Article on the church: $110 Billion - by Chris Lagerlof

I read this great article by Chris Lagerlof and I thought that it is extremely valuable to the local church in America. What is the basic function of the spreading of the good news of Jesus? Churches or Christians? Interesting read... enjoy. 

$110 Billion

By slingshot on May 16, 2013

12% isn’t actually a math test; instead it captures a startling statistic I heard. In the last 15 years the church in the west has spent $110 billion on land and facilities and in that same time church attendance has decreased 12%. If true, our strategy to strengthen and expand the Church is failing. Even if the numbers aren’t accurate empirical evidence tells us church attendance is in decline and the church has spent significant dollars on recourses to reach the lost and grow the congregation. I know of three churches personally that have spent over $75 million in capital improvements the last 12 years and 2 of the 3 have actually declined in attendance. I hate to break the bad news, something isn’t working. Sure we can blame it on the composition of our cities changing, the lack of margin people have, or the reality that we are living in a post-church/post-Christian world. There are many excuses…The reality is the current model and paradigm isn’t working. We are familiar with the cliché “if it’s not broken, then don’t fix it.” In the west it seems that we have embraced the model if it’s broke throw a lot of money into it and it will be fixed. How’s that working?

First, you must know, I’m a raving fan of the church and I love the church! Second, my thoughts are aimed at looking at the current state of the church through a different set of lenses…I will get to that shortly. I’ve been captivated by the book of Acts lately. As I’ve read Acts and focused on it, I’ve realized that Acts says nothing about planting and building churches, however Acts is the blueprint for church growth and church planting. What I’ve really focused on is a simple model for church growth that Acts presents. Ready? Here it is…Reach lost people, disciple them and new churches will start and churches will grow. Acts doesn’t present a church planting strategy…It only presents a transformation strategy. It’s that simple. It’s not linear, built on several purposes and it’s pretty cost effective. Acts presents more of a “hear and obey” model as opposed to a “learn, grow and go” model. Which brings me to my next point, have our western models, paradigms, processes emerged as the greatest barrier for expanding and strengthening the church? Maybe another way to ask it since the Holy Spirit is a common denominator in all church growth movements, especially in Acts. Have western models, paradigms, processes become a barrier for the Holy Spirit to do his greatest work?

Now to my point, It seems obvious the western model of start a church, service or campus, reach lost people and then “disciple” them isn’t effective and we’re losing obvious spiritual ground. Well, Acts presents a model that is working in many places globally. It’s simply; convert and disciple people and churches and faith communities will naturally get started. In fact, in places where the church is exploding and expanding there is no real church planting strategy, the strategy is to basically see people come to Jesus and disciple them. When this happens, churches just start and churches just grow, much like we see in the book of Acts. Here is another way to look at it; Kingdom, Disciple, Society, Church. Let me briefly capture what that looks like:

Kingdom: Having a better understanding of the difference between a “church framework” and a “Kingdom Framework”? How do you plant, start, lead a church based on Kingdom principals and not “church” principals?
Disciple: Disciple, not the preacher, is the lowest common denominator.  How do you make disciples who make disciples?
Society: Every society, no matter how tribal or advanced, is built with common domains. Every church mobilizes their members locally and globally into these domains to transform society. In doing this the church becomes the missionary.
Church: Producing disciples that engage in society leads to the church emerging. It is a natural result.  The models are multifaceted.

Interesting isn’t it? So, here are 5 simple things to ponder and questions to ask:
1. Change your focus from being the biggest or best church in the city/area to churching the city/area.
2. Learn from the global church. Unfortunately most books, conferences, etc. focus on western models of church growth. Put on a new set of lenses and your learning hat and discover how the church is expanding and growing globally.
3. Look at your current model of discipleship and ask tough questions about its ability to produce disciples who produce disciples.
4. Read the book of Acts and ask questions like how did the church multiply? What do I learn about church growth? What happened in Acts that’s not happening in my church?
5. Personally and corporately shift to a model of hear and obey. Observe how your existing model creates barriers from this happening in your life and the life of your church.

I hope this helps and my heart is to help you. Let me know how I can serve you as you digest this stuff!

Original Article by Chris Lagerlof

(My favorite quote of this article is: "Disciple, not the preacher, is the lowest common denominator. How do you make disciples who make disciples?" This needs to be engraved into the hearts of every Christian - it is not the churches job, it is your job to tell people how incredible Jesus is!)

Figuring out what all those little knobs do...

This post is for any beginner Electric Guitar players and/or worship leaders who feel like they need to brush up on some 'techie'ness or learn about more gear.

