Well I just taped on my office door a month of travel itineraries.  It says I will be in the office for exactly three working days during the month of March.   This is a good thing really.  It means we’re so busy that I will be in the field where the action is for the better part of the next month.   

The majority of this time will be for NBC and there’s the rub for me.  I love being busy.  I derive great satisfaction form rising to a challenge.   Arguably this NBC project  our team is taking on is one of the most challenging projects I have ever seen.   But it’s a commercial project.   Now the balance of our faith-based work goes on as usual.   Mat and Steve keep the wheels turning but I have to miss a lot of it.   I am needed elsewhere.  

I am conflicted about this because like I say, I love a challenge.   But I want to work with the church all the time.   But in this economy one should be ever grateful to literally have more work than you can handle.   This is our position.  We’re turning some work away.   

Sunday at 8:30 I am on a plane from Atlanta to San Diego.  Internal conflict or no, I will be on the plane.   I will hope for an upgrade.  I will collect my frequent flyer miles and Marriott points.   I will go through my usual first night of on the road insomnia.    I will miss two track meets and five nights of tucking in the little boys.   I will wake up alone and so will my wife.  

Still for twenty years this is what I do.  

So I guess I will see you out there somewhere and until then, keep on truckin.

I have just gotten my feet back under me after the longest most intense flu of my life.   I really thought i was going to die.   I was pretty sure at one point it had moved on to pneumonia.    Anyway, I knew I was ready to come back to work when I had the energy to sit at my workbench and restore a vintage Moog Rogue synthesizer.   

Today at lunch I was explaining to Phil and Mat how Moog is not pronounced MOOOOOG, but M OH G, like with a long O.    Then Mat wanted to know how to pronounce Moogerfooger, which is the name of a real device currently in production from the company.   Is it Mohgerfohger?   “I don’t know,” I told him.  I just know that Dr. Moog, rest his soul, pronounced his own name with a long O and most of the rest of the world does not, probably causing him to roll over in his grave regularly.   

Here’s a link to the public gallery on my Facebook.

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=219549&id=756240598&l=2102b

Well here’s a lightning rod topic: when does good media production and creative programming cross the line and become entertainment?   I was out sick from my own church this weekend and saw this video online from the service.   It’s getting a lot of views on Youtube.    I probably err on the side of freedom in worship so I think that a moment like this can be a great teaching tool.   I know this view is not universally held in the body though.  

I saw a pastor demonstrate real leadership today in a design meeting.   Reverend Dan Brown is the pastor of Trinity On The Hill United Methodist Church in Augusta.   

Today was the architectural kick off meeting for a campus renovation that’s expected to takes years to complete and will encompass many aspects of church life.  

The building team has prioritized several parts of the project but has placed sanctuary renovations and improvement of their broadcast program at the top of their list.    As a part of the sanctuary renovations their old pipe organ will be retired in favor of a hybrid pipe/digital organ.   Many churches who opt for this route plan on including a number of “dummy pipes” on the chancel to satiate the older members of the church who have an affinity to the traditional.    I watched this pastor come down firmly on the side of good stewardship today and say that he did not believe they should be spending money on things that have no function and are only for show.    It was impressive and inspiring.  

This is an exciting project that we are just getting started on and I look forward to helping this church extend its reach into the local community.  They broadcast live every week with several replays of the service along with a studio-produced program too.

Standing in the ruin that was the East New Orleans sanctuary of the Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church was a totally surreal experience for me yesterday.   Here in this room where Bishop Paul Morton once sang “Let It Rain” I was moved nearly to tears at the thought of God’s house under all that water with only the steeple showing above the flood plain.   Yet I was reminded of Gideon and his faithfulness and God’s capacity to rebuild anything if his followers are willing to be used for his purposes and glory.

So we set out now to help them rebuild.   I was joined by Elder Raymond Steib, Jr. who was last in this room on the morning Ray Nagin called for a city-wide evacuation.   

I am humbled and blessed to do the work I do.   

Here’s the room BEFORE Katrina.   invest seven minutes of your life on this.

Here’s the room today after a lot of clean up from the flood.

I look forward with great anticipation to the day when our photo gallery includes pictures of worship breakin’ out all over this room again.   I sat with Bishop Morton’s wife yesterday and heard her vision for this place - a place where once again people will come to know Jesus and walk more fully with him, a place where God’s Holy Spirit will be free to move about and touch souls, a place of healing and deliverance and a place of restoration.   May it be so.