The Blazer Phase

The Langley Family has come to the end of an era. At the ripe old age of 189,553 miles our 1997 Chevy Blazer was towed out of our driveway today to be sold for parts. I didn't get much money for it but at least it's no longer just sitting in our driveway rotting away. It's kind of a sad moment for me. I liked the Blazer. I mean it had it's downfalls, like, it would ride about as smooth as bull in the middle of a red banner dance routine. At least it was dependable and it carried my family and all my instruments around the south east for 6 years. We are sooo blessed to have a third car!!! My 1966 Ford Mustang is taking the role as my main mule. Toting me back and forth from home to work is an easy task for this classic beauty with only 53k miles. I plan to do this for about a year or until we can afford a car payment. For now, the Blazer Phase is over and a new era has begun. I am still excited like a little boy to see what God will do next in our lives.

Ignite Worship

Honestly, there is too much to say about this past week's Summer Camp in Panama City, Florida. I'll choose to keep my observations on the worship times. Around 8:00pm, Sunday through Thursday 90+ High School students and leaders congregated in a small room overlooking the gulf coast. The band consisted of Justin Walker Chris Duncan Ben Charity Clay Davis Jennifer Langley and your's truly. The worship at camp would best be described as sweet and vulnerable. I was proud of the band. They did an awesome job! But their availability to the move of the Spirit far out-weighed their ability to play or sing. I felt that at the end of every service you couldn't really point at any one person and say they made it happen, they are awesome. You were simply left pointing to God and saying He made this happen and He is AWESOME! After all my years of worship leading I'm sure I could explain and bring up several points on how we got to that beautifully surrendered place but really, honestly, I have no idea. All I know is, this is where I want worship to stay, a beautiful surrender.

Only God knows all that happened in those evening services at camp. Ignite Summer Camp was different than the previous 7 Mount Paran North High School camps I have been a part of. (Of coarse, they are all different) What I mean is...I believe the fire Ignited at this years camp will continue to burn. I believe a revival started at camp and it will be a lasting effect! Not because we hype it up. Not because we have good services on the up coming Wednesday nights. Not because we start some new program to "keep the flame burning." But because the students want more!! I sense a hunger from these students that I have yet to experience. I don't think camp scratched their itch. I think it caused another breakout of itchiness! Is that a word? Anyway, I love what God is doing! I'm so thankful that I get to be a witness of His greatness at work in these students that I care about so much. My prayer is that God will continue to light us on fire and let the world around us watch us burn!!

To see more about camp you can go to Jeremy's blog. He has a bunch of videos and stories from camp.

To see a bunch of pics you could go to Jim Turner's Facebook and see his albums.

Thoughts

Sorry it's been a while!

These are just some thoughts I had today. Actually they were in a message to a friend of mine and thought they were worth sharing.

God is a beautiful mystery. The more I know Him the more I find I don't know very much. The place of not understanding and the place of just giving up are great places to be. Because then He can BE. When we make the choice to surrender then God can be I AM in our life. And He can be I AM to others through our life. And there is no more beautiful thing than the larger-than-can-be-imagined I AM working through a small human with all the faults and limitations. It really shows you how big God really is AND how fond He is of these small people.

TroubleMaker

Me and the boys made a music video on our vacation to Atlantic Beach, NC. It's a silly little video but these images really capture their personalities. These boys are the best! I love them more everyday!! Sometimes I wish I could just pause time so they won't grow up any more and just stay my little TroubleMakers Forever!!

Lazy Summer Video

Here's a video me and my brother-in-law Sam shot at my house for the Link High School service last night. It got A BUNCH of laughs! Like fold over laughing! Sam did a great job acting. So did my two dogs Callie (Mini Lab) and Beau Dudley (Toy Poodle). Most of all the service last night was really great. I felt like we had a great worship set. Everyone really got there...you know. I had a guest singer come in and sing a couple country songs too. Will Stevens has an amazing voice and his cheery attitude just lights up the room. He killed it last night. All the band killed it last night. I can't really say a whole lot about the sound in the middle school room. It pretty much blows but what didn't blow and what I can say a mouthful about was...How Awesome Justin Walker did speaking last night. He absolutely nailed it!! I sound really old saying this but...I'm gonna say it anyway. I am really proud of Justin. He was in like 5th grade when I first met him so I guess I have permission to be proud. He spoke on spiritual complacency. Thus, the "Lazy Summer" video. And here it is:

Back Trouble

Well, It's official, I'm old! I have had some SERIOUS pain in my left buttocks and shooting down my leg for the past few months. Yes, that's right, a pain in my rear. People have told me for many weeks, "you work with teens all the time, you should be used to a pain in you rear." I didn't think it was very funny either. Even though the center of the pain is in my butt the source is my lower back. After an X-ray, MRI & a few hundred dollars of co-pays I have learned I have a pinched nerve, a herniated disc (way out of place they say) and a degenerating disc in the lumbar area. I've been trying to plow ahead. My doc gave me these exercises to do and I do them a couple times a day. The pain is still there after a month or so. I don't do pain medication unless I absolutely have to. I will not do it consistently for any length of time. I hope I don't need surgery.

I'm pretty easily grumpy these days. I try to ward it off but my grumpiness still wins out sometimes. So, if you are around me a lot...please forgive my bad attitude of late. Please pray for me and my wife. She has to put up with my groaning, complaints and with the fact she's married to an old man. I'm thinking of retiring early. Do you think the government will give me a retirement/social security check at age 30?

Resources

I'm gonna start giving away my resources as much as possible. I have a load of chord charts, click tracks and loops. If you want something I have, just ask. If I have it, it's yours. The only bad thing is the link for these downloads will disappear in about a week. So, if you think you might want something...you better get it. I will try to upload again in next month or so.

Here are some websites I use (All Free):

For worship chord charts: www.iwillworship.com
They are usually good chord charts. I always check and edit them

For cover chord charts: www.ultimate-guitar.com
*Careful, there are some adds and pop ups I DO NOT endorse! :) And the chord charts are usually wrong and in need of tweaking. I least I can get a start from here.

For videos and stuff: youtube&youtubegrabber lifechurch.tv

For Band/Media/Creative Team Organization & Planning: www.worshipwebsite.net
Awesome!! This thing has made my life better. You can get a free membership and have up to 20 people signed up. You would have to pay to able to upload files but I have figured out how to get it done with a free membership. All the songs that I have created in the database (worship songs or cover songs) I have added a chord chart (basically copied&pasted from the word files on my computer) and then I add a youtube video so that the band, media team & creative team can hear & see the song. On the Order of Worship page you can see the service plan and inside the box for each song is a youtube video for the song and if you click "words" or "chord charts" that will show the chord charts I have uploaded. Basically, you can listen/watch the song and read the chord chart right there. It's nice! BTW-you have to be signed in to see it or I would post it here. Tell you what, you sign up on worshipwebsite and I'll help you get it working. And no, they are not paying me to promote it.

For file sharing: www.yousendit.com

Click Here to download my Chord Charts
Click Here to download my Reason Loops and Click Tracks