. I want some hard solid facts so I can make my own choice. Help me out friends. Or I'm voting for Nader. (Definitely just kidding)

The Office... It's Back Baby.

2008-09-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

Ok so this Thursday night is a great night. It's the night in which the greatest television show ever created comes back for its fourth season.
The Jim/Pam romance, the countless uncomfortable Michael moments, and the outrageous things that comes out of Dwight's mouth; all equal up to an amazing comedic experience (Plus the fact that my future wife Pam is on the show). Now if that doesn't convince you of how funny the show is maybe the fact that it's won over 15 awards which include three Emmy's and a Golden Globe. That's out of the whole world... yea I know.
Now all that makes the show absolutely hysterical and impressive. But you want to know what makes the show THE BEST... It makes me cry from laughing without crude humor. 98% of the humor that is used in the show is humor that does not include sex/drugs/language. And that is rare. Nowadays if a show doesn't have at least one girl that shows her cleavage ALL the time or at least one guy who has a new sexual partner every episode, it doesn't make it past the pilot.
Now I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy a show like That 70’s Show or Scrubs. I think they’re hilarious. And they have very suggestive material. I am just giving major props to The Office, which I think is funnier than all the other shows and does it with totally appropriate adult humor. It is just a good example of how to make great entertainment and not use suggestive material. Yes I know…. It’s possible.
So major props to Greg Daniels (writer/producer) and the boys (and ladies) up in Scranton producing this show.

And if you don't already watch the show you need to. Thursday nights at 9. I usually miss that but I believe it's on iTunes and you can watch full episodes online here: http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/video/categories/season-4/29480/

Compassion vs. Passion...

2008-09-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

Deuteronomy 5:7-11

7 If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. 8 Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs......
10 Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.

Now I have a problem with this verse. Not it's content by any means. I believe that as Christians we need to assist the poor and we don't we are not completing our full duties as Christians. And I believe that as a whole, Christians can do a lot better job than what we are doing. (A LOT BETTER)

But God calls everyone to do this in different capacities.

I was sitting in a class that I absolutely love called Justice in a Pluralistic Society taught by Reverend Coleman. Freakin awesome guy. But he started talking about something that did not sit well with me. Now I don't know if this is his opinion or if he was just presenting an argument. He started talking about churches that don't focus on the poor enough. He was talking about churches that build buildings that are millions of dollars and how that money could be used in such better ways AKA assisting the poor.

I was sitting there thinking to myself "well I work at a church that just happens to be in the middle of a 5 million dollar capitol campaign to build a new building. There is nothing wrong with that" Is it a sin that our church is growing at such a fast rate that we need more room to fit more people??

What do you think?

Some people are called to sell there whole life to the poor. To sell all there possessions and become a monk and beg for their food. Hallelujah. I am so happy that God has given you that passion. But God does not require everyone to have a passion for helping the poor. He requires everyone to have COMPASSION toward them.

I'm tired of people thinking that because we have money and decide to spend it on a building that we are self-centered Christians.

Have we forgotten the Great Commission?
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit.

Now don't get me wrong I am not bashing on missionaries or monks or anyone whole gives their whole lives to the needy and has that passion for the poor. I'm just tired of getting bashed on for not having that same passion and for working at a church who decides to spend their money on a new building and reaching lost souls which is just as important.

Does this mean that because I’m aware that my passion is more for reaching lost people that I can just ignore the poor? Absolutely not. Does this mean that a person whose passion is for the poor and not as much for reaching lost people can just forget about evangelism? Absolutely not. It’s a matter of finding ones passion, pursuing it, and being aware of things that we are not as passionate about and helping out in any way that we feel called to.

Tough love? or Cushions?

