jesiah

Emo Worship

// March 2nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Theological illogical

I was snowboarding a few weeks ago and I ran into someone who goes to my church.  We shared the ski lift to the top of the run which lead to conversation about family, school, snowboarding, sports and then we got to the subject of church and this person asked me “Why do we always do such sad sounding songs at church?” and I honestly had no answer for the question.  To be honest I was wondering the same question for months.  There had been a few select times where I had made it to church late and heard the worship team already playing worship and it sounded very sad and emo.  Which when you get out of your car feeling fired up after listening to Hillsong United “Tell the world” and walk into a sad emo musical vibe, it makes you wish that you were back in your car worshiping sometimes.  Now this has nothing to do with anyone’s heart or the quality of worship because we have a lot of talented Christ loving people on our worship team, its just the power of mood and emotion that a song can set.

I started going through our churches song list that I’m told to pick songs from and they are all lyrically great songs but a lot of the melodies and musical arrangements are the same.  Generally slow to medium tempo songs with a soft intro and a build to a strong ending chorus that ends in an acapella of said chorus.   I’ve had a few people come up to me and ask me why worship is so loud and I never had an answer.  The only way to put energy into these sorts of songs is to get louder, hence the build up to the strong ending chorus in almost all of the songs.   Now another way to add energy to a song is to play faster songs with edgier sounding arrangements. We really don’t have any fast songs in our song book other than the old ones that we’ve overplayed.   I think that is the best explanation I can give for these questions.

In conclusion I’ve learned a few things about churches:

1. Each church gravitates to a certain style of music and generally stays there until a change of leadership (whether hiring a new pastor or an old one resigning or another pastor running a different service).
2. Almost every single head pastor of churches that I’ve gone to have always liked the slower songs better.
3. Almost every youth pastors that I’ve known has had encouraged a great balance between high energy and low energy worship (then again sometimes that even became to predictable).

We all agree that it would be great to be in a worship service full of our favorite worship songs but if we let these sorts of things get to us we’ll lose the meaning of why we are worshiping.
Colossians 3:2 says “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

Keep your focus.

The balloon thought

// March 2nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Life

I was watching this video and I had a thought.

When you’ve got a balloon and the string slips out of your hand, you first panic but then after a second you enjoy watching to see how far that it can go.

I think this analogy applies to a lot of things. For some people maybe its the need to move away to start a career, for others maybe its the need to give up control of something so others can excel and for some maybe its taking the plunge into a relationship.  I currently like to see it as the balloon being my life plans and the wind being God’s direction, I just need to let the string go and follow Him with every movement of a muscle, every thought in my mind and word on my lips.

All this from a balloon…huh.

I’ve Got You and You’ve Got Me – New Buffalo, Remixed by Broken Social Scene from Karen Abad ?s Dinosaurs. on Vimeo.

My Love

// February 23rd, 2010 // Comments Off // Life

What will it take for us to heal, to love, to cry, to smile?

How long will this process keep our love and our heart in an intimate denial?

The moments never fade that I miss your shining little face and the warmth of your little fingers embrace.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now and forever you remain in my love.

DJsiah – The EP

// February 9th, 2010 // Comments Off // Music

I’m going to be releasing a new DJsiah album soon so I figured I’d post my first EP up here for sale.  I hope you all enjoy it.

Terrible Domain Name Registrars!

// January 26th, 2010 // Comments Off // Internet

Some registrars are worse than others.  I’ve decided to try out a new player called namecheap.com which is a reseller for eNom but its funny because namecheap is actually cheaper than buying through eNom. So far namecheap.com has been ok but I haven’t had to use their support yet.  Their web site isn’t all that flashy but it loads super fast compared to sites like Godaddy.

Alright so now to the beef of this blog… I switched to namecheap not just to try them out but because of my terrible experiences with two other top domain registrars.
 

Godaddy.com
They are the industry leader with great phone support but beneath this money making beast lies terrible business practices.
1. They try to upsell you till you turn blue in the face.
2. Their marketing tactics are very inappropriate which bothers me.  If you haven’t seen a godaddy commercial then good because they’re not good.
3. Their web site is the slowest registrar site I’ve ever used!  Loading time is horrendous!
4. If you have a hosting account through them… and you’re just using the account for storing files (say for instance project files for audio or video projects) well they don’t allow you to do that and will eventually shut your account down.

