last year my friend luke mundy suggested that we make a christmas ep to give away on our blogs.

it was a little last minute, but we decided to go for it and i am very glad that we did.

we had a wonderful time getting it done for the 2008 christmas season.

this year the tradition continues with the Noel ep.

4 songs, free to you, that you might be reminded of the precious gift we received from God, who sent His only begotten Son to live, die and rise again.

all for us.

not enough gets given away for free these days, so Noel (along with the With Us EP) are available at no cost, no spam and no strings attached.

many thanks to sean munoz for partnering with me on this year’s project. his creativity, musicality and friendship made the process tons of fun, while also helping me learn some things along the way.

sean and i hope you enjoy the songs and, most importantly, we hope that they remind you of Jesus.

blessings and merry christmas!

click to download the Noel ep

we’re making you a present.

hi there.

got a new song for you friendlies out there. had this one in my notebook for a long time now, but finally worked out the last verse…so draft 1.5 is officially done! definitely have some areas that i’d like to change musically, but that’s what a worktape is for don’tcha know!

i figured it’s easier to listen to something with some video to watch simultaneously. so with that in mind (combined with the huge popularity of google street view) this morning i recorded the drive we take from home to church each day.

hope you enjoy the sights of hanford.

lyrics below.

blessings and maranatha.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6520388[/vimeo]

SING GLORY

You made the sky and wrapped it around us
Divided the night to give us the morning
You fashioned the light to fall down that we might see

You chiseled the earth to give us the mountains
You planted and grew a beautiful garden
You filled us with life and spoke to us face to face

Sing glory
Sing glory
The Lord is glorious

You gave the ark to rise in the flood
You gave the ram in place of the son
You sent a man to lead Your people free

You humbled the kings and guided their moving
You sent holy feet to tell of Your coming
You spoke from Your place in songs and words and dreams

Sing glory
Sing glory
The Lord is glorious

You came to earth and traveled among us
You wept and You laughed and showed us Your goodness
You healed and You blessed, You touched and You fed and You breathed

You suffered and died to give us salvation
You sent Your hope to every nation
You redeem souls from death for eternity

Sing mercy
Sing mercy
The Lord is glorious

today…

as most readers of this blog know, i do a little amateur recording here and there.

emphasis on the amateur.

i don’t really have any ambition to become a touring musician.

i don’t think my songs are going to be worldwide phenomenons.

i don’t think my ‘big break’ is coming.

and that’s fine with me.

i just like to record things.

last november my friend mr. mundy and i recorded and released a christmas ep on our blogs.

since then that little 4 track has been downloaded over 300 times…while that may be small potatoes to some, it is absolutely astonishing to me. thanks to everyone who has supported that spur-of-the-moment project. it has encouraged me to continue doing things like that.

by way of an update, i’m currently working on another little offering. i’m not sure when it will be done, but i thought i’d let you know, i am working on it and i am working at getting better at my amateur recording.

emphasis on the amateur.

but, this is just between you and me, so, don’t tell anyone.

blessings.

i’m in here today.

and i’m definitely feeling like i need to sharpen up.

what are you doing today?

–
doing some groundwork today

so that later i can get here:

…no, that’s not my studio space

with this guy:

…this is

stay posted.

–
today starts my very first marathon.

no, not in running. i hate running. it is worse than dysentery.

today starts my very first multi-day-and-night separation from my wife since we’ve been married (i think).

kelly’s headed down to calvary chapel’s pastor’s wives’ conference (there are way too many apostraphes in that sentence), which leaves me on my own till wednesday evening.

so, today i’ll be working.

then recording.

then sleeping.

and that’s it.

maybe i’ll do a JIEtv event for one of you to tune into…we’ll see.

what are you doing today?

today i’m doing some recording for these guys. i’d link you to them, but they don’t have a website (i know, i know, one thing at a time).

they’re working on a jingle that i’ll post once we’re done.

come back in a few hours and i’ll have some pictures up.

UPDATE

ok. i am going home, and not posting pictures. pictures later.

have a nice weekend.

–
so…i have 3 drafts right now…1 ‘serious’ and of-substance draft, 1 Now That’s Dedication installment and 1 fun, ‘ooh-listen-to-this’ draft.

kelly is on the tele, so i am taking a few moments to finish one of these drafts.

the question, of course, is which draft i will finish. it’s a hard decision really, because each of these posts has an important place on Jesus Is Extravagant.

first question, which do you think i should post?

well, that is neither here nor there because i only have opportunity to see your responses after i finish this post…however, i’d still like to know which you would vote for.

speaking of voting…i have something for you to vote on! but first, the back story.

we decided over at calvary hanford to abandon our AM radio ministry (30 minutes once a week), which was quite costly and pretty high maintenance. instead of humming across the fields of the south valley in lo-fideliciousness, we’ll be blitzing through cyberspace on the much cheaper and much more up-and-coming medium of streaming internet radio, which will broadcast 24 hours a day at a fraction of the cost.

my prediction: in 5 years most new cars will be able to stream internet radio as you drive (or, i suppose, as you sit motionless with the ignition on…)

that’s not the only reasoning for doing internet radio (actually it is barely acknowledgeable as part of our thought process at all), but it illustrates the point that soon no one will know what AM radio is and everyone will be surfing the internet from the comfort of their…latrines…(?)

as i was putting together our streaming server we realized that we would need program ‘bumpers‘. if you want to know what a ‘bumper‘ is then just click one of the instances of the word ‘bumper‘ in this or the following paragraph.

bumper.

i spent a good part of today prepping said bumpers. that entailed writing a script, hanging out in the studio for a few hours and putting on my very best flight-attendant persona for the voice overs. that’s right. you’ll see.

we’ll be using them all, but i already favor some above the others. now it’s time for you to vote on your favorite.

ps – if you are reading this in Google Reader or some similar aggregator, you’ll probably only see one audio file.

there are 7.

(they’re all under a minute, in case you were wondering)