Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

I’m not sure where to begin now that I’ve let so many days pass (again) since I wrote anything substantive. Hhhmmm…I guess I’ll go from topic to topic and see how chronological I can be…
Last weekend, we drove down to the Bay Area and stayed at my parents Saturday night and then came back late Sunday night and Sunday was Joshy’s birthday.

When we got down there (CC’s mom went to her brother’s place in Shingle Springs and Annie went with us), we went to my parent’s place and set up camp pretty quickly and then the four of us walked down to my sister’s place, about a mile and a half away. I figured it was my cardio work for the weekend (and I was correct). My niece and nephew are in a Bay Area choir called Lumina, a predominantly high school choir which is Christian based that sings around the area and tours each summer. I toured with them in 2003 as their sound engineer and recording engineer and truly enjoyed myself. My family got to go with me (which was part of the deal of my going with them) and we all had a good time, learning each step of the way. Anyway, Lumina had a gig Saturday night and the same gig on Sunday night, so we attended the Saturday night gig and enjoyed their work (as we always do) even with my niece singing a solo (she has my sister’s pipes, no doubt) and my nephew was singing away in the men’s section. I was (am) one proud uncle. Aside from the gig that night, we got to spend some quality time with my sister’s family and my parents. My youngest nephew bought a electric mini-chopper that he invited Joshy to ride, which Joshy fell hook, line and sinker for. It will kick up to “speed” and Joshy had a great time on it; a VERY neat birthday moment for him on Saturday evening.
Sunday morning we went to service at my family’s church, trinity Presbyterian Church in San Carlos, the church I am still officially a member of and consider my church family to this day. They’ve stood beside me throughout my life.
After church, we had lunch at Red Robin and Joshy and my dad had Happy Birthday “sung” to them by the Red Robin staff and each got an ice cream Sunday. After lunch, we packed up, drove to Big Five and bought Joshy his birthday present (Heeley’s; tennis shoes with removable rollers in the heels) then headed to Safeway to stock up for the ride back only to realize that CC’s wallet wasn’t in her purse, where it had been when she bought the Heeley’s at Big 5. Panic quickly set in and we searched the car to no avail then I called Big 5 and upon saying my name, they quickly said that they had my wife’s wallet and were holding it ion the safe.
We headed back there, thinking the worst thoughts and wondering how much was already stolen and such. We got there to find that it had been left at the counter and nothing was missing.
God blessed us. Simple as that.
We left Redwood City and went to SFO off of 19th Ave and went to the ocean for a couple hours of children’s complete joy and dowsing in a dust-fine black sand that took me an hour to rinse out of the wet clothes the next day. After a couple hours on the beach, we were blessed to have dinner with Art Yeap, my friend and mentor of sound. His wife and son were suffering from illness so we missed out on seeing them too, but we really enjoyed our time with him over Noriega Teriyaki. After dinner with him, we left for Sac and got home around 11:00 or so and then CC had to get up at 4:00 AM for work.
Brutal, but she made it. We are seriously low on sleep.

