Letter #2

Letters, we've got letters, we've got stacks and stacks of letters. Letterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs. Okay. This is thing #2: I think I am hilarious. I really do. Lots of times I can barely finish a story I am telling b/c I am laughing so hard....also, lots of times no one else is laughing. I have no idea why b/c I am hilarious. Here are some examples:

• My friend Ben was here last night and we all went to bed. We told him to lock the door when he left then I thought about how weird it would be to wake up this morning with the door wide open and a raccoon sitting in our lazy boy reading the paper. (actually Scratch WaterHorse said this but I am hilarious for stealing it and using it as my own material).

• DayTrain and I were driving around town the other day and saw an Acme Grocery Store. We talked about how this is where the coyotes in our town buy explosives, rockets, roller skates, parachutes, etc....(actually that is combo #1).....to chase down the roadrunner problem running rampant in Spartanburg. I laughed so hard I almost wrecked.
  

• I hear that USC is requiring all students to have laptops for class now. I thought about how if I was still there I would refuse to spend $1000 on a new laptop and I would carry around a huge desktop everywhere I went. Can you imagine me carrying around a tower, screen, keyboard, mouse, tons of wires, and extension chord? I would be all sweaty and noisy as I set up my rig for every class. Oh man that would be awesome.
  

I just wanted to let you know that if I get stranded on a deserted island I would be okay b/c I would be laughing the entire time. Except for when I was crying, you know, b/c it's a deserted island.

2 Things

First thing: Why is being disciplined so hard? More importantly why is sin so easy? Why can't going outside to pressure wash my house with Clorox be as easy as watching SportsCenter? What if waking up at 7 am and reading my Bible was just as easy as sleeping till 11. That'd be nice. Is everyone inherently lazy or just me?

Every time I do kick it into gear I feel great. I just finished totally renovating the inside of my house and now I'm slowly working on the outside and I love it. The house looks great and I'm saving money. But it was hard. That's my big question: Why are good things (productive things) so hard and unproductive things (bad things) very easy? I don't have to try to be unproductive: it comes very naturally.

Every time I am praying or leading worship or getting ready to do something for the Kingdom I feel sin attacking me harder. Sinning for me is very easy. I may just be the most undisciplined person in the entire world and that is a fact. But I have done some things to fight and I recommend them to anyone:

1. Get some friends. One real good one will do. Tell that friend what you are struggling with. Be completely honest and real. There is something so freeing about confessing your sins out loud to someone who loves you.

2. If you are a man you should look into www.covenanteyes.com or http://xxxchurch.com. These are programs that help you fight the porn battle. I don't know much about XXXchurch but I have read tons of good stuff about it. I use Covenant Eyes. It tracks where you go in the internet then sends a detailed report to 2 accountability partners of your choice. So it has totally taken away the option of messing up on the computer...which is a very nice feeling. By the way if you are a guy and are standing firm in this area - watch out. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Pornography might be the grossest, worst sin around for guys but it is just so easy. Take that option away.


3. Read. Turn off the Braves game (they're going to lose anyway) and pick up a book. Straight Reading Rainbow style. I suggest Knowing God by Packer, Mere Christianity by CS Lewis, anything by Spurgeon, and Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller (don't hate...it's a good book). If that stuff is too deep for you then read some Garfield you baby. It doesn't matter what you read....just read. It is good for you. (oh yeah....read your Bible.)


4. Pray a lot. Be honest with God. He knows what you're thinking anyway. Praying is a very churchy word that means talking to God. So talk to Him. Then listen to what He's saying to you. It's pretty mystical but it's real. C.H. Spurgeon, England's best known preacher for most of the second half of the 19th century, said:

Do you feel the world entangle you? You may struggle against this evil so long as you please, but if it be your besetting sin, you will never be delivered from it in any way but by the blood of Jesus. Take it to Christ. Tell him, "Lord, I have trusted thee, and thy name is Jesus, for thou dost save thy people from their sins; Lord, this is one of my sins; save me from it!"

