Topeka Bible Church Benefit Concert May 11 at 7th w/ Sam Cho & Manuel Tábora

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Bryan Nelson’s blog verticalresonator.wordpress.com is moving to a new site called worshipfollower.com. If you are receiving this via an RSS reader or email subscription, you will want to head over to worshipfollower.com to sign up.  This should be the final time to do this — because worshipfollower.com is a fantastic web address.  Keep up with the latest from Worship Follower by subscribing via email or RSS Feed.

Communion solo by cellist Samuel Cho

Samuel Cho

Last weekend Topeka Bible Church’s resident cellist, Samuel Cho, played his arrangement of “Near the Cross with Jesus Love Me” — a thought provoking arrangement that represents Jesus’ death on the cross.  He also played it at the Overflow worship event held Fellowship Bible Church later that evening (another great Topeka worship event).

The foot stomps Sam did represent the nails being driven through Christ’s hands.  You can hear the rope being twisted — not a fun experience musically, which is the point.  It was a tense moment.  Have a listen here.

Father of the year makes birthday cake [VIDEO]

All we can say is this dad is the bomb for making this birthday cake for his son.  It took 10 hours to make and 2 minutes to destroy.

What have we made for God lately that’s made Him smile like this little boy?

Is there anything we’ve destroyed that’s taken God a long time to put together?

Vision – a picture of what the future of music looks like

Some people have a clear vision of what the future looks like — the rest of the people in this world sit back and either follow or wait to see what happens.

What Onyx Ashanti (the guy in the video) has going for him is a great vision — a picture of what the future could look like.  While it’s probably not your type of music or performance style, you’ve got to give him credit for seeing what COULD be in the future — and then going for it.  His call to partner with you and I is comendable too.  It makes you want to donate just be a part of what he’s going.  He’s already got $300+ toward his goal.  Only 94% more to go Onyx, hang in there.

Check out his blog to see progress on how he’s making the TRON Beatjazz Controller system.

My New Guitar Practice Companion; iLift iPod App

Thanks to Praise Weekly: P & W For the Not So Gifted (cute subtitle) for sharing this tool.

The ability to slow down complex riffs on guitar has become a necessary evil. How else do you think people have written out guitar tab for Lincoln Brewster’s monster solos.  They slow it down and reverse engineer the guitar playing.

Here’s an iPhone application that will do just that. No need for a computer or separate device — it’s now in your pocket.  From Praise Weekly…

My New Guitar Practice Companion; iLift iPod App

I always thought that it will be really nice to play, slow down, loop, change keys directly from iPod. Last week, it dawned on me that there might be a iPod app out there that can do this. With some researching, I finally found one! It is iLift app. It does exactly what I was looking for and it is free!. (Free version only lets you add 3 songs in its playlist, but it is enough for me for now) I hook this up with my POD Live x3 playing “Savior of the World” by Ben Cantelon from key of B to G and it worked really well. I was able to loop the intro so that I could repeat it again and again.

It is really difficult to practice with songs with keys that we don’t really sing with. iLift will help you to do this much easier. Try it out and let me know how it you like it. Enjoy!

via My New Guitar Practice Companion; iLift iPod App.

How to get to heaven — without working at it

You do it.  I do it.  We all do it. We mess up.  In God’s eyes, that’s a problem because He doesn’t allow anyone who has sinned in heaven (not even one stolen cookie).  That’s bad news for you and me.

So what do we do about it?

People do different things with their sin. Some don’t worry about it.  Some buy an iPhone app to confess their sins.  And others work even harder at it.  For example, I recently learned some of the work it takes for Mormons to get into the highest level of celestial kingdom (that’s code for Mormon heaven).  Each time you mess up (sin), you are to confess by name every sin you’ve ever committed (that you can remember) right up until the one that you just committed.  Wow.  That’s a huge burden.  Imagine the long list we’d all have.

It would be so much work.

Imagine if Christ has only paid the sin up to a certain point?  Imagine the work it would take to stay on top of your sins.  It reminded me of a song I grew up with that explains how God, once and for all, paid all sin through His Son Jesus Christ by His death on the cross.  He didn’t pay just part of it.  He paid it all.

How about you — are you trying to figure out how to get to heaven? More bad news…we can’t do it on our own.  The payment for our sins is too great.

