Waiting on the World to Change

This is our opening song from the last 333. It was killer. You cant really see the lighting effects Chuck added and hear all the cool sound effects that Jim put in but it was so fun and you can at least get an idea of that from this video. Check out the amazing (ipod) video blake made for the song too... The band KILLED it!

this weekend

I'm so excited about the 333 service comin up this weekend. After our planning meetings and much communication, I think our staff is ready to make this thing come to life. I want so bad to give you all some hints about whats gonna happen but our staff would absolutely kill me. Trust me tho... God will smile. Blake just finished up the videos for this weekend's service and I must say... I am very impressed. This service is gonna be so amazing. There are so many little creative elements added. Right up my alley man. Moral of the story... you'll wanna be there this weekend and you'll wanna bring a friend.

Another Great Band

Daniel Doss Band
Cool band. They have a really good sound from their vocals to their instrumentation. Its a pretty "guitarish" sound but its worth at least checking it out even if you're not into guitars (whoever that one person in America may be). Love love love, "I Need You". All you 333'ers... expect to hear it soon.

We got our CHURCH on

Yesterday's service was amazing. Not even gonna try to explain it but the Spirit was so good. It was amazing to see the amount of hurting people that rushed to the front for prayer as we were singing "Rescue".

Our church is in the middle of a 40 day fast and it just seemed like people were so much more sensitive to the voice of God. I know it sounds crazy if you're not a church person but trust me... There was something happening that was evident and you could feel it much better than you could see it. I love those kinds of services.
Our worship set:
Again I Say Rejoice
God Almighty
All That I Want
Rescue

We also sang these additional songs during the prayer service:
Amazign Grace (My Chains Are Gone)
To Worship You I Live
Healer
You Are Holy
For Who You Are

New Artist

You may have heard of this guy, but if you haven't... do yourself a favor and check out his music. Real smoothe, interesting vocals and a guitar driven sound that doesn't make me mad at all. My favorite may be "Savior, Please". "3 Minute Song" is a really cool beat also with some quirky but nice lyrics. Good stuff.


Josh Wilson

Images of 333

333

Whats up y'all. Ok so finally we got the 333 off and running and we did it in a dynamic way. For those of you that attend the Torch but didnt get to make it... you would never believe the transformation our staff made to the whole church for this service. And we turned everything around in ONE HOUR. That is truly a testament to the amazing people we have on our staff.
Blake Adams: Production Team Captain
Abbie Carter: Director of Photography
Wes Simms: Web Design
Brandon Lizama: Band
Fawn Lizama: Greeters Captain
Zach Ivie and Brian Ivie: Stage Design and Creative Elements
David Masters, Robin Haynes and Ricky Tanner: Construction
Plus each one of these people developed an amazing team of personnel that made the service a huge success. Wow... Thanks to all of you guys we have opened a whole new avenue for reaching our community for Jesus. This is amazing!
If you haven't been, you definitely wanna be there for our next service. Its gonna be bigger and better than the last... I know those of you that came are wondering how in the world that could happen but trust me. The service is already in the works and coming together and I'm so pumped about it I cant even tell you right now.
January 18th... You already know the time. You may wanna show up!

Merry Christmas

Ok.. this is what had happened. I didnt blog for a couple weeks then got to feeling bad about it but then it had been so long that I thought I was already too embarrassed to come back and blog now. But after many weeks of feeling sorry for myself I decided... NOW IS THE TIME. I get a free pass back into the blogging world from everyone because it's Christmas right?! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. btw... there's some really exciting stuff coming up here at the torch at the first of the year. If you haven't heard about 333... get ready. It's gonna be amazing. More to come. (I mean it this time)

Cribs

... we couldn't pass up the chance to show you the amazing place we stayed in Destin. This is our CRIB!

REhab video

Blake Adams made this video of our Origin beach retreat and it turned out amazing. He's got a little bit o' skill but i'm still working with him on how to make it really good. Check out the video and if you weren't able to go it will at least give you a great idea of what took place. Good job Blake!

REhab 08 > a reunion

On our Origin beach retreat, "REhab", for our final service we had four stations set up on the beach. We started with a meal at this great little Italian place called Grazie then we went back up to the condo for a candlelight service where I talked about leaving room in your life for God to interrupt. We get so routine from time to time that we may walk right past the burning bush and completely miss the voice of God. God speaks to us in creative ways I think we often may miss it because we aren't expecting it or we stay so busy that we're not open to His interruptions. I pray... "God speak and do it as often and creatively as you like. I for one, would LOVE to hear a donkey speak." (Balaam) After the talk we split everyone into groups of four. I asked them to share with each other what God had spoken to them and pray with their groups for a short period of time, until their group was called.
The night was amazing and here's a short run down of the events on the beach, following the talk and the group prayer.

Station 1- REflect: We set up a mirror and at the bottom were pictures of each person taken at some point on the retreat. We asked them to reflect on what God had said to them that weekend

Station 2- REconnect: Here we set up a little hut on the beach which was kinda lie a meeting place. We wanted them to feel that they were about to have a conversation with God... and they did. We had written letters from "God" to each person. These letters were carefully prayed over and written to speak to each person on a personal and individual level. They were very specific. This was a very motional time for most.

Station 3- REpent: We placed a cross on the sand at waters edge. We had placed a container of dissolvable paper in a basket with some pencils. We asked each person to write down there sins and things they wanted to abandon or abolish from their life. After writing this they each walked to the water and threw it in the ocean as tide moved in and out. When those sins fell in the water they dissolved into an ocean that seemed to go on forever. That little piece of paper would never be seen or remembered again.


Station 4- REunion: Here we had placed a communion table on the beach with elements. We asked each person to partake in communion. What a perfect way to end the perfect service in the perfect place.

Spiritual Earthquake

Last night was the fourth night of our Revival and it was absolutely earth shattering for me. There's no way I can sum up what happened in this blog and I wont even attempt it. I will tell you that I felt such an unbelievable and tangible presence of God that I was physically, emotionally and spiritually moved. Revival is for real here!

Where do I begin?

WHAT a weekend! First of all, we were in Destin, FL since thursday afternoon with Origin. It was an unreal trip. How can you NOT connect with God in a place like that. The weather was absolutley perfect and we had so much fun, I don't think anyone was ready to come home. Secondly... ROLL TIDE!!!!!!!! I know the game was 41-30 but all you Georgia fans know it was not a close game at all. Alabama totally dominated and thank the Lord they did 'cause I did not wanna hear about it for the rest of the year from every single person in the church. Trust... you haven't heard the last from me on either one of these issues but I gotta prepare for revival tonight (which I hear has been unbelievable so far) so I'm gonna sign off for a bit. Freeman... OUT. (that was for Eli and Sara)

Stefan the Scientist

Hey you guys go check out my boy. Stefan was a fraternity brother of mine who is now doing some stuff with GRITS and also launched his own musical career. I have never met anyone more musically talented than this guy. (and that's saying alot) He is really amazing. His sound is reggae/hip hop and its really easy listening and has a positive message. On top of all that Stefan is an amazing man of God.


Check out his music HERE

Worship Set (9.21.08)

Yesterday's worship service was powerful. We added a prayer from our Pastor and a video (we did a voice over and added our own music to one that we purchased from sermonspice) in between our up-tempo songs and our mid to slower tempo songs and it was a perfect transition. A couple things we always try to look at are lyrical compatibility (with the Pastor's talk and with the other songs), key signatures (for smoothe transitions), and tempo (we dont want it all over the place). These things determine where we place songs in the order and how we create transitions.
It's important for us that we dont do four songs and sit down. I want it to be a change from week to week so we never become too "routine" ("predictably unpredictable" is our goal) and I think we're accomplishing that right now by small changes in each service.
No doubt yesterday's service would have been a big mess without our media and lighting people hitting all the cues perfectly. We had 6 videos and over 30 lighting changes yesterday which may have been pushing it on our part but it emphasizes the importance of our technical crew. Our team is awesome! Good job guys. I'll try to keep you all up to date each week with the worship set at the Torch.


Call to Worship: Sing to the King(C)/God of Ages(G)

Pastoral Prayer: Pastor Mike

Video: This is the Truth

Worship: God of This City(Db)/There is a River(Db)