The Dreamer

Dreamer's scare people, some dreamer's are the artisans of this world.
Dreamer's live in this world, some dreamer's live for another world.
Dreamer's are the breath of life, some dreamer's can't appreciate life.
Dreamer's love intriguing conversations, some dreamer's love no conversation.
Dreamer's are emotional, some dreamer's don't know how to convey their emotions.
Dreamer's work to live, some dreamer's live to work-when said dreamer gets their dream job.
Dreamer's are the enemies of practicality, some dreamer's are enemies of the state.
Dreamer's enjoy shaking things up, some dreamer's shake to hard to fast.

To live the life of a dreamer all you need to do is imagine.

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
- John Lennon

Unsure. .

I have become unsure of the world that man has created. It is such a dark and faithless place, it is not ours to run, yet we try and rule it. It is time for a change, it is time for God to rule over this world. It is time for love to rule, once love has found a way life will feel right.

Life is just sitting there waiting for us to grab a hold and run with it. When will you grab your life and run with it? Or do you just want to sit around and have life handed to you.

Merry Christmas!!!

So, instead of a mass text Merry Christmas I decided to do this.

"Merry Christmas to all, I hope your family and yours have a wonderful day.
May your day bring you hope, peace and a little something special in your stocking.
Let there be food in your belly, warm clothes on your back,
And a little bit of rest for your soul.
To the musician's, artist's, and creatives, enjoy your gifts this holiday time.
Use your gifts to make others smile."


Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Things I've been thinking about. . .

Ok, so in no specific order-

•why does it seemlike everyone thinks that you have to be totally put together to find someone to love?
•What is out there for a younger person who wants to work for the Church but has his own ideas and wants to do church in a different way?
•What happened to my childhood?
•I love crisp fall days. .
•I'm wonder when I will figure it out
•Why does the physical body matter so
much to people?
•When do I get paid for having a degree?
•Why did I go to college?

Cool "quote". . . .

"The world does not consist of 100 per cent Christians and 100 per cent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name; some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it…" - CS Lewis

Some days I'm not sure where I'm at in this manuscript, it's rather long for a quote. . . isn't it. . . .

Feeling the need to create

So, I haven't created anything in awhile. It feels very weird, it's like apart of me is not living right now. I want to make music, create experience's, and just explore the mind that God has given me. But, I also need to re-create myself at the same time/before I can completely figure out what God wants me to do with myself, how am I doing this?

I'm going to try and read more, explore myself more and just enjoy what God has given me.

Here's to re-creating Steve. . . . . .

Re: The new traditional church

This is a response to an article I read over at monty hobson's little piece of the interwebs.

It states that more churches should be involving the hip-hop/r&b genre into their worship services because itunes says that a good portion of the people who buy their music on itunes purchase hip-hop. I'm not giving the right numbers but that's not really the point.

IF the Church were to embrace hip-hop/r&b as a style of music to be used during corporate worship wouldn't it bring up the question, "how do people sing along with someone rapping or flowing?" To me the music style used in worship does matter, but not to the point that people can't sing with it.

Of course all this to say I don't think that I will ever find my "style" of worship this side of heaven. I can adapt and meet God in most styles of music. But for me to enjoy and not have to stop thinking to worship I need music with a little more grit and punch to it. And then there's the whole function of how to mix it well for a worship service.

Which is another topic for another night? Maybe I will start adding to this blog more often again. . . . . . .

The in between time. . . . .

So, it seems that I can't really figure out what to do right now. . . . I'm desperately trying to have faith in God to provide during this time. It seems to me that this is my lot in life though, I feel like I've been in a holding pattern forever.

So, during this time I'm going to try and get some of my creativity out in a productive fashion. That is going to be interesting because a lot of my creativity comes in the form of how to set a stage for worship, and how to make lights pull people into worship, as well as mixing. Now, it has been suggested that I use this blog to out pour my creativity but I'm not really sure how to do that through a blog.

Maybe I just need to be fine with where I am in life. . . . .

Thoughts from behind the console. . .

So, I got to mix this weekend, all weekend, it was a good, different, moving weekend. We did a "low tech" weekend which didn't mean that there was that much different for me. I still had to make sure that everything sounded good, and it did. But I have to give credit to the awesome musicians who came prepared and did amazing jobs of leading people in worship, without great musicians I can't do my job right.

Greg. . . . . wow Greg kicked my ass every single service. The talk that Greg prepared was so thoughtful, insightful, and moving that I teared up every single service and had to still make sure that everything sounded good. And let me tell you that is hard.

But Greg said things that I needed to hear to prepare for Easter, he reminded me that the Cross is so much more than a holy relic, a piece of art that people associate with church. The cross is where we see a man go through the most excruciating pain for me, for you, for a broken world that for the most part seems to want nothing to do with Him. YET, He still took on the crap of the crap of the world, He took everything about our "2% SUCKING SELVES" and laid down His life for me.

The great thing is that it was an awesome reminder that the Cross is so much more than something to just put on top of a church, so much more than a cool tat- though it will be in my next piece. The cross is what made Grace possible, the cross made the best thing that ever happened to us possible.

So what does the cross mean to you. . . . . .

Dreams.. . . .

I've been having some weird dreams lately, the one I had tonight actually woke me up so much that I haven't been able to go back to sleep and it's already 5AM. . . . . I've been trying to figure out what the meaning is behind the dreams and watching movie trailers on quicktime. The dreams are not scary or anything like that, they just make me think about stuff. . . . . .

and "I'm on a boat" just came on Fuse. . . . . .

