Throwing Shoes

I'm sure you've all seen the video of President Bush have a shoe thrown at him, well my friend Eric Bramlett found the video to go along with it. You can see it here.

If they guy actually did hit the President, it would have been hilarious if he said, "That really hurt! I'm going to have a lump you idiot! I mean really, who throws a shoe?"

Too funny!

The Missing Piece

Remember in "It's A Wonderful Life," Jimmy Stewart was granted the opportunity to see what life would be like if he never existed. Do you ever wonder what this world would be like if you never existed? No not in the suicidal way that George Bailey was, but in the positive. What kind of impact have you had on those you walk day to day with? Earlier this evening I was looking at some friends family pictures on Facebook. This is a family that in one way or another, direct or indirect, I have played a role in bringing together. Two friends joined together and then they have created entirely new individuals, their children. Do you ever think about stuff like this? I guess it's just nice to think that the world wouldn't be the same, well without...me.

Christmas With Friends

This past weekend was Valley Churches large Christmas event, Christmas With Friends and what a great time as well as a privilege it is to work with such wonderful people. This year consisted of a small , 4 peice, rhythm section, 7 brass players, plus a string quartet. I also got to sing a very moving song, Born On Christmas Day, with just piano and strings, it was very nice and overall a great experience for me. I thought I would post what our service order was for all to see. The service looked like this:

> Jingle Bells - Diana Krall
> Let It Snow - Michael Buble
> Sleigh Ride - Brian Setzer
> Joy To The World - PraiseCharts.com
> Oh Come All Ye Faithful - PraiseCharts.com
> Silent Night - Mercy Me
> How Can I Keep From Singing - SheDaisy
> Born On Christmas Day - Peabo Bryson
> Hark The Herald - PraiseCharts.com

It turned out to be a really nice mix of music and a very moving service. Props to Kevin David and his leadership at Valley! Good job Kevin!

Dry Ground

Earlier this evening I was reading a blog post from a friend and was moved by how insightful his writings were. This got me to think about my own blog and the lack of writing that I've been doing as of late. (Yes I've known, it's almost like I've been avoiding this blog for a while.) Why is that? I thought about it for a while, and discovered the answer I've known within myself for a while now. I am dry.
Writing just like anything else that has potential to inspire others, should come from an overflow from our daily walk. From those times where we have thoughts and wishes welling up within us that we just can't not share with others.
Tonight I realized once again, this has been a hard year and as much as I've tried to hold my head up and confirm that God is in control, it has been a challenge. Confirming this once again, just a few minutes ago I read my journal post from this year. For the first time ever in my life I began to journal my walk with Christ this year. Marking the highs and the lows, the joys and sorrows, (long guitar solos :) the times of assurance as well as utter confusion when trying to follow Christ.
Change of life, job, dealing with pneumonia, making new friends, dealing with pneumonia a second time, as well as the constant struggle to make ends meet and keep our heads above water all the while doing our best to live right and not be judgmental of others.
When I thought about just how dry I am, I saw a mental image much like the picture I've posted here. Growing up in the deserts of Arizona I'm no stranger to dry, cracked ground, and even if you took water and poured it onto that ground, although the water would instantly soak in, it would still show the scars of being dry. It takes time and regular amounts of water for those scars to disappear. So I'm OK now with the dry, if it's something that my family and I needed to go through. Why? I have no idea. But all I can do it trust that God knows what's happening in our life and will continue to guide us and direct us.
There's a song I grew up singing in my home church that has been going through my mind as of late, "He didn't bring us this far to leave us. He didn't teach us to swim to let us drown. He didn't put this hope in us, to move away. He didn't lift us up, to let us down."

Proverbs 16: 20 "It pays to take life seriously; things work out when you trust in God"

If you are reading this and you're dry too, let's pray for rain.

Technology And The Way Jesus Did It.