I'm always telling electric guitarists to play around with their pedals and find sweet sounds that you can really get inspired by. Most of the time I get blank stares with bewilderment from the beginners as they think to themselves... "I really don't know much, do I?" This is for you, and ME!!

There are a ton of resources online for you! Really the best way to do it is to research what sounds would work for the style you most often play and then track down a few pedals at your local guitar shop to demo them for yourself. But, in order to do that you need to

Take a look at a run down of some of the most basic sounds that Boss put online featuring guitarist Johnny DeMarco. Great simple easy to understand format. Here are a few that I think are useful.

Overdrive

Tremelo

Compressor

If you are a true beginner this site is for you! Find more here: http://www.bossus.com/go/effects_101/

As you learn what there is out there, find out what pedals might sound like paired with other pedals for your style of music! Take a look at some of the interactive stuff on this site:
http://www.bossus.com/experience/interactive_demos/

This is not meant to be a "Boss" heavy review but an page to link you to overviews of options. There are so many brands and unique sounds that you can get lost pretty quickly. So, I just gave demos from one company. Here are some more sites that you can find great pedals from:

http://www.digitech.com/
http://www.fulltone.com/
http://t-rex-effects.com
http://www.ehx.com/
http://www.bossus.com/

If you want to find any mainstream brand:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/
http://www.sweetwater.com
http://www.guitarcenter.com/

Finding Your Space

Playing with other musicians is part of being a musician. Yet, musicians have a stigma about always seeking the spotlight and being flashy, kind of the 'one man band' mentality. However, one of the first things you realize (okay maybe the second or third) as you play with a band is that not everyone can be highlighted 100% of the time.

Finding your space in the group is key.

Good musicianship starts when you can learn how to find your space when playing with others.  I've heard people give tons of analogies for this concept. The most common one I can remember is the 'pie' analogy. Music, or the overall sound, is a whole pie. Each player is a piece of the pie. If there are 5 players in the band and 2 vocalists then we need to divide the pie into 7 pieces. This is NOT saying that they are equal pieces. Part of the strategy behind creating a unique sound is using the space in a way that isn't "cookie cutter" or predictable. The Rhythm section, in more contemporary or modern worship settings, holds a larger piece of the pie along with the lead vocals. If all musicians took that size of a slice of pie we wouldn't have enough to go around and if we all took equal slices it would sound like a huge wall of sound taking out anyone in it's way!

Personally, the style of music that I end up enjoying more is simple in it's mix. The drums, bass, and lead vocals stand out strong and the others support that "core" sound. To all you non-music producers out there, yes, that is what I said. The main things people complain about should be the most present in the mix. If you listen to about 90% of pop music (and worship music) you will find a similar structure. The bass and drums carry the music and the vocals stand out to grab your attention. Before you tune out, hear me out. We get more complaints about the drums and bass when the mix is more flat. Most people don't realize that their ear wants to hear those (well EQ'd) as the foundation for the sound. If the vocals do not stand out, then drums are the first things to complain about. If the drums are not present enough, then we take it out on the bass player. If the bass is not full enough we complain about the overall "loudness" of it.  Most people don't understand the 'sonic landscape', as a friend of mine puts it. But, in that basic mix, the acoustic, electric, piano/keys and BGVs support and bring color to the sound. That is when we can truly shine as a whole!

This video is a great example of sharing the sound-space. It is really a cool way to demonstrate this because of the fact that they are literally sharing one instrument.  The more important thing is that they are sharing the audio area or sound space. Notice how simple each thing they are playing is... but when combined with each other it is full and complete. 




As worship leaders, we need to not only realize that it will sound better to work together. But, that it is biblical!  In Romans 12:10 it says, "Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another. (NKJV)" In the Message translation, it really sums up this verse with a musical analogy... it says "practice playing second fiddle." Jesus talks about serving, in fact, He serves us even to the point of giving His life!  So, as we are finding our place in the mix we need to learn how to serve each other and support each other best in our roles. In doing this we will learn to serve the congregation as well, allowing them to worship without hindrance or distraction.


The common and famous saying "less is more" truly applies in leading worship. If we bring simplicity to our individual sound it will actually add more to the sound of the group as a whole.

However, there is a time when you do need to be 100% of the sound as a solo musician. I love this next video as an example of that! This is Phil Wickham doing his Singalong 2 album and you'll see that he creates a huge full sound with just vocals, guitar & delay. This video doesn't quite capture the fullness that we felt sitting in the room hearing it live.




Basically, as it says in Ecclesiastes 3, "There is a time for everything." Or you could say, a time to bring forth a full sound on your own, and a time to find your space with the rest of the band.


-Luke

Great Post from Audiotuts+

I came across a great post from Audio Tuts+ that outlines some great ways to clean/avoid extra noise in home recordings.

