Busy, busy, busy

Sorry for the gap in my postings. It's been pretty crazy the last week. On Saturday we moved in Shauna and then went to my cousin's grad party (Congratulations Danielle!). Sunday we celebrated my Dad's 54th birthday (Happy Birthday Father!). Monday was date night, Tuesday was TV show night, Wednesday was dinner with Shannon's mom  & cell phone shopping. And now here we are. Thursday. And I have some time!

But I have few ideas. Boo.

So I'll stop here and avoid babbling on and on about something. Peace.

Times they are a-changing

Shannon's sister is moving in with her this weekend. It's a big deal for everyone. Shannon is getting a roommate, Shauna (her sister) is on her own for the first time, Shannon's parents have gotten rid of the last kid, and me? I'm affected in a couple of ways, all stemming from the fact that Shauna is moving in with my girlfriend.

1) Another car to dig out of the snow in the winter.
Because Shannon is my girlfriend, I'm the go-to guy to shovel snow off the car, get it out of any snowbanks. etc. Because my sister lives close to Shannon, I help her out too. And now Shauna. I need to get a better shovel.

2) More broken things to fix.
Electronics, furniture, appliances, etc., I get to be the handyman

3) More errands to run.
Often I'll go to Tops or Target and pick something up for Shannon real quick. I can see it now... When I'm out the door for Tops to get something, Shauna will hand me her list too.

I think that about covers it. I'm not complaining. I like doing that stuff. Heck, I'll even kill some bugs too. And there are some serious perks. The biggest one? I'll see a slight increase in the number of opportunities to act like a single college student again. No doubt there will be more days where I am not welcome in the apartment where previously, I'd stay. So what do I do instead? Go home, play video games, eat junk food, and go to bed late. It'll be awesome.

So no worries. Plus, it's going to be a super easy move. One trip. Which I'm incredibly grateful.

But of course, on Shauna's first day in the new place, I'm already being put to work. Shannon said I'm driving them to WalMart for supplies. I didn't even think of that one.

The rules of social networking

I shouldn't have to write a post like this. Everyone should know this stuff. But after months and months of watching people make facebook faux pas after facebook faux pas, I feel like I need to speak up. Although you want to communicate what's going on in your life to your friends and family via your social networking site of choice (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.), you need to avoid looking like an idiot or worse.

I decided to lay down the ground rules for having a profile. I will use Facebook for my examples as it is the most popular one out there. If you are a violator of any of these, please stop it immediately! You will instantly improve your life, trust me.

Faux Pas #1: Posting every little action of yours as your status. 

You're one of those people who need to tell everyone exactly what you're doing ALL the time. For example, "going to the grocery store and then tanning!" Or "Going to bed now."

Are you serious???? Who cares?!?!?!? No one! Not even your mother. Don't waste your time. No one wants to know every little thing you do every day. Especially if it's gross or wayyy too personal. Leave it out, please.

If you have to post what you're doing, spice it up. Instead of saying "Going to the zoo", say, "I'm totally 7 years old all over again and I'm going to pet an elephant." You've inputted some humor and still told the world where you're going or what you're doing, with a little mystery added to it. It's the perfect post.

The one exception is if you are doing something incredibly awesome. Then it's ok to post about it, straight up. Things like hang gliding or bounty hunting.  You can't beat a post that says, "Right now, I am about to rappel down the side of a tallest cliff face this side of the Mississippi." I'd rather read that than, "Picking up some milk."

Faux Pas #2: Posting controversial pictures of yourself or others


Do you want to know how you can work at McDonald's for the rest of your life, stay single forever, and live in your parents' basement until you're 40? Go partying every night, get incredibly wasted, make out with guys (or girls) you've never met, take pictures of the experience, and post it on Facebook.

Do you know how many interviewers are looking at your Facebook page as you're being interviewed? And the cute wholesome girl you met in class who won't call you back? It's because you're stupid. Your could-be employer saw you pounding the shots last Friday night and the pretty girl saw you grinding up against 3 girls on Saturday.

If you have to party and drink, leave the camera at home. Or at least, don't post the pics. It will ruin your life. It's so simple. And if you have pics like this of one of your friends, be a good friend and delete the photo. Don't ruin their lives for them.