5. Don't forget that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Where sin increases, grace increases all the more. I'm not saying that we should continue willfully sinning and therefore cheapen grace. We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? (Rom 8:1, 5:20, 6:1, 2). Don't overwhelm yourself with guilt....sin has lost it's power because of Jesus. When you fall down, get back up and continue the fight.



Those are just things that have been very good for me. I have to fight everyday to do what is right, pure, and holy. I want to be disciplined in all areas of my life. I believe that there is a Good which means there is a Bad (or Evil) and I believe that Evil doesn't like Good. Henceforth the Evil will fight any Good that is around. That is why when I am praying or leading worship or whatever I feel evil creeping up behind me. The good news is that Good wins over Evil. Resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7). All we have to do is rely on Jesus. I do not have this figured out at all, by the way....or I'm not very good at it. I still like things I should hate and I don't do things that I should do. Doing what's right usually isn't very cool or easy. This is just what I have been thinking about lately. I'll get to thing #2 later...it's way funnier than this one.

Gary NightWagon's Total Body Recovery Program

So recently I had the genius idea to go buy some weights and a weight bench. I found a hot commercial bench thingy that will do incline, decline, bench, and military press. The only bad part is that sitting on the couch eating butterfingers doesn't make you any stronger....I have to actually go out there and use it.

Luckily I live with a crazy man named Raymond "Scratch" Waterhorse. You all know him as the bassist for such bands as Gorilla Goodbody, The Nashville Rejects, New Normal, Britney Spears, and lets not forget the Lake Bowen FishCamp Boyz. Anywho, Scratch has been waking up at 6 am everyday to work out and I told him the Secret Combination which is guaranteed to wake me up. 70% of the time it works every time. The first couple times Scratch came in my room to wake me up I had a completely normal conversation with him explaining the many reasons why I couldn't work out....the only problem was that I was completely asleep. I have had this gift for many years. I discovered it in high school when my parents would "wake me up" then go to work and I would sleep until they returned home at 5 pm. But it wasn't my fault...I wasn't awake at all. That's when the Secret Combination was created by Freida Ridings.

Meow, I have never told anyone of the Combo b/c I hate being woken up. Until now. I believe the world is ready. It consists of 3 easy steps:

1. Turn fan off

2. Pull covers off and throw them on the floor

3. Turn light on as you are leaving


Oh it hurts to even write it. I hate the Combo. There is no way I can fall back asleep once these steps have been followed correctly. Scratch is finding out the hard way that I am a very convincing sleep talker (oh yeah....to wake me up there must be no talking by the waker upper...I will try to engage you in conversation but my only goal is to get you to do three things:

1. Turn fan back on

2. Pick up my covers and tuck them around me

3. Turn light off and quietly leave my room


Sweet Willy has actually believed me and done those three things but he is learning. I am only trying to manipulate him with my kindness (this morning i told him a long story about how I had to be somewhere at 7 am so I couldn't work out.....all lies and all in my sleep).

Freida went the extra mile and would throw in a piano solo (the huge grand piano we had in our house growing up was right next to my bedroom door so Mom would play Music Box Dancer until I awoke. That is a great song but I hate it now). Or she'd turn on Woody Wood Pecker which is my weakness. I have to get up and watch it. Yes I loved/love that cartoon. Oh Mom, you are so cruel. But nothing on earth will wake me, not even come close, except the Secret Combo.

So, Willy (Scratch), Brent (Chingy), Bruce (Papa Bear), and I have been pumping iron at 6 am. I hate it and love it. I'm also working out with Tim (Reginald BearingsWorth) at 4 every day plus I have the magic Ridings/Morris man-gene that allows me to be sloppy and out of shape one minute then 3 weeks later I am ripped and huge. I wanted to bench 275 by the end of the month and i did it today. I owe it all to the Gary NightWagon Total Body Recovery Program. But then Chuck, my 42 year old BFF, who is out of shape, has high cholesterol, and wears pleated blue jeans, benched 225. He hasn't lifted one weight in 19 years. It wasn't fair.

Nonetheless I am glad that I am actually using the weights and getting to hang out with some dudes with weird names. My goal is to be one of those nasty guys in the magazines who is super huge and ugly and disgustingly muscular. Oh wait, no, I just want to be able to show up young punks when I am 42 and have a toupee.