Enjoy.

How to Minimize Noise In Your Mixes

Björgvin Benediktsson on Mar 1st 2012 

Home recordings are infamous for having noise. Background noise from outside and indoor noises from the air conditioning and people shuffling around in the next room. Home recording studios are usually never sound isolated enough. Even though you might have a great sounding room, with acoustic treatment carefully placed all over, you’re still going to run into sound isolation issues.

The biggest issue is noise, and in the following tutorial I’ll run through a couple of ways you can minimize the amount of annoying hiss and noise from your home recordings.

Image by: subcircle

Home Recording Noise

If you stop what you’re doing and listen to the silence in your studio, can you still hear something? Even with nothing really going on you can still hear the sound of the fan from your computer, and maybe some ambience noise from the outside. Especially if you live in an urban area or an apartment building. Then you’re dealing with a very high noise floor.

That’s the difference between the home studio and the commercial ones. The commercial studios, when quiet, are absolutely quiet. You don’t hear anything from the outside, the computer is in the other room, and the only thing the microphone will pick up is the sound of your instrument.

The Recording Stage

First of all, the best way to avoid dealing with noise is to not record it. Trying to soundproof your room is expensive but using blankets, gobos and such can minimize a lot of the noise. If you have a noisy desktop computer you should try to record as far away from it as you can. If you can’t do that, throw a blanket over it and put some sort of acoustic barrier between the microphone and the computer.

Also, the polar pattern of the microphone matters as well. Sometimes, pointing the microphone away from a noise source will result in a cleaner sound. In a home studio, a cardioid microphone is the best bet because not only can you point it at the sweet spot of the instrument, but you can point the back and sides to the noise where the instrument won’t hear it.

Careful With Compression


The noise floor in a commercial studio is much lower than the noise floor in your bedroom. Since you’re basically dealing with less dynamic range before noise, you can’t compress as much. Any compression at that stage also raises the noise floor since compressors raises the lowest levels of a signal and compresses the highest levels.

So if you’re working with signals that you know have a high noise floor, or recordings that are very soft and delicate, you might notice an increase in the background noise if you push it too hard with a compressor. You might not notice it too much when the mix is slamming and everything is at full blast, but if there’s a breakdown or a quiet part, it might become noticeable.

Clean Up Your Tracks


Edit your tracks. Delete the regions where nothing is going on. If there is a second or two between guitar licks and the noise from the amp is just humming away in the background, cut it out. Unless you’re really going for a live, garage-y sound, amp hum is really a pointless thing to add to your mix.

The same goes for any instrument. If you’ve recorded takes in one pass and there are regions where nothing’s going on, I can assure you can it’s giving you excess noise in the background. Faint atmosphere sounds in the background, headphone bleed and body noises from the players will all be picked up by the microphone, especially if you’re recording something like an acoustic guitar or a vocal.

Clean up your tracks and most of the noise will go away. Make sure the only sound coming from your tracks is music.

Using Gates


Cleaning up tracks can also get pretty tedious. It can be time consuming to zoom in and find the perfect point to cut every region. That’s when gates can come in handy. You can use them as intelligent editors. They lower the volume of your tracks every time they aren’t playing, and open up when they do.

They are a little tricky to deal with since you have to find the right threshold, attack and release but it’s definitely a better return on effort than cleaning up 40 different noisy tracks.

Guitar Hiss

Recently I was dealing with a few noisy tracks. One of the main culprits was a guitar simulator that I had inserted on the guitar tracks. The guitars were sounding great but for some reason the guitar simulator was causing a lot of hiss.

I discovered that the presence knob was turned wayyyy up. Once I turned the presence knob down the his went away, with minimal change in the guitar sound.

Electric guitars, especially when distorted, only sound noisy in the higher frequencies. You’re usually safe to EQ out the highs with either a filter or a high-shelving EQ. Usually it doesn’t do much to the guitar sound, but it can work wonders in making your noise go away.

Subtractive EQ


Boosting your tracks might make them sound better, but it also increases noise. If you’re boosting a lot in the higher frequencies, you’re introducing additional gain in those frequencies. With that extra gain comes extra noise.

Instead of boosting, cut instead. If you cut the low end, it’s the same as boosting the high-end, just without the added noise. Subtractive EQ is a cleaner way to EQ, and although I don’t do it enough, I highly recommend making it a habit.
Less Noise, More Fun

Now that you’ve reduced the amount of noise to your tracks, you can continue piling on the reverb and going crazy with the effects!

Due to their nature, home recordings will always have a little more noise to them. But hopefully, now that you’ve read this you will keep that in mind and try to minimize the amount of noise going in with your instruments