Faux Pas #3: Being too mushy


This is one of my favorites. You're perusing your friends' Facebook pages and notice a conversation between two people dating and after reading 3 words, you're already feeling nauseous. Attention daters, engaged couples, and married folk: we don't want to hear about it. It grosses us out. Even us who are also dating, engaged, or married. We know you're love, let's leave it at that. We don't want to hear how hot ("hott") they are or how badly you want to kiss them right now. Especially those of you living together. Are you serious??? If you have to tell them something, turn to them, sitting next to you on the couch, and say it! My gosh! Or did you ever hear of messaging them? That way I don't have to puke all over my keyboard. Thanks.

Faux Pas #4: Desperately seeking sympathy and attention

There are two types of people in the world: those who tell everyone their problems and those that keep them quiet. For those of you who use Facebook to tell everyone how you're lonely all the time, mad at some guy, frustrated that you're overweight, or just depressed because of something or other, you need to know something. For every person who expresses sympathy, there are 999 people who would rather not hear about it.

It's not like they don't care. That's not the case at all. It's that the person who's venting about something is most likely what we call a "chronic venter" and spills their sob story every other day and we're just sick and tired of hearing about it.

People used to be like, "Oh Greg, I wish I had your life. You're so carefree and happy all the time!" Newsflash: My life isn't perfect, I just do two things differently than you. (1) I don't tell everyone about my problems, I save it for my close friends and family who I can always turn to for support and (2) I don't let my worries and burdens drag me down. I won't let my responsibilities ruin my day. It's something called maturity.

So man up (or woman up) and start handling your problems in a mature way. Instead of posting about every little thing that goes wrong, hoping for someone to say how sorry they are, try being proactive and change your situation. And for some of you, please seek professional help immediately.

Faux Pas #5: Posting too frequently


There's nothing more annoying than seeing someone who posts every hour. It screams one thing: "I don't have a life!" Unless you're someone super awesome (e.g. Bono, Stephen Colbert, Taylor Swift), you get the max of one post a day. Two in case of emergencies or extremely exciting days.

One tip for any Facebook post: you can get a good idea if you posted well by the amount of people who commented on it and by the number of people who "liked" it. If you're noticing a pattern of no activity after your posts, you can assume you suck at posting (or you have 15 friends, all of which are celebrities who have never heard of you).

I'm sure I'm missing some, and if you have any additions, feel free to comment below! Otherwise, let's all work together to be smart Facebook posters!

Long Lake Real Estate Review

Last week, my family and I went on vacation in the Adirondacks. Naturally, we found a place right on one of the many lakes. In the past, we've vacationed at Long Lake in the south end of the High Peaks region. We fell in love with the lake and the town that is its namesake, Long Lake, NY.

The lake is gorgeous and clean, with an amazing view of mountains on all sides. It's about an hour into the park from Utica, NY, almost smack dab in the middle of the park. There's plenty of fish, plenty of easy mountains to hike, and plenty of boats to rent.

For the first time, we decided to rent a house on the lake. We went through Long Lake Real Estate. Overall, the experience was good. The staff were helpful and informative. We shopped houses via their website and pics they posted and upon arriving at the location, we were satisfied to see that the pictures were quite accurate. While on the pricier side, we got a lot of bang for our buck.

The house we rented is #182 on their website and it was beautiful. Nestled in the woods on the more remote side of the lake, there was nobody around so it felt like we had the lake to ourselves. And yet the house was a 5 minute drive from the town where we could stock up on supplies, grab something to eat, and even check our email with the numerous WiFi hotspots.

The house was huge. It came with all the amenities - fridge, range, oven, microwave, dishwasher, sink, coffee maker, washer, dryer. The place was well kept and modern. There was even a hot tub, ping pong table, grill, and canoe for our leisure. There was a nice big dock for fishing and swimming and we had ample shoreline to dock the boat, swim, and explore. There were plenty of chairs, big picture windows, and plenty of space for our 7-person group to relax.

Only a couple of issues, all minor. First, the place was advertised as having a sandy beach. In reality, there was no sand and the shoreline was kind of rough. The shoreline was not built for kids. There's really nowhere to wade in. The shore is a mixture of rocks and grass so the best way to access the water is via the dock.

Also, the bedrooms weren't that clean. Very dusty and looked as if they weren't touched in awhile. But not gross in any way, just dusty. Another issue was the TV available in the house. It was smaller than my laptop screen. I mean, this thing was TINY. But we aren't there to watch TV, are we? Finally, this isn't really an "issue" but something you should be prepared for, the house is close to the water but higher up. Be ready to do some walking to get from the house to the water and vice versa. Maybe 30 steps or so.