I’m listening to my recordings from when I was at MPPC. I made 3 main recorded collections of worship songs and packages straight from service CDs. It’s probably the most substantive collection of recorded work that I’ve ever done and I’ve always amazed at what God did during my time there at MPPC; the song selections, the blends, the participants and what (for me) is purely inspired works caught in the moment and I happen to be the one on the board for 98% of the selections. The recordings set a bar for me that I never reached in the following years (for a variety of logical reasons, though “technical” reasons would not be applicable given the incredible gear God gifted FOPC with in 2004, not the least of which is the SSL C100 console) and it may be that my opportunities to pursue that bar may be concluded now or simply more difficult to reach; I don’t know. I DO know that while I was there (at MPPC), I worked the hardest I’ve ever worked on creating a live and recorded blend and stereo recorded imagery for the listener to experience the hard and gifted work being offered and created on the platform. I was allowed to mix for some of the Bay Area’s most talented and Nationally unrecognized talent that God assembled under one worshiping roof; Menlo park Presbyterian Church.
As was often shared with visiting worship directors, teams, pastors and technical crews; what God chose to produce at MPPC was done through His choice of collaboration and creative weaving of technical crews, musicians, vocalists, and two of God’s most rich arrangers/composers in Debbie Schaeffer and Brian Mann who in league with the master producer Doug Lawrence, produced a service that many wanted but no one to imitate because it was the sum of the parts in His anointing, grace and blessing and NOT in the formula. People left with formulas and inspiration, which is all that we could ever give them; they could not leave with the worship produced because, well, because what was done, was done once and done for Him, an audience of One through the hard work of many called to the work. Perhaps that is a key; those involved were called to the gig that they performed as a part of the bigger picture.
I was writing a reply this afternoon, to a good, good friend from my MPPC days; Joe Sinnott was my lighting engineer for my whole tenure there. Not only was he my lighting (the lighting) engineer, but he was the only volunteer on my team of that entire time. He had no theatrical lighting experience when he volunteered, but he had a heart for worship, a desire to be involved and a talent to learn and produce. What I did and tried heard to do through sound, he did through the lighting system; from the system’s archaic times early on, through the times when moving-head lights were incorporated and became a flexible (technically annoying) contribution which required far more of his time each week to come in and program them for Saturday’s and Sunday’s services. In my reply to him, I realized a few things, which come now in the foreshadowing of a monumental transition to come at MPPC in Doug Lawrence’s retirement this summer. It will be the “official” end of an era that I STRONGLY believe God unquestionably used, and often used far more richly, than most of us probable were ever aware of. Doug’s withdrawal from the leading creative edge of MPPC’s worship product is even more poignant with in terms of the shape of MPPC’s worship service constructions Since my departure, I know that subtle, and some overt changes have been made there due to the arrival of John Ortberg a forecast new leader for the church in Menlo Park, a teaching leader of national renown and caliber, distinctly different from the established days of now retired former senior pastor Walt Gerber and particular following structured leaders from his mold. With Ortberg comes a complete change in methodology, perspective and approach. Stepping back, even just a few feet from the global transitions within the church leadership there since my departure, gives one the easy opportunity to see the probable potential for this impending resulting change.
Wow, did I digress from my initial subject of the compilation CDs I made before leaving. It’s a healthy digression, but a definitive one nonetheless. Before leaving, I collected some of my favorite moments in worship and put them into three CDs; Team Worship, Solos 1 and Solos 2. In addition to those, I also made a compilation CD for one of MPPC’s most soulful and talented soloists; Avis Blair, and also for Soloist and good friend Heidi Fisher and vocalist Brent James. Add to that a CD of postludes by Brian Mann (organist/arranger) and Kent Reed, percussionist. I spent many late nights and very early mornings at work, on my own time, crafting these compilations with a drive that I just couldn’t understand but had to follow. Ultimately, it definitely turned out to be a real blessing in disguise, especially the three main CDs; I had no clue at the time that they would be a collected record of a soon to be gone Worship experience at MPPC. Now, during my times of tense, dark struggles from day to day, afternoon to afternoon, they’ve nourished and even encouraged me when I intentionally listened to them. He must have known what they would mean to me now, then so far in the future; an unimaginable future I couldn’t foresee.
A number of folks have listened to these recordings and remarked how well we captured the “sound” of the worship service and nearly did not believe that they are nothing more than straight-forward rips from the actual service CDs without any re-mixing or overdubbing or substantive postproduction. I did tweak the bandwidth for duplicating purposes, but as for what you hear when you listen to them; the mix was the mix during that particular service, the blend was the blend, the house was the house and the feedback (at different unfortunate points) was the feedback in the live house that inevitably finds its place in the recorded legacy that is now my recorded legacy from MPPC on Teams and Solos 1 & 2. The only other engineer who has a couple tunes recorded on the CDs is Brian “Zadamnezar” Kunz. He was my right-hand man and number one engineer who blends beautifully with a musician’s ear (he’s a superb drummer/percussionist) and he is loyal, long time good friend. My crew from my days there are still my friends and they have each helped me at one point or another to continue to look forward, whether it be though a simple phone conversation of friendship or from an email of connection.
TO close out my thoughts on the whole MPPC “thing”, I’m willing to concede that, perhaps, I live in the “past” to some extent when it comes to enjoying a worship “moment” crafted with intent and love, desiring that God be pleased (as well as Doug…) with the end result, but I cannot help but feel and fear that Doug’s type of attention to detail, structure and flow will retire with him and will ultimately affect how worship is approached for other churches, local and distant.
Am I giving too much credit?
Prove me wrong and I’ll stand corrected.

I pushed my limits today but no real price yet. I’m done. So done. Tomorrow will be the test and we shall see how I do.

CC’s mom has been at her brother’s since Saturday until this afternoon, where we understood she walked around with them without the use of the walker, she participated and was completely sociable and basically pain free. She returned here and within the hour was in enough pain and tired that she spent the rest of the day in her room on her bed and left dinner early because she said she wasn’t feeling good.
Back to “normal” I guess. Bummer. Time to call it a day, it’s 8:00 PM