Showing posts with label Chris Tomlin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Tomlin. Show all posts

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Michael Wilson








First grade, the beginning of my academic career is when I first met my best friend, Michael Wilson. Mikey, had a shock of blond feathery hair, was heavy set bordering on chunky, and he wore glasses. We hit it off like peas and carrots right away. In fact, his father called us Laurel and Hardy; I was skinny as a rail and Mikey was the polar opposite. His mother, Mrs. Wilson, called me Eddie Haskell.

My friend was quiet but mischievous; and no one knew what he was up to. Our Physical Education teacher Ms. Brewster, a Martina Navratilova look alike, discovered us eating Red Fox chewing tobacco in the musty, and decrepit old gym. Mike quietly argued there was no rule against what we were doing. She bucked it all the way up to the principle for a ruling on whether or not we could.

When FM Christian radio was a new born baby in the 1980’s, Mike was determined to be involved, in his words “I was able have fun and get paid for it.” Plus, he was able to dally like a tinker in all of that expensive sound equipment. He became a DJ at fifteen and graduated high school early to become KSBJ’s program director. Along the way he met and networked with a slew of minor dj’s, Christian musical artists and secular bands.

Like a child of the depression Michael never throws anything away. In fact, where most of us chunked or fire crackered our toys away, he kept them stashed, not because he knew they would be collector’s pieces but because he is a packrat. He has tapes recorded off of listener sponsored radio (the dirty stuff we thought was so funny as kids), older than dirt Earth Wind and Fire posters, velvet Elvis paintings and even a tape of our dead friend Rex’s poor attempts at impersonating Richard Pryor.

In the early nineties he and his wife moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to work for WAY FM, Nashville’s first Christian Radio station. All of those contacts made earlier blossomed like a Tyler rose. Old friends led to new, and his long time other hobby without working, computers, led him to retire from radio. Gen-X Communications, a Bill Gates type endeavor, who was working out of a garage, led to an international Christian country music radio program spreading its tentacles around the world. Ironically, Michael despises country music the way a Baptist does a Jehovah’s Witness.

In 1997 Mad Dancer Media was born, an evolved version of Gen-X Communications, pioneering web design and enhanced cds. Michael has worked with a who’s who of recording artists, Michael W. Smith, DC. Talk, the Gaithers, Chris Tomlin, and most recently Michael Card. Mikey has a personality like a popular game show host and the self-taught know how of an MIT graduate. A lethal and effective combination linking brains and charm, not only in business, but for God’s greater glory, all of his work other than radio began as a ministry to others.

Michael is still a big guy, as his business has grown so has he. He has a petite little wife named Marilyn who missions to Moldova every year. He has two daisy pretty girls as towheaded as their mother and a son who is following in his daddy’s footsteps. Jonathan has taught himself to use the latest and greatest types of computers and sound equipment, a real chip off the old block. While I am finally completing the pinnacle of my education, we talk of old times, sharing a laugh of old ribald toilet humor. Like Siamese twins, Laurel and Hardy never grow apart.


Larry

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

RiverLight





When
I was held up in chains
The river was free
When I was covered in stains
The river was clean
When I was losing my way
The river found me

I can see the river
I can feel the river
I'm letting go of all
I hold onto
Let it wash away





When we were broken inside
The river was love
When we were thirsty and dry
You were more than enough
When we were drowning in lies
The river saved us
I can see the river
I can feel the river
I'm letting go of all
I hold onto
Let it wash away

I'm dancing in the river
And I'll be here forever
I'm letting go of everything but You

Carry me away, Carry me away...
Carry me away, Carry me away

Carry me away, Carrie me away,

I can see the river
It's washin' me away

My life is in the river
And I'll be here forever
Letting go of all I hold on to

Can you see the river
Are you standing in the river?
Are you letting go of everything?
Everything?
But You

The River, written by Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio


This is an awesome song. Hope you enjoy!


Larry

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Amazing Grace


I love to be able to come here and post about Amazing Grace. It is odd how somethings just, I don't know, come together throughout the day?


Chris Tomlin's latest album See the Morning has an awsome version of Amazing Grace. I love this song it never fails to move me. This version is called Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone). Wow, talk about moving. He reinserted the original last verse of the song and threw in an extra chorus.

My Chains are gone I've been set free
My God my savior
Has ransomed me
And like a flood
His mercy reigns
Unending Love, Amazing Grace



Amazing Grace is never far from my mind. I know exactly where I come from and How God saved me. Especially today. Today is the four year anniversery of the last day I used drugs and alchohol. He broke my chains and set me free from the slavery of addiction. Valentine's day will always be emancipation day for me.


Amazing Grace the Movie! Yes the movie and it looks really good. I am not going into a lot of detail you can check it out yourself. The movie is about antislavery pioneer William Wilberforce. He was one of the primary agitators in England striving and succeeding to have the slave trade abolished in the British Isles. Wilberforce actually met with John Newton the saved wretch who wrote Amazing Grace!


See how this stuff runs together?


Is it coincidence beloved? Or something deeper?


This is the original as written version of Amazing Grace.


Amazing Grace how sweet the sound!
That sav'd a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.


'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev'd;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ'd!


Thro' many dangers, toils and snare,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.


The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.


Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall profess, within the vail,
A life of joy and peace.


The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call'd me here below,
Will be for ever mine.


I love the last verse.



Blessings!


Larry

Monday, February 5, 2007

How Great is Our God

How Great is Our God? How mighty! How complicated, How indescribable?

Our CR group went to see Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman here in Houston Saturday night.

What a great show! It met and exceeded all expectations. Three hours of praise and worship with two of the most prolific christian songwriters. I have never been to a concert where I literally knew the words to every song sung!

A man named Louie Giglio spoke too. I had never heard of him before and wow what a talk he gave.

I'm going to break it down a bit. As best I can.

The name of the talk of course was How Great is Our God. Fitting since that is the name of the concert tour.


Psalms 33:6 The Lord merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the Word and all the stars were born.



Another translation is that God Breathed the stars.






Louie then compared the earth to the sun in size. The gist was that in comparison the earth is a golf ball compared to the sun.








He went on to compare other, even bigger stars to the size of the earth like Canis Major (the dogstar).








In other words beloved, these stars that he breathed, or spoke into existance were huge!


When scientists pointed the Hubble Telescope into the black hole in the center of the milkyway galaxy this was the picture.










Awesome!

Then to show the intricacy of God and how perfectly he designed us Louie broke it down to the sub-atomic peptides called laminin. Laminin is the foundational glue that hold our cells together.
No matter how awesome He is. Despite all He has done and will do. He loves us no matter what. He loves us so much that He gave us His Son as Sacrifice for our sins.
How Great Is Our God Indeed!


Larry

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