Conclusion: Godaddy tries to trick you into buying unnecessary features with underhanded marketing tactics. If that isn’t annoying enough.. try having to edit a few domain names and see how long it takes you do that with a site that loads at a snails pace. I wouldn’t recommend Godaddy to another one of my customers.

1and1.com
They "seemed" to be the opposite of Godaddy when I first signed up which really impressed me with their clean fast loading site and minimal upsell agenda but sooner or later anything that is too good to be true… well you know.
Most businesses that hold a credit card on file for renewal will send you a notice when your credit card on file expires. 1and1 decides to send the bill to a collection agency before they notify you of all of this.
Some think that 1and1 is cheaper than Godaddy but it ended up costing me $40 to get a domain name back and registered after they sent it all off to this collection agency.
1. Their support is rarely prompt and available.
2. They’ll send your info off to a collection agency before they send you a bill.
3. When trying to transfer my domain names away from them (over to namecheap) the 1and 1 phone support woman gave me false information which would have made the transfer fail. Luckily I also asked the same question over email and the email tech gave me the correct information.

Conclusion: 1and1 is a poorly ran company that doesn’t care about its customers.  I would never in a million years recommend 1and1 to another one of my customer.
 

To-do List for tomorrow…

// January 25th, 2010 // Comments Off // Life

Oh I feel like my mind is going to run all night so I better put this down so that I can rest easy.

1. Call Dan to see if we can get together.
2. Lay down vocals for "Trust my love"
3. Record DJsiah Radio Taglines for Dead Man Sleeping and Keep On Dancing.
4. Finish up some tracking on the on spec song for the tonino lamborghini commercial.
4. Clean the kitchen and do some dishes.
5. Have some chocolate chip cookies and milk before bed.
6. Continue my journey through the book of Isaiah.

Sounds like its going to be a full evening once I get out of work.
I think I may start reading through my hermeneutics book again just to bring to mind things to think about while reading through the bible this year.

I’m having that nightmare again….

// January 24th, 2010 // Comments Off // Art

So I’m having that same common nightmare that we all have… you know the one where your getting chased by that 2 story high puppy.

This photo made me laugh but its really detailed.  Its by an australian artist named Joel Rea and I think you should check him out here…
www.joelrea.com.au

Whats new?

// January 22nd, 2010 // Comments Off // Life

I’ve been blessed so I like to keep busy by blessing others …

I overhauled Redeemed Motorcycle Ministries web site to give it some functionality that it was missing before.  Pictures and such need to be added but at least the contact info is up to date haha.
Check it out… rmmnj.org

I finished off the music for the Anthem of Hope Encouragement disc which was fun because I got to score it like a movie.  I know that God is going to use it to bless many many people so I’m excited… and it brings joy to my heart to be a part of this ministry.
Check out the anthem of hope at… anthemofhope.com

Produced a song with Benjiman all about old school bmx building.  It has an old school sort of feel to it.  I’ve got some more mixing to do on it but I’ll let everyone know when its released.
Check benjiman out here… myspace.com/benjimanactivate
 

There is one more ministry in my cross-hairs that I want to bless with a new web site soon but first I need to find time for that.

Ok now I’m off to the shower and then I put my producer hat back on yet again.

Somethings going down…

// January 22nd, 2010 // Comments Off // Life

Hmmm.

On another note… I’m going to try to make beef stroganof for some friends tomorrow.  Hopefully I don’t flub it up like I did last time.
I forgot the beef bullion and onions last time which is where most of the flavor comes from.

Spread a little happiness

// January 22nd, 2010 // Comments Off // Life

Coke is an amazing company… in terms of spreading "their" gospel… they’ve out done the church.  There is most likely coca-cola in places that havent even heard the gospel yet and for that we should be ashamed but in a small way inspired.  I remember a story pastor wes told during sunday night church a few years ago… he went on this mission trip and it took hours on a plane… then they traveled by jeep for hours… then by boat for hours and then a 2 day hike to reach this remote tribe that has never heard the gospel…when they had arrived the tribes people offered them a coke.
Just something to think about while you watch this funny video…