Lee Singers @ the Creek

Yesterday was another great day at the Creek. We started a new series called Gifted and had the Lees Singers in from Lee University to sing. The Lee Singers were great! I was so proud of them. My friend Brad took over as director last year and has done an incredible job bringing energy and excellence back to this group. Well Done Bradley! Two of the Singers were our very own Wes and Paige Lutes. They are so awesome. I also felt a little old because one of the girls in the group was mine and April's flower girl in our wedding. Time is tickin away. 

We had friend day last week and had a record non holiday attendance record of 1648. So I was interested to see what our attendance was going to be yesterday. We had 1500 on the nose. I will take that any day. Last year this time we were running about 1100. God is really up to something and I'm so excited to be a part of it. Keep up the work all you Creekers. God is using you! 

To top it all off my Bucs beat the Vikings yesterday to go to 7-3..   SWEET!  

Friend Day at the Creek!

Yesterday was an awesome day at the Creek. We had  1654 peeps show up for our friend day. We gave away $600 of gas in all three services. We had games and inflatables for the kid's (and adults). Danny our funny man was out in front of the church broadcasting live into the auditorium. People were pretty excited. I don't have the total count but a whole lot of people received Christ for the first time. I love serving at Stevens Creek, it really is a great place. 

Live Recording update

Where do I begin? It was an incredible night of worship. The energy was insane. I think that's what happened to some of the mics. All the electricity coming out of the packed crowd was causing things to go crazy. Those of you that were there know we had a few mic issues, but that was a small portion of the things that were going wrong on that night. So I decided I will give you a blow by blow account of the evening. Here are a list of things that went wrong:

1 the bottom of my mic came apart right at the end of rehearsal 30 minutes before start time. I fixed it and thought it was fine.  WRONG!

2 My mic didn't work at the beginning of the first song. We had this awesome drum loop going and the lights were where you could just see our silhouette and we started singing the line o happy day happy day over and over again. the anticipation was building and building just as we planned. It was all leading to the loop cutting out and me singing You washed my sins away" and boom the lights would come up.  That all happened except for my mic wasn't working and so it was just silence. VERY DISAPPOINTED!  

3 Know I have to take someone else's mic to use because it's kinda important that the one who is leading can be heard.  As I trade with Adam who was standing next to me the whole bottom of my mic falls off and lands on the ground. 

4 Since I don't have my mic I can't hear my vocal in my in ear monitor mix because it was set for my mic. So I can't hear a thing. Not the way I wanted to start the night.

5 At the end of the third song I broke a string on my guitar! no really all this is happening. Luckily we had a back up. So I go get it during a video we were playing to introduce a new song that we wrote. 

6 I go over to sing the song Fill Me at the piano and one of the pieces of my mic stand had fallen out where I couldn't adjust to where I needed it to sit at the piano and sing. So I just ripped the thing down without loosening it. It was at this point I just started laughing and told God, I don't know what's going on here but I give up. Do what you want tonight. From that point on we didn't have any major issues. I thought I had told Him that before the night maybe I didn't.

7 oh yeah I forgot the stuff that happened in preparation  The look we have on stage with the light truss was plan B. My first idea was a bunch of white circles hanging that we could through light on and make different colors. I've seen it other places and it looks great. We spent hours finding hula hoops painting them white, putting white material on them and trying to hang them. When we started hanging them we had some that looked like eggs others that looked like footballs and one or so that looked like a flippin' circle. NOT HAPPY! So this is Thursday and we have to come up with a new design. The only good that came out of it is I think I like the look of what we ended up with more than the original idea.

My team did an awesome job. We had sound men running all over the place trying to get mics to work. Vocalists trying to figure who needs what mic after I had to take one of theirs. Luckily all the mic issues won't effect the recording because we were recording through a different board than the house board. So all of that is fine. (-: I have an incredable team. The most amazing thing is that through all of this junk God really showed up and worked that night. I think it will be a night people will remember for a long time to come. I know I will.

