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This morning after Men’s Fraternity (which was awesome) Fred decided to record his Worship Confessional for last Sunday. I appear a minute in. Thanks, Fred, for the kind words.

I’m still blow away over Open Mic Nite at SSCC last night. It was the Whammy! for the week, put on by Shannon Lewis and the Gathering Place.

All the way from the kid nailing a Beetles song who had been playing only a month, to Kim and Heather and their covers (including More Than Words by Extreme), to a band that should be playing at Bonnaroo playing Beck and some others, to Mike Browning and friends rocking hard.

To you guys who played, you were awesome.

WUTS went great. There seemed to be an intense spirit of worship in the place and I believe it was a great experience for people from all across the southeast US and from all kinds of Christian traditions to get together and worship God together. Again, we held Worship Under the Stars under a roof in the Jekyll Island Convention Center. But who’s counting when ultimately, regardless of the name, God was worshiped. I do selfishly wish for WUTS to be held under the stars next year though. Hint hint Fred.

It was good to once again be a part of the use of AV and media to be a part of the worship. Adam Ogden, our Production Director, did a fantastic job leading our team and producing the show. I was the Media Director which put me in charge of photography, designing the website, creating the opening video, creating pre-show graphics, converting other videos for use within Easy Worship, lyrics presentation, and training our volunteers involved with media. It was great.

I had a great couple of volunteers helping me - my wife Amanda and Justin Nazzare. Justin ran the lyrics and video during show and did a ton to help get it all set up. Amanda was faithful in transferring pictures from my 1 and 2 GB cards to my computer so I could keep shooting and not have to stop to transfer from the cards when they got full. Thank you both.

About the pictures. I ended up taking about 3,100 pictures between the two nights. Yeah. 3,100. “Why that many?”, you may ask. Mostly because getting the perfect picture of someone while they are moving, the lights are moving, and the light levels are changing is a daunting task. Getting to my computer and looking at the photos made me glad I shot so many of them. I got so many unpublishable pictures of people with awkward faces, bad lighting, and moving so much that my 1/40-1/100 sec range of shutter speeds couldn’t catch without a blur. I will say that out of the 3,100 photos I did get about 80 unique shots worth posting. I say unique because a lot of the photos I took were 10-30 shot bursts trying to capture the subject in good light, without an awkward facial expression, while not moving too fast, and while they were doing something interesting enough. Using that math, I only took about 100-300 unique shots with 80 coming out publishable. I’d say those were good odds. Fifteen hours in PhotoShop later, I had my pictures.

Below are the links to the final product. The sizes I uploaded aren’t printable so if you want any printed, contact me through this website or call or email me if you wish and we can get that arranged.

View my favorites here on my site.

More are available on the Worship Under the Stars website.

And a side note: I took my 10,000th photo with my Digital Rebel XT during WUTS. Wow. That’s over 10,000 photos with this camera since June 4th, 2006! That’s an average of 74 pictures a day!

Hey guys. Nothing major for this post other than an announcement that the pictures I took at the Jars of Clay concert when they came to town are up.

Sorry it took so long to post these. I got a little behind after moving back to Georgia.

Take a look: All of the Jars of Clay photos are here.

I just took a thirty-five minute walk around my entire neigborhood, the conjoining park, and back home. It’s now 1am. Here’s what went on. Excuse the grammar and sentence structure until I can revise this during the PM hours.

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I couldn’t sleep. I knew I had to get one-on-one with God. Things were on my heart and mind that needed to be dealt with. I needed to talk to God but didn’t want to wake sleeping beauty beside me.

So I got up out of bed and headed for the door. Amanda heard me anyways, so much for not waking her. I let her know I was going for a walk. “Why?”, she asked. “To talk to Dad”, I said. I grabbed a set of headphones on the way out. “Why would I go to pray with headphones?”, I thought. Something told me to. I then went to my car and got my iPod. Playing was Eyes East. I guess I forgot to turn it off earlier. The battery was almost dead. I plugged it into my car charger and let it sit as I turned my focus to God.

I don’t remember much of what I said. More or less I just told God that I needed direction and I wanted to hear from Him. Now at this point is usually when something happens to distract me - I get to where I’m going, nod off to sleep, think of things I need to do - you know the many things that distract us from hearing God’s answer. Thank God, literally, that nothing distracted me. I was ready to listen.

So I glance down to my iPod which has been charging. I get it. That’s how God wants to speak to me. “You’ve spoken to me before through music”, I said. “I’m listening again.” As I walk away from my car, I scroll to the Eyes East CD, “to be…”. I got their CD at a youth camp where I was a counselor and group leader one year. It’s been powerful in my life all the years since. It was powerful again tonight.

The first song, Lord I Thirst for You (a prayer), started the night off right as I got to pray it along with the CD. A few lines…

Lord I thirst for You. I long to be in Your presence. My soul will wait on You. Draw me nearer to the beauty of Your holiness.

Exactly! Lord, You are what I need. Above all, I need to stop seeking things, spiritual or not, above seeking You directly. That’s a struggle for most of us. We get Christian books, Christian CDs, go to church, have Christian friends, and eat Christian mints but rarely just get alone and love on God while He is right there loving on us. We tend to read the Bible but not let God talk to us through it. We pray without listening. I hate those tendencies in me. Tonight I really got to be drawn nearer to God and got to sit with Him and listen to Him. Amazing. I should do this more often.

The rest of the songs God used in unique ways to speak to me. It was good to walk and listen to the words and reflect on what’s presently going on in my life. I now see clearer what it will take to align with God’s will. I am more convinced of what He has in store for Amanda and I. I got answers to some questions I had. I feel more confident in decisions I have to make soon. I am more inspired to intently fulfill His plan for my life and live above the same routine. All because I stopped life and just plain listened to God.

I talk to, rephrase, at God often. Time to change things. I went on a walk thinking I would say a bunch of things and God would handle things in the background. Not so. He spoke and gave me direct answers. It was amazing. I’m looking forward to listening to Him more.

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I’m not sure what each of you could get out of that 2am (the time now) brain-download above, but if I can suggest one thing - get away from life and listen to God. It’s unarguably worth it.