2008-08-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

How do we as human beings learn? How do we acquire wisdom? I mean everybody does it. We don't have what it takes to be who God wants us to be without growing and learning. How do we do this? Some people are all about the classroom and structured learning. Some people like to be thrown into a scenario and learn by doing.
I'm reading this book called "The Divine Mentor" by Wayne Cordeiro and he talked about this very topic. It was perfect timing for me because I had been wondering this for the past couple of weeks.
Wayne says that there are two teachers the life has blessed us with. Kind of. The two teachers are Wisdom and Consequences. Both teachers are very effective and we can learn from both but the difference is in their teaching philosophies. While wisdom is like the your sweet old Kindergarten English teacher that gave you extra M&M’s when you were able to tie your shoes (I speak from experience), Consequences are like the fifth grade gym teacher that played dodge ball and would play with the students so he could hit little fifth grade kids in the head with big rubber balls. In other words wisdom is more nurturing while consequences like tough love.
Wisdom is what you learn without experience from either seeing someone else do it or just plain common sense. Wisdom is making the right decision BEFORE you make the mistake. This is essential if we are ever going to grow and become the person and the people God wants us to be. Wayne says

“If you’re going to be the person or the leader you need to be in the twenty-first century, you must find out how to learn from the experience”

We can’t just constantly be learning from our mistakes or their will be to much pain for us to function.
Some pain, however, is good. There are some things that you just have to learn by doing. Whether you have to learn it this way because you won’t understand any other way or if you are just unaware of the ramifications, pain is how we learn sometimes. This is the way I’ve been learning lately and it SUCKS! One thing that I am learning right now is financial discipline. And I’m learning because of all my stupid, irresponsible financial decisions that I’ve made in the past are starting to catch up to me. This is the consequence of those decisions.
One does not have to experience every thing that we learn. We can learn from others mistakes and save ourselves a lot of hurt. But sometimes you just have to jump in and learn from your decisions and we can’t be afraid to do that either. It’s a fine line but in the moment if we follow God, we’ll know which path to take.

Exhaustion Part 2

2008-07-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

Emotional Exhaustion
Emotional Exhaustion is a lot of times a side-effect of physical exhaustion but is a lot different. While physical exhaustion is like an out of body experience emotional exhaustion is an out of mind experience. Now you might be saying "no duh!" but let me explain what I mean by that. I usally don't know that I was emotionally exhausted until the day after or until I get a good solid chunk of alone time (which I enjoy very much). The reason for that being is that in the moment I don't really know if I am emotionally worn out. I think that my mind is working fine. But in reality, I am off the wall. I do and say things that I normally would not, I make decisions that I normally wouldn't make, even my speech and how I articulate things is completely different. I'm letting my emotions control me.

Now I'm not saying that one should be logical about every situation (because I surely am not) but to let one's emotions take control of them that much is not good and affects our lives negatively.

The truth is that we control how we feel. You can choose whether or not to be pissed at the world because you hit 23 red lights in a row, or because your coworker blamed you for their mistake. Instead of choosing anger or sadness one can choose JOY! Why? Because we always have something to be joyful about.

Psalms 94:19

When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.

I freaking love that verse. Whenever I am feeling stress or anger or sadness, I think of that verse and it reminds me to talk to God. This usually means going somewhere by myself and my bible and praying. After that I feel emotionally relieved.

Now I don't think that repressing ones emotions is a good thing either. We're always going to have times when we are just plain mad at something, or upset about something. God doesn't want us to just let that bottle up and eventually explode. He wants us to confront those feelings and bring them to Him.

Emotionally Exhausted? Talk to JC. Emotional Relief. Hallelujah.

Exhaustion Part 1

2008-07-13T09:24:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't get exhausted sometimes?? Have you ever been so exhausted thats its like an out of body experience. Your mouth doesn't say what it usually says, your mind doesn't think the way it usually thinks, and your body doesn't move like it's supposed to move. It gets the best of us and sometimes there is no amount of coffee in the world to cure it.

There are three types of exhaustion and they all affect us differently.
1. Physical Exhaustion
2. Emotional Exhaustion
3. Spiritual Exhaustion

Physical Exhaustion
Physical Exhaustion is probably the most common of all these but in my opinion has the least amount of negative effect on our daily lives. In fact some people love this feeling as long as what they did to be physically exhausted they feel was a worthwhile task.

Around ten o'clock on a Sunday night is when I feel this the most. After being at church for 10-14 hours I am absolutely spent. My legs feel like jello, I feel sick to my stomach because of all the junk food that I ate because I didn't have the time to eat healthy, and my back is hurting from lugging around heavy objects all day. Now while this is not the most pleasant feeling in the world, its affirmation that I worked my butt off and it all came together because of all my aches and pains. I would be disappointed if i didn't feel this way at the end of a Sunday.

