Ladies and gentlemen, my daughter is the cutest thing in the world.  If you have a baby, don’t look at pictures of her because I don’t want you to feel bad.  I spent a large portion of the day yesterday just hanging out with my Little One.  We played and slept and laughed and ate and pooped all day.  KK took some “me time” and went shopping.  It was a great Saturday.  Know what follows Saturday?  Yup.  Sunday.  Here’s the setlist for Kingsfield Church!

All Because Of Jesus – Fee – We Shine
Healer – Hillsong – This Is Our God
Closer – Charlie Hall – Flying Into Daybreak
Salvation Is Here – Hillsong United – Look To You

We are getting ever closer to the birth of my baby girl, but it doesn’t look like it will impede today’s music for Kingsfield Church!  Should be a great day with a gold medal USA vs. Canada hockey game, a Sunday afternoon nap ritual and an anniversary dinner with my beautiful wife who has inexplicably decided to keep me around for year 3!  So here’s what we are singing as we focus on keeping Christ the goal and therefore decreasing ourselves and letting Him increase!

Glory To God Forever – Fee – Hope Rising
Revelation Song – Kim Walker-Smith – Consumed
Center – Charlie Hall – Flying Into Daybreak
All Because Of Jesus – Fee – We Shine

This week I want to show you all a band that is one of my all time favorites.  They may or may not know this, but they were very influential to my growth as a musician and a worship leader.  Quint, Dustin and Charlie have been great friends and band mates!  The Charlie Hall Band is huge back in Oklahoma and the West Coast is starting to catch on.  With some of the best musicians that I have ever met, the Charlie Hall Band is outstanding and very creative.  If you are looking for something more than just the normal blah from the radio, check out the Charlie Hall Band.  Their music will make you think, reflect, respond and always points to God.  And if that’s not enough, Charlie has the fastest growing facial hair EVER!  I’m pretty sure he is in the Guinness Book Of World Records for it…or he should be.

There is a popular bumper sticker that reads “NOTW” or not of this world.  For those of us with a relationship with Christ, this is true!  We are no longer of this world!  He has made us something else.  But it seems like a lot of the time I forget that we are still in this world.  I am a firm believer that we are called to be not of this world BUT still affect it while we are still in this world.  That is a difficult thing to do when we don’t get outside of our little church bubble.

I am as guilty as any.  I like to be selfish with my time and spend it with my family or doing things I like.  It is far too easy to cruise through life doing the safe thing.  For me the safe thing is basketball with my church friends, TV with the wife, date nights, blogging, church, etc.  Recently I have found myself caught up in this world and doing nothing for the rest of my community at all!  Ouch. That’s a tough thing to realize.  I like to justify it and say that it’s just hard to make friends you don’t spend time with.

Many times as Christians we are just like me.  We find it easy and safe to never leave the “walls of our church” to affect our surroundings at all.  We don’t make time to still be in the world.  Jesus did this!  He made time. He gave time for the Hookers and Robbers.  He did it so much that it pissed off the religious people around Him.

The Pharisees and their religion scholars came to his disciples greatly offended. “What is he doing eating and drinking with crooks and ‘sinners’?” Jesus heard about it and spoke up, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting outsiders, not insiders—an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out.

Luke 5:30-32

When was the last time you invited over for dinner someone you know doesn’t know Christ or at least are unsure if they do?  It’s been way too long for me.  We are called to live our lives different.  The safe, comfortable life isn’t it!  That is why Christ came.  And I’m pretty sure He didn’t take the easy way.

He came for the hookers and thieves…

…the Enron bigwigs and the Wall Street suits…

…the Buddhists and the Relativists…

…the Democrats and Republicans…

…Communists and Socialists…

…you…

…me.

Last night our concert series continued with one of my favorite bands!  Orange County was given a very special treat last night with the Charlie Hall band and their very own home town Phil Wickham!  It was a great night.  We were very excited to hear that they were coming to Santa Ana.  Not only do we love the Charlie Hall Band (no offense Phil, you are growing on us but still new to us) but I grew up with a few of them and went to church with the rest of them!  So it was a great to see some Oklahomans here in California!  But then to top it all off we got in and got some backstage passes too!  Woo (not that we needed them…the band is generally wandering around all over anyway).

Quint Anderson and Dustin Ragland both grew up in the same church with me and played in a band with me in high school/college.  I love those guys.  Dustin and Quint are probably my favorite drummer and bass player outside the state of Texas (not gonna try to choose between them and Todd and Graham…just not worth it).  It was great to get to spend a little time with them.  Charlie Hall used to lead the music at my school when I was in high school and went to Bridgeway in Oklahoma City.  I also learned to play the guitar to many of his songs!  Not only that but Phil Wickham picked up an electric guitar player in Taylor Johnson (stud electric) that played with me a few times at my old church in Fort Worth.

So it was a great night of great music and great friends.  I miss those guys.  I miss playing music with them.  But they are doing great!

Highlights Of The Show – Catching up with Quint and Dustin is always great.  Quint is newly engaged!  Yea!  Charlie’s beard is amazing.  I swear if you chopped it off he would lose all his powers like Sampson.  Switching chairs during with KK during Phil Wickham and smelling the intense BO of the guy next to her.  (Sorry baby!)  The Charlie Hall Band has a new CD out and it is amazing!  Definitely a must have!