Welcome our baby boy born today!

Tyler Sean Nelson, 10lbs 11oz, 22.5" long, born at 11:16am o natural
(labor started 1:30am, no induction needed)

Thank you everyone for praying. Both mom and baby are doing well.

Topeka Bible Church pastor at Sports Center

You own the place, Casey.

:: becoming my favorite season at Topeka Bible Church

Second to the light show...

:: TBC orchestra CANCELLED this weekend

Winter storm warning has encouraged us to cancel orchestra this
weekend. This means NO Saturday rehearsal and NO orchestra on
Sunday. With all other musicians (band and vocalists), plan on Sunday
as usual. Band will NOT play instrumental during offering -we will
advance to the next sing along song. There will also be no orchestral prelude.

:: band roadmap on a napkin

This is how the song goes.

:: what crutch are you labeling as a 'tool?'

Check out what the President used as a teleprompter below. [If you are reading this in an RSS feed reader...you'll need to open this puppy up.] When I lead worship, sometimes I get the reaction, "Wow, you know all those words by heart." Shaa right, no I don't! We have two teleprompter screens in the back of the Mulvane main upper auditorium location AND Mulvane lower auditorium (LA) location. That means what the worshipers see, I see as well.



So don't think I'm all cocky and know all the lyrics when leading worship. I don't. When it comes down to it - the video screen is leading us all in worship, including me. It's our digital hymnal. Now if there was only a way to get the music up there, too.

Unfortunately, like our modern-day Presidents, I rely on the teleprompter like a tool. Or is it a crutch?


QUESTION: What other potential crutches do we label as tools in worship? At work? In life?

PRAYER: Lord, help me identify areas in my life that I'm taking the easy road spiritually. Show me what is really a tool or simply a crutch to get by.

:: what boundaries have you set up in your life?

Without boundaries, life can suck you into a vortex of saying "yes" to just about everything (both the 'good' things and 'best' things). However, this leaves you virtually no room to say "yes" to the 'best' things in life that God brings. In essence, the 'good' stuff overtakes you.

Here is one of my boundaries. So every Thursday, my family and I have a 'boundary lunch.' Basically, it's the one lunch date every week that my family and I have lunch together. If others need to meet, it's going to be another day of the week - but not Thursday. It's turned into a day that we look forward to. We reconnect. We cherish the 'us' time. And we can plan on it happening regularly.

How about you? What boundaries do you set up?

:: how to sync two bands together in two different rooms

We launched two simultaneous worship locations with two bands playing in time together with the exact same music. I mean, they start together, play electric guitar solos together, stop together, and transition together. You can download a chart of how this works. But first, let's talk about why this monster was created.

Problem:

1. We wanted live music in order to stay away from the feeling of an "overflow location."
2. With the new location (right below our main auditorium), the sound and vibration of music bleeding through the floor/ceiling would give us issues. We didn't have another room option with enough seating.
3. We needed to exactly time the announcements, videos, and message for a video switch over.

Solution:
Synchronize two live bands in the two separate rooms with a click track in order to clean up both audio and video switching seamlessly.

Does this really work?
This isn't theory folks, we did this last week. God prepared us with our December light show - where for the last two years God allowed us to put together a drive-in light show synchronized with 16 live musicians in 11 different windows via a low-power FM radio transmission to vehicles. God help us for creating these monsters.

What you'll need:
1. Double the musicians.
2. One new FOH audio operator (aka sound guy).
3. A crazy, but logical, in-ear-monitor setup played to click tracks (Aviom, Hearback, or the like)
4. Prayer

So how do you get the bands to sync up when they can't see each other?

1. Click track source. It's usually a metronome or a loop on laptop/iPod. We use a DB-90 Dr.Beat by BOSS and hook up a memory UP/DOWN pedal through a TRS (stereo) cable on a BOSS A/B floor pedal. All songs are programed with the tempo. Then there's a START/STOP pedal that cranks it up. The DB-90 Dr.Beat gives us a count in (usually 4 beats), then the bands start.
2. Click track is fed into Room 1's IEM (In Ear Monitor) system, per usual, so the band stays in time and can start and stop without any drummer stick clicks for worship leader mouth-off's.
3. Run a CAT5 cable from Room 1's IEM system to Room 2 and put another IEM Aviom/Hearback box at the FOH board. Use this IEM box to dump the click/loop/ and lead vocal (or instructions on mic) into a second separate IEM system that Room 2 will use.
4. Setup channel 1 in Room 2's IEM system (Aviom, Hearback) to have the feed from Room 1's IEM system. This gets the click from Room 1 into the ears of Room 2 musicians. Voila...they can now play with the band upstairs. But you aren't done yet, what about loops? Read on...
5. Use an aux send or send group from Room 1's FOH board down to Room 2's FOH board.
6. Setup a COM (communication) system so that when the leaders in Room 1 and 2 talk in their mics...they can hear each other. The way to accomplish this is to send from Room 2's FOH board back to Room 1's IEM system.

This will serve for your audio for any video, message, or anything else you can't duplicate in Room 1. This also gets any loops into a Room 2's hands from upstairs to blend with Room 2's band. Almost done, remember when you rehearse together or if there's a crash-and-burn in Room 1...Room 2 will need to know. You need a 2-way COM setup...
Download a visual layout here.

And you're done. Yes, there's lots more to it...but that's the quick run down.

:: are you ignoring the opportunities God has right in front of your nose?

Thanks to Pete at Cross Point Church (Nashville, TN) for sharing this video of Joshua Bell playing violin and hardly anyone noticing because they are distracted with life.

Am I too distracted by life that I'm ignoring God's voice?

clipped from withoutwax.tv Opportunity of a Lifetime Have you guys seen this? It’s a clip of an experiment The Washington Post did with Joshua Bell, the world’s best violin player. They put him in a Washington DC Metro stop to work his musical magic. Would people stop and listen to the world’s best violin player who’s playing one of the world’s best violins (his violin was made in 1730 and cost $3.5 million)? 1,097 people walking past him and only a handful stop to listen. They are completely ignoring a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear this guy. This video was so convicting to me. Each and every day the God of the universe wants me to listen to Him, tune into Him, walk with Him and yet I often choose to drown Him out with the noise of the world. I’m missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime. Why didn’t they stop to listen?

:: behind the scenes at TBC, what happens Mon thru Sat

Check out this video of what happens after you leave on the weekends.