A Worship ‘band’?
I was struck with these thoughts while at A large worship concert here in Vancouver:
Drums: Breaking down spiritual strongholds, they are the instrument that breaks away chains that keep people from worship. By force if necessary. Drummers, play like you’re waging war on darkness.
Bass: Gets your spirit moving. Usually gets your body moving as well. This is the instrument that sets the foundation for the holy spirit to work through and in people.
Guitars: They are like that angels singing around the throne, adding to the atmosphere. they have the ability to make and break.
Keys: are the chameleon. They can add to anything, or be the glue that holds everybody together.
Singers: You are the invitation. For the congregation to join you. The voices that put word to melody, people believe you, people follow you into the courts of praise.
How the other instruments fit in. Well, does anybody else have any thoughts? Stage design? Lighting?
This is a couple of photos from the worship night in Question. Passion 2010 in Vancouver. Taken by the most talented Josh. You can check him out at: http://www.facebook.com/joshesphotography
Some things that I think about.
I think about how one day my life will look nothing like it does right now.
I think about how I’m looking after a friends 3 kids right now, and I think God had it in mind that most people would only have one at a time. Going from none to three has some sticker shock attached.
I think about how guitar parts are supposed to go together. I think about how I would fit in a song and support it, not get in the way.
I think about how one day this will be mine (it’s my own personal Waynes World Excalibur):
I think almost every day that it would be most convenient if I could just teleport myself and Jacqui to Australia for a visit on a regular basis.
I think that life is good, that I’m in the right place, and that I’ve been given everything I need for right now. Do I want more? Sure, don’t we all, but I’m thinking and learning every day to be content with what I have.
Why I do some of the crazy things that I do.
Confession time. It may come as a suprise to some of you that I am a geek (no, not gleek, but geek). I must come to my own defense here however. A lot of what I geek out about is actaully a good thing in that it saves money and in turn helps with approval from the wife. So without further Ado, here’s a few things I geek out about.
Double Edge shaving: I started this because I didn’t want to keep spending tons of shaving stuff. And now I love it. Jacqui bought me a badger hair brush for our last anniversary, it was a big step up from a $12 dollar brush. I use derby blades at less than 15 cents per blade (gives 3-5 shaves) a tube of Proraso italian shaving cream lasts me almost two years. I feel great and I get a little ‘me’ time when I shave. Sure it takes longer than scratching your face up with between 3 and 5 blades of torture, but I think it’s worth it.
Roasting coffee: This is very new. Thanks to my friend Mark from Chicago. I spent $4 on a hot air popcorn popper (after destroying the first one I got for free in my early roasting attempts) and a local coffee roaster sells me green beans for between $9 and $11 (their roasted coffee starts at $16 for a pound). I’m getting good results and yet still have a lot to learn.
Guitars and music gear: This is in it’s early stages of geekery, but I’m rewiring a Stratocaster I have. Hopefully saving money on paying a guitar tech to do it. Not that I would ever take money from a good tech for fret dresses and the such, but for wiring I recon I can conquer it. I’ve also got a cheap single ended tube amplifier sitting here wating for some simple mods… when I’ve figured out how not not kill myself in the process.
Financial markets: For many years I’ve been interested in stocks, forex, futures etc. For a long time it was all about ‘making the big bucks’ which I never seemed to do. Now days it’s more an interest. Maybe one day I’ll put some money into it but for now I’m happy with the learning experience and playing with some play money.
So there’s a little of what takes up my ‘abundance’ of ‘spare’ time. Hope you enjoyed the show and tell.
Forward.
I’m jumping on the bandwagon. Moving forward (as most of my summer has been moving forward!). And blogging again.
Will anybody read? I’ll give it a few days. check the stats and then post on the book of face.
I’ll post about stuff that’s important to me. Probably God, music, technology, Vancouver and whatever else comes to mind.
Some photo’s from the last few months road trip adventure. Places, doings and family.
We are back
after some domain issues, I'm finally back. and Just got back from being married and from Iqaluit.... more info to come soon. But here's a teaser...
Now you say yes.
So here we go, the post a lot of you have been waiting for. On June 12th, Jacqui said "yes" when I asked her a question. that question was "Will you marry me?". It was a great night. Here's the story (from Both viewpoints) and the pictures!
Stuarts Story
Well, my story started several weeks ago, calling Jacqui's dad as asking him for his daughters hand in marriage. He said yes, so that was good! The ring was ordered (thank you receding American economy for providing a great deal) and it was wait time.
Ten days later, the ring was shipped and it was time to put a plan into effect. I had budget a most generously provided my one of my supporters so I had some rescourse at my disposal. My biggest wish was for a surprise, a complete surprise.
After thinking about the last 15 months of our dating, I had a plan, for a surprise, and hopefully for something romantic.
I put out some calls for help to Mark, Hillary and the Pallisters, who were all delighted and excited to be a part of the occasion.
You see several weeks ago (before I had even called Jacqui's dad) we had organised to try and get Wade (Pallister) into heroes. Heroes just happened to be the beginning of how me and Jacqui stared to spend a bunch of time together as well.
I got Mark and Hillary to shoot some footage of me, and proceeded to edit up a little declaration of my love to Jacqui. I then spliced it into heroes at an opportune moment about 5 minutes into the show.
I'm almost bursting with excitement as we hop on our bikes and head over to the Pallisters to watch some 'heroes', at this stage, Jacqui is completely in the dark, I've been misdirecting her all week about a fancy date on Friday night (tonight is Thursday) and she's bought it, she had no idea what was about to happen.
We settle in and heroes comes on, after five minutes the screen fades to black and a song fades up, words start to appear and my plan is in full swing. I go grab the ring from my bag as Jacqui's excitement builds, and then drop to one knee and ask her to marry me.
In the midst of her excitement, Jacqui actually forgot to say yes, and had to be reminded by Wade that 'yes' was the word I was waiting for... she said yes.
Now the pressure was off, I'd existed a week in the planning and execution of this, it just about killed me with the anticipation. It was all worth it, Jax was delighted and surprised, which is exactly what I was aiming for.
Out came the Aussie champagne, the chocolate covered strawberries, the chocolate cheesecake and the 'engagement wings' (check out DIY Gourmet for the wrap up of that one) and tim tams. Some phone calls and general celebration began.
thanks Jacqui, for being amazing, for loving me and for saying yes! I love you.
We did go out for our fancy date on Friday, it was one of the most mind shattering dinner I've ever had, and that will be the subject of our next blog post. The best bit about that dinner was I was not nervous any more, this was a celebration!
Jacqui's Story
Last week as we wrapped up our work week and looked at what the schedule would hold for the following week Stu said to me, "We should go on a nice date next Friday night." You may think that Stu asking me for a date on Friday night would be normal, but this particular date felt a little different from that moment to me for a couple of reasons.
One - Stu doesn't usually ask me out that directly or that far in advance. Usually sometime around Wednesday or Thursday one of us will say maybe we should go for a date on the weekend and then we'll talk about what else is going on and squeeze something in.
Two - About a month before Stu and I had spent a Saturday afternoon looking around jewelry stores downtown talking about settings and carats and cuts and fire and ice ... something special was bound to happen very soon.
So the following week went on - here and there Stu would drop some kind of hint about how special Friday was going to be ... one of my roommates, Hillary, even seemed to be in on something as she helped me think about what shoes to wear and what to do with my hair. I knew that something was up but as more attention was drawn to Friday, the more I thought it would be just another dinner out because Stu had made it clear that whenever he was going to propose he would try to make it a surprise.
By the time Thursday rolled around I had done everything in my mental power to eliminate the expectation that I would be engaged on Friday. We were planning on hanging out with some friends to start watching Heroes in preparation for the coming new season ... so we went over to Wade and Jo's to start Season 1, Episode 1. We all gathered around the TV and settled in for a little "save the cheerleader, save the world."
About five minutes into the episode the normal fade to commercial happened but suddenly "Don't Wait" by Dashboard Confessional winds up and I start thinking that one of our favorite songs is a strange soundtrack for a commercial. As the words "it all started with ... and then there was ..." with the ...'s clearly describing moments in my relationship with Stu, I started to get on the clue train. Stu then came on the screen and delivered a beautiful little speech about how captivating I am and how rich he is to have me in his life.
THEN - the following words came on the screen:
JACQUILYN BROOKE FABER
WILL YOU ...
(very dramatic pause)
LET ME ASK YOU THIS QUESTION?
So Stu asked me to stand up and he said, "Jacqui, I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, (then he got down on one knee in Wade and Jo's living room) will you marry me?" To which I giggled and said, "I love you, you are amazing, I can't believe it, ect ..."
Eventually I said yes.
And then there was much rejoicing including the most amazing teriyaki "engagement wings" (thanks Wade!), Yellow Tail Bubbles, hand made chocolate covered strawberries and cheesecake (thanks Jo!).
As always, click on the pictures for a larger image!
There it is, the best story of the week!
Some other music stuff
What happens when you get the worlds best uke player and one of the worlds best acoustic guitarists on Australia's today show?
This:
Mutemath
According to their youtube presence, they have a new album coming out soon, with some clips of studio recording.....
which means 'maybee' a vancouver show this year! Excited, yes i am.
check them out here: mutemath youtube
More news to come!
Lots going on.
So there's lots going on, and not much at the same time. More to come.
To keep you in the loop a bit, I was at the Giants hockey game last night. The Canadian national anthem has this line in it.
"from far and wide, oh Canada, we stand on Guard for thee.
God keep our land, glorious and free. Oh Canada we stand on Guard for thee".
I'll take that, I'll own it.
God, Keep Canada. Keep it under YOU. Keep it Glorious. Show me what my part is in all of this.