Sometimes I wonder if we really make this whole "church" thing to complicated. As you know I'm new to Valley Church and one of the things I'm responsible for is maintaining and creating the "loops" used during the Sunday Services. It's something that I really enjoy doing, but sometimes wonder why do we do it? It's actually quite the process. I create the loops, which aren't really loops but full blown sequences, in Logic Audio. I then bump the sequences down into 8 separate tracks and then load them into Ableton Live. From here they are routed out via an M-Audio interface through ADAT to our Yamaha automated sound console, where the "loops" can then be mixed as needed for our live settings. Easy enough?? When it works, but this week I had to go and screw it up.
Earlier this past week I sent out and email and of course it went out as sent from dburggraaf, the previous owner of the laptop I'm now using, and a couple of my friends gave me some crap for not having changed the owner of the laptop yet. So I proceeded to change the name of the computer and the home screen name to tyates. Which was great until I rebooted my MacBook Pro the next day to find an entirely new desktop and screenset. Then when I went to go open the software I use on a weekly basis it began asking for all of the serial numbers and wanted to authenticate all of the software again. Which is fine...if you know where all of that stuff is. Did I mention that I am new here!! So after a fun (not really) week of trying to get this all figured out, I thought I had it. Until I booted up this morning to realize that I hadn't re-figured out the ADAT thing. So for the first time since I've been here at Valley we went the entire morning with no loops, and you know who noticed...the band. Yeah that's it! Everyone else said the worship, "rocked, sounded great, inspiring." So I come back to my initial thought, do we make this harder than it needs to be?? Would Jesus use loops?

Tim

The Worship We Knew...

Ok, so I haven't written much on here lately and for that I apologize. I actually had a request to write more from my one apparent fan, so thanks Sean. I ran across this blog post, which you need to read, and I too miss those things. Worship in the 80's and 90's, brought us for the first time actually having something to sing other than those old familiar hymns written by people named Fanny. :) The ginormous color coded wind screens, the over-head projectors or even better lyric slides from multiple trays, tons of church drama (good and bad) and for me it wouldn't be church if you didn't play at least one Ron Kenoly song. Give this a read, enjoy and then let me know what you miss.

I grew up on late 80s and 90s worship music. My father was a worship leader and later pastor at a Vineyard which was cutting edge worship music in those decades. I remember those years fondly and here's what I miss:

1. Wind instruments - There are a lot of flute and saxophone players out of work in ministry. I mean there has to be a line around the block for those guys collecting worship band unemployment checks. I really do miss those soft flute intros and funky white boy sax solos that just took the songs to a whole new power pop level. I think it was every worship pastor's holy dream to get Kenny G saved. Can you imagine how powerfully the spirit would have moved? Unfathomable.
2. Streamers and Banners - At its peak churches were removing rows of chairs just to make room for this tornado of twirling silk. They should have been surrounded in caution tape cause they were dangerous. Those wooden dowels were like holy swords waiting to impale you or gouge your eye out in accordance with scripture. I dunno about you guys, but you give me a banner team and a hard core sax solo and that's heaven on earth. I never could get a beat on the males who joined the banner wavers though...that always gave me cause for concern.
3. Transparencies - Who can forget the giant glowing box sometimes strategically placed smack in the middle of the stage for the backup singers to operate. I honestly miss the feel and even smell of those transparencies, shuffling through the accordion folder to find the songs and get them all lined up. Was there ever a professional way of handling these? I certainly am familiar with the bad way, the blank transparency with dry-erase handwritten words and the operator who seems to always make the slide appear upside down no matter how many times you try to explain mirrors to them.
4. Percussion - Rain sticks, triangles, cowbell, congas...what isn't appropriate for a worship song? Even the rocks will cry out, and Lord knows we tried to see what beating a rock with different sized sticks would sound like. The big churches share in culpability for this pandemic, but the smaller churches took it to a new level. I mean really, who isn't qualified to play percussion? As long as you have a heartbeat and 2 hands you can beat things with, you should be on stage right?
5. Constant 3 part Harmonies - Picture with me if you will, vocal arrangements as a mixing board with sliders for each singer. Usually you'd think of these sliders moving up and down as the song progresses through the arrangement, layering nicely in parts, muted in others. Well back in the day this picture was more of a giant switch. Vocals are either all on or all off. Hey those words on the transparency aren't for looking at, if you got a mic and there are words up, sang those things sister! Oh and you know your part, it's the same harmony you do on every song, it's easier that way and we also took the liberty of color coding the windscreens so you know which mic is yours.

Copyright 2008 Kyle Campos @ Our Rising Sound

Obama Boy

Seeing Obama try to explain the lipstick gaff the other day reminded me of a scene from Tommy Boy. So I hope you enjoy Obama Boy.

MSNBC has "LEFT" The Building.

Ok, so the past two nights I thought I would watch "the other side" of the news to see how they handled their coverage of the Republican convention, as well as their pre and post commentary. A few observations:

Observation Number 1
When did Keith Olbermann become the freakin' grammar and quote cop of the tv media. Last night he corrected J. Lieberman, not face to face of course, but later of his misuse of a George Washington quote, as well as "in the act of fairness" made sure that Barack Obama's words were used in the right context. Tonight he's correcting the delagates on the use of the word "pundit" and not "pundint." Thanks Keith for the continued education.

Observation Number 2
As a fellow videographer, the shot you set up and capture means everything. If a picture shows a thousand words, then how many words make up 29.97 frames per second. From previous work that I've done, a great way to show that your words are staged or not really from the heart is to actually show the teleprompter as a speaker is talking. This reminds the audience that they are just acting, and not really speaking from the heart. Twice tonight during Sarah Palin's speech MSNBC showed a back shot fully showing her reading a teleprompter. I suppose to remind the audience that she was "reading" her speech, one that was written for her. Now I didn't watch the DNC convention on MSNBC, but I would almost bet some serious bucks that they didn't use the teleprompter shot with Barack Obama. Tell me if I'm wrong though.

Observation Number 3
Andrea Mitchell just cracks me up. Last night she was just stunned that J. Lieberman spoke out against Obama. Stunned! She knew he was obviously going to support McCain, he was speaking at the RNC convention, but it was like she was just shocked that anyone would dare to actually speak against Barack Obama. Then tonight she just looked pissed when interviewing Rudy G., who knocked it out of the park with his keynote speech, and asked him if he "had any pause going after him [Obama] this hard and belittleing him the way you did?" Rudy's response, "No." Love it!

Ok, so there goes my first "political" blog entry.

Tim

Getting Old!

Ok, so I am now officially old. Last night I had my first rehearsal with the band at Valley Church. I may not have been the oldest guy there, but I'm getting close. Most of the rhythm players are probably in their early twenties. Anyway at one point while rehearsing "Only A God Like You" by Tommy Walker, during the instrumental break after the second chorus, I asked the keyboard player if he could give me some Bruce Hornsby action over the top. He just looked at me with a blank look and said "I have no idea what you're saying to me?" I then had to explain who Bruce Hornsby is, so finally I'm like, "you know...(singing) 'That's just the way it is. Some things will never change." When the electric guitar player, another twenty something, says..."Oh! You mean Tupac! I didn't know Bruce Hornsby did it too?"

If you're curious I had to dig it up and found it here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBAZfgMK5TQ)

Yeesh!

The old man.

A Vote For Me Is A Vote For...

Chapter ??

Trying to figure out God and his ways is a lot like trying to master the game of golf. Right when you think you have that slice in your drive figured out, your short game goes down the tubes. Then you work and work to correct your short game only to see that you can't putt to save your life. And around and around it goes. I have spend a good portion of this year trying to figure out, for my family and I, just what God is up to. And it's from this search that I can honestly say, "I HAVE NO IDEA!" I do know this. Earlier this I year I was asking God to restore within me that sense of adventure back into my daily walk with him...well you get what you ask for.

In October of last year I left the church I had poured myself into for almost 7 years without really knowing what was ahead of me. The afternoon I left, is when I received the first phone call from Westview Church, where I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of. I left Point Of Grace, completely burnt out, hurt and thinking maybe, that after almost 20 years of working in ministry, that I was done. But in just a short time, 8 months working part-time at Westview, I've rediscovered that I still love seeing lives changed and watching people utilize their gifts when giving back to God. This summer has been a much needed time of rest and renewal. So now the adventure continues, back to full-time ministry.

Really kind of out of nowhere, I was presented with an opportunity to join the staff at Valley Church located in West Des Moines, and after talking back and forth for a week or so, I accepted the position of Director Of Programming at www.valley-church.com. Now I've only been on staff for 4 days now, but I have to say I'm really enjoying it and looking forward to what God had in store.

I will miss seeing the new friends we made at Westview on a weekly basis, but as always hope that we can continue to remain friends. You can never have enough friends.

So to Westview we say thank you and you have been a blessing from God to my family and I, and to Valley Church we are extremely excited to dig in and get involved.

Tim

Change

Change. Some hate it, some love it, others thrive on it. No matter how much we try to avoid it, it's inevitable, we can't escape it. Change is part of our human existence.

But to quote my good friend Tom Clegg, "the only ones who like change are wet babies!" So how do we deal with it?

A few weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to speak at Lutheran Church of Hope on the topic of Creativity. To summarize what I spoke on was this:

God calls us to be creative. Creativity equals change.
Change brings fear. Fear requires trust.
Trust requires faith. Faith requires God.

For the past three weeks we've had the opportunity to have Dr. Tom Clegg speak at Westview for our current series, titled after his seventh book, "Missing In America." This past Sunday he used a quote in his message that reminded me of what I've been thinking on over the past few weeks. The quote he used was this:

"Healthy things grow. Growing things change. Change challenges us. Challenges cause us to trust God. Trust leads to obedience. Obedience makes us healthy. And healthy things grow."

So repeat after me... change is good. Change is good. Change is...

This Is The Year!

Ok, so every year for the past 20 years I have tried to become an Arizona Cardinals fan, and every year they start great and then putter out about game 2. But....this is the year, this is going to be the year they turn the whole thing around. (Speaking in faith here. ;) So tonight they begin their journey. The Yates family loves the NFL and when Pre-Season kicks off it's like opening a new chapter each year. So I say once again, this just might become the year that I become a fan of the Arizona Cardinals. I'll let you know how it's going after about game 3.

More Than Music Seminar

Had a great time today at the More Than Music Seminar at Lutheran Church Of Hope. Again it was sort of a fist step in a new direction for me. For quite a while I've been wanting to put together a session about creativity and this gave me the opportunity to get it all written out and try it out. If you attended to today, I'm still trying to figure out the best way to post the resources I noted during the breakout session. I do know this, I met some great people that I hope to connect with in the near future, and it was great to see our good friend Jonathan Martin, always enjoy hangin' with him.

Tim

New Series @ Westview

Just thought I would give you a heads up on the new series we have coming up at Westview. Beginning this weekend we not only are starting "Missing In America," but also have the opportunity to have the author of the book speak at Westview for the next three weeks. Tom Clegg is a good friend and a great speaker, I look forward to hearing him teach again. Then following this 5 week series on how to reach our neighbors, we want to give you an opportunity to do just that. Begining this fall at Westview you will want to invite your friends and neighbors to "Live Healthy."

Piano Lesson

This Summer I thought I would take advantage of quality time that I've been given with the kids and begin giving them piano lessons. Our son has decided that he too wants to be a drummer, but here in Waukee, to play drums in the school band you need to have taken at least two years of piano. Our daughter has decided that she too will begin to play the flute next year, so we thought a good foundation in piano would be a great way to begin. Learning the piano just gives you a good overall view of music and how it works.

Currently the boy is up and practicing. We are on the 4th week of lessons and it's starting to get a bit challenging. We began with the right hand exercises, a five note scale starting on middle C, and have now moved on to the left hand, working our way down the keyboard, starting with G below middle C. He has the warm up down, those he can play, it's executing them into a song that's kicking his butt. Eight measures of an evil little ditty titled, "Love Me Tender." He'll play for a just a few minutes and right when it begins to challenge him, he'll ask if he can go back to the Warm Up exercises, those he can play. "No", I say, "keep working on the song. Each time you play it, it will get easier and easier as it goes." After struggling through a couple of measures, "Dad, can I just play the warm up excercises?" I finally had to sit down and explain, that practice isn't just about doing what comes easy to us, but practice is about working through those things that challenge us, slowly at first, but as we continue to practice, they eventually become easier. Each time we sit at the piano, those things that challenge us, become easier and easier to play.

While I was explaining practice to my son, It made me think how many times I've asked my Heavenly father if I can just go back to what's easy for me. Do I really have to work through the things that I struggle with? Can't I just go back and play the warm ups? I'm good at those.

I know what my "Love Me Tender" is. What's yours?

Tim

Smokin'

Yesterday the Yates family was invited to join the Wilhite's, who were camping for the weekend, at their campground at Timberline Campground. Not only is Timberline only 6 minutes from our home, it's also not your typical campground in that it has a swimming pool as well. The kids had a blast, but the best part it Keith said to head on out because they were going to have the "smoker" going. Now my dad is known to smoke the occasional rib or brisket, but I have to admit that I was pretty impressed upon pulling up to the campground to see their smoker. I had to snap a picture with the cell phone to share with you all. Oh and the turkey, pulled pork and ribs were excellent. Lori even said she could enjoy camping like this! Thank for the invite Keith!

Tim

Thank you Ma'am

Ok so here's a perfect example of how NOT to perform customer service. I had a Leadership meeting for Westview today at 11:30. We meet at Caribou Coffee near downtown on Ingersoll. It's a great location, nice and large and they have a great meeting room you can reserve, which we do, so it works as a nice meeting place for our leadership team which comes from all parts of the metro. Anyway, because I'm pulling the Mr. Mom role as well and have my two kids with me, I thought I would go early and hit a nearby Subway and grab some sandwiches for me and the kids so they could eat lunch while I had my meeting. It was actually pretty funny, when I entered a completely empty Subway, due to the tremendous amounts of road construction that's taking place right in front of the main parking lot entrance. I wasn't even sure if they were open, because I needed to actually drive right through the construction to get to the parking lot. Anyway there's no one in the store except me and this young girl, mid twenties, who is there to fix my custom made sandwiches. Its here my conversation went something like this:

Me - (Walking into the store) Wow, that construction has really shut you guys down hasn't it?
Female- (No response)
Me - Oookay? Could I get three six inch subs, all on white bread. I need a tuna, a salami and a cold cut trio.
Female - You want three sandwiches?
Me - Yes, three six inch sandwiches on white. Tuna, Salami and a cold cut trio.
Female- She then proceeds to grab a foot long roll of white bread to make the first sandwich. I stop her and she is starting to put tuna on a foot long.
Me- No, no! That was three six inch subs.
Female - Oh, ok. (she then cuts the foot long into two six inch.) What did you want for the first one?
Me - Tuna. I need three six inch subs. Tuna, Salami, and cold cut trio.
Female - Any cheese?
Me- No cheese on the tuna.
Female - Would you like it toasted?
Me- No. None of these will be toasted.
Female - (Now starting to make the second sadwich) What did you want for the second.
Me - Salami and then I need a six inch cold cut trio on white.
Female - What type of bread would you like?
Me - White. All of these are on white.
Female - What type of cheese?
Me - American
Female - Would you like it toasted?
Me - No. None of these will be toasted.
Female - And what would you like for the next sandwich.
Me - Cold cut trio, six inch on white.
Female - Would you like cheese?
Me - Yes. Could you put some provolone on there.
Female - Would you like it toasted.
Me - No....none of these will be toasted.

It's at this time that one of her co-workers came in and saved my by building my sandwiches. The young female then moved to the cash register to ring up my sale.

Me - I'd just like the sandwiches and these three bags of chips.
Female - Did you want drinks?
Me - No, I just need the sandwiches and chips.
Female - ..and three drinks?
Me - No. Just the sandwiches and chips.
Female - As she swipes my card and rips off my receipt she then says, "Thank you ma'am."

If your customers are talking, I hope you are listening better that this!

Tim (also known as Ma'am)

Busy day, but I like it!

Today started off with a 7:30 AM marketing meeting for our new fall series at Westview Church. We actually have two large series coming up and it should be a great time for our church. First beginning in August we are launching "Missing In America," a series on evangelism and how to reach your community. We have the privilege of actually having the author of the book of the same title, Tom Clegg (who lives here in Des Moines) will actually be speaking two of the four week series. One thing we juggled around as well is that we might be able to have Grant Norsworthy, former bass player from SonicFlood now guest artist and speaker, come and do an entire service, so if that would be the case we might need to shuffle the schedule some. We'll find out about that tomorrow. We are also doing some fun stuff during Missing In America to help people reach out to their neighborhoods, such as a "Party In A Bag." (No not that kind of bag, it's just cheaper than a box.) This will be everything that they will need to successfully host a party in their neighborhood. So after this great 4 week series on evangelism we thought it would be strategic to provide a series that would be targeted towards our next door neighbors. So we could have something to invite them to.
So launching September 7th (my birthday btw) we will be launching a new series titled, "Live Healthy; God, Self, Others" and this was the reason for our 7:30 AM meeting. To discuss how we are going to market this series to our surrounding communities. Not only will our Sr. Pastor, Jay Brabend, and our newly ordained Associate Pastor, Susan Watson, be teaching but we also have a host of guest speakers joining us as well. Such as Dale J. Andringa, M.D. who is Vice President & Chief Medical Officer of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, Jerry Foster will be with us for Healthy Future, Dave Watson from LWBJ will be speaking on finances, and speaking on Marriage will be Dr. Gary and Barb Rosberg. So we really want to do all we can to get the word out, so to date this is the plan:
All of the designs will be done by Lance Thompson at Big Blue Sky Marketing. I'm looking forward to working with Lance again, as he was the lead web designer for MinistryHub.com. He does great work and I know it will be appealing to our target audience as well.
Lance will be designing the following marketing pieces.
A Door Hanger - This will basically be a calendar type piece with a ton of information on it.
3 Sets Of Postcards - We will be running 3 sets of postcards, 12,000 each, that will be going out the 4th Thursday of each month as an insert in the Waukee Today paper.
Posters - We will be asking business owners within the church to display these posters.
Web Support- You will be able to go to www.westview.org/livehealthy and get the latest information. I will also be shooting some video testimonies of Westview members and capture testimonies of how God has impacted them through Westview Church.
email blast- we will be doing a weekly email blast with the latest information about what's coming ahead. (This will be something you can email your friends.)
e-card - you will be able to go to www.westview.org and invite your friends to the series with an e-card.
Business Cards - This will have the artwork for the series and the web information
And last Banners for the Marque out front.
So as you can see we will be doing whatever we can print/web wise to get the word out.

We also are looking to do events and activities as a church to support the series as well, such as flu shots, green day, church bike event, and anything else we can come up with. We're always looking for more ideas.

After that I went to our staff meeting at Westview and I actually have to say I now enjoy staff meetings. One thing I can say about our staff is that they are "real" people. There are no fronts being put on in the room and it's very refreshing.

I then went home to continue working on my goal of getting 1,000 churches using MinistryHub.com. We have been doing some aggressive email campaigns and we are closing in on the 400 church mark. I'll keep you updated as we go. Its just very exciting for me to log in and find people/pastors using the site that we have developed for them.

Well that's it for now, I'll keep you updated as we progress.

Tim

A New Day

Hello world. Tim Yates here. For those of you who don't know me, I reside in Des Moines, Iowa. I have been happily married to a wonderful woman for almost 16 years now, and we have two lovely children. We are, the perfect American family; husband, wife, daughter and son...and a dog named George. I begin writing this blog though in a season of change for myself, a bit of a transition in my life. Now I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I just recently turned 40, but as of October of last year (07) I have began a new chapter in my life.
As a small child I grew up in Phoenix Arizona, where my parents attended a small pentecostal church, The Church Of Jesus, and it's here where I began my walk with God. It here at this small church when I was a child that we used to have a missionary, Douglas Carol, who would come once a year and speak to our church about the wondrous things that God was doing in South Africa. It was pretty low tech, slide show and all, but he would speak for at least an hour each Sunday he would visit and share story after story of the great things God was doing. Miraculous things! I remember it was during those talks when the ministry bug hit me. It was the adventure of it all, the entire lifestyle, knowing all the while that the God of the universe was on your side working on your behalf.
I say all of that to tell you this, that over the past year or two I have missed that sense of adventure. I have felt that when it came to ministry I was sort of locked into a routine job, with no hope of adventure or change for that matter. So in October of 07 I was given the cue by God it was time for me to move on. Which brings us to today. I am currently President of MinistryHub.com, an idea that God dropped in my lap in 05 and has consumed me ever since, as well as the worship leader at Westview church (www.westview.org). For some time now I have been feeling the urge to begin a blog, I mean after all I have been coaching others to do this for years now, so after much thought and procrastination I give you "Pointed In A New Direction." This blog will be about many things; ministry, marketing, editing, writing, arranging, advertising, my family, humor as well as my life in general, as I set out to discover what God has in store for this new 40 year old. Enjoy.