God calls us to work. God calls us to the point of physical breakdown. He didn't expect this whole Christianity thing to be soft and cushy. Paul is a perfect example of this. In 1 Corinthians 12:23-27 Paul describes his sufferings.

23 Are they servants of Christ? I know I sound like a madman, but I have served him far more! I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again. 24 Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea. 26 I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not. 27 I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm

Paul was torn to shreds and yet he still worked HARDER! The more he was tossed around the harder he worked. Then in verse 29 he says this.

29 Who is weak without my feeling that weakness? Who is led astray, and I do not burn with anger?

Who is weak without Paul feeling that same weakness? Paul did not feel weak. He felt empowered. He worked harder and harder. Physical exhaustion is a sign that we are working for God. He's not going to give us easy tasks all the time. I'm not saying that we should always to it the harder way even if there is an easier way that produces the same results. But a lot of the time the hard way is the ONLY way. But after you are done all you feel is a sense of accomplishment. Your back may hurt and you may be barely able to keep your eyes open but you will come out all the better.

Now I told Frank at the beginning of this week that I would have three blog posts by the end of the week. Seeing as this is the last day of the week, I'm going to separate this into three parts so that Frank can't give me grief for not putting up three posts.

What inspires you?

2008-07-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

So obviously, being a musician requires being open to inspiration. But where does it come from? Where do you get inspiration from?

For me I am most open to inspiration that inspires me in my music or in different service elements and design. And it usually doesn't come from me seeing something or hearing something. Some of my favorite parts of my day are when I am completely alone. Just me and my brain, chillen, thinking about everything thats going on in my life, why these things are happening, and how amazing this whole journey is going to be.

I get the biggest chunk of my inspiration from my thoughts. I'll start thinking about something like my dog Maggie. Then from that I'll think about how much it must suck to eat the same thing everyday and how getting a dog biscuit is worth drooling over. Then I'll start thinking about what is the one thing that is a treat to me that I drool over (sometimes literally). Is this thing really good for me? Should I fast from this certain thing? Why does thing certain thing excite me so much? How will fasting from this help me physically? Emotionally? Spiritually?

So from thinking about my spastic dog I had made the decision to fast from a fairly popular internet networking site *cough* Facebook *cough*. It was a great decision and I am all the better for it.

So my inspiration comes from my seemingly useless thoughts and the tangents that come from that. Where does yours come from?

Going along for the ride

2008-06-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

My first six weeks in this ministry of mine have made my mind do some whacky stuff. One minute ill have complete confidence in myself and how I'm doing things and then for some odd reason BAM! it changes. I question every thought that goes through my head and I spend most of my time thinking about why I'm doing something instead of the actual production. And if I ever make it to the actual production stage, I might question myself so much that I start all over again. Maybe this is just what happens when I get more responsibility. What looks like me procrastinating is really just me doubting myself (and maybe a little bit of procrastination). This has been one of the biggest hurdles working at a church so far, but I’m starting to love it.

When I realized what was holding me back I did what every good little Christian boy does: PRAY! What I realized was that I was not only doubting myself but I was doubting God as well. He put me in this ministry for a reason and there is a reason he gave me the gifts and abilities that I have. And I know that one of the abilities he blessed me with is the knowledge to make my OWN decisions! I need to be confident in myself because I am confident in God. This doesn't mean I won't mess up. I fully expect to have some pretty bad mess ups. But God will take care of me and this ministry (plus, since I’m an intern, Ben and frank would get more crap about it then I would ;)

So this blog is going to by my hitchhikers guide through my ministry experiences. The hopefully many ups and few downs that I go through on this journey. I’m very excited to see how this ministry changes because of my involvement and how I change. I don't know if any of you have seen the movie A Hitchhikers’ Guide Through the Galaxy but the lessons that the main character learns aren't learned through his own self reasoning and knowledge, but through learning from all the mistakes that he made while chasing something he couldn't quite wrap his brain around. I expect to do the same thing. So saddle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!