Last week me, Nathan Burke and Pastor Tim Smith had the great privlege of attending the first Gospel Coalition meeting in Deerfield Illinois. In attendance were heavy hitters Don Carson, Tim Keller, John Piper and our own Mark Driscoll (Pr Driscoll weighed in on his blog here). The conference has been adequately blogged about already so I’ll leave out the details and simply link to a couple blogs that did the conference justice here and here. The final GC documents can be found here.

 The Coalition’s main purpose is to rally together like minded pastors, scholars etc around the importance of the centrality of the gospel as it is proclaimed in Christian ministry and missions. Seems like a no brainer, right? Well, in light of some of the latest theological gymnastics being done in evangelicalism these days which at times toys with very central teaching of Orthodox Christian faith, I’m glad that organizations like the Gospel Coalition exist. In short, it was really encouraging to hear these mean speak and it was such an encouragement to me to be with other like minded men and women that are fighting to contend for the faith in their own corners of the continent.

 The highlight for me had to have been when John Piper addressed the 50 or so Acts 29 church planters. It was a very informal Q&A over a pizza dinner and his insights were very fatherly and wise. I couldn’t help but comment to some of the guys I’d met later that evening that I felt like I was present for something historical with the older passing the torch to the younger.

On a more geeky level, I’m going to touch on some actual recording techniques and general nerd talk on how we’re getting those sweet sounds to tape.

For the drums on “Solid Rock’ (which is being done by Epop), Brian wanted to get a very pulse-y sound. The drums play only on Bass Drum and cymbals, and build throughout the song to a loud 8th-note crescendo at the end. Brian said he wanted to hear the compressor “breathing’, which is essentially where something is being compressed in such a way as to be very noticeable for effect. It makes you feel like the drums are slamming against a brick wall on every hit. To achieve this effect, we pulled out an old omni-directional EV microphone similar to what would have been used on an on-site news report in the 70’s. This was run through a Shure level-loc (popularized in modern recording by an amazing recording engineer - Tchad Blake), which is an insane compressor originally designed to be used for announcements on a P.A. in a bowling alley or something of the like. Lots of fun!

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written about our studio project, (which is a hymns compilation of several Mars Hill bands) largely because I’ve been really busy working on it. We are now knee-deep in production, and we’ve finished 4 of the 5 bands’ basic tracks. Pastor Tim’s new band will be going in to do their basic tracks at the end of the month.

We are seeking to capture Mars Hill Church’s missional perspective on corporate worship in a way that shows our diversity and inspires other churches and musicians not only to worship Jesus, but to do so in a way that is in tune with their local culture Christian or not.

I’m really excited about the way things are turning out we’ve been able to hone in the already great existing arrangements, which has been great for Brian and I (the producers) as well as a nice time for the bands to be able to step back and get new perspective on songs that many of them have been playing for a long time.

This is something that we as bands at Mars Hill wrestle with and as music director, I am trying to address (forgive the bad analogy) the need to keep the “wheels turning’, but never getting a chance to really work on the engine. We’ve grown at a very fast pace and have just barely been able to create enough new bands for new campuses as they crop up, so stopping to re-group or record has rarely been a luxury we’ve had. Though Projects like this one are a nice “break’, we’ve opted to do this one while keeping most of the bands in current Sunday rotation because of necessity. While this has been difficult and a lot of work, I feel it has gone well so far and we haven’t burned out any of our volunteers.

For the next blog, I’ll geek out a little on some tech-y stuff and discuss how we got good sounds in the studio…

I have written here a few times about my friend Harold Best, author of Unceasing Worship.  He is scheduled to come out in September to anchor our Continuous Worship Conference.  Harold’s son, Gareth, plays guitar (quite well I might add) for MH band “Brothers of the Empty Tomb”. (You can find BET music on the Marshillchurch.org site under the “media” section.)

Harold’s wife, Gareth’s mom, Juel, has been battling cancer of one kind or another for over ten years.  Juel had a long period of remission but the cancer came back a couple of years ago and since then it has been a fight.  Last week she took a turn for the worse and she may not be with us much longer.  Estimates range from six days to six months depending on which Dr. they talk to and what time of the day. But they all agree that time is short.

Please keep Juel, Harold, Gareth and their whole family in prayer.  Juel has been a tremendous wife and mother and she will be terribly missed.  Even though many of you have not met Harold, his words have inspired so many of us to think about worship in the larger, biblical context.  Please keep the Best family in prayer during this difficult season and we hope to spend some time with him this fall.

For your reading pleasure…I wrote a SATIRE piece (so, you know…take it with a grain of salt) for an online magazine way back in the double-O that has been regurgitated on the Mars Hill arts blog. Wait…if I just admitted to it to being a satire piece, does that make it non-satire now? Hmmm… 

Part I.) Positive Affirmation of Creative Destruction

Part II.) Cheerleaders of Pop and the Rock and Roll Hope For Equilibrium Within the Gospel of Inevitable Destruction

Part III.) Maggots Beneath the Wings of the Great Speckled Bird