My Week

How is it Friday? What have I done? I'll tell you what I've done: I hung out with 2 85 year old men yesterday as they ground up 35 stumps in my yard. It was hilarious. The tree crew left (who I saw again this morning at Waffle House so we ate together....i love life) and these 2 geezers show up to grind up all the stumps. I don't know if you are familiar with stump grinding but it is rather laborious. Old men should be fishing for crappy at Lake Greenwood not doing back breaking work. But these 2 characters decided to do both. They fished till 3 am then showed up at my place at 10 to work. They were like 2 college guys just slower and wrinklier. Everytime I looked up they were sitting down or smoking or leaning against the house, which I loved since I was paying them per stump.

They looked exactly like me and Jeff Vitters in 50 years. One guy was tall and skinny and the other guy was short and fat and wore suspenders. But they did a great job and my back yard looks like Augusta National.

Also this week we got a maid. I am sitting in the cleanest house in America. That was the smartest decision I have ever made. I can do may things but cleaning a house is not on that list. I like to sit on the couch and eat chips and talk about the maid while she's in the room as if she cannot hear me...."Hey Shag, the help is doing a great job". That would be a standard sentence you may hear when she's there.

So that's it. The house and yard and getting worked on, I played the guitar a lot this week, and I am working out at 6 am most days. Oh yeah, Shag and I are working on some solo stuff together. We hope to finish up this weekend. We have been writing some songs about Jesus lately and I think they are really good but I could be biased. I'll post them somehow once they are done. I would say on a scale from 1 to 10 this week would be a giraffe. Goodbye.

Let Me Tell You

Let me tell you about the greatest thing ever invented...it is the Nintendo Wii. I have always disliked gaming systems - all of them - b/c Ron and Frieda would never buy me one as a kid (prolly cause I was about 100 pounds overweight my entire childhood). But it is a proven fact that if you do not grow up playing video games you will never be good at them ever. Contra - awful, Mario Cart - terrible, FIFA - couldn't be worse, NBA Jams - stinky, Halo - shouldn't even try.....then there's the Wii. I am awesome. It is a dream come true (literally, I used to dream that I had a Nintendo hidden in my closet when I was a kid....it was a reoccurring dream that always left me depressed). My roommate bought the Wii last week and I have been pretty much glued to the TV every free second i have had. The highlight of my video gaming life came yesterday when I finally hit 10 homers out of 10 tries. It may have been the greatest feeling I have ever had. I now know how all of my hotshot friends felt throughout my childhood as they destroyed me in every single video game I ever tried to play. I can't even count how many times i've heard "Finish Him" (anyone?? Mortal Combat).

So I dare anyone to challenge me in some baseball or cow racing. It will be on. I have spent lots of sweaty, tiring evenings becoming the man (who would've ever guessed that you'd get out of breath and sore after playing Nintendo?). I don't know if this makes me extremely nerdy or not...frankly I do not care what you think. You are just sad that I am better than you. Nightwagon, OUT!

This is tough

I never knew what a daunting task I was signing up for when I started a blog. I thought it was going to be all fun and games....boy was I wrong. Every night I go to bed and the horrible picture looms over me of all the millions of readers coming to this very spot only to be disappointed by old material. So let me be the bigger man and apologize. I've been busy but that is no excuse. I am a big boy and I can do it. This blog comes first; before food, before sleep, before girls (this one might be easy), before digging ditches in my back yard, before eating Thai food with 4 stars which is still burning my insides, before writing songs, before human contact, before rehearsing funny sentences in front of the mirror to see how my face looks, before agreeing to go on a blind date which is destined for failure, before playing outfield, before eating at Denny's, before taking a 4 hour nap at my parents house, before test driving Z71 Tahoes with absolutely no intention of buying one, and before making up new fake names for all my friends...this blog will prevail.

