Here’s Cruz and his first haircut…

Cruz’s First Haircut from Jason Williams on Vimeo.

Creative. Inspiration.

He defeated death.

Light overtook darkness.

Love won in the end.

If you’re facilitating or leading worship for this upcoming Easter celebration at your respective communities…what songs will you be singing to help communicate these truths?

Here’s some new (and not so new) ones that I’m thinking of….check em:

The Mojo for this week is another great resource for all of you worship leaders incorporating some form of electronic music programming into your music sets. For quite a while now, there was not a whole lot of really good sites or places where you could locate usable loops or tracks to use during leading worship. For a season there was Sacred Loops, but that site seems to be getting less and less contributors…and it was a little hodge podge at times as well. Bwack’s Forum can be a cool place to discuss methods of programming and talk gear with other forum members, even directly from David Crowder Band dudes. But even there, it’s a bit difficult to hunt down great programmed tracks or sounds that people are sharing.

So when I ran across Loops In Worship, I was pleasantly surprised. 

Finally, there was a resource and well laid out website where you could easily find loops and program sounds that are actually really good, and with the distinct purpose for use in a worship music setting. Granted, you won’t find really any “tracks” for actual songs that have been created like you might in Sacred Loops or Bwacks Forum. But you will find useful sounds that you can use to easily build your own tracks inside a program like Ableton Live, Reason, or Garageband in a short time.

All the sounds you will find at Loops In Worship come with a small charge, usually less than $20 for a large package of them, but you know what they always say…”you pay for what you get”. And that doesn’t change here. You pay a little, but again you get some great sounds that will go a long way to build another layer into your sound.

Remember, we had 2 opportunities that were really exciting to us…Seattle or Scottsdale. Long distance or local.

Well, Jessica and I have decided to stay in Arizona and accept the Scottsdale position at Scottsdale Bible Church.

It was definitely a very difficult decision. Not that Scottsdale Bible was not a fantastic place to see ourselves at. It is. Our family has a loooooonnng history there. And the maturity, solid Biblical foundation, and vision to really see people live in Christ is practically unparalleled in the city. It was difficult in the fact that we anticipated God giving us a real discernment into where he wanted us. But God does not always work in our expectations.

We had the chance to visit the church in Seattle a couple weeks ago. To be honest, we thought the community there at Bethany Community Church was fabulous. The staff is caring and vibrant. The people are inviting and warm. Pastor Richard Dahlstrom is a real visionary, incredible teacher, and he’s at the helm of a tremendous and thriving community. Not to mention the city of Seattle is dirty sweet! Can’t wait to get back there again.

So we did a lot of wrestling.

And in the end, in the depth of our gut and heart, we felt like we needed to be at Scottsdale Bible. The truth is, we couldn’t be more excited about the future and my role at SBC. There is indeed a part of me that feels like I’m taking somewhat of a “sidestep” in my journey as a worship leader. Scottsdale Bible is more of a support role, whereas Bethany was an opportunity to be the director of the ministry. Casting the vision and steering the ship. After a decade of leading worship, I think it’s only natural to aspire to be “the guy” at some point.

But, there are opportunities this role gives me that I really felt called to. I’ll be working with a couple really amazing ministries in both a worship leader and mentoring aspect. And there are some guys I’ll be rubbing elbows with that I know are going to grow and strengthen me immensely. In this moment, God is teaching me and molding me to be humble and joyful in the small things. And I’m getting the chance to take a breath. Grow. And focus more on being the most open and loving leader that I can be.

My family and I are once again learning that we do not ever really steer the ship. And if we were to think deeply…we prefer it that way. Let’s face it, we would just screw stuff up. So we’re perfectly content in the Lord and simply riding the coattails of His leading in this season.

God’s faithfulness is found on the other side of obedience.

But the fact is Cruz is gonna be a big brother! We are expecting our second little tyke in September!!

It actually was quite a surprise to us, and it happened to us a little earlier than we had planned, but we all know what that type of planning gets you…

We already had a chance to get in to the doctor and get our first ultrasound and heartbeat listen. It truly is a thing of wonder…

Lets get straight to the point here. If you are a worship leader/musician in the church and you’re not implementing a click or metronome during your music sets, you are severely limiting yourself and your ministry in terms of versatility & musicianship/talent. I will explain my thoughts on why that is below, but first, there is a prerequisite before you can begin piping in click to your players…you must have the ability to use in-ear monitors (IEM’s).

In-ears vs. wedge monitors are a whole other discussion, so I’m not going to focus on that, but the bottom line is you can’t use a click if you are only using wedges for your monitor feeds.