All in all, I'd go back. There were other houses my family was interested in but if we went back here, I'd be perfectly happy. It was an amazing vacation!

Vacations are for a moment, being in vacation mode lasts forever

So a few things have happened since my last blog post. For one, I went on vacation for a week. It was fantastic. Much needed. The sucky thing about vacations? They end. It's quite sad.

My vacation was with the family in the Adirondacks (Everyone kept making fun of me because I kept saying "Andirondacks" like I'm 5). We stayed at a rented house right on the shores of Long Lake about 2 minutes outside the town of Long Lake. We've stayed on this lake before and for good reason. It's the perfect lake. Just enough glorious wilderness to beloved civilization. Our house was extremely secluded on a quiet section of the lake with nobody around. It was perfect. But like I said, the town was only a couple of minutes away with grocery stores, ice cream stands, restaurants, and my favorite: WiFi! So even if there is a suggestion of trying another lake, I will refuse. Heck, I'll even review the place we went to in a subsequent post.

While on vaca, we slept, ate, read, swam, canoed, kayaked, slept, ate, read, did crosswords, boated, slept, ate, and so on. But the one thing we didn't do? Climb a mountain.

That's right. While in the midst of the High Peaks of the Adirondack Mountain Range, we neglected the mountains. I won't lie, it was out of pure laziness. My family is moderately physically fit. We are all quite capable of climbing mountains. But we didn't. And I'm not ashamed. I stared at those mountains, took pictures of those mountains, dreamed about those mountains, and shunned those mountains. But the vacation was perfect without the climbing.

So if I can get Shannon to get the pics of our vaca online, I'll post some of them here. Which means I'll probably post them in 6 months.

Meanwhile, we're back to the routine. And now it's Tuesday, I've been home since Friday night, I think I'm finally escaping vacation mode. And yet already planning my next one.

Cheers!

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure...

As a fairly novice blog writer, I'm still struggling with the whole "finding my niche" thing. Absolutely worship is a passion of mine and I want to continue to express my opinions and give advice where I can.

But sometimes I want to talk about more than just worship. Sometimes I want to talk about something that has nothing to do with my faith.

The fact is, I'm not a celebrity. If you Google me, nothing good comes up (trust me, I looked, and don't lie, I know you Googled yourself too). I can't get away with writing about anything just because I'm famous. The way I'll draw readers (or followers) is by having purpose, direction, focus, etc., etc.

And I thought I had that handled. I technically have two blogs at the time of this posting. And I thought that with this blog, I can write about worship and other Jesus stuff and then with my other blog, I can write about everything else. Except since the conception of this blog, I haven't written one darned thing in the other. I'm too lazy. It's too much upkeep. And it'll split my readers in half.

So I'm officially getting rid of my other blog. And I'm slightly shifting the focus of this blog. I will keep my primary focus on worship, but I will also expand outside of that realm as I see fit. I'm thinking the title of this will be more like "In the eyes of a worship leader" or "Give me a penny..." Ooh! I like that one. We'll see...

yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it. Jesus made the mountains. Go figure.

I'm easily entertained by the people who gush on and on about nature and how God created it. They'll see a sunset or a mountain range or a butterfly and post on facebook how wonderful God is and how after seeing that, they just had to get on their knees and as the tears stream down their face, they thank the good Lord for all His blessings. And these people I'm talking about? They're men.

So let's set the record straight. God rocks. He dominates the whole creativity thing. He definitely made everything and He did with style. It's amazing how intricate everything is.

But guys, MAN UP. For crying out loud, act like a dude. Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by Brendan Frasers from Bedazzled. Trust me, it's quite possible for a man to give God glory for everything he's done without sounding like a wimp. Do you think Joshua was killing all those bad guys while looking at the pretty rainbow? No! But did he make altars to God after victories? Yes!

The only person who can get away with it is David (one word: harp). But that's because he took down a dude twice as big as him with a rock. When you do that, you can cry all you want.

So wipe those tears from your eyes, stop hugging me, and thank God without sounding like a pansy.

Amen.

The art of free worship (that's right, it's on the house)

Can I speak freely?

Free worship is hard. It's very hard. It's especially difficult for the worship leader. Before I explain myself, it might be best if we explained what free worship is first.