By the way which name(s) do you like the best:

Gary NightWagon
Kit CloudKicker
Raymond "Scratch" WaterHorse
Sebastian OverCoat
Randy DayTrain
CannonDale PockenPowder
Rufus ChaineyWorth
Doug MackenBrick

This is what I did all day with my good friend Willy...excuse me, Raymond WaterHorse - his friends just call him Scratch. Today is his birthday. He took the day off so he could wake up at 6 am to work out then hang out with me all day. We almost finished the ditch but we never actually made it outdoors. So, tell me which name you like best. I will bequeath a name upon you if you so desire.

First Official Post

Alright everyone, gather around and listen to all the important things I have to say. This is my first official post on a blog ever. Those other ones were "soft posts". You know how a fancy restaurant or fancy hotel has a soft opening? Well I think that is completely dumb and fake so I decided to do it. (the whole idea of a soft opening is not logical. You are either open or closed..there is no soft opening. If the hotel doesn't make any money you don't see a "soft closing".) The soft posts were just to introduce my close friends to what is in store for them. Now it's time to take it to the world.

You probably will not read anything profound or earth shattering here. I love Jesus, I love to sing, I love to do abnormally fun things, and I try to be comfortable just being myself. I believe God weaves all things in a person's life together to serve His purpose and those events are fun to look back and marvel upon. That's what I will talk about mostly. I feel like I have incredible favor with God because of the things that have happened in Spartanburg over the past 5 years. I like to dream and laugh a lot also.

One sentence that sums me up? Okay...."I'm just a 26 year old guy who loves the Biltmore House, is rarely late, and appreciates a nice pair of slacks." So welcome to my blog. Have a look around. I will probably post every day or once a month....whatever I feel like. Good day to you.

I Never Knew How Scary Squirrels Were

I never knew how scary squirrels were until today when I ran upon a bunch of them. At first I thought they were just randomly hanging out but then I noticed that they were having a meeting. What really tipped me off was the gavel the main squirrel had plus all the other squirrels were wearing wigs like the early fathers of America used to wear...only much, much smaller, of course. Then I realized that they were following Roberts Rule of Order (I think they were going over subsidiary motions). It then dawned on me that i know far less about squirrels than I thought I did.

They obviously did not like the fact that I had interrupted their meeting and they put me on the stand. Now I have seen Emperors New Groove, luckily, so I was able to speak a little bit of squeakums but not nearly enough to plead my case. I was about to experience death by acorns but just in the knick of time a huge grizzly bear showed up. He destroyed the squirrels, untied me from the tree, and invited me to his cave. We enjoyed a nice Shepherds Pie and finished it off with some seven layer chocolate cake. It was exquisite. I can't remember when I've had a better meal made by a grizzly bear.

It was getting late and he invited me to stay. Ted - oh yeah...the grizzly's name is Ted Brogan....silly me i left that out, was an excellent host. He read me some Tolstoy, let me use the fancy soap, then let me win at baseball on his Wii. Turns out the cave was only a one bedroom and when it came time to go to sleep he took up all the room and he hogged the covers. I decided to sneak out and find my way back home so I could get a decent nights rest. I found a pad and pencil and left a note but I still feel a little bad about leaving without officially saying goodbye.

I learned many things on my hike today...never make eye contact with a squirrel, don't judge a book by its cover, and always help with the dishes if ever in a Grizzly Bear cave. I am so glad Ted Brogan was there today; i feel so bad that I've always been afraid of Grizzlies. I hope to go see Ted soon and maybe I'll bring him that iphone he kept hinting that he wanted. Silly Ted.

What a Day

Yesterday Shag (my roommate) and I went to Atlanta to hang out with Laura Story. She is a worship leader/songwriter and is best known for writing Indescribable which Chris Tomlin bought from her. She and I went to college together, kinda, and we knew of each other....she was a very talented musician who had an awesome voice and she was cool so, of course, I never talked to her. Anywho, I emailed her and asked her a few questions about worship and she invited me down to her church for the day.

We went down Monday night and spent the night with her and her husband, Martin. We were running about 2 hours late so I called to apologize and it turns out they were at the Braves game. She told me to just go in the house and make myself at home. Now, this was super awesome....b/c I have been trying to be a "grown up" and be on time and stuff and the fact that she wasn't even there made me happy. She loves to party. When they did get there it was like we were all best friends who hang out all the time. We talked about mutual friends and laughed about what's been going on the past few years. Turns out she's good friends with Dodd, who is my hot friend who lives in Panama. Small world huh?