3 Days Left

3 days until the recording. We have so much left to do. I'm so thankful for my team. I don't know if people realize how much time goes unto something like this. My team makes it happen, I am blessed. You don't want to miss Sunday night, it is going to be CRAZY! I really believe people will leave differently than they came.  See you at the Creek at 7.

Disney Cruise and Bucs Game

Just got back from an awesome trip with my family and our good friends the Wallers. We went on a 4 day Disney Cruise and it was a blast. The ship was awesome with tons to do, the weather was perfect and the company was even better. The only bad part of the trip was Grayson got sea sick the first night and was blowing chunks all night long. He got better the next day and so did our trip. I recommend a Disney Cruise for sure. The have there stuff together. From when you get there to when you leave they have it planned out. The shows were amazing I mean really amazing. I felt like a little kid again singing all the Disney songs. It was great! After the cruise I realized the Bucs were playing at home in Tampa that night. I thought they were playing in Seattle. So we decided to try and get some tickets and found some. It was a great memory for all of us. Ashton and Grayson loved it and I thought it was pretty cool too. Well, that is the skinny on our trip, glad to be home.

You Saved Me

The first song I will introduce is a song Gary Baxter our electric guitar player wrote with some input from the rest of the band. It's called You Saved ME. Here are the lyrics:

1st verse

So unaware of the one who cared 

Enough to rescue me

One prayer away from a love that saved 

An aimless child like me

Chorus

You're the one who holds my heart

And forever I'm not ashamed

To declare you as my Lord, You saved me

I'm so humbled that you came

And forever one truth remains

When you found my at the cross

You saved me

2nd Verse

Simple words I bring to a faithful king

Who gave His life for me

God of grace fill this empty space

And forgive me all my sin

Gary is awesome with a heart of gold. I am honored to serve along side him. Remember the live recording in two weeks on October 26th at 7:00.

How to Spice Up Your Marriage

You don't want to miss being at the Creek tomorrow. We are wrapping up our Family Time series with a day on How To Spice Up Your Marriage. It's going to be an awesome day with some surprises so you need to be there. 

Live Recording 18 days and counting

Well we are 18 days away from the live recording we are doing at the Creek. We are in the process of writing some songs and rehearsing the other songs we will put on it. We have written three so far and I think that will be all we will be able to put on this one because of time. I hope next year the whole recording can be songs we write. The three songs we have written are:

You Saved Me written by Gary Baxter

Response written by Corey Baxter, Jordan Lucas and Danny Rankin

Fill Me written by Todd Sturgell (me)

Over the next few days I will highlight each of these songs to give you a picture of where they came from. Some really awesome things happening at the Creek. Make sure you save the date for The live recording Sunday October 26 at 7:00 and be a part of a night you won't forget.

Thankful

Well, I had a very interesting day last Friday. It started out great. I took Grayson to school and met April to eat some breakfast at Cracker Barrel. I had made plans to go and trade my car in after breakfast. So, I tell April bye and I set out  to North Augusta to do the deal, but that was not going to happen on this day. As I was driving down washington road in front of Club Car I was not paying attention to the road and I ended up slamming right into the back of a pickup truck with a trailer on the back.  The air bag came out and beat the crap out of my face, the front of my car shrunk up like a slinky. It was not good. The first thing I thought as I was trying to figure out if I was hurt or dying was Oh God forgive me of any sin I have in my life. I just wanted to make sure.I got out of the car and was amazed at how bad the car looked. I am a blessed man to come out of that ok. 

Baptism @ the Creek

Last night we had baptism at the Creek. I went into the night a little disappointed because we didn't have as many as we usually have being dunked. As the night progressed and I had the privilege of baptizing these folks I was reminded how blessed I am to be at a church that people actually come to Christ on a regular basis. So many churches are dead and drying up but the Creek is alive and vibrant and growing like crazy. Fellow Creekers we are blessed!