Hidden Treasures

So, for my friends who know what's going on, I'm launching Drivetimeworship.com on July 2nd at 7AM.  Till the website is launched you can find info at www.facebook.com/drivetimeworshipradio.


It's a one hour "live" recorded worship program Mon.-Fri. with prayer, devotions, praise and worship, communion and an interview with someone in the worship ministry every day. My live band is so talented and they have given months of work, sowing into this dream. I only hope everyones efforts can bless people around the world.
I should write a book about what it actually take to think up, develop, record, write and produce and then attempt to market a new type of live show.  I've done alot of stuff in my almost 40 years of this business and ministry, but this, with the advent of what the internet brings, is about the most complicated of endeavors, with the most twists and angles to get something actually done.

Yesterday, i met with one of my singers at one of my favorite little cool coffee shops.  A young mom with 4 kids (twins pictured here)  and a husband who works really hard to "provide" the dream.
 I tell this story because if you hear her interview on the radio from this day at "coffee", it's not really enough to help understand the gems that are out there in the world, hidden, by choice and choices, from delivering what God has given them. 


So "Roast Beef" as I call Rebecca; (her initials are RB.. like Arbys' ).. hense how I came up with Roast Beef, is a young mom who sang in one of my choirs.  She never did an audition for me, because as worship pastors and leaders find out, you inherit a lot  of people when you move from 4 walls church to 4 walls church on assignments to help and heal and rebuild church worship systems.


Well, I was having auditions a few years ago, and this girl happened to be at church that day for some reason. I asked her if she'd ever done an audition and Arby said. " ahhh, I dont' do audtions, or solos or anything where I have to be exposed and sing alone to people.... I can't do it " and her hands began to shake.


You can imagine my thoughts, so I said, come in right now and sing for me at the grand.
And after some prodding I could see the nervousness but somehow she trusted I wasn't gonna kill her.


I brought her to the Grand and opened it up and set her in the nave of it and asked her to sing a standard worship tune like "how great is our God".  I played an intro and she opened her mouth and I began to cry as I played. yup, tears streaming down my face.  I'm glad at that moment that her eyes were closed cause I didn't want her to see me getting emotional. I don't "get" a lot of singers voices, but this voice wrecked me. Not for it's perfection or power but for it's simple pure beauty.


Here I was, two years into rebuilding a broken worship dept. This girl had sung in the mass choir of all my worship events and I'd never heard her voice..... and... it was Allison Krause and Kari Jobi wrapped up in one voice.  No vibrato and really good pitch and I was "wrecked" as I wiped away tears thinking I had missed this for two years.  And I wondered "God how many of these gems have I missed"..


So began the journey of development and confidence building. (that's a chapter she'd rather I not discuss) Ha!.


And now a few years later she is one of my featured singers on the show and live events and I've decided to fund an EP of the tunes she's done and hense the reason for this post today.

Songwriting is an interesting process. Trying to write songs for people is different for everyone who does it. So I asked RB to begin to write down her thoughts and "'thoughts" and just give them to me to begin the process of seeing what I could develop from her thoughts and things she likes to read.
Gosh I wish I could say we writers could just go to a room and 'write' good songs, but it rarely happens without "triggers". So at coffee with the kids she gave me some thoughts in a precious book and I took it all to prayer to see if I could write somethings that might "fit" her personality.


This morning I finished what I wrote yesterday and made a demo this morning of the first tune that I've decided is as much about me as her and probably most my intimate circle of friends. 
Caught Up In A Miracle is the title and you can hear the demo here right now and sometime "hopefully' down the road you'll hear it on her EP and on Drivetime worship.


This is my first post like this about someone in my life I'm working with and i felt it was important to let people know how important it is to mentor and raise up new "voices". i hope in all of this that you see the value in hidden treasures and begin to look for them in your lives my dear friends.


The song is a link here on the right of the blog page and you can click it and listen.


Oh yea.. RB is also a hidden "cake" freak and should own her own Cake shop.

Here is a pic of a cake I had her make for my sons Jamisons 22nd birthday. ... ps.. You hear Jamison also on drivetime worship singing, but his passion is currently electronica music and dub step, so I had Arby make a cake designed after one of Jamisons Midi Controllers the AKAI APC40.  


Here's a pic of the cake on his birthday and no one believed it was a cake.... 


Hidden Treasures... Look for them.. You won't bless them... they will bless you.  Just sayin..