As I laid on the pull out couch trying to ignore the bar going across my back I thought, "what am I doing in Laura Story's house??" Once again I laugh at how God weaves everything together. Earlier I sat at her piano off the kitchen and wondered if this is where she has written some of the best songs I have heard in the past 5 years. She is so talented. But I was trying to fall asleep cause I knew we had a very full day starting at 8:15 the next morning.

So we wake up and go to Perimeter in Alpharetta. The day starts off with staff prayer then Laura gives us a tour of the church. Shag and I were like children...they have 4000 people every Sunday, a phat sound board in almost every room, a climbing wall (duh), and a recording studio. It was hot. But the favorite part of my day (besides when the 70 year old man in charge of communications stopped Laura to tell her he loved the new CD but the music was too loud) was when we went to the Music and Arts office and sat down for an hour or so with the 3 worship leaders, the worship producer, and the intern. I had no agenda for my trip to Atlanta. All I wanted to do was pick other worship leader's brains and see how they pick songs, plan a service, write songs, encourage their volunteers, confront sin with bandmates, hold tryouts, etc. The list goes on. It was a great hour and a half. Everyone involved in worship at Perimeter is down to earth, easy to talk to, and fun. Once again, it was like we had all been friends for a long time.

I came away from the meeting knowing one thing...there is no cookie cutter solution for leading worship. It is hard and no one has it figured out. But there are some things they do to stress themselves out less. They are very organized (because they have an elder who forces them to be organized) and they let all the worship volunteers know up front what is expected of them. They have 2 rehearsals a week and a worship small group that meets once a week (they talk about Jesus and memorize scripture and stuff) and if you can't make those, you don't play. It was pretty simple.

Oh I learned one other thing...probably the biggest thing I've learned in a long time: I am incredibly blessed to have Hope Point. It is 400 people and 1 band (1 1/2 bands) and it has all been kinda a grass roots movement. We have had no plan but God has taken care of us big time. We are able to do our style of music and do it with excellence and everyone likes it. Plus the band just started meeting together 2 times a month to eat supper at my house, pray, memorize scripture, and learn new songs. We are like a little family. I am sure the church will grow but right now it is so young and pure....there aren't hoops to jump through. Pretty much I am saying it is easy. They're aren't politics and tons of complains; we aren't forced to do a choir, and we run at 98 DBs, which is rock and roll at it's finest.

Perimeter is an awesome church, by the way. I am not saying they have those things I named above...they have a great staff that gets along great but there are pros and cons to every church, big or small. They have a HUGE church so they have lots more to think about and do. But they have a swimming pool and a full time guitarist on staff who used to play with Cindy Lauper. Wow, this has been a long post.

I had a great time with Laura. She is a gifted, humble, nice, down to earth song writer who could be as big time as it gets if she wanted to be. She didn't have to drag me around with her all day (which i am sure was a burden) but she did. I loved hearing all the things they do and how they do them. There will be a lot of ideas that I steal from them and pawn off as my own. But I also loved how God opened my eyes to the preciousness of Hope Point. I didn't get home tonight bummed out b/c we are so small and nerdy...I am rejoicing with true joy that God has placed me at a church that is alive. I fit so well and it works. We don't even own a building, we only have 2 staff meetings a month, and we sure don't have 4 bands but the Holy Spirit is evident in that gym every Sunday at 10 am. I love my church, I love working from home, I love wearing jeans, I love loud guitars, and I love the peace and purity that Hope Point has. Today was a great day for me as a worship leader. It would be impossible not to change after today. If nothing else, my mindset is different....I am not doing my job perfectly but God is using me and is protecting me. He wants my full obedience no matter the cost or the outcome. I may not always be popular or liked by everyone but I will make sure the band I lead worship with is ready...musically and spiritually.

If you're in ATL check out Perimeter Church and go to itunes right now and buy Great God Who Saves by Laura Story. It really is one of the greatest CDs I have heard in a long time.