8 Steps to Configure Ableton With Loop and Vocal Cue Tracks

ableton_live6A vocal cue track is an audio track set to a click, and usually ran along side of a loop, that is sent to your in ear monitors only and serves as a helper track, guiding you inside your arrangement. The primary purpose is to keep the band in sync with the arrangement and is especially important when using loops. If you get off the loop disaster can come quick and hard.

[Read more...]

Book Review – God-ol-o-gy

Last month I got my copy of God-ol-o-gy, a new book by Christian George.  Things were so busy and hectic leading up to Easter that I kept putting it off, picking up the book and not being able to get far, and not really being able to wrap my head around it.

Was that a mistake.

[Read more...]

Using Music To Serve Others

sunsetGrowing up as a youth/worship pastor’s kid, I’ve been around “worship music” for most of my life. In fact, I think I’ve been in church just about my whole life.

[Read more...]

My Strength and My Song

118Psalm 118 is one of those LIFE passages. You know, the ones that seem to define your life. Take a look at these passages:

[Read more...]

Worship That Transforms; Part One

worship1I know, the Bible commands it, God desires it, we were created for it; but all of these reasons are a little like saying that we eat only because our bodies need food to survive. This may be true, but what we eat, how we eat, and the effect that our eating has on our lives goes much deeper than just the act of survival. So, too, our worship goes far deeper than just obeying a Biblical command or responding to some in-built human drive – or at least it should.

[Read more...]

Songs in the Night

nightAs a songwriter, my inspiration for songs comes from LIFE stories. My inspiration often comes from the things God brings me through.  Darlene Zschech once said, “A song needs to be lived before it is sung”. Those are the words that ring in my heart whenever I sit to write a song. Life is not always a bed of roses and romantic sunsets, sometimes life gives us lemons. So where in LIFE do we derive inspiration for a song?  Here is an example from my life that I hope inspires you to write songs out of your own walk.

[Read more...]

Zero Tolerance

nosymbolWe have a policy at Crossroads that says the following;  you may not be alone with a person of the opposite sex in a car, closed office or anywhere other people cannot see you at the church or while working for the church.

We installed windows in each of our Directors and Pastors doors, with the rest of the staff being in an open cubicle setting.

Extreme?  I don’t think so.

[Read more...]

A Key to Longevity: Reproduce Yourself

cloneThere is a necessary but painful truth that we in worship leadership must all face and eventually embrace. We must realize that we are not indispensable. To last in ministry and to further the work of the Kingdom of God we must reproduce ourselves.

[Read more...]

Easter Roots

catholic-liturgyThere are few times during the year that I actually miss my traditional, liturgical upbringing.  Easter is one of those times, though.

It’s possible that the Evangelical movement in America has strayed too far from it’s roots. In it’s desire to run away from the “stodgy” and “dead” liturgies of mainline Protestant and Catholic churches, perhaps we have lost sight of why those liturgies existed in the first place.

[Read more...]

Album Review: Israel Houghton’s ‘The Power of One’

His name is Iz.

For a decade, that name has been linked to perhaps the most powerhouse brand in Christian/Gospel music: Israel and New Breed. Two Grammy’s, multiple Dove and Stellar awards, multiple Gold albums – there’s hardly a church in America, it seems, that some New Breed music has not been played in.

[Read more...]