If you have the capability to use IEM’s, it would be ideal to have all your musicians and vocalists on click, meaning that they all have the ability to hear the click. At bare minimum, just having the drummer on click would raise the level of musicianship significantly once your players are accustomed to it a bit. Here’s 3 reasons you should be using a click:

Stability/Tightness: This is the most fundamental and important benefit of using a click in your sets. We’ve all had the song that started off at 105bpm and ended up at 121bpm by the time it was over. Or having the instrumentalist who starts the song starting it off waaaaayyyy ttooooo sssllloooooowww. Having a click allows you the freedom to assign a particular bpm (beats per minute) to the song and it will stay that same speed that whole entire time. A click will also naturally progress your musicians to a higher level of playing. Over time, your players will become tighter, tastier, and simply…better. The click makes musicians become better at their respective craft.

Versatility/Freedom: A click frees the drummer up from having to start a lot of the songs by giving tempo on the ride or hi-hat cymbals. Or from having the worship leader always start the songs. By having a click, you can let the keyboard player, the electric guitarist, or whoever start the song and be confident that they’re starting it at the right tempo. And those dramatic breaks in your songs will never be out of sync again!

Programming Tracks: One of my favorite benefits, using a click gives you the ability to incorporate programming tracks (synths, electronic beats, vocal textures, etc.) behind your music. Tracks, if used right, can give your music a beautiful secondary layer and movement that you won’t get from live instrumentalists.

Here’s a few metronome and click resources to help get you started in stepping up your game…

>Boss DB-90 Dr. Beat Metronome – This is, in my opinion, the best consumer click setup out there right now. It’s the one that I use 95% of the time.

>Music Math 4 – Great little free download for Mac’s that gives you the ability to find out the bpm’s of your songs by tapping in the tempo.

>Tempo iPhone App – This baby has saved my skin 2 times now since I’ve had it. Great resource to fall back on when you have no DB-90 or other click. You can even save set lists into the app just like the DB-90.

Are you using a click in your worship ministry? How has it affected the quality of your music programming?

Seattle – That city is the straight up jam. Really. I could spend a whole other week just walking around downtown. I’ve yet, in my life, to come across a city with more culture, grittiness, fantastic design, and color. You have the city lights. You have water. And you have natural beauty all around wherever you look. We loved it! Jess thinks she would love the gray skies and drizzle all the time…not sure how it would fit me. But the catch-22 here is that, without the climate and weather that Seattle goes through, the city wouldn’t have the particular beauty that it does.

Seattle: 2 thumbs up

Chelsea Station Inn - This is the bed and breakfast that we stayed at over the weekend, and it was probably one of the coolest places we’ve stayed at in a long time. It was sort of a small apartment inside a renovated old building right across the street from the zoo & a huge park called Woodland Park. Every morning we crept downstairs where the innkeepers would make a ridiculously good breakfast from scratch! Some of the nicest people ever there as well. Check out the Chelsea here.

Chelsea Station Inn: 2 thumbs up

Flying/traveling with a 15 month old rambunctious boy - Don’t get me wrong, I love my son Cruz like crazy…I just didn’t like him that much over the weekend. He was like a different kid, I swear. I’m sure there was at least 8 people on our flights that would’ve duct taped his mouth shut if they could have. Including me. Southwest Airlines made our flying time as comfortable as they possibly could, but even they couldn’t fix Cruz “uncomfortability” every single time I had to change his diaper in a 3×3 airplane bathroom. Picture evidence A:

Cruz & flying: 2 thumbs down…and in to my ears because Cruz is screaming.

Bethany Community Church – What an incredible community. These guys are excited about where God has led them until now and are rampant in seeing God awaken hearts in their local community. Pastor Richard Dahlstrom is a tremendous teacher and such a down to earth dude, that you get to experience his real heart in the first 10 minutes of hanging with him. They have a slew of worshipers who are stoked to be part of serving Gods people in music with their various talents. And trust me, these peeps have talent.

Bethany: 2 big thumbs up

You’ll have to wait a bit to hear where we are thinking of landing in our search for a new church community to be a part of or whether we’ll be in Scottsdale or Seattle. We are still processing a bit with various people and praying about the situation, but you friends will know sooner than later.

Thanks for your prayers and support over the weekend, we have been SO blessed to have people like you behind us!

Stay tuned…

If you’re not understanding what I’m referring to, check out this post: 101 in 1001

My wife Jessica and I put together a list of goals, 101 to be exact, that we hope to reach or fulfill within the span of a 1001 days. On a road trip back from California in October we had a ton of fun in the car laughing and reminiscing as we created our list. It’s been a super fun project for us together and given us a set of achievable markers to look for in our lives. Some of them are silly, some are practical, a few are deep and heartfelt. But they are all us.

Maybe you should start a 101 in 1001 list for yourself or your family?