God made the only way to heaven — and explains it in the Bible. If you believe Jesus Christ did this (died for our sins and came back to life), and you place all your trust in the fact He paid the entire way to heaven for sinners like you and me…that’s the ticket to heaven.  You didn’t earn it.  I didn’t earn it.  It was freely given to the world — and offered to those who believe.

Thank God His Son Jesus paid it all.

 

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought,

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Verse 3 from It Is Well with My Soul (Phillip P. Bliss)

 

If you’ve never asked God to save you from your sin so you could go to heaven — why not now? Just pray this prayer.  The words aren’t important, just the meaning behind them…

God, I know that I have broken your laws and my sins have separated me from you. I am truly sorry. Please forgive me. I believe that your Son, Jesus Christ, died for my sins, came back to life, is alive in heaven, and hears my prayer. I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to take control of my heart from this day forward. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

 

Light show concept #124,072

Not sure about this one folks — but an interesting concept for our annual light show at Topeka Bible Church.

 

Free Online Worship Study | got worship?

Everyone can benefit from sharpening their game at what they do — whether is someone who is raising kids, a team preparing for the superbowl, or the president of a world power.  This hold true for worship leaders and pastors.

That’s what peaked my interested when http://gotworship.net/ was facilitating a webinar for worship leaders with the book by Tim Hughes.  What a great chance to sharpen the focus of worship leading with others.

If you are a worship leader/pastor out there…maybe you’d enjoy a little sharpening this month. Why not join us?  Here are the details…

Free Online Worship Study

January 30, 2011 in Leadership Course,Worship Training

If you are a worship leader or worship pastor interested in growing your team, starting a team, or simply learning to become a better leader – then I want to invite you to a free online worship study that we will be launching next month.

The course is free – but we will be going over a book by Tim Hughes entitled Here I Am To Worship for the course.

We will break apart the chapters each week and have a set time that we can discuss the content and have devotionals and lessons designed to help you become a more effective leader.  These weekly lessons will be in webinar form – and you can chose to actively participate in the discussions or sit back and absorb.

Interested?  Grab your copy of the book by clicking the picture of the book cover or by clicking here.

Then, use the form below to sign up for the course.  We are scheduled to begin the first week in March – so you will have plenty of time to pick up the required book and have it shipped to you.

via Free Online Worship Study | got worship?.

Worship Loop and Click Track Library – mymusicwriter.com

In a minute, I’ll mention the loop contest mymusicwriter.com is running, but first — how we use loops and click tracks in worship.

This past week at Topeka Bible Church we ran the majority of our worship songs with loops and click tracks. Though I played keyboards for the band this week, it was nice to have additional sonic material happening in the mix.  It allowed me to play less, sing more, and focus on playing my 1/6 part of the role of the 6 member band.

The nicest part of using click tracks is having steady tempo and smooth song starts. You know those nasty drummer stick clicks.  With a silent count in, the band simply starts.  Flow is much smoother as a result.  Also, no more subjective “it feels fast” or “it’s dragging” thoughts.  The tempo is set.

The final advantage with the loops and click tracks are the vocal cues into the song sections. It serves the song on a silver platter.  There’s no questions where the verse, chorus, bridge, turns are — because you have a voice counting you in.  Sure, it’s not as flexible as a custom roadmap — but there’s never harm in dialing out the volume of the click when you decide to veer from the stated roadmap.

So do you use loops and click tracks in worship? If not, it’s not difficult once you have it set up.  If you’ve ever wanted to get started with loops…here’s an easy way to get started — mymusicwriter.com is giving away it’s entire loop library to a lucky Twitterer — but you can also pick up $10 of free loops.  Here’s the deal from mymusicwriter.com…

For the launch of our new site at mymusicwriter.com, we’d love to get some free loop goodness out. Yes, it’s the same awesome site — just a new look.  So we are giving away $10 worth of loops on orders over $30.  And to top things off, we are giving away our entire worship loop library ($200 worth of loops).

Crazy!

To grab the free loops, enter FEBLOOP on orders over $30 (your cart will be discounted $10). We know, it’s a discount — but that’s more change in your pocket.  Code is good through Feb 28, 2011.

And for the full blown chance to grab the entire mymusicwriter.com library giveaway, all you have to do is tweet this.  “Awesome. @mymusicwriter is giving away free worship loops and click tracks.  Go get some. http://tinyurl.com/6l7n2tg”

We’ll pick on March 1, 2011. Good luck.

via Worship Loop and Click Track Library – mymusicwriter.com.