Free worship is self-explanatory. It's the part of the worship set where either the vocals or instruments (or both) start improvising on either the words or the music. The idea behind it is that while it's awesome singing a written, published, popular worship song with the congregation, singing a song you spontaneously wrote on the spot can be exponentially more powerful and impacting because it's raw, from the heart, customized just for you.

It's an amazing concept, really. I personally love free worship for all the reasons I mentioned above. Free worship takes your worship to God to the next level.

But like I said, it's hard. This is why it's hard:

1) Songwriting isn't easy
It can be awkward, uncomfortable, and just plain weird to start singing something you just made up. Let's face it, 99.9% of us will never be the next Chris Tomlin. It just won't happen. So here we are, just making up lyrics (most of the time just shamelessly putting the words of the song we were just singing in a different order), trying to not look like an idiot.

Solution:
Don't worry about it! You probably won't come up with something crazy awesome so don't try. A common suggestion I give to people is to sing their prayers. Follow the melody of the song you were just singing and whatever you would normally talk, sing!

2) The worship leader went off the deep end
Hate to break it to you, but worship leaders are crazy. Just like any musician out there, worship leaders are as bad as the rest of them. They'll yell out commands to you ("Sing a new song to Him!"), they'll go off in tongues for a while (AWKWARD), they'll repeat one word over and over again for 10 minutes straight (they're as lost as you), etc, etc.

Solution:
My advice to you is two word: baby steps. Just try a little bit at a time. No one's expecting you to be Matt Redman or Kari Jobe. Just start praying (the talking version), follow the beat of the song, and see if you can't start singing it instead. Tune out the crazy worship leader, close your eyes, and focus on worshiping God. You'll do fine.

3) The free worship has been going on for an hour
This is my favorite one. Once in a while you'll find yourself led in worship by a band that does more free worship than actual songs. The worship will end and you'll realize that the band only did two songs that were 20 minutes long each. For some people, it was awesome and they loved it. For most people, the band lost them after the first 5 minutes.

The hardest part for worship leaders is to balance the amount of free worship in a set. Some truly want to have the perfect balance, others deliberately stay away from free worship, and others deliberately bring as much free worship as they can into the set.

Solution:
For the standard church goer, all I have to say is: I'm sorry. Sometimes it's the luck of the draw. One day you won't get any free worship, the next day, that's all you'll get. Luckily, most crazy free worshipers are only seen at conferences and specials so you can learn to avoid them if you don't like it. And if you love it and don't see it in your own church, talk to your worship pastor about it (be polite).

Balancing the ratio of free worship to regular worship (worship leaders, this is for you):
This is where it's hard for worship leaders. Free worship is becoming increasingly common in worship sets. It's a powerful tool and I encourage any worship leader in any church, in any denomination to start implementing it. But of course you need to display wisdom and tact while doing so. As a side note, this advice applies to standard services, not special services or conferences. The rules go out the window for those, I'm afraid to say.

1) Don't go too long!
The worship is probably only 20 - 30 minutes and most people will initially be more comfortable singing songs they know. If you go too long, you'll start to lose people. Not everyone will be a fan of free worship no matter how hard you try. And while you don't want to be a people pleasing church, you need to be sensitive to the mood of the congregation (more on this later).

2) Don't be afraid to start a time of free worship
If you want to start doing free worship but are afraid or don't know how, start by practicing it outside of church. Get your team comfortable with it. The more you do it, the easier it will get. In what you should say, follow my advice from above. And practice, practice, practice! Soon you'll be a pro.

3) Don't be weird.
Every church is different. But most churches have one common philosophy: don't be awkward and weird.
-If an attempt at free worship bombs, cut your losses and go on to the next song.
-Stay away from speaking in tongues into the mike. I'm no intellect on this, but the standard line is, don't speak in tongues in public unless you dead sure you got an interpretation (and you probably don't).
-Finally, worship God in your free worship. Don't take this time to lecture the congregation or condemn people or preach something that's been on your heart for months. You're not the pastor, you're the worship leader so stick to your job.

Well, with all of this invaluable advice, you'll be the best free worshiper around! Remember, it always comes back to the reason you're there to begin with. Worshiping God. It's not about putting on a show, or looking awesome, or joining the crowd. Free worship is an amazing thing. So do it with sincerity and passion! And worship leaders? Excellence won't hurt either.

Who said Guitar Hero is for wanna-be rock stars?

I don't really have anything to say today except for this: David Crowder Band is the greatest. Check out this clip: