Its only a mistake if you don't learn from it

I'm a firm believer in using hindsight to have better foresight.  My example, recordings of myself playing music or speaking, and rereading things I have written.  Sometimes I'm genuinely satisfied with what I have done, its usually nothing spectacular, but if I don't want to hide the fact that it happened its all good.

There have been those times though when for a few days after the fact I just wanted to hide. A few examples include the first time CSS Campus Ministry had their praise and worship night.  It was my friend Andrew (who's still playing it with me after nearly 5 years) my roommate Anthony, myself, and literally 2 people we grabbed to sing.

Long story short, we were awful, tempos all over the place, we could't play very well, and we had practiced for a few weeks.  Andrew and I were both pretty well embarrassed and we took to really pushing ourselves on learning our instruments better.  And what everyone in the room thought would be a first and last time for it, has turned into a very active ministry on campus that has even had a summer tour to 3 churches.

The reason I say this is two fold: 1. Don't take mistakes as a failure, learn from them, if you know what went wrong then you can fix it.  and 2. This is a video of a recently formed rhythm duo called The Engine Room.  Its made up of my friend Chris and myself, we were playing at a coffee house.  

The point of it was to set a groove then have a bass solo then have a drum solo.  Chris's solos sounded great, mine could use some work, but the grooves were good.  So what did I learn?  My grooves were good, I should do a little (lots) more planning of my solos, and someone needs to talk to the audience.  I hope we get another shot to prove that we can be entertaining to watch as well as listen to.

so here it is.  The Engine Room at The Ave Cafe

Please groove responsibly

    

Its all official now

It has now been announced at church that I will be going on the missions trip with CTI Music.  This is very exciting as it has been a long time coming, and much of what God is doing in my life is I feel very linked to the work I will be doing.

I've been feeling very led in a few areas, one is speech, and whether I am too quick to speak and if I shouldn't be doing more listening.  If you want the answer, I feel like I could very much stand to listen more, and speak when prompted either by the other person or by the Holy Spirit.  Another area of speech is that I have become very aware of how powerful words can be, and I recently read a book called "Words that Hurt, Words that Heal" I recommend it to everyone.  It very much pointed out how quickly a word can damage, and much of the book was dedicated to how words hurt.  The section about words that heal was short, most likely because it is so simple to use words that heal, that bring life, especially when we take more time to listen than to talk.

While this comes at the time of Lent, it is by no means a Lenten vow that will be ended at Easter.  I have been watching what I say, and not only that but I am thinking back, and going to people who I should have not said something and apologizing, and also going back and saying things that still need to be said.  Its rather difficult, but there is great purpose behind it.

Please Groove Responsibly