July 2008

me and two friends, august 9.
got the tickets!
i’d have a hard time naming many bands that i’d rather see live right now.
IMHO, best lineup they’ve ever had.
what concerts have you/will you see this year?

i’ve been ruminating on this since our trip to haiti.
i was able to verbalize some of it during worship on sunday, but talking through it in more detail at our life group tonight helped me clarify it even more.

the last few years, God has really been teaching me about the Kingdom of God. this was jesus’ whole message.

throughout the entire scriptures there are beautiful pictures of what the kingdom will look like when it’s fully established:
everyone has what they need.
people will enjoy satisfying work and will reap the benefits of their work. (plant vineyards, and eat of the vineyards.)
the rich won’t get rich on the backs of the poor.
the poor won’t react in fear and aggression to the rich.
the wolf will lie down with the lamb.
many more pictures…

i think above all for me, our trip to haiti illustrated two things that are in contrast to one another and this contrast left me with a lasting struggle.

on one hand, i got to see the kingdom of god in action in the way that the kids at HCH have been rescued, redeemed, reclaimed. this invigorated my faith and trust in God’s promise to usher in his kingdom.

on the other hand, i got to see the struggle that characterizes the life of the average haitian. poverty at a level i haven’t experienced before first-hand.

it was a painful reminder of how far we have yet to go to see the kingdom fully realized. this pulled me in the direction of hopelessness or despair.

i now realize that i have the choice:
to give in to hopelessness and resign myself to complacency, thinking that i can invest my entire life and still never see the kingdom come,
or to choose to believe that God is presently and always on the move, bringing about his kingdom, his plan for redemption and repair.

really it’s the only hope. and i won’t see it fully realized in my lifetime, but i’m in a long line of people who are giving their lives for this vision, trusting that it WILL happen.

i want to be a part of it. i don’t want to waste my life.

these are madamme lucianne’s kids. she is a single mother struggling to survive and take care of her kids.

so, i’ve decided that i’m neither shaving hair nor beard until the day we leave for china to bring our son home.
i guess it’s my way of keeping vigil for my boy.
our best guess is that we could travel in the oct/nov range. so that’s 90 days or more.
unfortunately, since i’m somewhat follicly-challenged, i’m afraid that i might end up rockin’ the michael bolton bald-on-top-mullet before it’s over.

fair warning: things are about to get ugly.
every monday, for as long as it takes, i’ll post a pic showing my progress.

if nothing else, maybe it will garner some extra prayer on our behalf - “Dear GOD, please get that boy home so that we don’t have to look at that mess another day!!”

p.s. if anyone else is looking for an excuse to let themselves go, you’re welcome to join in the vigil. come on - let’s hair it for henry!!

07.20
“all because of jesus” by steve fee (cd “burn for you”)
“you are good” by lincoln brewster (cd “all to you…live”)
“forever” by chris tomlin (cd “forever”)
—-connect—-
“faithful” by kristian stanfill (cd “northpoint live: louder than creation”)
“my hope is you” by third day (cd “offerings”)
—-message—- Doc

07.27
“heal this land” by the longing (cd “the longing”)
“salvation is here” by hillsong united (cd “look to you”)
—-prayer—-
“everything” by tim hughes (cd “holding nothing back”)
—-scripture: psalm 139:1-10—-
—-reflection: God’s presence—-
“you never let go” by matt redman (cd “passion: everything glorious”)
—-message—- Doc
“create in me” by matt shepardson (not recorded)

i asked chris to plan and lead a decidedly upbeat worship music set for the 20th. we were coming off of two pretty heavy weeks in a row, and i knew that steve was tackling a difficult topic for our culture - spiritual warfare…. i thought our community needed to take a breath and just celebrate. i always miss worshipping with the crosspointe community when we’re away.

then today, i was coming off of our trip to haiti. (which i promise i’m not done blogging about. it’s just been hard to put into words.) i felt the need to reflect on God’s presence, so i took some time out in the middle of the worship set to read some of psalm 139 and to share some thoughts about God saturating all of his creation with His presence. whatever we will be facing this week, we can know that we have the presence of God with us. today was a sweet time of worship.

steve wrapped up the “pandemic” series today. a challenging message - repentance. but i loved the way he spoke about it as a “changing of the mind” rather than a threat of eternal punishment. if you didn’t hear the message, i highly recommend checking out the podcast here….

by far, my favorite part of the trip to haitian children’s home was connecting with the kids. i made sure to memorize the kids’ names beforehand, so that i could call each one by name as we met.

several of the kids, especially a few of the younger girls, are big music fans. and they love singing along to american worship music.

one day, i decided to bring out my guitar so that we could play and sing worship songs together. slendia, vania, and elinda decided they wanted to get in on the action, so i invited them to strum the strings while i fretted the chords. we played through several of their favorite songs. to see the joy on their faces was completely fulfilling.

i was also determined to try to speak creole as much as possible while i was with the kids. several of the kids were very helpful - after laughing at me butchering the language, they corrected me and taught me some new words. it’s okay though, i’ll gladly make a fool of myself if it means i’m connecting with them…

vania strumming “how great is our god”

elinda trying to learn a strumming pattern

vania looking happy

elinda looking playful

wow….so many thoughts. my heart is full of different emotions. i will process our trip to haiti and make several blog posts in the days to come. we took in so much in just a few days. high highs and low lows.

haiti is beautiful. some of god’s most spectacular work in creation is displayed there. but life for the people of haiti is really hard. i’ve never seen poverty at this level first-hand before.

more to come, but for now, check out this picture of me jumping from the rocks at basin bleu. felt like it was 100 feet up. looks like it’s actually 25 or 30….

mwen remnen anpil ayiti!

c.c. and i are getting packed and ready to go to haiti tomorrow. meeting up at 4:30am, which is great for us…sarcasm alert…morning people.

this will be our first visit to our friends at the haitian children’s home. we’ve met danny, but are looking forward to meeting his lovely wife, leann, their daughter, riann, and the 22 kids who they’ve brought into their family.

we already love them just from stories, pictures and videos. but it will be awesome to finally meet them in person and play, sing, and dance with them. they really like to get down. i’ve been known to get jiggy-wid-it myself, in my own white man’s overbite sort of way.

(i just realized that’s two will smith videos on my blog in a matter of weeks. what’s wrong with me?)

anyway, my moms is here to take care of not only darby, but now our dog, utah, as he recovers from surgery. bonus!

i’ll be back online with some updates from the trip next week.

bonswa!

“not to us” by chris tomlin (cd “not to us”)
“knowing you” by stephen claybrook (not yet recorded)
reading: psalm 13
“heal this land” by the longing (cd “the longing”)
—-message—- jBow
video interview: frank and heather green
special: “praise you in this storm” by casting crowns (sung/played by heather and frank)
—wrap and prayer - jBow

i always miss crosspointe when i’m away, but there are times where i especially feel like i missed out. this sunday was one of those times.

when we returned from our trip (which i will blog about soon) i listened to the message and watched the video interview.
it was a moving experience even without being there live. i can’t imagine adding in the music and the corporate worship experience.

this series, pandemic, is really landing hard at crosspointe. we collectively have an extraordinary amount of pain and suffering that we’re carrying around.
it’s a painful yet beautiful experience to read the hurts that our community has shared, and to pray for each other.
it feels anonymous, yet not.
it’s strangely comforting to know that these are the people that God is allowing me to journey with. and to know that we have the privilege of being part of a church community that allows each person to be real.
i was grateful to see all the circles around my prayer, to know that my community is carrying this burden with me.

c.c. and i are heading to haiti this thursday with some friends, so i’ll be out again this sunday. i’ll definitely miss gathering with crosspointe.

it’s no secret that i have a blogging crush on los. he’s destined for the blog hall of fame, assuming it’s ever created. he’ll probably create it, actually.

anyway, los has a great no-holds-barred discussion about worship going on over at his blog. check it out.

I hate it when my worship leader….

here’s the big announcement….

we have a son!

Henry Stephen FuLi Claybrook

henry is in china waiting for us to come pick him up and bring him home. c.c. and i are elated. darby is excited about having a brother. couldn’t have scripted a better life.

unfortunately, we can’t post pictures on the internet until the next stage of paperwork is completed, but if you get us in person and twist our arm….okay, if you get us in person and accidently mention anything that could possibly be misconstrued as a request to see a picture…..okay, if you even say anything that remotely rhymes with “picture”….

some of my friends are getting together to plan Henrypalooza - “A day of family fun with food, games and great music. This event will highlight the life-changing beauty of international adoption, providing information on how you can get involved and support the many adoptive families in our area. Proceeds from the event will go toward uniting a little boy from China named Henry, with his mom and dad right here in Raleigh.”

until we can post a picture of henry, here’s is a pic of darby and kylie - one of darby’s “china sisters” - sporting their “waiting for my brother in china” t-shirts.

more to come for sure.

to share some great news, but i can’t go quite this public just yet!