Ralph W. Goodwin

Goodwin, Ralph W. Friday, March 27, 2009. Beloved husband of Nelda (nee Stevenson) Goodwin; dear son of Epsia Goodwin; dear brother of Geraldine Brown and Phyllis Clinkenbeard; beloved step-father of Linda Schwarz; Grandpa Ralph, brother-in-law, uncle and good friend. Services: Funeral at HUTCHENS Mortuary, Florissant, Mon., March 30, at 10 a.m. Interment Memorial Park Cemetery. Memorials appreciated to First Baptist Church of Ferguson TV Ministry. Visitation 1-5 p.m. Sunday.

It's a weird feeling. . .

So, Friday morning at 6:30 I found out that my Grandpa passed away. My aunt called at 6:20, I'm not gonna lie, I didn't pick up the phone. I hit ignore and tried to go back to sleep, but when my mom called ten minutes later I figured I should probably answer the phone. My mom told me the bad news and I tried to go back to sleep, that didn't happen. So I caught up on some DVR'd stuff and then went back to sleep.

Now the weird feeling is that I'm not really feeling any sort of grief, sadness, or sorrow. A week ago my mom had told me that he had been in and out of the hospital for about two weeks, so I kinda had already dealt with the issue in my head and heart. I know that he's in a better place now, there's no more pain to deal with for him.

The other weird feeling is that I'm not really sure how to tell my friends that it has happened. It's just a weird thing to deal with, I'm unsure who to tell, how to tell them, or why to tell them. I don't really need anything from them right now, I'm not feeling that bad so I've just let it kinda skip over and I'm ok with that.

So, I guess if your reading this and you are looking for an action point then here it is. PRAY, pray for my family, pray that my grandma can find comfort in God, pray that everyone in the family can deal with this in a healthy way. Just pray for the family.

Slumdog. . .

So, last night I saw slumdog millionaire, let me say first I was not all that interested in seeing this movie even with all the hype that surrounded this movie.

So we are watching the movie and in the first twenty minutes I felt this over whelming sense of grief wash over me. The scene's where they show what really happens in the slum's of the world just made me want to write a song. It made me feel the way a lot of other musician's and artist have felt when they see the pain and wrong that is going on in this world. I wanted to write, more on that later.

So, the rest of the movie I absolutely loved. The way Danny Boyle directed it, to how well the acting was. The entire movie was very, very well done. I would recommend this movie to anyone, I think that everyone who cares about the world and the way it's run should walk out of the movie feeling good about the story. While at the same time you should feel some sense of remorse and grief for the world.

This isn't the way it's supposed to be, this world is not the way it was meant to be, we are not living the way God intended.

So, with this in mind I'm hoping that through some prayer, thinking and a little musical talent I can come up with a song that expresses what I'm feeling after seeing this movie.

A post for friends. . . . . .

So, a few of my friends have been asking me lately why I haven't been posting a lot on here. Well the answer to that is two fold.

The first reason is I've not had a lot that I want to talk about. I don't want to use this blog as a nag site where my friends would just read complaints about my life. So there is one reason. . . .

The other reason is because the things I really want to talk about could hurt some relationships that I have and I'm not really sure where or with who I can talk to about my idea's and feeling's about life, love, and how I think about Church.

So, there is the reason I've not been blogging a lot lately. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks or days I will come up with some more things to write about.

If any of you are wondering about the "changes" post. . . . a lot of things are still in the works but I can tell you that I've been writing some music with a buddy and it's coming really well. We've practiced with a full band and were all loving the way it's coming. So that's a new, good, and cool thing that's coming down the pike.

That's all for now. . . .

Changes. . . .

I'm hoping there are some changes in store for Steve coming in the next couple of months. We'll see what God has in store for me, I'm hoping it the next great adventure for me.

Pre Birthday Post

Ok, so I have a birthday coming up. I also have a list of stuff that would be nice to have for my room/apartment/basement loft/living space. So, if you feel so inclined to purchase me something for my birthday here is the list in no specific order-

A bakers rack.
Some cool way to store a lot of clothes, my dresser isn't big enough.
Some sort of book shelves, I have two but not everything fits on them, DVD's, CD's, Books.
Some sort of drapes? for my two windows.
Nice poster frames for my original Star Wars posters.
A flat screen TV to hang on the post.
Some sort of artwork for the bathroom.
Picture frames with pictures already in them, like pictures of me with friends. I have one so far.
A cool coffee table, I might have a line on one of those.
A crock pot.

I'm not trying to be greedy or anything, but I figure that this is better than a bunch of money.

Today history was made

So, as I sat at work and we all watched the ceremony happen from a CNN stream in the back I was thinking to myself that I was witnessing history in the making. No one in my family had ever seen this happening before me. Not my father, my grandpa's, or my mom. At one point while still at home I was actually choking up a little from the overflow of emotions. It was a turning point in the history of our young nation, was as one commentator put it. And that should be moving to anyone who calls themself an american, no matter which way you voted.

And it was, the prayer from Rick Warren was eloquent and thought out, the little bit of the speech I heard from the Prez was very well put and seemed to not have changed much from his campaign speeches. I was very proud to be an American today, proud to worship in a country that was founded on the principles of let a man worship as he wants to. It was nice to watch with co-workers who had voted the other way than me, it was nice to watch them cheer, and some even seemed to have a little more zip in their step today.

I love the fact that I live in a country where the change of power is a peaceful one. And I am glad that there was no major incident today, at least that I heard of, that would make me think otherwise. It was a nice day to call yourself an american no matter which way you voted.

I did find this rather amusing though when I got home. . . . . . . because I though it was going to do the opposite.