And a few more thoughts
And other stuff I forgot to mention...

Steve lent us a keyboard he had laying around. We really don't know how to get any good sounds out of it yet, but Erika said she'd probably download the manual from the web. But it was still very cool to have both her and Jaime playing. I forgot to pick up a keyboard stand so we set it across a couple of chairs. It worked. Anyway, cool to have them both playing.

And Nick and Nathan were both out of town, so Dominic sat in on drums and Madisson on bass. They both did really well. I couldn't believe Madisson. He was quite the head-banging bass player! He was really getting into it. I don't know if he was just really into worship that night, or if he's getting more comfortable now that he is on the JV team and practicing twice a week. Whatever it was, it was cool.

And Scott and Dono were back, who have been gone for a couple of weeks.

Meg wasn't there, because she was working. But Jaime and I went to her folks restaurant after Fuel and surprised her. Actually shocked her would probably be better. We were walking down the hallway and she came out of the kitchen and almost ran into us and yelled. :-) It was fun. And the sushi was very good. Who would have known, Jaime really likes octopus and thought that the squid was ok.
posted by James at 6:28 AM

It just keeps getting better
Saturday night we did 3 songs, then Michael thought on worship. It was a great teaching. He said he got a lot of it from "The Unquenchable Worshipper" by Matt Redman. I'll have to pick it up. Sounds like a great book. Anyway, he did a great teaching and then we entered back into worship. They had a list of 5 songs there were going to do. After a few, Michael said, "I think God would have us do this song we've never done before." It was a song that he had heard, but no one else on the worship team had heard it.

It really shows how far the team has come when Michael can start playing a song, and within a few minutes the entire team is playing with him. Not only are they playing it, but since they've never heard it, they did their own version of it. Michael started it out slow and worshipful, but then brought it up and it was totally different than how it is usually done... but was perfect for what was going on. And then he brought it back down. It not only shows how they have progressed as musicians, but as worshippers as well, that they can flow like that. Everyone on the team did an awesome job.

Pastor Rick said it was one of the best worship services he has been in. Everything was flowing together, the worship, the sound, where God was taking it.
posted by James at 4:52 AM

JV
As noted a few entries back, I was kicking off the Fuel-JV team, but would be handing it over to another leader. Kevin Brewton has taken over that position. Functioning in a similar role with Michael as I function with Bobby. Pastor Rick asked me to step out of it toally, freeing up some of my time and having a JV leader totally in charge. Makes sense. I'll probably stop by once in a while, just to worship with them. I've heard they are doing really well. This Friday is their kick-off event, and I'll be there for that. Should be pretty cool.

Its a cool thing to have that ministry startup up as a separate entity. When we were out in Tulsa, one of the things the youth ministry did there was split their two groups so that they were totally separate. When they did that they saw a lot of growth. Its a good thing to have a separate JV ministry where they can take ownership and be student lead by their peers. It should be an exiciting time!
posted by James at 4:40 AM

Schedules
The Dates in the header are old, I haven't updated them yet.

Until Aug 22nd, Fuel-JV worship practice will be every Friday from 5:00 - 7:30 and on Saturday from 3:00 - 5:00
Fusion (Fuel, Fuel-SV?) Worship won't really have practice. We'll run through the set from 5:00 - 5:30.

The only exception is Aug 8th (a Friday) when the Costa Rica BBQ and Picture swap is at 6:00. We'll have to leave church around 5:30. We haven't decided if we'll have an early practice (which requires one or two adults getting off of work early), a very short practice (5:00 - 5:30 - hardly seems worth it), or if we'll skip that practice.

I'll update as we figure it out.
posted by James at 1:48 PM

It starts: Fuel JV Worship
Fusion and Fuel are both youth ministries of ICC. Fusion is the high school and Fuel the middle school. Pastor Rick has decided to have them both use the name Fuel, rather than the Fusion/Fuel split. So now they are Fuel and Fuel-JV. (Or maybe it is Fuel-SV and Fuel-JV... not totally clear on that). Anyway, in addition to the change in names, we are also splitting the services. Fuel will continue to meet on Saturdays and Fuel-JV on Friday.

As part of the split, we are putting together a Fuel-JV worship team. I'm the director over it and Michael Child will be the student coordinator and worship leader, i.e, its his thing. I'm just there as the adult. Long term I'll probably be handing it over to another youth leader so that I don't have both a Friday and Saturday night committment, but for now I'll be kicking it off and there on Fridays.

Its a very cool thing to start another worship team, have another youth who is in charge of it, giving it his vision, etc. and another team in which even younger teens can serve and try-out their calling.

They've got until the 22nd to pull it together and have do worship for the first time. They'll be practicing on Friday's and taking the Fusion worship team practice on Saturday until the 22nd. They've got some talented teens on the team, and they've been practicing on their own for a bit. It should come off good. And they are all middle shcool or freshman. Cool stuff.
posted by James at 1:42 PM