Here’s the cover art:

Yesterday evening, we had an album release party and invited a bunch of our friends over to check it out and take a look at our studio (sorry, didn’t get any pics). That was a load of fun, although trying to launch a Web site and get the word out at the same time as putting a party together was pretty crazy! Kids, don’t try this at home.

We’ll upload a video tour of our studio at some point, as well as some other musical tidbits down the road, so when that happens, I’ll let you folks know. All right, that’s it for my advertisement — now you know why some of my blogging has been erratic in previous months!

Have a great Sunday…Jared

Pictures forthcoming (taken by my brother Shayne)….

Ugly Betty Season Two premiere will be on tomorrow!!! WOO HOO!!! Yeah!!!

Bling Bling Bling Bling Bling Bling Bling Bling Bling Bling! (That’s the theme music…)

I so love Ugly Betty it’s not even funny. And I don’t have TV, so I’ll be getting the iTunes season pass as quickly as possible so I can get all the episodes as they come out. I’ve been waiting months to find out what happens after the last episode. Isn’t that pathetic?

Yay for Ugly Betty! I’m hungry for some chimichangas already.

I’ll have much more to blog on this in the coming weeks, but I just want to say one thing that is immediately obvious right now: God is raising up a new generation of media-savvy, technologically-innovative artists, visionaries, producers, technicians, and teachers who are going to lead the church into a completely new age (not New Age) of global impact and expansion unprecedented in the history of mankind. The youth revolution 40 years ago that brought in the Beatles and a period of moral decay (though some good came out of it like the pending death of modernism) will be totally eclipsed and dwarfed by what God’s Church is birthing right now. John Lennon once famously said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus (though he later sort-of apologized). He also said that all you need is Love. Thankfully, he did get that part right.

I’m so incredibly excited to be counted among this group of pioneers who are going to be launched into the world of media and reach the nations. Sometimes I get so excited I feel like I’m going to burst out of my skin. Lord, give me patience, endurance, and strength! I’ll need it!

Now I don’t watch that show because I don’t watch TV, but I’m aware of many of the past controversial moments via the blogging world. Rosie has said outrageous, insulting things on a regular basis on that show — often towards Christians — so I could have good reason to be cheering at her departure. Instead, I’m just kind of sad, and fed up with a much larger issue that has nothing to do per se with Rosie:

Talk has gotten so cheap, it’s not even worth the air the soundwaves are carried on much of the time. I increasingly think of how much talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk is floating around everywhere these days over every medium, and what is all this talk doing for us? Is it making the world a better place? Is it giving us sound counsel and wise advice? Is it improving the total sum of true knowledge that man requires to move forward?

I know I’m simply contributing to this talk right now, and therefore I’m a hypocrite for saying this, but I think there is a tremendous amount of value in shutting off the TV/computer/phone, sitting still, and listening for the Voice that is softly whispering to us everyday if only we had ears to hear. There is knowledge and wisdom flowing from Heaven this very minute for those who seek after it with all their heart, soul, mind, body, and strength. I’m still learning how to tune in, but I know one thing for sure: I’ll never get anything but static if I have all that other stuff turned on. For it is written:

“Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.”
– Ecclesiastes 4:6

Except it isn’t that simple anymore. Back in the 90’s when it started making the rounds in a couple of different churches I attended, all I heard was the really sappy bubble-gum pop stuff which turned me off completely. In fact, I got so fed up with the mediocrity and bad clones of lousy mainstream acts that it became a significant reason for me to stay unchurched for several years.

There’s still that element out there, but it seems to me that the genre is improving dramatically — so much so that it’s actually surpassing the “mainstream” world in many ways. I’m still somewhat new to all the latest acts, but I’ve already fallen in love in a number of artists: Paul Baloche and Matt Redman for straight-up worship, edgier acts like David Crowder Band and Fireflight, the music coming out of Bethel Church in Redding, CA (Brian Johnson, the Jesus Culture group, etc.). I haven’t looked much yet, but I’m hoping to find some good electronica and ambient (”soaking”) style albums to round out the collection. My own personal tastes are more Tangerine Dream than U2 (although I like U2), but I have a feeling I’m in a no-man’s land with that one.

Hat tip: thanks to Grace for introducing me to some really great music and showing me that God is no respecter of genres. It’s nice to be able to worship to Handel or Tim Hughes and not worry about either one!

I’m a pretty intense fellow and like nothing more than to dive into heady creative, intellectual, or spiritual work/research/discussion/etc. So it’s good for me every once in a while to be forced to shut that side of my brain off and just goof off. Always thinking about earth-shattering, globe-spanning, eternity-impacting concepts at the expense of the small, simple things of life is a sign of being unbalanced.

So, the next time you feel like you’re just swimming in intense stuff and your head’s about to explode, go outside and kick a ball around or pull some weeds or just take a walk. Clear your mind. Take some deep breaths. Reboot your mental computer.

What I mean by celebrity worship is that the people who make it big — in terms of news/gossip influence — are glorified by our modern culture. Even if most people are turned off by the more outrageous antics, we still hear about them, talk about them, think about them. And the folks who perpetrate these acts rarely suffer the consequences of their actions. To me, that’s a culture of celebrity worship, not a culture of manners and decency (two words out of favor right now). And now, thanks to Digg, YouTube, and other sites, everyone can have their 15 minutes of fame. Try something outlandish, dangerous, disgusting, or illegal, and you’ll end up with 500,000 people watching you! When your home life is devoid of a moral base, a sense of purpose, and communal love, getting 15 minutes of fame on the Internet is a cool ego boost.

I’m not blaming anyone. We all want to be big people, admired or at least noticed. We all want our 15 minutes of fame, and when it’s up, just up the ante a little bit. Britney Spears isn’t the problem, Texas cheerleaders aren’t the problem. The problem is that we don’t know who we are and who we were created to be — an easy trap to fall into when we’ve forgotten Who created us in the first place.