“let the praises ring” by lincoln brewster (cd “all to you…live”)
“the solid rock” by charlie hall (cd “passion: hymns ancient and modern”)
—-connect—-
“blessed be your name” by matt redman (cd “where angels fear to tread”)
“heal this land” by the longing (cd “the longing”)
—-message—- jBow
special: “everybody hurts” by R.E.M. (cd “automatic for the people”)
“heal this land” by the longing (cd “the longing”)

we started a new series, “pandemic,” today. pain and suffering is universal. we are each victims and carriers at the same time. jonathan opened up the series by addressing our first question when we suffer - “why?”

to want to know why we are suffering is natural, because it’s easier to endure if we know there is a purpose to our pain. the problem is that we can’t always know why. the bible doesn’t always address the why question, but more often deals with the question of what God is doing about the suffering.

good start. i’m looking forward to this series.

i said to the guys on thursday night at rehearsal, “alright, i can’t really pretend and play this cool. singing ‘everybody hurts’ is fulfilling some sort of latent, subconscious dream.”

i’ll be out the next two sundays, but crosspointe will be in good hands with chris mills….

click on the link below for a board mix of my latest worship song, written for crosspointe. enjoy!

Knowing You
by Stephen Claybrook

We are Your body
We’re bruised and we’re broken
We need You, God
To heal our hearts

We are Your children
We’re plagued by our doubts and confusion
We need Your light

But more than this
Lord, we’re running after You

We want You
More than we want answers from You, God
More than anything our hearts desire
Lead us further on in our pursuit
Of knowing You
Knowing You

We are paralyzed
Gripped by our fear
We’re afraid to move
There’s too much to lose

This is our confession
We carry the weight of our questions
We’re searching for truth

But more than this
Teach us to follow after You

We want You
More than we want answers from You, God
More than anything our hearts desire
Lead us further on in our pursuit
Of knowing You
Knowing You

(c)2008 Camillian Music.

(this post is part of creative chaos at ragamuffin soul.)

for just about every song i’ve written, the process has been the same.
i usually write the entire song on either my acoustic guitar or piano.
by entire song, i mean: lyrics, melody, key, chord progression(s), tempo.
then i give some thought to the full band arrangement and record a demo - programmed drums, live bass, keys, etc…

for this song, i decided to change the process up a bit.
i took it to the band much earlier in the process.

my thinking was that the input of other musicians would naturally produce a different outcome for each individual part and therefore the whole arrangement of the song.
then, as a result, the melody and lyrics would end up different as well.

so, here’s what i had going in….

**one line of the lyric: “we’ve caught a glimpse of your kingdom and we want more”
**a tempo: 144 bpm
**the rhythm for that one line: where each syllable falls in time with the music.

that’s it.

here’s what i didn’t have:
**key
**melody for the one line
**chord progression

joe, dan and chris did a great job of just jamming for awhile until we came up with a “riff” that seemed to work for a musical hook at that tempo.
we chose the key of E just for starters.
we played with that riff for awhile.
to me it started sounding like a verse.
so, we then decided to try to come up with a chorus progression and feel that would drive a little harder.

at that point, i decided to try to come up with a melody for the one line of lyric.
turns out we were in a bad key.
we couldn’t pitch the melody in the right range to match the intensity of the lyric and the music.
so we found a new key - key of B.
found a workable melody for that line and just sang blah blah blah for the rest of the chorus.

we worked on transitions between the verse and chorus.
decided that we needed a two-line ramp up to the chorus.
chose a chord progression that felt like it set up the chorus well.

transition back from chorus to verse, we decided to use the riff again.

we all agreed that it was coming together. felt good.
but we needed a bridge.
dan and joe threw out the idea of holding on each chord longer for the bridge - to help the dynamics change.
great idea.
they batted a few ideas back and forth.
meanwhile, i stumbled on a counter melody line that changed twice for each chord underneath (if that makes sense).
chris picked up on it on electric guitar.
we ended up with a nice bridge that starts out “down” and builds nicely over three repeats, leading back to a big final chorus.

now, i just have to write the parts that actually make it a corporate worship song - the lyrics and the melody.
but i have much more of a direction for that now, having experienced how the song feels with a full band already.

the other day my daughter used the word “actually” correctly in a sentence.
just over a year ago she had never heard the english language.
amazing.